Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 20141211

Thank you all. Today on cspan3, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee authorizes a measure to use military force against isis. Beginning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time. Then at 2 00 eastern, former, current and future chairman of the Republican Study Committee talk about conservatives in the newly elected congress. Watch live coverage from the American Enterprise institute here on cspan3. The white house ebola coordinator around head of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases gave an update on the west africa update and funding for the u. S. Government response. They spoke at georgetown university. This is an hour. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here this morning for a very important conversation regarding an urgent challenge that we face as a Global Community. Over the course of the last year weve been engaged here at georgetown in a very significant conversation regard region the future of the university. How in the face of a whole set of new disruptions that are really changing the ways in which Higher Education is understood and perhaps even delivered, weve been wrestling what does it mean for us, what is it we need to protect and embrace and what is it that we need to respond to in terms of some of the new challenges. As weve thought about our 225year history and our mission and purpose of the university, weve identified three interlocking elements. Three characteristics that serve as the underlying framework in which we do all of this work. Theyre inextricably linked, interlocking, mutually reinforcing elements. Were committed to the formation of our young people, to the inquiry, the scholarship and research of our faculty, and as a University Community, to contributing to the common good wherever and whenever we can. The issue were going to discuss this morning, the ebola crisis that has unfolded over the course of the last 12 months, is one that has engaged our University Community in each one of those dimensions. Weve sought to ensure that our young people have the opportunity to understand the implications, background, history, the ideology of the disease, and also to understand what kinds of responsibilities do we have in moments like this our faculty engaged in a wide variety of efforts in exploring and research and scholarship, the nature of this disease. Then of course as the University Community, we gather here in moments like this. We have throughout the fall trying to understand that ever deeper levels, the nature of our shared responsibilities to one another. We have know extraordinary opportunity to morning to be with two Exceptional People who more than any in our country are responding to this challenge, and it is a privilege for me to be in conversation with them. Im going to start off the conversation and go about a half hour with questions that i will ask, and then well bring a microphone to the center aisle and take another halfhour or so of questions from all of you. Lets get started. Tony, this is a disease weve known about since 1976. We have seen other iterations over the course of these last roughly 40 years. Nearly 25 different experiences that weve had dealing with this as a Global Community. Over 12 months, we have seen a particularly intense weve had a particularly intense experience. Can you give us a sense of the arc, the narrative that were engaged in now as it relates to ebola . Thank you, jack. Ebola is fundamentally a disease in animals that its called a zooanatic disease. It fundamentally is in animals, then jumps to humans and spreads by very well defined ways. In 1976 and it likely existed long before 1976, it was first recognized almost simultaneously in zaire and in the former zaire, currently the democratic republic of the congo, and. Sudan, in which there was an outbreak that was controlled by the way we are still controlling it, namely identification, isolation, Contact Tracing and keeping sick people away from other individuals or if you are doing it in a way where you are protected. Every one of the epidemic, all 24 of them up until now, ranging in size from two people to the second largest in uganda in 2000 which had about 400 people. They were all able to be put down in the sense of controlled. The arc that jack is talking about is something that is unprecedented because of what i refer to when i talk about this as the perfect storm. The perfect storm is, you have a disease thats an emerging infection, that characteristically jumps to humans, that has been able to be controlled because prior outbreaks were fundamentally geographically restricted in areas that the bad news is that it was remote and it was tough to get people there, but the good news is that it was remote because it was easy to isolate. The perfect storm of the current arc is that you have now an outbreak in an area of africa, west africa, that has not historically seen ebola in a highly populated area with porous borders where even though the artificial borders that years ago were made, that people have relationships across borders so theyre constantly going from one country to another. When you look at the map of west africa, guinea wraps itself around sierra leone and liberia. And also you have the issue that weve never seen before, is in big cities. We now have an outbreak that percolated a bit in the early part of the spring and then started to explode to the point where we now have an extraordinary situation. 17,800 cases. 6,700 deaths, likely a bit of an understatement with waves of epidemic. It looked like liberia was the worst a month ago, got some better control of that now. Even though dont claim victory because there may be outbreaks in the rural areas. Now we have sierra leone, which there are more cases now in sierra leone last week than there had been in liberia ever. The issue of the arc now is doing this in sierra leone, this in liberia. Guinea is kind of like this. Thats the way ebola works. It comes in waves. Even though we are making progress, we are still in a very critical, serious situation. The thing about ebola just finally is that unlike other diseases, when the trajectory goes down, almost by itself it will disappear. Ebola, if theres one case thats out there, one case can ignite another explosion. Its one of the unusual diseases that you have to put every ember and every spark out. We are far from that right now. Thank you. Ron, tony has spent his entire career engaged in addressing Infectious Diseases. In november you were minding your own business when the president called you but he said we need you to help us develop our national response. What was it like in those early days . How did you come to terms with the challenges that you faced in this new role . Tell us about the learning curve and how you were able to close. Close some of that curve. What have been your experiences in roughly six weeks on the job . So when the president asked me to come do this, i was minding my own business and teaching a course here in georgetown. I see several of my students in the front row. It is good to see them again. I think that the president asked me to do this based on my experience coordinating other complex interagency projects weve had in the federal government. Most recently when we did the recovery act, nearly a trillion ondollars of spending in the first two years of the admission. He said to try to coordinate. We have every single federal Agency Working on some element of fighting ebola here at home or overseas. For me, i have been able to climb the learning curve thanks to great experts like tony fauci and others at the cdc, Sylvia Burwell at hhs. My major objective in the job is just to make sure that all of our agencies are working together, that were identifying problems, reallocating resources that need it, getting decisions quickly to the president for him to make about our response and making difficult policy choices that need to be made. The thing that has been not just surprising to me but humbling to me every day is the vast array of people who are acting selflessly to fight this disease every single day. We are sitting here in one of my favorite spots on planet earth and while we sit here, there are hundreds of volunteer Health Care Workers in Ebola Treatment Centers in sierra leone, Government Employees who have taken voluntary leave, reassignment to go fight this disease right on the front lines, putting themselves at risk doing the most important work that can be done to battle this epidemic and the chance to meet with those folks, talk with those folks and do whatever i can to facilitate their work is the most humbling part of the job and the most important part of the job. Maybe you can take us deeper into the perfect storm. Why west africa. Why are things appearing to stabilize right now in liberia but look like theyre on the increase in guinea and sierra leone. What is it that we can understand about the nature of this that explains some of the phenomenon . What this brings out and i hope if there is something good that comes out of this is a realization of how when you do not have a minimal modicum of a health care infrastructure, how vulnerable you are to so many things. N and then when something as cataclysmic as a highly lethal disease inserts itself into the community do you realize how that lack of infrastructure and ability to do just minimum health care type delivery can be so destructive to a society. What i hope comes out of this is a realization by the countries themselves and the world that wealthy countries and the organizations to realize how we can build sustainable infrastructure. You heard ron and i and tom frieden and Sylvia Burwell and others say not in a cavalier way that it is highly unlikely you dont say impossible, because you never say that in biology highly unlikely that we would have an Ebola Outbreak of any significance in the United States. The reason is because we have a Health Care System that wont allow that to happen. So one of the things that is so important for the world to realize, that we will end this outbreak in west africa in collaboration with our west african partners. But this would be a terrible thing if we let the opportunity go by without saying we need to then leave an infrastructure there, or the beginning of a direction to an infrastructure, to not only prevent ebola, but what about malaria . What about tuberculosis . There are things there that can i wouldnt say easily, but that can be addressed just with a modest turning of the knob. It is amazing how many people who we are following that we want to make sure they dont have ebola that have malaria. It really hits you right between the eyes that malaria is taken so for granted, and yet it kills close to 700,000 people each year, almost all of which are african babies. So this has got to be a shakethecage moment for us to realize that. If you just add two things to that. Building on what tony said, one of the other tragedies of the ebola tragedy is the level of immunization has plummeted it to near zero. I had the honor and sad duty of speaking at the funeral of dr. Martin salia last week who was a missionary physician in sierra leone who was not treating ebola patients but died from ebola because the level of the infection in the Health Care System is just so high. So when we count the number of deaths from ebola in these countries, we need to count the other kinds of human loss in these countries from the rise of other Health Care Problems. Thats one point. The other thing is im sure we will talk about this more, but the president smithed a emergency fundsing request to the congress which were very grateful for both democrats and republicans for their response but part of that request is an investment in a Global Health security agenda to build the capacity to detect outbreaks like this earlier in other countries and to get on top of them a bit earlier so we dont see the kind of escalation hopefully that we saw in these three nations. This is building on that point. The first death i believe was a year ago tomorrow. As we were describing through the course of the spring and the summer, the numbers really began to climb. What have we learned about the our capacitieses for Global Governance on issues like this . Because it did take some time for us as a Global Community to respond effectively. Well, ron just mentioned the Global Health security agenda. If we had a functional Global Health security agenda to be able to recognize those first cases in guinea in december of 2013, i would say with some degree of confidence that we would not be where we are right now. We would have been able to do the kind of identification, isolation and Contact Tracing that could have actually put that out. Let me ask you, what are the tool it is we have available to us for constructing a Global Public Health Security agenda . What kind of resources, what kind of institutional structures . Where do we go to put this in place . I think clearly we have to work with the 9uw. H. 06o. And International Organizations that are an important structure for all of this. But i think that in this case, america has to lead, and it has led. I think its led for three reasons. This is a Health Problem for the United States too. As long as people are getting ebola in west africa, we are from time to time going to have people get ebola in the United States. Not an outbreak or epidemic, but occasional works. Well have Health Care Workers come back to the United States infected so this is a Health Care Problem for us. Secondly, its a geopolitical and National Security challenge for the United States to see this kind of devastation and loss in west africa, thats something we have to respond to. Its a humanitarian crisis to see this kind of loss and devastation. Were seeing great response from the united kingdom, france, even nontraditional partners. China i think has mobilized its Largest Global let response in response to this crew sis. We have doctors from cuba working in sierra leone right now. It has been a global response, but i think our leadership has been critical and i think it is something the American People can take a great deal of pride in. If there were other elements in the current structure for addressing a challenge like this from a global perspective, are they needed, or are there existing elements in the structure that just need to be used more effectively or efficiently . Well, we need to expand what we have. You cannot underestimate what it it means to have a country be able to do it themselves ultimately. The classic example of that and it was really almost the foundation for so many other things, including what we developed pepfar. There are many people who do this well. But what they did in heat with being rwanda, you dont just go in, help people and get out, but you go in, you train people and you make a situation there where they will stay, they will teach others and it will become a selfsustaining issue where you do it, you train someone, they do it, they train someone. We had that experience in a very positive way 30 years ago when i first became director. We set up a unit of exchange back and forth in mali. We had trained people who were Global Health students who came from mali to the nih, and then we went there. That turned out to be an interesting model because it started is off focusing just on malaria. Now the people who were trained there and who trained people who trained people, and on and on, that in that area, they have an infrastructure there that made it very easy when the case went to mali to all of a sudden Contact Trace 300, 400 people. They never would have been able to do that if they didnt have that. We need to continue to make it sustainable in the countries that are involved. There is a bit of a mismatch, 17,000 cases in west africa and 11 in the u. S. Yet the Public Discourse than unfolded here in the u. S. In the days shortly before your appointment, what have we learned about how difficult it is to communicate, to engage in public communication about risks like this . I think, jack, its understandable when people hear about something thats new and dangerous that weve never experienced in our country before, to react with trepidation about that. I think the best thing we can do in the face of that anxiety is to respond promptly with an aggressive response. But a response based on science, on medicine, on the best possible learning that we have about this. And so i think our country was very, very lucky to have someone like tony fauci who has great experience. This is a person who won our nations highest civil honor six years ago and is still fighting this fight every day. And to have his leadership and expertise and wisdom and voice i think has been a critical part of that. I also think we simply had to people had to experience our success in managing this disease to have confidence that we can successfully manage this disease. The fact that all eight of the patients with ebola who have been promptly diagnosed in our country have been treated, all treated successfully and survived the experience and all back home with their families. Thats been a reassure thing. But its something people couldnt know that this is a disease with a 70 death rate. I think a combination of a great communication from great experienced leaders and policies based on science and evidence and medicine. And then proven success in isolating, identifying and treating cases i think have been the key things in bringing that public anxiety down. Anyone else . Tony, as ron said, you have been at this for a while. 30 years you have been leading the institute. You will forever be remembered in our nation for the leadership you provided during the most difficult and challenging moment when we were confronting living aids and trying to sort that out as a nation. Are there things you are bringing from those experiences . Things are you bringing from those experiences in the 1980s and 90s as you wrestle as director of the institute with the hiv aids crisis to this one . I think there are several. One that you alluded to thats important is the idea of consistent, honest, open communication of what you know and what you dont know. Dont ever be afraid of saying you dont know balanced against trying to seem like you are smart and you know when you dont. Then your credibility goes down. The other thing is to try to communicate in a way that is always science and evidencebased. You may not get it across the first time you say it, but youve got to say it over and over and over again. And that is the issue of risk and probability, and to try and explain to people that the risks of things are there. Weve got to accept that. We had a lot of anxiety and understandable anxiety. You never put anxiety down. You never poopoo it. It is understandable. The way you counter that, the way we did with hiv in the 80s, is by scientific facts, over and over again. And i bring the analogy gaubeca it is so striking, having been intimately involved in both, is that were trying to communicate to the people that this virus is transmitted by direct contact with bodily fluids, blood, feces, vomitous, things that people dont like to talk about, which is the reason why Health Care Workers are the ones that are most at risk because they put themselves. They run into the fire, not away from the fire. Thats why we have the risk translated into infection. That gets extrapolated by the american public. When they see ebola, they think somehow everyone is at risk and you have to keep telling them the scientific facts argue that theyre not. I remember so clearly, jack, being on Ted Koppel Nightline trying to explain to someone who was arguing against me that the risk this was 1982 and 83. They say, well, why dont we not allow gay waiters to wait on tables in Greenwich Village . Because we know now that a substantial portion of them are infected. What happens if they have a cut on their hand, they put a plate down, have you a cut on your hand, you pick a plate up, therefore you can get live. People were actually focusing on that. So you had to say the scientific evidence, is that possible . Yes. But do a probability curve. It is more likely that you will get hit by a car as you walk out of the restaurant than it is somebody giving you hiv that way. And you had to just keep going over and over. Then finally when all the Scientific Data was in, people believed it. Thats how you counter. Youve got to be calm. Youve got to never be pejorative of people who actually disagree with you, even though you think theyre unreasonable, and just keep countering it with scientificbased evidence and it works. Can i add one thing . Especially here at georgetown, the key response to the combination of science and faith. Science as tony indicated, being medically aware and having the best policies based on the best science and the kind of information tony talked about. But as with the hiv aids crisis, the role of the Faith Community in preaching about compassion, about tolerance, about nonstigmatization, about volunteerism, about service, thats also a key element of the response. One of the first meetings i had at the white house was with faith leaders from all faith denominations that are sending people to volunteer in west africa. Drp kent bra dr. Kent brantly, now become a face of recovering ebola cases here in the United States and has donated generously of his own plasma to help treat other people, he was there on a mission in west africa. So sometimes places like georgetown we wonder how do faith and science go together, how do we reconcile these two things. The ebola crisis is a crisis that shows us that we need both of these things to address all elements of the response and all elements of the crisis. I think you both have captured a couple of very important points. Id just like to explore a little bit further before we open it up. Ron in mentioning faith identified the role that communities play and helping to control the spread, the arc of an illness. In the 1980s, many communities came together to compliment, supplement, support the work that colleagues were doing in the science to create a more immersive context in which to respond to some of the dynamics of the illness. One of the organizations has been doctors without borders. They do seem to borrow some of the efforts that you were describing of bringing a whole community into the work. Could you say just a little bit more about your own experiences and trying to mobilize the power of communities in support of responding in moments like this. The thing i have most experience with obviously is hiv because it was so pervasive. We have the anxiety of ebola and weve had handful of cases here. Back then, we had tens of thousands of cases and not a lot of people were paying attention to it early on. When you talk about community, i think the involved and caring community, mostly the activist community, have transformed the way we look at diseases now in the United States. Its a little bit different because we dont have or need that with ebola in the United States. I can tell you the reason that we have the success in Southern Africa with hiv is that the activist community in africa borrowed a page from the playbook of the activist community in the United States and said, there are drugs out there, they are making people well, were dying, we need those drugs. And thats the reason why we had the evolution and president bush stepped to the plate and did what he did. I think now if the communities in africa and i know theyre very stre very stressed because theres government dysfunction, theres civil wars, theres a lot of things there that are dysfunctional. But if the community makes the demand for the kind of systems, the kind of infrastructure that we are talking about, i think, jack, thats going to go a long way to making it happen. Theres nothing like a community that gets together with one message to change the way leaders look. It happened right here in the United States with the hiv and the aids activist community. Why not happen in africa about health care. Two quick last questions and then well open it up. First on funding. Roughly 2 billion has been committeed by the international community, the u. S. Responsible for a good quarter of that. Statement the u. N. And w. 469069 have outlined a pretty ambitious plan to try to bring this into control by january. Is the level of funding roughly 2 billion that has been dedicated by nations from around in the eu, is that sufficient to respond to the crisis . No. Its not. That is why we have been moving forward on a number of fronts. First of all, we continue to solicit contributions of both people and resources and funds from all over the world and from all kinds of International Organizations. I also think it is worth remembering, theres also not tallied in that a fantastic response Foreign Policy nongovernmental organizations, nonprofits from all around the world thats also part of it. But, critically president obama asked the congress the first week in november during the lame duck session to consider an emergency funding request of 6. 2 billion. 4. 7 billion for Immediate Use and 1. 5 billion contingency in case the disease changes in ways in terms of going to other countries or having unanticipated needs, as well as some unanticipated needs here at home. And we had some progress so far. Were really hoping in the next week as Congress Wraps up its omnibus spending bill or whatever structure they put the spending bill in, that a large chunk of that emergency funding will be passed. We need those funds urgently. The response that the u. S. Has mounted with all of our agencies doing something has really been on kind of borrowed money, reallocating resources, reallocating people. No one a year ago had Ebola Response in their budgets. So to the extent weve sent hundreds of civilians to west africa, thousands of Service People to west africa, all thats come by moving resources around. Those resources are running out and the only way we can keep up the response, let alone expand it to do what we need to do, is by getting this emergency funding request approved. Tony, in your earlier comments you mentioned the importance of a vaccine. My colleagues will attest i never allow an opportunity to go by where i never make a pitch for increased funding to the nih. It works its way back to our colleges and universities. You are right. He never misses an opportunity. This disease was discovered in 1976 and we do have a vaccination. Can you tell me a little bit about the background context for that . Absolutely. We have been working on a vaccine since actually 1999, 2000, when i recruited the team from the Vaccine Research center to came here. Our first paper was in nature in 2000 by Nancy Sullivan and her colleagues gary nable. We in an iterative way were making a better and better vaccine. We never were able to get a serious pharmaceutical partner for the simple reason that they didnt perceive it as something that would be a blockbuster. When you have from 1976 to now, 24 outbreaks for a total, excluding the current outbreak, of about 2,300 people. So no one wanted to invest in that. I think thats one of the roles of the federal government. People talk about, oh, the federal government, stay out of our way. This is one of the roles where the federal government took the ball and said were going to stick with this, were going to develop it, and then finally when things started to percolate, then we got good pharmaceutical partners. But if we had not been involved in that and again, its a lesson that if you really want to be prepared, one of the things thats so difficult and ive been frustrated for a long time. Its very difficult to get money for something that hasnt happened. You know . When something happens, people say, what were you doing . Why werent you ready for it . Need to be ready for a pandemic flu or what have you, its well, you know, we got priorities, the budget is flat, et cetera. The same thing with the pharmaceutical companies. They want to have something that they know is going to be used right away. All kidding aside, the reality is that the level of funding for the National Institutes of health was significantly impacted during the sequester. More than 1. 5 billion was removed. We got a billion back in the new budget reconciliation but were still below 2012 levels and thats not a trajectory for us as a nation if we want to be able to respond to the kinds of challenges that we face. We will open this up now. There is a microphone in the center aisle. If youd like to ask a question, if you can get in line, we can take as many as we can in the next 20 or 25 minutes or so. One of the topics please introduce yourself. Beryl raiden, im a member of the faculty in the school of public policy. One of the topics that wasnt really discussed so far was the relationship between science and politics. Weve seen the difficulty in the u. S. System of dealing with one aspect of the political role which is the structure of our system and federalism. I wondered if you would comment on that and also comment on some of the other lessons that you might draw on the relationship between science and politics. Thank you. Thank you. I think that we have a federal system. In the popular press im referred to often as the ebola czar. I never real as unczarry as i am when we are trying to deal with this complex patchwork of federal, state and local authorities who are involved. That said, our response in the United States is incredibly benefited by the hard work of many state and local officials, too. So this is a twoway relationship. Right now we have about 1,400 people who have traveled from west africa in the past 21 days and we monitor them twice a day for their temperature. Thats done by state and local officials. Our local Public Health authorities take on that work re every day and make a big contribution to this effort and keeping everyone safe. As we roll out our system of Ebola Treatment Centers, 35 hospitals, 53 beds, those are set by federal standard but by state and locals designating, reviewing, approving the hospitals ready for that. I think the federal system has worked for us for 225 years and i think has some days frustration but many days great benefits to us. Science i think has been the centerpiece of our response in the administration and its been the guidepost for us. By and large i think thats been successful. I think as tony said, translating these scientific ideas into a public discussion is always tricky. Weve been very lucky. I want to repeat myself on this because it bears repeating, very lucky to have someone like tony who has an incredible expertise but a great ability to explain this to lay people to help make that bridge between science and popular discussion. We just need to keep on that dialogue and i think that dialogue can be successful. One thing, jack, though. We should be careful to not always equate politics as a dirty word. We live in a political system, but the political system really works a lot sometimes. Politics is politics, but it does work. It does work. Please introduce yourself. Hi. My name is dan cory, im a senior in the college here. This question is for dr. Fauci. First of all, it is an honor to speak to you as a fellow graduate of regents high school. We have a couple others in the audience here. My question has to do with ebola and something weve learneded in one of our classes here at georgetown. We learned about neglected tropical diseases. One of the topics that came up in class is could ebola be considered a neglected tropical disease. Its poignant to me because it has certain qualities of neglected childhood disease but it is missing a few key ones. I was wondering what your opinion was on this debate, whether or not you could consider it on the neglected tropical disease. The answer is certain ly by broader criteria, it is a tropical disease and its neglected because we dont have the tools right now that we wish we did have. Neglected tropical diseases are given different as you know, because youre studying it, different definitions flowing into the different category. But i look at it much more loosely. I would consider this as something that now its going to be considered by the world as a neglected tropical disease because its on everybodys radar screen. And the one thing i do hope we get out of this is drugs that we prove work and a vaccine that we know works. If theres one Silver Lining of tragedies like this is that you get something out of it so we dont have to go through this the next time. So the answer to your question is, in my mind, it is a neglected tropical disease. Thank you. Good morning. I was wondering if you could speak about the casexsikn of th eric duncan and whether his life could have been saved or not. And there was a lot of debate surrounding the case. I was wondering if you could share your opinion. You know, you really cant make those kinds of predictions rf you know, taking care of so many thousands and thousands of patients in my life to say we could have saved his life if we did this. Theres always the possibility. The man was sick. He went to an emergency room. He was not immediately diagnosed. Its tough to be pejorative about that. Its easy for somebody in an easy chair here in gaston hall to say, well, you know, an african man comes in, he said hes sick, youre in the middle of an eastbound labola epidemic rooms are busy places. It is unfortunate he was not diagnosed earlier. He got in and when he got in, he was already very, very ill. Had he been plugged in to an intensive care system earlier, could it have made a difference possible. But we shouldnt look at it that way. We should try and look at Lessons Learned from that. So i dont think we can definitively say things would have been different, though it is possible it could have been. Thank you. Thank you both for coming to speak to us today. My name is emma cohen, im a senior in the school of foreign service. You both touched on briefly the role of msf in the Ebola Outbreak. I was just wondering if you had any thoughts on why there is such a discrepancy between the msf response and calling the outbreak unprecedented in march, and the w. H. O. s response waiting until august to declare it an International Health emergency. I didnt know if you had any thoughts about why we saw this happen. Thank you. So thats a tough question, because ive always been known, and still am, as a straight shooter. I think if you look at w. H. O. , w. H. O. Has suffered from chronic underfunding. And one would have hoped that they would have recognized very early on that this was something that really was going to explode. They didnt have the manpower. They had to, by budgetary constraints, have substantial cuts in their experienced personnel. So what msf which is a fantastic organization. Theyre there, theyre on the ground, they see it as its happening and as its unfolding, and they called it correctly very early on. I believe if the w. H. O. Had had the strength that they should have had at the time, that they probably would have been much more intensively involved in their youunderground. As a student of anthropology, ive been careful note of how the media has been reacting to the ebola crisis. And so i was just wondering why you both thought because a big part of the u. S. Response at least on the ground and weve seen this high level of anxiety but why do you think there is such extreme levels of stigmatization. In my home state of new jersey we had an issue with well, a lot of issues but in particular two School Children from rwanda who were almost kicked out of school. A schoolteacher in kentucky who had visited africa and was forced to resign. Why is the ebola crisis triggering such high levels of is it with recent events in ferguson . Is it a marker of racial texts . Is there Something Else going on . What do you guys think . Well, im not an anthropology and so what i would say is, i cant really explain why the reaction to ebola has been what it has been in america. What i can say is what weve been doing to try to address that. So weve been working very hard to make sure that those who are involved in treating the disease, both overseas and here at home, arent subject and their families arent subject to stigmatization or as stra sicos. There needs to be more informing the low levels of risks are involved and get people comfortable with that. People at bellevue who treated dr. Spencer reported that many of them and their families were having negative reactions when they went back home and whatnot. So i think it is an important thing for all of us to do, to speak out against that kind of stigmatization, that valorize Health Care Workers going to africa to fight this disease. Those people, the people who are volunteering, the people at msf or paul Farmers Group or all these groups sendsing peop inser there, those are the people keeping us safe here. Doing great humanitarian work, saving lives, but if nothing else we should think of them as people who are keeping us safe here and welcome them home with the kind of welcome they deserve to be given when they come back from that. So one of the things that i ha haves learned it was tough for me to accept it but after you see it a lot, you do. Fear is a raw emotion that sometimes gets people who otherwise would be considered as good people to do things that are not so good. And i saw it in spades in the hiv aids epidemic. Now obviously there are shades of racism and other things that might be going on, but i dont think thats predominant motivating force. It gets to what i was trying to explain before about the issue of how public perceives risks. We go through risks every day of our lives. But the risks are chronic and you accept them. For one reason or other which budding anthropologists like yourself probably know better than i that when there is a new risk, even if the risk in a probability prioritization is much lower than the risks that youre already accepting on an every day basis, for strange reasons, you react much more violently in your mind metaphorically against that risk because you dont like a new risk, even though youre already living. Many risks. So the one that was very, very clear there were many, but back in the aids days, when children of an aids patient, or ryan white, who was a young man who was a hemophiliac who got hiv, they tried to burn down his house. They wouldnt let him into school because the fear of this unknown disease, even though the risk was much less than any of the children who didnt want to go to school with him. Probability and risk. The probability of their getting hiv from ryan was infinitely less than them getting hit by a car going to school, yet they wouldnt let ryan white into the school. So fear does really strange things to people. School, yet t wouldnt let him in the school. Fear does something to people. Its deep seeded in our nature. Its part of us fortunately. Hi. My name is andrew. Im a history major in the college and biology minor. I was wondering whether this crisis which has been a nexus of science and political systems in the United States, whether you think this ebola crisis or similar crisis would create the political and economic will to Fund Research into these neglected diseases rather tropical or not, and really make that a National Priority thats bipartisan. What mechanisms would be needed to created to insure these are priorities and how would we go about that . Well, i think it already has. I think when you look at the progress weve made hopefully on a bipartisan basis getting emergency funding through congress, a lot of that goes to nih and other parts of hhs and Global Health response. I think it will be investments dealing with our immediate crisis. Thats why theyre an emergency. Also in making investments in more long term approaches as well. I think its important. The president was at nah tuesday. The point he made there was how this crisis shows the importance of basic science, investments in basic science. If you decide the day after ebola first appears on the front page of the New York Times that its time to do the basic research into building a vaccine to treat ebola, youre ten years too late. A lot of this response shines a spotlight on need to be making basic investments well in advance of the crises so we can deal with crises as they a rise. To see someone like dr. Nancy sullivan at nah who ive met twice, been working on this 15 years and probably the first 14 years of that was one of the most obscure people in science. In the past year is one of the most prominent people. This shows how long this takes and how important basic science is to dealing with crises like this when they a rise. Ill ask the next three people, if youll ask questions each of you and try to give a response to them all after weve heard from all three. Be quick in articulating questions that would be great. My name is sebastion. Im a senior in school. What specifically has the medical community, Washington Community so to speak has been learned from this crisis looking forward many terms of identifying the next risk or how to respond to the next risk . Hi. Im a senior as well. I wanted to talk more about the relationship between underdevelopment poverty, lack of infrastructure in medical and garment in these countries and current crisis. What is being done, and what could be done to actually have a sustainable approach to ebola addressing lack of capacity of the states . Last question. Hi. My name is kelsey. Im a master student in the bio medical science policy and add vo cosay program. How its basically going to set the stage for how people react to potential outbreaks in the future. Thank you. So weve got Lessons Learned, capacity and you oppressed them. All three are linked. What have we learned, what about the global approach to health . It relates to what ron and i have been saying about its dramatic experiences like were going through now which underscore what people have been saying some time of building not only the kind of health care infrastructure, Global Health security agenda, infrastructure, pep fall approaches not only from the health standpoint but research standpoint. The investment in research that will not have us playing catchup all the time and investment in the infrastructure to not only detect diseases earlier but allow us to respond earlier. Thats really what a lot of Global Health agenda is all about. I really cant add much other than to say it is a sad fact what a large role poverty plays in the fatality rate from ebola. I think when this crisis started, everyone read that ebola is a disease that kills 70 of its victims. That is true without treatment and interventions. Even in west africa, some of the ngos treating people with nothing more complicated than giving people iv rehydration are bringing fatality rates down to 25 or 30 . Thats still horrible, but when you think about the fact you could cut the death rate of a disease in half by giving someone the most basic kind of health care, it just shows you how important, what a role, resources, building up Health Care Systems and helping these underdeveloped countries get to a basic level of care. What a huge difference that can make. If you could cut the death rate from ebola in half by giving people ivs. Not the super sophisticated stuff tony is doing treating at nah and stuff theyre doing at nebraska. Just basic care. Thats a telling fact and anecdote about this. We need to make investments ready here in the United States to deal with Infectious Diseases in the future. We have to invest in countries around the world in getting the infrastructure in place and trying to address long term developmental issues as well. One last question. Classes are ending this week. We go to exams next week then be off for a little while. Well be back in a month. Advice for us as a University Community. Are there things georgetown could be doing in the Spring Semester that might contribute in the effort to respond to this challenge, this really urgent challenge particularly facing west africa but raising a number of important questions beyond that that require our attention . Any advice for us as a University Community . I wouldnt recommend you all go try to take care of patients, thats for sure. I think to develop as part of experience and Global Health, a solidarity with the young people in those countries to try to get them to realize that young people here care about whats going on with them. I think you can do that through various organizations volunteering or doing it just communications. It meant an awful lot to people in Southern Africa when we reached out to them in the aids epidemic without even going over there but encouraging them in their fight against aids and pressure they put on their own governments, particularly south africa when their government allowed drugs to be distributed because they didnt think hiv caused the aids. They were communicating with our young people who gave them actually the fortitude to go a head and demand it which they did. All right. I would add to that. I think that one, its great that all different schools at georgetown where this is appropriate discipline study what happened in this case do domestically and overseas and learn. You cant learn from crises like this if you dont study them and learn about them and if you dont have the Academic Work that communicate that. Thats an important project. I think that being voices for dealing with some of these stigmatiation and ostracizing here. Its important as a Global University to make sure its engaged with people from three nations. Having her here talk about her experience from sierra leone and have that experience here at georgetown to be a bridge between our community at georgetown and those communities is important. It landfall make us better at georgetown and make the respond in the future a more effective response. I want to thank you both for being with us today. Its been an extraordinary moment for our community to have a chance to be in communication with you both. Were grateful for the leadership youre providing our nation and globe at this important moment. Its a privilege to be with us. Ladies and gentlemen, would you join me in expressesiing our gratitude . [ applause ] sunday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern, Senior Correspondent for the daily beast on the militarys use of cyber space to rage war. And cspan 3 saturday at 2 00 a Panel Including david keen on how Ronald Reagans career as an actor helped spawn his career as a president. And sunday, gannon shows interviews with the former president about vietnam, water gate. Let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Call us at 2026263400. Ema email us. Join us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Were live on capitol hill this morning. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is meeting to consider pending legislation including a draft bill to authorize the limited use of military force against isis. Other agenda items include the nominations of deputy National Security advisor tony lincoln to be deputy secretary of state and house passed bill referred to as international meagans law to stem the demand for child sex trafficking. Votes scheduled for 10 30 half an a hour from now in the senate chamber. We could see a recess in this meeting. This is live coverage on cspan 3. This is business meeting of the Foreign Relations committee will come to order. Theres a fair amount of work to be done. Before i do, since i expect this to be the last meeting of the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee, let me say that i appreciate the work that this committee has done overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis in a sea of partisan ship at times we have faced in the senate. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed about every major piece of legislation from iran to north korea to oas reform to pepfar, to amuf on syria that stopped chemical weapons from drop on people. And every other one except for a handful on a unanimous or broad bipartisan basis. I think thats the way the government should work in general. I certainly believe thats what Foreign Policy particularly should achieve when we send one message to the world. I want to to thank senator corker as the Ranking Member for his work collaboratively with me in getting to those moments that we could have the success that this committee has had. I think the committee has been far more engaged putting out information in the course of events as well as being a forum for listening to views on major issues of the day within the jurisdiction of this committee. I look forward to working with you bob as the incoming chairman. Thank you very much for your work and i want to thank all members on both sides. We havent always agreed, but its always been indepth, with respect and intellect. Thats the hallmark of what the senate should be. I want to take a moment as well and i hope well have something in short order by the time we finish this business to recognize Danny O Brian the staff director, my tomorrower chief of staff. Hes been in the senate many years going back to when senator biden was chair of this committee. Who is leaving to go to the dark side, i mean the private sector. So that he has been an extraordinary public servant, someone who has the grasp as i say the intersection of poll circumstances politics and process. There are people in this institution and in congress who are great at one or the other. They have great policy ideas but couldnt think of politics necessary to get it done. People have great politics but couldnt think of a policy. Danny actually possesses all of those and has a helped us a great deal during this period of time. Danny, i want to recognize you for your service. Stand up. Thank you very much. [ applause ] with that let me begin the work we have to do besides the authorization for use of military force which will take most time today. Id like to bring up the nominees and all legislative items except the amuf and consider them first before we take up the amuf without objection. Id ask unanimous consent to consider the nominees and block anthony to be deputy secretary of state,lessly to be the alternative to General Assembly of United Nations and one Foreign Services list. Senator, would you like to speak to this . Yes. I want to say some things about you and danny. Ill do that when we get to amuf to sort of ease things before we begin that process. On this, look, there is concern by some of our members relative to one of the nominees. I personally feel that we are better off getting mr. Blanken out of this committee and on the floor. Im going to vote to do that today. I dont know what im going to do after he gets to the floor, but i think with us going through a period of time where we wont be in session, without us having someone in that position, i think were much with better off taking this first step. My guess is there may be some members that want to vote on him individually. Other than that, i think what youre proposing to do is type with me. So let me is there objection to considering the nominees in block . Do if any of our members want to vote individually on lincoln himself this . All right. So with that consent agreed to, are there any members wishing to speak on these nominees . If there are no members wishing to speak mr. Chairman, ill be brief. I know what the vote will be. I will tend to do what i can to prevent this nominee from being confirmed by the United States senate. Hes unqualified, refused to answer simple and fundamental questions that i had for him. One of the architects of the withdrawal from iraq and said with pride how among many other things that iraq, the day last combat troops went to iraq has never been so prosperous, powerful and peaceful as it is today that the troops left iraq. I will be on the floor giving at least 20 of his quotes which had no relation whatsoever to the actual situation on the ground in iraq. There were those of us that predicted that the action took place would result in exactly the situation that is there today. So he was wrong. He was dead wrong. He made many, many statements about particularly about iraq and unfortunately thousands of people are dead now. Parts of iraq are now controlled by the deadly Organization Called isis. I will be discussing this at length when it reaches the floor of the senate. Thank you senator. Senator kuhns . I wanted to speak in favor of mr. Blanken. Although ive not has as long and broad experience with him as the senator from arizona. In my four years ive found him thoughtful, engaging. I know in his long service to biden and this administration, in my opinion hes nominally. First of all i have Great Respect for the president s right to appoint people that want to serve his administration and found nothing in mr. Blankens record to be disqualifying of his candidacy. I am concerned. Ive asked on numerous occasions, both in a hearing this this committee and thereafter to be clear what the administration plans to change the relationship to cuba, unilaterally or despite clear statutory mandates. If someone wants to change the relationship between United States and cuba, come to congress, propose a bill and vote on it. I have not been able to get a clear answer from mr. Blanken. Thats indicative not of him but the administrations potential ideas of what they want to do moving forward. For that reason, im going to oppose his nomination. On three occasions ive given him the opportunity to be clear about what he believes the u. S. s position will be. Three occasions ive got the answer saying we care about the cuban peep and no follow up about that. Im deeply concerned. For that reason, ill oppose the m nomination today. I intend just to be clear and on the record to use every procedural method available to me to slow down his nomination. Senator mark. Thank you mr. Chairman. I think mr. Blanken is extremely well qualified for this position including his service as the democratic staff director on this committee. I think its prepared him well to take on the responsibilities which the president is asking him to discharge. I think that our country would be well served actually if he was there and able to give that vast panorama of experiences he has had as guidance to direct us coming out of the state department. I urge his nomination be approved. Any other senators . Let me i strongly support tony blankens nomination. Let me make this one point. I think tony is well qualified. I think what senator from massachusetts said is absolutely correct. Hes well prepared for the relationship with congress. President obama should have his team in place. I expect what senator corker said about that. I dont think we should be judging a nominee because of administration hes served in. That to me would deny president obama his ability to get his team in place. I would urge that we find a way that we can move forward with this nomination here in the committee and on the floor of the United States senate. Any other senator . With that, let me say, i fully support mr. Blankens nomination. I think actually his experience in the senate would give us, someone at the state department for which the further collaboration with this committee would be extraordinarily helpful, and i echo the remarks of senator carton that any nominee already in a position within an administration obviously is duty bound to that administration in terms of their advocacy on what that administrations views are. One may disagree. I have one or two of my own in disagreement. That doesnt mean i necessarily going to hold that nominee at the end of the day hostage to the administrations views that i may disagree with. I fully support him, and with that the nominees will be considered in block. All those in favor will say i. All those opposed will say no. The is have it. Nominees are favorably to the senate. Can i be recorded as a no . Senator rish, rubio, johnson, and i think maybe senator mccain . Voting no. All of those will be recorded as voting month. Now id like to bring up ex es fromming the sense of congress that wine steen should be returned home to his family with amendment. 595 recognizing Nobel Laureates Kailash Satyarthi and malala yousafzai. Hr 45 meagans law to demand a ban on child sex trafficking and hong kongs democracy act with amendment. I move we consider them in block with amendments noted on the agenda. Without objection. Senator corker. I agree. So moved. Mr. Chairman . I just want the to mention warn wine steen. Hes constituent in maryland. He was kidnapped august 13, 2011. I just thank you very much for bringing this up. The principle sponsors and also cosponsorship here. I thank you for bringing this forward and strongly support it. Any other member who wishes to speak to the resolution . Senator rubio . On any ones in the block . I want to thank senator carden for his work working along side our offers on the hong kong bill were about to pass. Hopefully it will sebd a strong message the United States is on the side of a truly a ton mouse hong kong that can determine its own democratic future. Any other . Senator kuhnss. Briefly, id like to thank senator corker for moving this forward. December 1 is world aids day. This is updated in the way that reflects current statistics and great investment weve made as a nation, the impact thats had on response to Ebola Outbreak as well. Id like to thank the senators for joining as cosponsors. Thank you for the opportunity to move this resolution today. Any other members wishing to speak on resolutions in block . So if there are no other members wishing to speak, ill move these bills to consider. Together with their relevant amendments, all in favor will say i. I oppose say no. Is have are it. Bills and resolutions reported favorably to the senate. Let us thousand move to my proposed resolution authorizing the limited use of United States armed forces against isil. I will offer the chairmans mark. I have a managers amendment that incorporates a number of amendments that have been proposed by members including versions of amendments from senator boxer, senator kuhns and carton. Other senators may wish to offer amendments as well. Let me say at the beginning following the business meeting last thursday, december 4 th and following thing Unanimous Committee members, we worked to stand up a process and invite Administration Officials to engage on this committee on isil amuf. This work followed a series of consultations with Administration Officials to discuss necessary elements of amuf over the past several months and repeated invitations to our most senior diplomats and military leaders to actively engage in hearings and briefings on this strategy. Ultimately secretary of state kerry consented at the public hearing tuesday regarding the authorization of use of military force against isil. We appreciate his frank testimony. What we heard from secretary kerry the administration largely supports the the text before us with some reservations. The chairman ace mark authorizes the president to use military force against isil and associated persons or forces meaning individuals or organizations fighting for or on behalf of isil. It limits the activity of armed forces there will be no large scale Ground Combat operations. As i said yesterday, if the president feels he needs that, he should ask for it and congress can consider it. This text limits the authorization to three years and requires the administration to report to Congress Every 60 days. As drafted, the text limits the authorization of force by not allowing Ground Combat operations except as necessary for the protection or rescue of u. S. Soldiers or citizens for intelligence operations or spotters to enable air strikes, operational planning or other forms of advice and assistance. The president has said this will be a multiyear campaign. I do not believe the amuf should be unlimited. A three year time frame would allow this president and the new president time to assess the situation and make responsible decisions together with congress about whether and how to continue military action. With that, laying a foundation. I know theres much more to discuss. Let me call upon the distinguished Ranking Member for comments. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I want to thank you again for last week deferring on voting on the amuf on an unrelated bill and trying to put a process in place to cause us to be more informed. I do appreciate that. I think we have honest, thoughtful opinions about this issue. I think the hearing we had this week was helpful in that process. I want to also thank you for the way youve led this committee. This is a committee for many, many decades was one of the most sought after committees in the senate. It waned for a while because delegation was though the dealt with. In the years youve been here, youve elevated the committee substantially. Were proud to serve on this committee, proud of leadership youve shown, proud of bipartisan ship. Today we passed bills out where people Work Together. The hong kong bill, others to make things happen. Hopefully today on the floor well pass out the ukraine bill we passed out unanimously in september. I thank you for your leadership and trying to conduct meetings in a way that brings out the best of the United States senate. To danny, congratulations to you. We thank you for the way youve caused this committee to operate. Just to show some philosophical differences here, going to the private sector might be going to the bright side. Any way, good luck to you. Let me come to amuf. This is as has been mentioned probably the most important type of legislation that we will ever deal with. I have no earthly idea how the administration plans to go about degrading and destroying isis in syria. I have no earthly idea. Mckirk yesterday, the assistant to our envoy said over in the house there is no way, no way, the moderate opposition could be decided. No way. I read today in the washington most where ambassador ford talked about what a fantasy it was to think about a that. So i know there have been attempts by my friends on the other side of the aisle to place limitations on what it is that were doing, but what we have no idea of at the present, no idea, is how the administration tends to go about doing what we plan to do in syria. We have some understands in iraq. We have zero understanding in syria. Weve talked about the fact that since world war ii weve had so many conflicts where we and administrations go forward with activities. Then end up having an outcome that is far from where we began. Yet, in this case, and i know the chairman has tried to have testimony, tried to have people come in here. I know we could subpoena and maybe thats what we need to do this next year to make sure we actually have people come in and explain to us where were going. I dont think theres a person on this committee that can lay out with any degree of how we plan to go about doing this thing of degrading and defeating. We have no idea. In many ways, as senator mccain has mentioned, it almost reeks of the incrementalism that began with vietnam years ago. It seems to me that one of our great responsibilities here is to when Administration Needs an authorization to go forward, its for us to tease that out, to understand, to get a sense of what theyre after tempting to do and whether its plausible or not. We had a leader of a nation involved in this with us today who was just in two weeks ago. Hes sharing with us many allies in the region, people involved with us today think we need to be taking on a side right now for this to work. Yet the secretary came in the other day and said thats not going to happen. Yet assad is the magnet for isis to exist in syria today, the magnet. We have no idea what attempts are going to be made there. Yet, on the other hand, we want turkey to be involved with us. Were talking about what essence no fly zone in the northwest portion of syria to try to bring turkey in. Yet turkey really probably isnt near as interested in isis as they are assad itself. Yet we have not sat, not had any testimony that explains how we plan to go forward. On the other hand, the in a way of trying to limit what were doing, i know that the chairman and people on your side of the aisle have attempted to talk about no boots on the ground. Youve out a limit on length of time. Youve defined associated forces in a more narrow way than typically is defined. We have the secretary of state come in and say that the president wont agree to that. He came in and testified here and gave excellent testimony actually better than i thought he would be able to give and yet amuf being offered today we know they wont support. It has no chance in the world, even if we had time. This is going nowhere because were going to be out of here in two days. Even if we had time, we know the administration would not support what is before us today. Then as i understand it in a managers package, many have been to the white house and tried to deal with 01amuf which is 60 words, written in a rush september 18th of 01. Many of us have talked about changing that in such a way to meet todays situations. As i understand it, the managers amendment sunsets it. We have nothing to replace it, but were going to sunset the 01aumf. I dont want to harden sides. I believe there are changes that need to be made and understands that need to be had. Im disappoi poinppointed that where we are. I will not support knowing this administration that lets face it at a minimum has been cautious in Foreign Relations activities says this wont work for them. What i propose is we vote, deal with this today. I thought about tabling this. I dont like motioning to table. I dont like this process, where we are. I appreciate the strong feelings that everyone has, but i just assume go ahead and vote and be done with this and then hope the good will that we have here today on other issues will carry into next year, figure out a way to have a process each of us can articulate to constituents how were going to go about defeating. Not a single one of us has an idea of how that will happen in syria. That we know that first and then vote on authorization to cause our nation to go forward in appropriate way. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership. I to know there will be debate over what i just said. I look forward to carrying this forward today. Mr. Chairman . Ill recognize you in a moment. Let me make very brief remarks. I appreciate the nature of both your views and your goal. In some respects i share it. Let me say the following. As i said at the hearing, if we wait for an administration, this or any other one to send us their language on an authorization for the use of military force and is they never do it, then by virtue of not doing that, they have a veto over the constitutional imperative and prerogatives on the power to declare war. Im not going to submit i speak only for myself. I am not going to submit my responsibility of people of new jersey or the nation to an executive that does not send an amuf and is by doing so could conduct a war without pursuing the congress. While i certainly want to be as closely as insiync with this commander of chief or any other commanderinchief, i do not believe the president can send sole legislation because it may be be a different view of congress. There may be elements hell choose to veto. Its the congresss imperative to ultimately make that decision as to how were going to send americas sons and daughters to harms way. While one would try to get there and be insync. Im not sure at the end of the day theres a disagreement that congress sold succumb to what the president wants. I dont know how long were going to stay here. Maybe i urge our leadership to this committee pass out amuf to have that debate on the floor of the United States senate and try to push forward. Lets be honest, i dont think we would have gotten anybody to crystallize ideas about where there is comedy and difference unless we started this process. I think that does a service to the American People to debate at the at least it can begin and people start to think hard about what our engagement is going to be under what set of circumstances and what risks. I respect the ranking chairs views. We have a fundamental disagreement about the timing in terms of moving forward and trying to create a process that ultimately maybe will get insync. I dont know at the end of the day whether that can be achieved with the executive branch. I want to do this as part of the managers amendment. At least we can be poised. Im happy to entertain all members comments. Let me move the managers amendment to begin a process here. It does a number of things. It includes the amendment filed by senator boxer to the language horrific abuses by isil of women and girls. The hearing senator boxer held with senator paul. Senator paul was i think incredibly illustrative of the incredible terrifying acts isil commits and particularly against women and girls. It includes language from senator kuhns that makes important finding a way to pay for activities authorized. It includes a version filed by senator carton that would sunset after a period of three years of enactment unless it has been reauthorized. This period of duration mirrors the legislation. At that point, i think its tremendously important we Work Together in a serious way to refine the 2001 amuf. I think a three year window is a responsible amount of time in which to do that. I support the three year sunset because i think without a forcing mechanism, we would find it virtually impossible to come to an agreement on how to refine that 2001 authorization. We have seen how difficult that process can be. I believe clearly it must be done. I think that on that goal i think many of us are having a common view about the 2001 authorization. The managers amendment is before the committee. Im willing to entertain comments. Member of this committee. Each of us have strong views. Some are knnuanced and some are quite different. I want to go on record with a conscious issue. Im respectful of the relationship you and Ranking Member have developed and soon to switch gavels. It makes me very proud because i think its so key. These are difficult moments, but its not theyre not moments we get angry at each other. We direct anger at people cutting off the heads of our people and who are taking girls as sex slaves. We may differ on how to go about taking the fight to them. This is a day ive been looking forward to. Im one that believes the president can does have the authority under the amuf i voted for. That does not speak for most democrats. I still believe we need to update that. I am grateful to my chairman. This took a lot of guts on his part. This is really in many ways a stand off not within the parties in the committee which is understandable but also with the administration who i think we all admit with senator kerry, i didnt see sense he was thrilled with we were Going Forward. Mr. Chairman, you are just standing up for the rights and prerogatives of members of the United States senate and the congress. I appreciate it. Im strongly supporting your mark for two reasons. One, congress cant sit back and take no action in the face of this evil that we see in isil. A threat to all humanity as one of the administration witnesses said at the hearing senator paul and i had. When it comes to human rights abuses, they are in a class of their own. We cannot sit back and not speak out against them. And the second reason, after years of a war in iraq that i believe was based on false pretense which i believe killed and named thousands our best and brightest. I draw a line in the sand as far as another ground war. I think those two messages are important. Basically this amuf is the president s strategies put together. I know senator corker doesnt like that strategy. I find that to be thats an understatement. I find it to be something i can embrace. Let me tell you why specifically. We have 60 countries on our side. We have the uk, australia, francisco, germany, canada to name a few of our allies. We also have saudi arabia, uae, jordan. Thats just a few of the 60 countries. If you read the president s comments which i will at this point, Going Forward we wont with hesitate to take action against terrorists in iraq and syria. This is not heamericas fight alone. It is more effective to use our capabilities to help partners on the ground, secure their own countrys futures. We will use our air power, train and equip our partners. We advice and will assist, and we will lead a Broad Coalition of nations who have a stake in this fight. This isnt america versus isil. This is the people of that region versus isil. Its the world versus isil. I thoroughly agree with that. If there are folks that a think we ought to put our troops on the ground in another ground war, so be it. Speak out now. Offer an amendment. Thats your right. I respect it. I i strongly disagree with it. I think you have mr. Chairman and all the work with us, you have crafted something that while every one of us would write it a tad bit differently, in general we stand with the world against isil. Im very happy that were doing it. Last point. Our Ranking Members soon to be chairman said this is going nowhere. Why are we doing this . The chairman answered it. Thats what people said when we worked together in a bipartisan way on syrian air strikes. People said why are you doing this . At the end of the day we had impact on the ground. Syria got rid of chemical weapons. I think what we do here matters. I want to send that signal today. We take the fight to isil. We dont use our Ground Troops to do it. Now, we have a vote going on. I think theres still time for at least one more member to speak. Then i recess, have the one vote, come back and finish the rest of our work. Is there anyone else any other members . Senator carden and then well recess. Ill recognize any other member then that wishes to speak. Thank you. I want to underscore how proud i am to be a member of this committee under the leadership of menendez and senator corker. This is operated in the best traditions of the Foreign Relations committee in the United States senate. I think were a stronger nation as a result of it. I thank you both for your extraordinary leadership. I just want to underscore a couple points. First, president obama and former president s would probably agree, that they dont need congress to pass any further authorizations that they have all the 3power they need. I look at this resolution, carrying out appropriate oversite we have. One of you mentioned vietnam and expanded u. S. Involvement in the war. I think this resolution helps prevent that. President obamas interpretation of the 2001 authorization would allow him to use our military force including Ground Troops pretty much anywhere in the world against extremists. I think thats why its important for us to act. This is a specific authorization in regards to our military operations against isil can consistent with the president s military operations. The International Coalitions needs and understanding of u. S. Military involvement. It makes it clear theres no Ground Combat troops. I think thats important. It requires reports as to the strategies being used by the administration and International Partners as well as providing us Financial Information and how the war is being cost and paid for. It requires also the reports on the International Partners and provides for a three year sunset unless reauthorized. Now, i heard my colleague senator corker talk about the repeal, sunset on 2001. The bill does repeal the 2002. We all agreed to 2002 iraqs specific resolution is no longer needed. In regards to 2001, let me just state the obvious. Those of us in congress in 2001 never envision had the authorization would be still utilized today the way it was in 30 separate military operations. We were interested in going after those that attacked our country on september 11th. It was not the only piece of legislation that was passed during that period of time. We passed to give our civil authorities the intelligence tools they need, patriot act. Fortunately we put sunsets on the patriot act. As a result, thats been refined over the years including most recently. If we did not have that sunset on those law, i dare to say it would have been difficult for us to come together as to how we can make sure we have the contemporary tools we need in order to fight terrorists in this country. We all acknowledge we need tools against terrorists including military operations. We should refine it to meet the current needs. Thats our current responsibilities as congress. Thats why a three year period for refining the isil campaign militarily as well as our war against terrorists is not only appropriate but i think required. Im pleased the chairman has included that in his chairmans mark. Senator kerrys interpretation and the obama administrations interpretation of the 2001 authorization which said that we could use our military against those nations, organizations or persons the president determines planned authorized, committed or aided attacks that occurred september 11, 2001. In other words against al qaeda. Is using it now against isil even though al qaeda said isil is not a branch of al qaeda. We have no organizational relationship with it. The group is not responsible for its actions. All i point out is its a stretch. We have a responsibility to clarify that as part of congress. Now, yes the administration is not all together where we are on this resolution. They would like to have broader authority. Secretary kerry talks about unpredictable circumstances and wants to make sure they have maximum flexibility. Vnqhp thats our responsibility. For those that believe the Purse Strings are adequate to deal with that, its the not. We all know that. Its this committees responsibility. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee to recommend to the full senate what the appropriate authorization should be on the use of military force. I think that what the chairman has brought forward carries that out in the best tradition. Giving president obama the authorization to use our military but to restrict it and have oversight to make sure its used with the appropriate authorization. If i can say one thing . I know were going to leave and go vote. I realize some of this may dissipate. I dont think theres any difference on the two sides about our strong desire to take the fight to ioisis. Everybody understands theres no difference there. I think the concern is we havent done our oversight. We havent had the officials that are going to conduct this operation come in and even share with us how theyre going to do that. I dont want to embarrass anyone, but i dont think theres anyone on this committee, people that spend hours and hours and hours in Intelligence Briefings that has yet heard the Administration Come forth with anything thats plausible. To me, thats the problem. Were rushing to make something legal for those that think its illegal. Were rushing to make something legal as if that makes us relevant. What makes us relevant is to have the Administration Come forth, lay out what theyre going to do, let us tease that out. Let us understand it and then authorize it. Mr. Chairman, i thank you. Appreciate you. Let me say on that vote, and then were going to recess. My intention is to go directly to the floor votes. One vote and then come back. I urge all members to come back to be present, make comments and offer amendments. Weve had now two hearings by the secretary of state. We had an intelligence hearing that included members of the department of defense as well as the person in charge of our coalition. In addition to that, the Armed Services committee has held hearings of which i have looked at transcripts since im not a member of that committee. There are several members here of that committee and have been informed of information received there. Now, one could argue that despite all of that, one may not fully gleam what is the totality of a strategy, but it isnt a totally uninformed view at this point in time. This committee stand as in recess in order of the call by the chairman. So as you heard a break now in this likely final meeting of the Foreign Relations committee today. The senate is holding votes on 577 billion Defense Authorization bill. At conclusion of those votes t committee is expected to reconvene. Well have live coverage on cspan 3. One of the items on the agenda with the committee was nomination of tony blanken to be the deputy secretary of state. John bennett tweeted out earlier today, Tony Blinkens nomination as deputy secretary of state was okayed by senators. Rubio and mccain will try to block the nomination on the senate floor. Now senator mccain recently said hes totally unqualified, quote. When asked why he was holding up lincolns nomination to be can deputy secretary of state, hes the guy we said are leaving behind the richest, safest iraq in history. Look it up, mccain said referring to blinkens comments two years ago on the decision to withdraw troops from iraq. Yesterday on the hill the House Foreign Affairs committee met to assess the terror group. Well show you as much as we can of that meeting we can while this committee is in recess. We will come to order. Ill ask the members and those in the audience to take their seats at this time. And this morning we welcome back ambassador mcguirk for an update on the critical effort to counter isis. And the ambassador was one of the few in the administration sounding the isis alarm early on. As you did with this committee. We were Holding Hearings last february speaking about this problem and the need to use airpower to turn back isis. After four months of the usair campaign, isis still controllings the territory it did in the summer. One of the reasons for this in my opinion is the limited nature of this effort. We have conducted only about 1,000 air strikes to date. To date. If you compare that to when Saddam Hussein invaded kuwait and the response on the part of the United States, back then we had a thousand sorties per day. So you get an idea in terms of the response and how minimal it is compared to what weve seen in the past to deter an entity like this. Moreover, the committee is concerned by reports that targeting has been micromanaged from the white house. This clearly has been an issue within the pentagon. But even with this flawed air campaign, kurdish and Iraqi Security forces have pushed isis out of specific key infrastructure areas such as mosul and the hadif action dams. Theyve done that without the maef equipment they need. Theyve done that at great loss, a shedding of a lot of their blood, and frankly more Coalition Air attacks would mean more isis defeats. Another part of the administration effort is to provide training and weapons to u. S. Partners on the ground and in syria. But when we look at that program in syria, u. S. Backed groups have seen no increase in support in the past several months. In fact, these syrian groups have suffered from dire ammunition shortages in the last several weeks. Weve had meetings with a representative recently. Theyre out of ammunition. In addition to not being supplied with the heavy weapons they need to fight isis and at the same time as theyre fighting isis, for example, on the border there, aleppo has isis on one side and 30, 40 air strikes a day, barrel bombs being dropped from the assad regime on their forces while theyre trying to fight isis. In iraq, the Kurdish Peshmerga remain the most effective fighting force against isis, but the administration and baghdad have refused thus far to supply them with anything more than Light Weapons as they go up against isis tanks and artillery. And of these and other heavy weapons. Tragic event a couple weeks ago when you had a small squadron of peshmerga try to take on ten tanks or ten armored personnel carriers, ten pieces of armor that were put into play by isis against them. They only had small arms, and an a consequence they called in for air strikes, but after 2 1 2 hours, they took quite a considerable time for those air strikes to come in, they had been wiped out on the ground. This is why we have heard from the foreign minister that the situation for the peshmerga with their need for armor and for artillery, for longrange mortars, for antitank missiles, that unmet need has had very real consequences for them. I am hopeful that the recent accord announced between baghdad and irbil, which i appreciate the administration has helped to engineer, will speed support for the kurds. If not, the Ranking Member and i have legislation to do just that. Although the Administration Notes that 60plus countries have joined the antiisis campaign, some key partners continue to per steve administrations strategy as misguided. You are the kui, for one, has withheld of its air base, involvements of its Ground Forces and other resources and the saudis ander other arabs dont see how allowing assad to pummel those from the ground from the air in alep po makes any sense. Instead, they push, of course, for a nofly area along the Kurdish Border where they suggest they and jordan can patrol that long term to keep from having the Free Syrian Forces hit from the air by assad at the very time theyre trying to fight against isis. Meanwhile, there are grave security consequences to allowing isis to control an area of this sitz of western iraq and eastern syria. Clerly as of september there were already over 15,000 foreign fighters within isis. And reportedly isis has been e recruiting 1,000 new fighters per month. This is the problem of not turning back isis, is that on social media they used the argument that theyre on the advance, theyre carrying out their jihad, and of course this resonates with certain young men who enlist in their cause. This is why we would argue that a more effective strategy that would roll them back would hurt their recruiting effort. And these fighters, particularly with western passports, have the potential to attack us at home. As members may remember when secretary kerry testified here in september, he said its time for the defensive strategy we and our International Partners have pursued thus far to transition to an offensive strategy. Ambassador mcguirk, with a lackluster air campaign, severely undersupplied partners on the ground, and key allies with deep concerns about the present strategy, i just dont see how, you know, this is a credible offense. And wed like to talk id like to ask you about that. And of course next congress this committee expects to consider a new authorization for use of military force to support this effort. And that is something we will do under a time frame that is befitting of the gravity of the issue. And the Committee Also expects that the commander in chief will come to congress with his request and work in a bipartisan way to garner maximum support. Before turning to the Ranking Member, id like to note that this is the last full Committee Hearing of the 113th congress, and we have accomplished a lot in the last two years for which i would like to recognize all the members for their contribution. And for those members who will not be return, we wish you well, and i was going to turn to mr. Engle at this time, whose long held observations on syria have proven prophetic. He has seen things as they really were on the ground frankly before many and suggested a strategy to engage isis before this committee some two years ago. While we it a for the Ranking Member, my suggestion would be we go, ambassador to your testimony, and if you conclude he will make his opening statement. Ambassador mcguirk. Involuntary manslaughter ambassador mcguirk, who recently served as deputy special envoy for isil, working alongside general howe. He currently served as the Deputy Assistant secretary for iraq and iran. He was previously Senior Adviser to the ambassador crocker, christopher hill, and james jeffry in baghdad. Without objection, the witness full prepared statement will be made part of the full record. Members will have five calendar days to submit statements and questions and extraneous material for the record. And ambassador, if you would please summarize your remarks. Thank you for being with us. Thank you, chairman, members of the committee. It is an honor to appear again before this committee to provide an update on the Global Campaign to degrade and defeat isil. Before discussing the state of the campaign and where were going, id like to reflect on how far we have come in the six months since the city of mosul in iraq fell. I was in Northern Iraq on june 10th, six months ago today, when mosul collapsed. Over the next 72 hours isil formations poured through the tigris valley, entire Army Divisions collapsed and isil threatened the northern approaches to baghdad. To the west, a lesser noted but equally devastating offensive took place from across the syrian board we are isil capture the strategic border city of al kind. Isil poured down the western valley. In baghdad during this period, just six months ago this week, there was a growing panic within the population, the gov