Departmenthe defense may underestimate the critical nature of the refugee crisis. This is not like iran, iraq, a war that went on for many years. This is impacting europe right now. It is a humanitarian crisis. It is being exploited by everyone else in the middle east that would like to come to europe. Europe is facing what one top diplomat told me was the greatest crisis since world war ii. I think weve got to think about get, these safe sounds, and busy these safe zones, and get busy on it. It may have to have some of our people at risk to try to protect those areas, but it wouldnt take a lot. You and i talked about it. Can we get moving on this . How many more millions have to lineup in areas before we act . Just morally, my judgment is that europe needs to know there is a place for these refugees to go other than to flee the entire region. That will strengthen them. Can we not do that . Quickly. Well, in sorter far as the refugees are coming from syria, they are actually coming to europe from several areas, but to the extent they are coming from syria, this is why it is so important that the Syrian Civil War be put to an end. Our approach to that is political, not military. We have not undertaken to achieve that goal militarily. Our approach is political. We hope that transition occurs and the civil war in syria ends. What if it takes three years . Oft we provide some sort area the actual people who are in danger secretary carter ill just repeat what i said. Im prepared to have shared with you the analysis weve done of safe zones, buffer zones, and nofly zones. We have looked at the advantages and costs of those, and the president has not taken them off the table, but we have not undertaken to create any of those zones at this time. I dont rule that out in the future. Im happy to discuss it with you in a different setting. Recognize senator ayotte. , i want to thank the chair also thank senator donnelly. Appreciate it. , want to ask secretary carter recently, the iranians have actually tested a longrange missile, in violation of existing u. N. Security council resolutions. This is something that ambassador powers has confirmed, and in fact if you look at what the iranians have done postagreement, not only have they tested this missile, but theyve wrongfully convicted a Washington Post reporter in iran. Weve had a lot of discussion about the cooperation between russia and iran undermining stability in syria and our interests there. In brought to my attention recently that the Supreme Leader of iran has said about the recent agreement that any imposition of sanctions at any level under any pretext of terrorism and human rights on the part of any country involved in negotiations will constitute a violation. So heres my question to both of. Ou primarily to you, secretary carter. What are we going to do about their violations of already existing u. N. Resolutions when it comes to testing Ballistic Missiles and longrange missiles . You testified before this committee. The i in icbm is intercontinental. Is violating resolutions with no response from us. Already, the Supreme Leader is basically saying, you impose sanctions on any reason, even terrorism or other human rights violations, we are going to walk away. That theirot agree violation of the missile resolution warrants a response from the United States, and what is that response going to the . At this point, i havent seen any response. Secretary carter i think that it needs to be very clear, certainly clear to us in the department of defense, that the conclusion of the nuclear deal with iran, assuming it gets addressted, does not all of our security concerns. Yes or no, should we respond to their testing of this missile that violates existing u. N. Resolutions . Secretary carter ill describe one response. , that is our continuing commitment to does the development of missile defenses. I understand that we are developing missile defenses, but what is our response when they behave badly already . Shouldnt there be a response from the United States of america . We had a panel of experts here and i asked each of them if we should respond. They all agreed, yes. Secretary carter in our area of responsibility, i would say let, senator ill ambassador power and secretary kerry address the diplomatic side of it, but in our area of , that does not end all of our security concerns with respect to iran. Notsecretary, ending ending, it seems like it is just the beginning, really. As we think about the unholy alliance between russia and iran undermining our interest in syria, as we think about the testing in our faces of longrange missiles, as we think about what the Supreme Leader has said, i would say that its really just beginning. I need to ask a question of you, general dunford. I had the privilege of recently, on friday, going to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and meeting with our men and women who serve there. They are doing an excellent job under difficult circumstances, as you know. One of the issues that was brought to my attention, and i know that you, one of your jobs having been a commander and serving in the highest position in our military, taking care of our men and women in uniform is so critical. Yet we have a situation down there where we met with women guards who are being prevented from fully performing their mission because the five 9 11 attackers who are charged with killing 3000 americans will not allow them to perform their duties because they are women. Can you tell me what you think about that . Do you think that is right . Senator, i feel the same way as the commander, commander kelly, who describes it as outrageous. I read his weekly report and have read it for about seven or eight weeks. Its outrageous. Hes identified it. As you probably know, that is being worked by lawyers. Im not using that as an excuse. Im just sharing with you, that is where its at right now. The commander has identified it. It is outrageous. It ought to be fixed. Id like to see the Administration Speak out against this. We talk about giving women more opportunity in combat, but this is an area where these women that we met with, that are serving there, they are not being able to perform the full responsibilities of their positions, simply because they are women, because 9 11 terrorists are manipulating the system to say that our women cannot guard them. Secretary carter, i hope you would agree with me that this is outrageous. I hope the administration would do everything in its power. Secretary carter i do. I associate myself with what the chairman said. This is pursuant to the action of a federal judge. I understand that. But i think it is counter to the way we Treat Service members, including Women Service members, and outrageous is a very good word for it. I appreciate both of you being here. Thank you. Secretary, general dunford, ive known both of you for many years. Ive appreciated very much your outstanding work. Im a great admirer of both of you. I appreciate your service. Isnt helpful it a our relations when theres widely spread story stating the name of the ship, where it went, and you come and tell us that you cant confirm or deny something that is out there in the media. Somebody has leaked all that information to the media, but you cant tell members of this committee who have the responsibility to exercise oversight. The second issue i want to mention is guantanamo. I understand the president has said on numerous occasions that one of his objections is guantanamo. Aidend the president s top came to my office and said you were going to give me a plan. Ive always favored closing guantanamo for a variety of reasons. Yet we still havent got a plan from you. Not only not a plan, until i asked you about it specifically, there was no communication. After coming to my office and saying you are going to give me that plan, and i said we needed it, we got nothing. Not an update, not a briefing on what was going on. So we put in language in president , and the voices his strong objection to guantanamo. Finally, this issue of whether we are protecting those people who we are asking to fight isis,t bashar assad and isnt it true that weve dropped munitions, general dunford, to a group of people who we are supporting in syria . General dunford it is true, senator. Theme we going to protect from russian air attack . General dunford senator, we have the authority. We have the capability and we have options. Is it true that the russians are already attacking them . The ones we dropped munitions to. General dunford the russians have not attacked the ones weve dropped munitions to. They have not . General dunford no, chairman. To make sure that you and i are speaking of the same group, the group im referring to is known as the syrian arab coalition. They operate in the northeast part of the country. We recently provided resupply to those individuals. And if they are attacked by the russians, you will defend them . General dunford we have the that. Lity to do i cant answer that question. They would be interested in knowing, i think. If we are going to give them equipment and ask them to fight, and we cant answer to them whether we are going to protect them or not, i think it is a degree of immorality. Secretary carter chairman, may i take a moment . First of all, i dont mean to be coy about the ships sailing and i know things are in the newspaper. It has nothing to do with this particular operation. There are all kinds of things in the newspaper that should not be in the newspaper. I dont like to talk about military operations publicly. You are entitled to be briefed on everything, but talking about things in a public setting what is classified about it . What is it that you wouldnt think in fact, i literally every member of this Committee Applauds it, so im not sure what the reason is why you wouldnt want to just state what has already been from somebody who works for you, the name of the ship, when it went out, but yet you wont tell us. That causes frustration, mr. Secretary. Secretary carter i dont mean to cause you frustration. I hope you understand our frustration. Butetary carter i do, maybe my hesitation is excessive, but i dont like to talk about military operations in public. Perhaps this one should be an exception. Let me go on to the other thing you said about gitmo. I too favor, like you, closing gitmo if at all possible. The detainees in gitmo are not, cannot be safely transferred to another location. In order to close gitmo, as you know, we would need to find a location in the United States in which they could continue to be detained. What has taken the time, chairman, is that we had to survey a number of sites. Weve done that at a number of sites around the country. Weve completed that. Some of those are department of defense sites. We needed to have them nominated by the justice department. And then to do the site surveys, all of that took some time. I expect you will get your proposal shortly. I would have appreciated an update. At theicism on this side capital is, to my view, somewhat justified. The law was broken when mr. Swapped for five people. The law required that the president of the United States notify congress, and he didnt do it. Frankly, theres a credibility got that is huge when the directnt act ins violation of the law and uses the excuse that there could be a leak. To me, that is not an excuse to violate the law. The cynicism here is immense. The president complains about the nda. To expect that the committee would act after the president violated the law and there is no not is something that is reasonable nor in keeping with our responsibilities. Could i say again, my respect, i appreciate the great work that both of you do. As i said, weve known each other a long time. You, thereso tell a certain amount of frustration here because of the lack of communication. Guantanamo is one. Another one is this policy or lack of policy about what people we train and equip and whether we defend them or not. The lack of strategy to say that we can take out syrian air defenses in order to establish a nofly zone is simply not true. Ill ask any military expert. Thats not true. You dont have to take out syrian air defenses. Syrians cant fly into our places. Weve had military members like general petraeus and general keane and others who have a very different view of the whole ,ssue of what were going to do which by doing nothing, has triggered a flood of millions of refugees, which is a problem we are going to be grappling with for many years to come. It didnt have to happen. I look forward to more conversations with you. I appreciate you coming to the community ittee. I appreciate your service. This meeting, im sure youll be happy to know, is adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] used on the israelipalestinian conflict and the Syrian Civil War. From the carting the endowment washington d. C. This is 45 minutes. Thank you all, very much. [applause]. Bill, thanks. Thanks so much for welcoming me to your new home. I very touched to hear the comments from bills caliber because as you know, he really was the state department premier career diplomat. Now that you have been away almost a year i know you are missing all of the travel, the Early Morning meetings, the latenight calls, and you are just dying to return, right . But all kidding aside, ladies and gentlemen, the door to the state department for bill burns is always open. From pres. Obama to the entire security team, to me, to the secretary of state there is no better diplomat, no one who could be better led by then the Carnegie Foundation of peace then by bill burns. Please join me everybody for same thank you for a remarkable career for this man. [applause]. Now, if i have behave myself, which is never for certain i am going to try to restrain my voice, not be as passionate as i want to be about every word i am muttering today. I am trying to save a little case of laryngitis and make sure i do not exasperate it. I leave tonight to be enough for two days of important meetings that i want to make sure i can actually talk during those meetings. I appreciate the chance to speak today, to you. An audience of experts and students who are on their way to being experts, but all of you who spend a lot of time thinking about some very serious issues. The truth is, for generations carnegie has been training the foreignpolicy leaders of the future and generating, at the same time Real Time Solutions for those of us who are practicing at that time. It is an understatement to say today that we are facing a very different worlds. A world of remarkable complexity all of you have probably read Henry Kissinger and diplomacy, and countless other books, as i have an henry would be the first to tell you, ive had the privilege of having lunch with him during the United Nation meetings, he never had it coming at him with a number of different places in crisis and in a world that is as multipolar as it is now. A bipolar cold war with the former soviet union and the United States and west was pretty clear about what choices were in many ways. It did not mean they were not tense or difficult and there were not some proxy wars avenue we have seen in vietnam and elsewhere, but it truly was not see what we see today which is a world of violence which is not state on state. With a few exceptions, it is non state actors who are confounding states and the global order. That presents very different challenges. So, i can tell you that despite the complexity, that i am certain of this, the United States of america is more deeply engaged today in more places, on more important issues, with impact, then at any time before in our history. I could document, i am not going to run around the whole world, i, i could start with north korea, south china sea, and then afghanistan, pakistan, india, and roll around the world, i am not going to do that. I want to focus on one particular and particularly important area of the globe today, that is the middle east. I am not even going to go into all the aspects of it. Twenty years ago, next week after attending a peace rally israeli Prime Minister was murdered by an extremist who claim to be doing gods will. At the funeral, king hussein of jordan, the one time enemy turned partner in peace. Declare, i quote let us not keep silent, let our voices rise high enough to speak of our commitment to peace for all times, and and let us tell those who live in darkness, who are the enemies of life and truth faith that this is where we stand, this is our camp. At the same ceremony rob means granddaughter, a teenager said that quote others a greater than i have already eulogized you but they never had the pleasure to feel the caresses of your warm, soft hands, to merit your warm embrace, to see, to see your half smile that always told me so much, that same smile which is no longer frozen in the grave with you. These quotations remind us that beyond all of the cold statistics, beyond the headlines of the daily newspapers, beyond the clapping, talking heads on one show or another, and each early, perpetual talkshow circuits, the impact of violence in the middle east, there is humanity. There is a humanity of people just like us who youre simply to help one another and to share affection for one generation to the next. Beyond all of the complexities of the region, there is also something very basic going on, a struggle between people who are intent of opening wounds or leaving them open and those who want to close them and who want to heal and build a future this is the glue that holds the components of our strategy together. We do have a strategy. Whether we are backing an electoral process electoral process in tunisia, mobilizing a coalition against terrorist, trying to halt a sudden outbreak of violence, as i was last last weekend with respect to the temple, or striving to put in place new foundation for prosperity and stability. Our goal is to help ensure that builders and healers throughout the region have the chance they need to accomplish their tasks. Now, ive ive heard some americans wonder aloud, why should we care about the middle east . After all, we are on the verge of independence so why not just walk away. The answer is it would be directly and prof