Part 2 of Senator Thompson's report on challenges facing the new administration:
MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES FACING THE NEW
ADMINISTRATION
PART 2: FEDERAL WORKFORCE CHALLENGES
OVERVIEW AND SUMMARY
This is one in a series of transition reports that describes core capacity problems facing the Federal Government, discusses their nature and root causes, and proposes ways of solving them. The reports are intended to stimulate action on the part of the incoming Administration and Congress, and to provide them a framework for this important task. This report deals with Federal workforce challenges. Other reports address financial management and the need for results-oriented governance at the Federal level.
The Federal Government’s workforce problems have received little attention, although many experts recognize that they are reaching an increasingly critical stage. Most agencies face serious challenges in hiring, retaining, developing, and motivating a workforce with the right skills to achieve their mission results. These problems have been exacerbated in recent years by random ‘‘downsizing’’ that reduced agency staffs without regard to the skills, experience, and performance of departing employees in relation to agency missions. Typically, downsizing was accomplished by ‘‘buyouts’’ and early retirement offers to experienced employees— thereby causing significant ‘‘brain drain.’’ There is mounting evidence that workforce deficiencies at agencies limit their capacity to serve the public and make them more vulnerable to fraud, waste, and mismanagement.
The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs is responsible for overseeing the government-wide application of the Federal merit system and human resources policies. The current civil service system, a product of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, was created in large part to further standardize some human resource requirements and incorporate into law the merit system principles of fairness, equity, and earned achievement in public employment.
There is broad consensus that this system lacks the flexibility necessary to meet today’s workforce needs. Such flexibility would enable individual workers and their agencies to focus less on conforming to centralized human resource requirements and more on developing human resource policies and practices that support their own mission-related needs.
One expert observed that the current system ‘‘underwhelms at almost every task it undertakes . . . It is slow in the hiring, almost useless in the firing, overly permissive in the promoting, [and] out of touch with actual performance in the rewarding . . .’’ 1 Agencies also suffer from inefficient and wasteful organizational structures with bloated hierarchies and excessive layers of management. Even more fundamentally, the basic civil service model—built around a 30-year career from entry level to retirement with virtually guaranteed job security—does not fit a contemporary workforce that favors greater mobility and has different motivations than in the past.
Strategic workforce planning is essential to the success of private sector organizations. They realize the importance of having employees with the right skills and abilities to accomplish their missions.
However, Federal workforce issues have been neglected for years. The Comptroller General describes workforce management as the ‘‘missing link’’ in efforts to improve the Federal Government’s performance and accountability. The Administration, especially the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is only now acknowledging the seriousness of the government’s workforce problems. Furthermore, the agency charged with administering the Federal Government’s personnel laws, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), has lacked the requisite leadership from the Administration to address successfully these problems. Most agencies are far behind the curve in addressing these problems. Therefore, the problems require immediate attention and concerted action. The following are a few recommendations to begin to address these problems:
· The Administration must provide much greater leadership in addressing critical workforce problems. In particular, it needs to develop specific remedial plans for which they and the agencies can be held accountable. With this greater leadership, the Administration would encourage OMB and OPM to move away from the status quo and consider personnel reforms in an open and objective way. It is obvious to all that the current system is broken. OPM should become a partner in developing solutions.
· Agencies need to undertake comprehensive workforce planning to: (1) determine their workforce needs in relation to their current functions; (2) assess how their existing workforce compares to their needs; and (3) develop strategies to bridge the gaps between the workforce they need and the one they have.
· In accordance with OMB guidance, agencies should establish Results Act performance goals and measures to address their most serious workforce problems and thereby assume accountability for solving them. Agencies should start with problems that lend themselves to immediate action such as improving recruitment practices and linking employee performance appraisals to performance results. (See below.)
· OPM should ensure that agencies’ program managers fully understand and use the many personnel flexibilities that are now available to them under current laws and regulations. As noted above, OPM also should help develop changes to current laws and regulations to ensure that agencies can effectively obtain and manage the workforces they need to achieve their mission results.
· Agencies should directly link performance assessments and rewards for agency managers to the agency’s performance results. Steps should be taken as well to ensure that all agency employees are accountable for their performance and are rewarded based on their performance.
· Agencies should take immediate action to reduce recruiting and hiring delays and provide better feedback to job applicants. The foregoing recommendations are just a start toward resolving the Federal Government’s critical workforce problems. Additional recommendations are sure to emerge if these long neglected problems get the attention they clearly require.
THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE CRISIS
No longer a ‘‘quiet crisis.’’ For some time now, experts have referred to a ‘‘quiet crisis’’ in the Federal public service. Clearly, the workforce problems confronting the Federal Government have reached an even more critical stage in recent years. A workforce capable of conducting the Federal Government’s business is crucial to the effective implementation of government policies. One leading expert, Paul C. Light of The Brookings Institution, observed: Ultimately, effective governance is impossible if government cannot attract talented citizens to serve at all levels of the hierarchy. As Alexander Hamilton warned 200 years ago in The Federalist Papers, ‘‘a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be in practice a bad government.’’ Citizens cannot have confidence in the integrity of the democratic process if their leaders cannot honor the promises they make, but those leaders cannot honor the promises they make if government cannot attract the talent necessary to both draft and execute the laws. 2
Paul Light paints a bleak picture of a current Federal personnel system ‘‘that underwhelms at almost every task it undertakes.’’
Specifically:
It is slow in the hiring, almost useless in the firing, overly permissive in the promoting, out of touch with actual performance in the rewarding, penurious in the training, and utterly absent in the management of a vast and hidden workforce of contractors and consultants who work side by side, desk by desk with the civil service. 3
The impact of non-strategic ‘‘downsizing.’’ The staffs of many Federal agencies suffer from imbalances in skills and experience as well as structural problems. The spate of ‘‘downsizing’’ during the 1990’s substantially reduced the number of regular, full-time Federal employees. Whether this downsizing really made the Federal Government much smaller is doubtful. According to Paul Light, the ‘‘era of big government’’ is still very much with us. 4 It clearly did not make the government smarter. The downsizing was accomplished indiscriminately through attrition, early retirements, and ‘‘buyouts’’ that resulted in random, across-the-board staff reductions.
Little or no consideration was given to the relative impact of the jobs eliminated—or the skills, experience, or performance of departing employees—on accomplishing agency missions. There is no evidence that this downsizing improved the efficiency or effectiveness of the Federal Government. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that the non-strategic way in which downsizing was accomplished actually detracted from the capacity of agencies to carry out essential functions and made them more vulnerable to fraud, waste, and mismanagement.
The General Accounting Office (GAO) found that lack of strategic planning during the initial phases of downsizing threatened the ability of some agencies to achieve their missions. The Comptroller General recently testified that ‘‘it is by no means clear that the current workforce is adequately balanced to properly execute agencies’ missions today, nor that adequate plans are in place to ensure the appropriate balance in the future.’’ 5 His testimony illustrates the perverse consequences of non-strategic downsizing. Agencies hoped to offset the loss of skilled employees by greater reliance on information technology (IT). However, due to staff reductions, they lack the skilled employees needed to take advantage of technology, and they are at a competitive disadvantage in hiring IT professionals.
They also appear to lack the necessary in-house expertise to oversee IT work that they have outsourced to contractors. 6
A top-heavy Federal workforce. Downsizing also has distorted the shape of the Federal workforce, making it more top heavy and less efficient. Not surprisingly, the greatest impact of downsizing occurred at the lowest levels of government. As Paul Light puts it, ‘‘The Federal Government eliminated primarily the jobs that were the easiest to cut, meaning the ones with the highest attrition and the lowest political profile.’’ 7 While middle management levels ostensibly were reduced, this often amounted to nothing more than changing titles. Thus, in reality, the number of political appointees, senior executives, and middle managers remained steady while layers of hierarchy actually expanded.
This effect is apparent in the title glut of recent years. From 1993 to 1998, a number of new senior level positions were established with such titles as ‘‘deputy to the deputy secretary,’’ ‘‘principal assistant deputy under secretary,’’ and ‘‘associate principal deputy assistant secretary.’’ 8 While contributing to greater layering and diffused accountability, high numbers of political appointees also are expensive. According to the Congressional Budget Office, capping the number of political appointees at 2,000 would save the taxpayers about $900 million in salary costs over 10 years. 9
HOW WORKFORCE PROBLEMS IMPEDE AGENCY MISSIONS
The Comptroller General regards workforce (or what he refers to as ‘‘human capital’’) problems as an impending crisis for the Federal Government. He has labeled human capital management as the ‘‘missing link’’ in efforts to improve the Federal Government’s performance and accountability. 10 He adds that human capital management is likely to emerge as a new government-wide problem area when GAO updates its ‘‘high-risk list’’ of Federal program activities most vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement:
[T]he widespread lack of attention to strategic human capital management may be creating a fundamental weakness in Federal management, possibly even putting at risk the Federal Government’s ability to efficiently, economically, and effectively deliver products and services to the taxpayers in the future. These shortcomings in the Federal
Government’s human capital management systems could well earn them GAO’s high-risk designation when the next High Risk Series is issued in 2001. 11
Likewise, Inspectors General (IGs) at nine major Federal agencies have listed workforce problems as one of the top 10 most serious management challenges that their agencies face. 12 Staffing problems underlie many other IG-identified top 10 management challenges at a number of major agencies, such as the lack of expertise to effectively oversee Federal contracts and grants and to provide effective service to the public.
GAO and IG reports are replete with specific examples of how staffing problems adversely affect the ability of Federal agencies to accomplish their missions.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). ‘‘An insufficient mix of staff with the proper skills’’ was a key factor causing GAO to designate HUD programs across the board as high risk. 13 Along the same lines, the HUD IG recently testified: The adequacy of staff resources in the Department has long been a concern of the OIG and a root cause of many of HUD’s material weaknesses. Our audits have consistently found a mismatch between the number and complexity of HUD’s programs and the capability of HUD staff to administer those programs. 14
These longstanding workforce problems were exacerbated by random downsizing at HUD, as well as more recent staffing upheavals brought on by the Department’s ‘‘community builders’’ initiative. Despite the apparent lack of staff capacity to effectively carry out its existing programs, HUD consistently seeks to add more programs to the workload of its already beleaguered staff.
Social Security Administration (SSA). The IG at SSA has noted that the combined effect of staff downsizing and hiring restrictions, on the one hand, and the increasing volume and complexity of caseloads on the other, threatens SSA’s ability to provide quality service to the public:
The quality of service SSA provides to its customers continues to be a challenge facing the Agency. . . . The [Social Security Advisory] Board expressed concern about the effect of personnel downsizing and hiring restrictions on SSA’s service delivery mechanism. Such constraints limit the Agency’s ability to strengthen and revitalize employee ranks by bringing in new employees with new skills. This condition exists at the same time that caseloads continue to grow in volume and complexity. . . . The effects of low staffing levels for the customer include: delays in scheduling appointments; crowded reception areas; long waiting times; and inadequate telephone service. At the same time, the Agency is affected by attrition, high turnover, and increased backlogs of pending actions. 15 SSA’s Performance Report for Fiscal Year 1999 confirms that it is falling short of many of its customer service performance goals.
Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Experts maintain that the combined effect of increasing applications and inexperienced staff at the Commerce Department’s PTO has resulted in undeserving patents slipping through. This, in turn, poses a critical threat to an economy that runs on intellectual property. One expert was quoted as saying, ‘‘Patent quality in this country is a joke. It’s getting worse.’’ 16
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Last year, NASA lost all four of its spacecraft bound for Mars. This cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and brought the entire Mars program to a halt. These problems did not stem from the risks inherent in space exploration. Instead, they resulted from simple negligence resulting in part from inexperienced staff and inadequate oversight of contractors. Likewise, GAO reports that an insufficient staff with the proper qualifications poses threats to the performance and safety of NASA’s space shuttle program. 17
THE NEED FOR FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES IN WORKFORCE
MANAGEMENT
Rethinking current systems. Solutions to our workforce problems will not come easily. For one thing, the Federal Government faces daunting recruiting challenges both at professional and leadership levels. In this regard, Paul Light observes: Sad to say, when young Americans are asked to picture themselves in public service careers, particularly at the Federal level, they picture themselves in deadend jobs where seniority, not performance, rules. And when more seasoned Americans are asked to picture themselves in appointive office, they picture themselves in a nomination and confirmation process characterized by endless inspection, over-disclosure, and delays at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. 18
Clearly, the basic assumptions underlying the current civil service system no longer hold true today. In particular, we need to rethink our current civil service paradigm of a large and permanent Federal bureaucracy composed of cradle-to-grave careerists.
We need to develop a new paradigm to fit a contemporary National workforce that features much greater mobility and very different motivations than in the past. In this regard, Paul Light states: Designed to sustain 30-year careers with one way in at the entry level and one way out at retirement, the government- centered public service is increasingly unattractive to a workforce that will change jobs and sectors frequently, and to workers who are much more focused on challenging work than security. Gone are the days when talented employees would endure hiring delays and a mind-numbing application process to get an entry-level government job. Gone, too, are the days when talented employees would accept slow but steady advancement through towering government bureaucracies in exchange for a 30-year commitment.
In the midst of a growing labor shortage, government is becoming an employer of last resort, one that caters more to the security-craver than the risk-taker. 19
Comptroller General Walker also emphasizes the need to rethink our current approach to the Federal workforce in light of changing conditions:
Changes in the demographics of the Federal workforce, in the education and skills required of its workers, and in basic Federal employment structures and arrangements are all continuing to unfold. The Federal workforce is aging; the baby boomers, with their valuable skills and experience, are drawing nearer to retirement; new employees joining the Federal workforce today have different expectations from the generation that preceded them. In response to an increasingly competitive job market, Federal agencies will need the tools and flexibilities to attract, hire, and retain top-flight talent. . . . Agencies’ employment structures and working arrangements will also be changing, and the workplace will need to accommodate a greater mix of full-time, part-time, and temporary workers; more contracting-out; less job security; and the possibility of additional government downsizing and realignments. 20
Improving the basics. It will be difficult to overcome some of the challenges the Federal Government faces in attracting the kind of workforce it needs. The government does not do a good job even in areas that are readily within its control. A recent survey of new hires by the Federal Government’s own Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) identified basic problems in the recruiting process.
For example, respondents reported that the time between submission of an application and being scheduled for an interview was unreasonably long, as was the time between being told they had a job and being able to report for work. The respondents also complained of not receiving timely feedback, or receiving no feedback at all, on the status of their applications. Finally, they did not receive the quality of service they expected from Federal hiring personnel.
Among other things, the MSPB recommended that agencies expedite their hiring processes and improve service to applicants. 21
THE PRIVATE SECTOR CONTRAST
Approaches to workforce management represent a stark contrast between the private sector and the Federal Government. The Federal Government has devoted little attention to workforce planning.
As discussed previously, this lack of attention was most pronounced in the recent downsizing. Downsizing was nothing but a numbers game. Agencies simply reduced in-house staffing without reducing or streamlining any of their functions. By contrast, private sector firms take a strategic approach to workforce issues.
They analyze which of their functions are important and effective, and which are not. They concentrate on improving the important things that they do. With regard to staffing, successful private sector organizations give very high priority to analyzing their workforce needs and ensuring that they are met. These firms systematically identify the skills and characteristics that their leaders and employees need to get the job done and make the investments needed to hire, develop, and retain a workforce that embodies and can sustain these competencies.
In 1999, GAO surveyed private sector firms that are regarded as leaders in workforce or ‘‘human capital’’ management in order to identify common principles that underlay their success. GAO identified 10 such common principles in all, which included the following:
· Treat human capital management as being fundamental to strategic business management. Integrate human capital considerations when identifying the mission, strategic goals, and core values of the organization as well as when designing and implementing operational policies and practices.
· Hire, develop, and sustain leaders according to leadership characteristics identified as essential to achieving specific missions and goals. Identify the leadership traits needed to achieve high performance of mission and goals. Build and sustain the organization’s pool of leaders through recruiting, hiring, development, retention, and succession policies and practices targeted at producing leaders with the identified characteristics.
· Hire, develop, and retain employees according to competencies. Identify the competencies—knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors—needed to achieve high performance of mission and goals, and build and sustain the organization’s talent pool through recruiting, hiring, development, and retention policies and practices targeted at building and sustaining those competencies.
· Use performance management systems, including pay and other meaningful incentives, to link performance to results. Provide incentives and hold employees accountable for contributing to the achievement of mission and goals. Reward those employees who meet or exceed clearly defined and transparent standards of high performance.
· Measure the effectiveness of human capital policies and practices.
Evaluate and make fact-based decisions on whether human capital policies and practices support high performance of mission and goals. Identify the performance return on human capital investments. 22
LACK OF LEADERSHIP ON WORKFORCE PLANNING
Unfortunately, the Executive Branch has paid scant attention to Federal workforce issues. There are some indications that its central management agencies—OMB and OPM—are beginning to take the Federal Government’s workforce crisis seriously. However, they are coming to these problems quite late and, as a result, most agencies remain far behind the curve.
For the past 3 fiscal years, OMB has included a set of so-called ‘‘Priority Management Objectives’’ (PMOs) as part of the Government-wide Performance Plan under the Government Performance and Results Act (‘‘Results Act’’). The PMOs are designed to capture the Federal Government’s ‘‘biggest management challenges.’’ Although the PMOs for FY 1999 and 2000 made no mention of Federal workforce problems, the FY 2001 version includes a PMO entitled, ‘‘Align Federal human resources to support agency goals.’’ 23 It states that OPM will:
· design a ‘‘prototype workforce planning model’’ to help agencies strategically assess their human resources needs;
· ‘‘work with’’ agencies on labor-management initiatives to ‘‘empower’’ managers and employees to improve customer service and get mission results;
· encourage agencies to make better use of existing personnel flexibilities and submit any necessary legislative proposals.
In addition, OMB’s guidance for agency Annual Performance Plans under the Results Act for FY 2001 specifically addresses workforce issues for the first time. It states:
The annual plan should include a performance goal(s) covering major human resources strategies, such as recruitment, retention, skill development and training, and appraisals linked to program performance, that help support the agency’s programs. 24
This new emphasis on workforce problems is encouraging. However, given the lack of emphasis in the past, most agencies have yet to address these problems. GAO has found that strategic workforce management was ‘‘notably absent’’ from agency Annual Performance Plans submitted under the Results Act. 25 Thus, there is much ground to make up.
The lack of foresight and leadership on the part of the Administration is particularly striking. Indeed, one publication recently editorialized on OPM’s late entry into Federal workforce problems: The Office of Personnel Management has watched for years as the effects of downsizing and aging on the Federal workforce have reached crisis proportions. Now it comes out with a strategic plan to help agencies improve retention, hiring, training and other human-resource issues. In short, the OPM plan is too late . . . OPM should be leading the effort to address nagging human-resource issues well before the crisis stage. Unfortunately, it took until this year for the Administration to acknowledge that human resources is a government-wide management priority. . . What would have been far more useful for the next Administration and Congress when they take office in January is not a list of ideas to solve problems, but a list of problems that have been solved. 26
Based on reviews of OPM’s past Results Act plans and reports, GAO found that OPM has made little progress toward the following key outcomes:
· The Federal Government has an appropriately constituted workforce with the proper skills to carry out its missions.
· Federal employees are evaluated, rewarded, and otherwise held accountable for their performance. 27
According to the GAO report, ‘‘OPM officials said that fundamental changes to the performance management framework were not deemed necessary.’’ 28 OPM has displayed resistance to change in the status quo. Its reaction to legislative reforms the Comptroller General proposed for GAO’s own workforce is a case in point. GAO faces essentially the same workforce challenges as most other agencies. To its credit, GAO is actively attempting to resolve them. However, in a letter to Congress, OPM Director Lachance stated that the personnel reforms GAO sought, which the Comptroller General deemed essential to restructuring his workforce,‘‘ would be inconsistent with the Administration’s policies for the Executive Branch.’’ She added, ‘‘If Congress chooses to allow these changes for GAO, it must be clear in the legislative history that it has done so without precedence for the Executive Branch.’’ 29
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?
The incoming Administration will have to give much higher priority to addressing the Federal Government’s workforce crisis if it is to effectively execute its agenda and provide our citizens the essential services they need. The new Administration should start by charging OPM and OMB with developing new approaches that fit contemporary workforce trends as well as the needs of the Federal Government of the 21st Century.
This will require both long-term and short-term strategies. Over the long term, there is a clear need to reconsider what the Federal Government should do and how best to do it. As past problems with downsizing demonstrate, it makes no sense to restructure the Federal workforce without restructuring what the workforce needs to do. Only after current Federal operations and structures themselves have been redesigned and rationalized can the government’s workforce be redesigned in a meaningful way. This is the difference between random ‘‘downsizing’’ and strategic ‘‘rightsizing.’’ At the same time, the Federal Government needs to develop near-term approaches that can at least ameliorate the current crisis in Federal workforce management. The following recommendations cover some actions that need to be started immediately.
Greater leadership on critical workforce problems. OMB and OPM have acknowledged the seriousness of the Federal Government’s workforce problems. Now, the White House, OMB, and OPM, need to demonstrate strong executive leadership by putting forward specific proposals to address these problems. For example, OMB should develop more results-oriented goals to address workforce problems in the Government-wide Performance Plan. It also needs to include specific performance targets and measures to accompany those goals. For its part, OPM needs to be more open-minded and objective when it comes to changes in current personnel requirements.
There is overwhelming sentiment that Federal personnel systems are fundamentally broken. They clearly don’t enable agencies to align their workforces with their missions and to hold employees accountable for their performance. Yet, as illustrated by its reaction to GAO’s proposals, OPM seems to be reflexively hostile to even modest reforms.
Workforce planning. As discussed previously, many agencies face serious staff deficits and imbalances in terms of having the work- force they need to perform their current missions efficiently and effectively.
An initial means of addressing this problem is for agencies to undertake comprehensive workforce planning. Specifically, agencies should: (1) determine their workforce needs (number of employees, skill, experience levels, etc.) in relation to their current functions; (2) assess how their existing workforce compares to their needs; and (3) develop strategies to bridge the gaps between the workforce they have and the workforce they need. These strategies should encompass hiring, training, reorganizing, and ‘‘rightsizing’’ as appropriate. OPM is in the early stages of developing an automated program that will assist agencies in some aspects of evaluating their workforces. However, OPM will have to do much more to produce a useful and comprehensive workforce planning model that agencies need.
Performance goals to address workforce problems. In accordance with OMB guidance, agencies should establish Results Act performance goals and measures to address their most serious workforce challenges and to ensure accountability. Comprehensive performance goals and strategies probably need to await completion of the workforce planning referred to above. However, agencies can start with those areas that lend themselves to immediate action such as improving their recruitment practices and linking employee performance appraisals to performance results. (See below.)
Personnel flexibilities. OPM must ensure that agencies are aware of, and fully understand how to use, those personnel flexibilities that are now available to them by law and current regulations.
Given the complex and arcane nature of personnel requirements, it is clear that many agencies lack this understanding now. As stated above, OPM also needs to objectively consider and assist in developing changes to current personnel laws, rules, and practices to enable agencies to effectively develop, align, and manage their workforces so as to accomplish their mission results. The question is not whether fundamental changes are needed, but what they should be. Any increase in flexibility must be linked to accountability, as well as adherence to the merit system principles.
Linking performance to results. Accountability for performance results will become a reality for Federal employees when it is directly linked to their individual performance assessments and rewards.
Some agencies have already started doing this for senior managers. OPM recently issued regulations requiring such a linkage for Senior Executive Service staff. Obviously, it is more difficult to link agency performance results to the individual performance of non-managerial employees. However, much can be done to enhance performance accountability on the part of all employees.
Improving recruiting practices. The Federal Government faces many serious recruitment and retention challenges, some of which it has limited ability to influence. However, as recent reports and a host of anecdotes indicate, the government brings some recruitment problems on itself that are entirely within its control and easily remedied. For example, the MSPB report suggests that the government could improve its recruiting chances significantly by reducing inordinate delays in hiring decisions and simply treating applicants with common courtesy.
The foregoing recommendations are by no means exhaustive.
Now that the Federal Government’s workforce problems are finally getting attention, more solutions are sure to emerge. However, the above recommendations are intended to initiate discussion by all interested parties in improving the way the government works.
ENDNOTES
1. Paul C. Light, The New Public Service (The Brookings Institution, 1999).
2. Id. p. 2.
3. Id.
4. Another recent book by Paul C. Light, The True Size of Government (The
Brookings Institution, 1999), puts the results of downsizing into perspective. He
points out that most of the Federal employee reductions were defense-related and
were attributable primarily to the end of the Cold War. He also notes that a substantial
but unknown number of former Federal jobs migrated to a ‘‘shadow’’ Federal
workforce made up of contractors, other private sector employees, and State
and local government employees who are engaged, directly or indirectly, in carrying
out Federal mandates.
5. Human Capital: Managing Human Capital in the 21st Century, GAO/T–GGD–
00–77 (March 9, 2000), p. 5.
6. Id. pp. 4–5.
7. Paul C. Light, The New Public Service, note 1, p. 8.
8. Id. p. 10.
9. Congressional Budget Office, Budget Options (March 2000), p. 279.
10. Id. p. 1.
11. Id. p. 5.
12. These agencies are: EPA, GSA, HUD, Justice, NASA, NSF, OPM, SSA, and
USAID.
13. See Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of Housing
and Urban Development, GAO/OCG–99–8 (January 1999), pp. 7–8.
14. See Statement of Susan Gaffney before the Subcommittee on Housing and
Transportation of the Senate Banking Committee on Management and Performance
Issues Facing HUD (September 26, 2000), p. 3.
15. Letter dated December 7, 1999, to Chairman Thompson from SSA IG James
G. Huse, p. 8.
16. Surge in Ideas, Turnover Swamps Patent Office, USA Today (September 11,
2000). The head of the Patent Office dismissed these concerns, stating: ‘‘We’re not
overwhelmed . . . We’re doing a great job.’’ However, the agency’s Performance Report
confirms that there is a problem. The agency fell short of its goal for cycle time
of inventions processed, and stated that achieving the goal in the future ‘‘remains
a challenge.’’ The agency pointed to the need for hiring to meet increased workloads.
Annual Program Performance Report of the Department of Commerce, FY 1999, pp.
99–100.
17. Space Shuttle: Human Capital and Safety Upgrade Challenges Require Continued
Attention, GAO/NSIAD/GGD–00–186 (August 2000).
18. Paul C. Light, The New Public Service, note 1, p. 2.
19. Id. p. 1.
20. Human Capital: Managing Human Capital in the 21st Century, note 4, p. 2.
21. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, Competing for Federal Jobs: Job Search
Experiences of New Hires (February 2000), pp. vii–viii. The full report can be found
at www.mspb.gov/studies/studies.html.
22. Human Capital: A Self-Assessment Checklist for Agency Leaders, GAO/OCG–
00–14G (September 2000), pp. 29–31.
23. See Budget of the U.S. Government for Fiscal Year 2001, p. 298.
24. OMB Circular No. A–11, Part 2, § 220.9(d) (2000).
25. Id. p. 11.
26. OPM Plan: Too Little, Too Late, Federal Times (October 30, 2000), p. 16.
27. Observations on the Office of Personnel Management’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance
Report and Fiscal Year 2001 Performance Plan, GAO/GGD–00–156 (June
2000), pp. 3–4.
28. Id., p. 4.
29. Letters dated June 21, 2000, from OPM Director Janice R. Lachance to Representatives
Steny Hoyer and Henry Waxman.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_cong_senate_print&docid=f:67613.pdf
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Who are We Selling Ourselves to?
This is a rather interesting article I found today from the Long Island Press. Is this who your candidate is supporting?
http://www.longislandpress.com/?cp=40&show=article&a_id=11744YouFool
Candidates Gone Wild
Essay By Robbie Woliver, News Story By Michael M. Martino Jr. 04/26/2007 10:59 am
Essay By Robbie Woliver
John McCain approves of sexy Nazi girls? John Edwards supports Satanists? Mitt Romney endorses casual sex? Well, if you’re a visitor to YouTube, that’s what these presidential candidates’ ads might be unintentionally leading you to believe.
John Edwards is all about new technology. The Democratic senator from South Carolina announced his candidacy for the presidency in a YouTube video filmed in New Orleans’ storm-ravaged Ninth Ward. He has utilized the expertise of people like Jed Alpert, CEO of Rights Group/Mobile Commons, who specialize in targeting mobile phones with text messages. (Hey, it worked when Alpert did it for Britney Spears—why not for the next president of the United States?) Edwards has also joined millions of potential 20- and 30-something voters—along with millions of teenage girls across America—by setting up his own MySpace account: johnedwards, fan of Bruce Springsteen, The Shawshank Redemption, running, reading and writing. Ew. Not 2 kewl.
And now, as part of YouTube YouChoose Spotlight ’08, Romney, McCain and Edwards offer their smiling faces, beaming right above such video titles as "Uncle Adolph and the Sexi Nazi Girls," "How to Get Laid at an Anti-Abortion Rally" and "N**gers, Nappy-Headed Hos & Booty Shaking," along with other headlines and videos touting everything from Satan worshipping to smoking crack to joining the KKK.
Any sensible person will know that Edwards and the other candidates don’t actually support—at least publicly—farting in public, anal bleaching and beating up bums for the camera. So why are these Oval Office hopefuls gracing these pages at all? How did these astute presidential candidates—who are trying to convince the American people that they have the smarts to run the country—allow this to happen? Simple: stupid campaigning.
Edwards was probably thrilled when he gave the final sign-off on the Spotlight ’08 campaign. After all, he was in good company—the GOP’s Romney was the candidate the week prior to Edwards (then imagine the gasps from the conservative Republican’s fellow Mormons who saw his banner crowning the "Polygamy and Me" preview page). Fellow candidates Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Chris Dodd, Rep. Duncan Hunter, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Rep. Ron Paul, and Gov. Bill Richardson are all signed up to be spotlighted for one week each. McCain’s ads started appearing around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25.
If the rest of the candidates go through with this, here is what we can expect: Giuliani heading the "Dedication to the Catholic Church by NAMBLA" page (NAMBLA is the North American Man-Boy Love Association); Hillary grinning atop the "Hillary Clinton vs. Monica Lewinsky Celebrity Deathmatch" page; and even Obama overseeing "Be a Man and Join the Ku Klux Klan" page. Imagine how viral those pages could get. It could—no, will—happen if they continue with the YouTube’08 campaign, unless these campaigns get their act together and pay attention to the details and understand the environment they have chosen to reach these voters.
So from his YouTube and MySpace profiles, we learn that Edwards loves classic rock, some sports and Morgan Freeman movies. He has 23,851 friends, including I’M 4-EVER HIS and Mr. Blonde (a reference to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs). But most importantly, we learn that Edwards, Romney and the others who signed on to this youth-driven awareness campaign know very little about the contemporary media that they seem so interested in embracing.
Besides the embarrassment of the implied endorsement of the various activities captured on the YouTube videos and their glaring and oft-salacious headlines, all displayed under a proud, dominant all-American campaign banner, the reality that these guys are treading in unfamiliar waters is exposed, demonstrating their inexperience more than their genuine skills as members of the technorati. LOL.
Are Candidates Out Of Touch With Campaigning 2.0?News Story By Michael M. Martino Jr.
There is no question that the Internet will play a bigger role in the 2008 presidential election than it has in any prior election. Some of the most popular sites on the Web have jumped into the fray. On April 12, YouTube announced the kick-off of its "YouChoose’08" campaign, designed to feature every 2008 presidential candidate on virtually every page of video on the site. Maybe the candidates and the people at YouTube were a little too hasty.
An investigation by the Long Island Press has found that the links to the week’s featured candidate’s YouTube channel are visible on page after page of YouTube videos, no matter the title or subject matter of the videos uploaded to the site, making it appear to the viewer that the page is wholly sponsored by the candidate. For example, the banner ad of this week’s featured candidate John Edwards is placed about an inch above such videos as "Black Girls Gone Wild" and "Crazy Asian Porn."
Despite the implications, some candidates have decided not to pull the plug. In a case of very bad timing, Arizona Sen. John McCain, hours after announcing his official candidacy, is scheduled to be the featured YouChoose candidate, a decision McCain’s people say they are comfortable with, despite the information provided by the Press.
"YouTube is a new phenomenon," says Matt David, spokesperson for the campaign. "As such, sometimes it will be harmful and sometimes it will be helpful."
But after the campaign was made aware of the banner placements after they were actually posted, David finally responded, "We’re looking into the situation."
While many of the videos themselves are nothing more than spoofs, the titles can pack a punch.
"Rarely do presidential candidates have the chance to communicate with such a large number of voters and directly solicit their ideas and their input," said Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in a statement announcing the YouTube initiative on April 12. "I’m looking forward to interacting with this engaged community of people about the new generation of challenges confronting our nation."
After learning of the ill-placed ads, a source with the Romney campaign, who was not familiar with the content that would run below his candidate’s banner, told the Press, "Most people will recognize that the ad is created by YouTube, and that any placement on the site is coincidental."
While no reasonable person would be expected to think these candidates endorse or intentionally choose these inappropriate pages, the potential for embarrassment is certainly there. Campaigns are very frail by nature, and one weird step—for example, Howard Dean’s overenthusiastic speech in 2004—can completely derail a presidential bid. The way the YouChoose’08 campaign is set up, Sen. Barack Obama’s photo could very well be one inch away from a video that is pro-Ku Klux Klan, as were the photos of Romney, Edwards and McCain. Why they would want to remain associated with such content is beyond some people.
"I suspect that the obvious problem for the candidate is that the opponent can publicize what most people would consider his ad on inappropriate sites," says Stanley Feldman, professor of political science at SUNY Stony Brook. "The candidate whose banner ad appeared would need to explain why their ad is there. It would be an uncomfortable issue for the candidate."
Political flacks see the benefits of the Internet, but the dangers loom large.
"As a consultant, I would advise all of my candidates to take advantage of the opportunities the Internet affords us, including MySpace and YouTube," says Anthony Manetta, a New York campaign consultant. "That increases your visibility, your profile, and also, you tap into a certain demographic, younger generations of voters."
But he understands the need for vigilance.
"I would call on the campaign to be more diligent in terms of where they are placing their advertisement," says Manetta.
In speaking with several ’08 campaign sources, it was obvious that the news of the ad placement came as a shock to most, especially the McCain campaign, which was notified by the Press minutes after the senator’s announcement speech. But despite the information, the campaign will move forward. One highly placed campaign source from another camp said, "This is not good," when informed of the situation.
After the Press informed YouTube about the problem, the banner began disappearing from some pages, and was replaced for a time by an alternate banner, including a generic YouChoose link that took the visitor to a master page with all the candidates’ YouTube channels. A YouTube spokesperson said, "No comment," when asked if the situation was being addressed.
Now that YouTube and some of the campaigns have been notified, the situation maychange quickly. But for Romney, Edwards and McCain, the damage may already have been done.
This is quite interesting. I, for one, had noticed what was appearing there, but hadn't given much thought to it. Is that because we are so dumbed down that we it just appears as an afterthought after the days of Mtv's Rock the Vote alongside that of Sir Mixalot?
http://www.longislandpress.com/?cp=40&show=article&a_id=11744YouFool
Candidates Gone Wild
Essay By Robbie Woliver, News Story By Michael M. Martino Jr. 04/26/2007 10:59 am
Essay By Robbie Woliver
John McCain approves of sexy Nazi girls? John Edwards supports Satanists? Mitt Romney endorses casual sex? Well, if you’re a visitor to YouTube, that’s what these presidential candidates’ ads might be unintentionally leading you to believe.
John Edwards is all about new technology. The Democratic senator from South Carolina announced his candidacy for the presidency in a YouTube video filmed in New Orleans’ storm-ravaged Ninth Ward. He has utilized the expertise of people like Jed Alpert, CEO of Rights Group/Mobile Commons, who specialize in targeting mobile phones with text messages. (Hey, it worked when Alpert did it for Britney Spears—why not for the next president of the United States?) Edwards has also joined millions of potential 20- and 30-something voters—along with millions of teenage girls across America—by setting up his own MySpace account: johnedwards, fan of Bruce Springsteen, The Shawshank Redemption, running, reading and writing. Ew. Not 2 kewl.
And now, as part of YouTube YouChoose Spotlight ’08, Romney, McCain and Edwards offer their smiling faces, beaming right above such video titles as "Uncle Adolph and the Sexi Nazi Girls," "How to Get Laid at an Anti-Abortion Rally" and "N**gers, Nappy-Headed Hos & Booty Shaking," along with other headlines and videos touting everything from Satan worshipping to smoking crack to joining the KKK.
Any sensible person will know that Edwards and the other candidates don’t actually support—at least publicly—farting in public, anal bleaching and beating up bums for the camera. So why are these Oval Office hopefuls gracing these pages at all? How did these astute presidential candidates—who are trying to convince the American people that they have the smarts to run the country—allow this to happen? Simple: stupid campaigning.
Edwards was probably thrilled when he gave the final sign-off on the Spotlight ’08 campaign. After all, he was in good company—the GOP’s Romney was the candidate the week prior to Edwards (then imagine the gasps from the conservative Republican’s fellow Mormons who saw his banner crowning the "Polygamy and Me" preview page). Fellow candidates Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Chris Dodd, Rep. Duncan Hunter, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Rep. Ron Paul, and Gov. Bill Richardson are all signed up to be spotlighted for one week each. McCain’s ads started appearing around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25.
If the rest of the candidates go through with this, here is what we can expect: Giuliani heading the "Dedication to the Catholic Church by NAMBLA" page (NAMBLA is the North American Man-Boy Love Association); Hillary grinning atop the "Hillary Clinton vs. Monica Lewinsky Celebrity Deathmatch" page; and even Obama overseeing "Be a Man and Join the Ku Klux Klan" page. Imagine how viral those pages could get. It could—no, will—happen if they continue with the YouTube’08 campaign, unless these campaigns get their act together and pay attention to the details and understand the environment they have chosen to reach these voters.
So from his YouTube and MySpace profiles, we learn that Edwards loves classic rock, some sports and Morgan Freeman movies. He has 23,851 friends, including I’M 4-EVER HIS and Mr. Blonde (a reference to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs). But most importantly, we learn that Edwards, Romney and the others who signed on to this youth-driven awareness campaign know very little about the contemporary media that they seem so interested in embracing.
Besides the embarrassment of the implied endorsement of the various activities captured on the YouTube videos and their glaring and oft-salacious headlines, all displayed under a proud, dominant all-American campaign banner, the reality that these guys are treading in unfamiliar waters is exposed, demonstrating their inexperience more than their genuine skills as members of the technorati. LOL.
Are Candidates Out Of Touch With Campaigning 2.0?News Story By Michael M. Martino Jr.
There is no question that the Internet will play a bigger role in the 2008 presidential election than it has in any prior election. Some of the most popular sites on the Web have jumped into the fray. On April 12, YouTube announced the kick-off of its "YouChoose’08" campaign, designed to feature every 2008 presidential candidate on virtually every page of video on the site. Maybe the candidates and the people at YouTube were a little too hasty.
An investigation by the Long Island Press has found that the links to the week’s featured candidate’s YouTube channel are visible on page after page of YouTube videos, no matter the title or subject matter of the videos uploaded to the site, making it appear to the viewer that the page is wholly sponsored by the candidate. For example, the banner ad of this week’s featured candidate John Edwards is placed about an inch above such videos as "Black Girls Gone Wild" and "Crazy Asian Porn."
Despite the implications, some candidates have decided not to pull the plug. In a case of very bad timing, Arizona Sen. John McCain, hours after announcing his official candidacy, is scheduled to be the featured YouChoose candidate, a decision McCain’s people say they are comfortable with, despite the information provided by the Press.
"YouTube is a new phenomenon," says Matt David, spokesperson for the campaign. "As such, sometimes it will be harmful and sometimes it will be helpful."
But after the campaign was made aware of the banner placements after they were actually posted, David finally responded, "We’re looking into the situation."
While many of the videos themselves are nothing more than spoofs, the titles can pack a punch.
"Rarely do presidential candidates have the chance to communicate with such a large number of voters and directly solicit their ideas and their input," said Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in a statement announcing the YouTube initiative on April 12. "I’m looking forward to interacting with this engaged community of people about the new generation of challenges confronting our nation."
After learning of the ill-placed ads, a source with the Romney campaign, who was not familiar with the content that would run below his candidate’s banner, told the Press, "Most people will recognize that the ad is created by YouTube, and that any placement on the site is coincidental."
While no reasonable person would be expected to think these candidates endorse or intentionally choose these inappropriate pages, the potential for embarrassment is certainly there. Campaigns are very frail by nature, and one weird step—for example, Howard Dean’s overenthusiastic speech in 2004—can completely derail a presidential bid. The way the YouChoose’08 campaign is set up, Sen. Barack Obama’s photo could very well be one inch away from a video that is pro-Ku Klux Klan, as were the photos of Romney, Edwards and McCain. Why they would want to remain associated with such content is beyond some people.
"I suspect that the obvious problem for the candidate is that the opponent can publicize what most people would consider his ad on inappropriate sites," says Stanley Feldman, professor of political science at SUNY Stony Brook. "The candidate whose banner ad appeared would need to explain why their ad is there. It would be an uncomfortable issue for the candidate."
Political flacks see the benefits of the Internet, but the dangers loom large.
"As a consultant, I would advise all of my candidates to take advantage of the opportunities the Internet affords us, including MySpace and YouTube," says Anthony Manetta, a New York campaign consultant. "That increases your visibility, your profile, and also, you tap into a certain demographic, younger generations of voters."
But he understands the need for vigilance.
"I would call on the campaign to be more diligent in terms of where they are placing their advertisement," says Manetta.
In speaking with several ’08 campaign sources, it was obvious that the news of the ad placement came as a shock to most, especially the McCain campaign, which was notified by the Press minutes after the senator’s announcement speech. But despite the information, the campaign will move forward. One highly placed campaign source from another camp said, "This is not good," when informed of the situation.
After the Press informed YouTube about the problem, the banner began disappearing from some pages, and was replaced for a time by an alternate banner, including a generic YouChoose link that took the visitor to a master page with all the candidates’ YouTube channels. A YouTube spokesperson said, "No comment," when asked if the situation was being addressed.
Now that YouTube and some of the campaigns have been notified, the situation maychange quickly. But for Romney, Edwards and McCain, the damage may already have been done.
This is quite interesting. I, for one, had noticed what was appearing there, but hadn't given much thought to it. Is that because we are so dumbed down that we it just appears as an afterthought after the days of Mtv's Rock the Vote alongside that of Sir Mixalot?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
War-Funding Puzzlement
War-Funding Puzzlement
By Fred Thompson
The House’s emergency war-funding bill contains several conditions on how the
war should be run. They’ll never become law but they “send signals” they say.
They’re big on sending signals in Washington. But what I was really surprised to
find in the bill was what looked like $25 billion in pure pork. Since a lot
of the people who voted for the bill campaigned against pork, I was
puzzled.
I’m puzzled there’s $283 million for dairy farmers in an emergency
war-funding bill. But there’s also $74 million for peanut farmers so, I figured
our soldiers are eating a lot of peanut-butter sandwiches; they need more milk
to wash them down with.Hey, I’m trying to keep an open mind, here, okay?But I
also wondered why the bill gives $25 million to spinach producers. Our troops
should certainly eat their vegetables, but unless it turns out that there’s a
scientific basis for that Popeye spinach thing, I don’t get it.I’m also trying
to figure out what $400 million for rural schools has to do with the war —
unless that money produces students smart enough to explain why this bill
includes over $300,000 for the widows of two ex-House members, and $80
million for low-income rent subsidies.There’s a lot in the bill I don’t
understand, but this sort of makes sense. There’s $50 million for repairs to the
plant that supplies electrical power to the Capitol — where Congress works. To
fund and win the war, Congress does need electricity at least to do its job.Ah,
I get it. This bill isn’t just about funding the war for democracy and freedom
in Iraq. It’s a political statement. And it’s about buying enough votes with
pork in order to make that statement. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if
Congress did have its power cut off every once in a while.
Fred Thompson is an actor and former United States senator from Tennessee.© PAUL HARVEY SHOW, ABC RADIO NETWORKS
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTdjZTZjY2MxZTA3ZGU1OGE5Njg3NTlhM2EwNzYxMWQ
By Fred Thompson
The House’s emergency war-funding bill contains several conditions on how the
war should be run. They’ll never become law but they “send signals” they say.
They’re big on sending signals in Washington. But what I was really surprised to
find in the bill was what looked like $25 billion in pure pork. Since a lot
of the people who voted for the bill campaigned against pork, I was
puzzled.
I’m puzzled there’s $283 million for dairy farmers in an emergency
war-funding bill. But there’s also $74 million for peanut farmers so, I figured
our soldiers are eating a lot of peanut-butter sandwiches; they need more milk
to wash them down with.Hey, I’m trying to keep an open mind, here, okay?But I
also wondered why the bill gives $25 million to spinach producers. Our troops
should certainly eat their vegetables, but unless it turns out that there’s a
scientific basis for that Popeye spinach thing, I don’t get it.I’m also trying
to figure out what $400 million for rural schools has to do with the war —
unless that money produces students smart enough to explain why this bill
includes over $300,000 for the widows of two ex-House members, and $80
million for low-income rent subsidies.There’s a lot in the bill I don’t
understand, but this sort of makes sense. There’s $50 million for repairs to the
plant that supplies electrical power to the Capitol — where Congress works. To
fund and win the war, Congress does need electricity at least to do its job.Ah,
I get it. This bill isn’t just about funding the war for democracy and freedom
in Iraq. It’s a political statement. And it’s about buying enough votes with
pork in order to make that statement. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if
Congress did have its power cut off every once in a while.
Fred Thompson is an actor and former United States senator from Tennessee.© PAUL HARVEY SHOW, ABC RADIO NETWORKS
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTdjZTZjY2MxZTA3ZGU1OGE5Njg3NTlhM2EwNzYxMWQ
Fred Talks Federalism
This man has had a lot on his mind the last few days. He posted this one two days ago. This article outlines his ideas on how the federal government can overstep it's boundaries:
http://abcradio.com/article.asp?id=395162&SPID=15663
April 23, 2007
Talking About Federalism
"My friend, Ramesh Ponnuru, over at National Review and I had a little disagreement over the issue of Federalism (you can read the original article here). It might seem a little like "Inside Baseball" but, actually, it deals with something that is of importance to everyone who is concerned about the expanding power of government. Our government, under our Constitution, was established upon the principles of Federalism -- that the federal government would have limited enumerated powers and the rest would be left to the states. It not only prevented tyranny, it just made good sense. States become laboratories for democracy and experiment with different kinds of laws. One state might try one welfare reform approach, for example. Another state might try another approach. One would work and the other would not. The federal welfare reform law resulted from just this process.
Federalism also allows for the diversity that exists among the country's people. Citizens of our various states have different views as to how traditional state responsibilities should be handled. This way, states compete with each other to attract people and businesses -- and that is a good thing.
Everyone in Washington embraces Federalism until it comes to someone's pet project designed to appeal to the voters. Then, oftentimes, even the most ardent Federalist throws in with the "Washington solution" crowd. I fought this for eight years in the Senate. I remember one vote (I believe it was 99 to one) when mine was the only vote cast for Federalism. The bill would have created a federal good Samaritan law.
Now I can assure you that I have nothing against good Samaritans. If a person stops to help someone in distress on the highway and something bad happens, generally, the good Samaritan should not be sued by some overly ambitious trial lawyer. But states are, and have been for years, perfectly capable of handling this burning issue -- as well as all of the sub-issues that are raised, such as who should be protected as a good Samaritan. What if he was intoxicated and made a slight misstep while applying medical relief? What if he was not impaired, but made a gross error and turns a minor problem into a significant one? You get the idea. This is traditionally state law stuff. Is this really something the federal government should involve itself in?
I thought not, but even some of my conservative colleagues (as well as writers) get caught up in the desire to federalize an issue if they could help a "good guy" or stick it to a "bad guy." This may be a desirable goal in the abstract but I don't think our Founding Fathers had this in mind. Adhering to basic principles that have served our country well is much too important. That's why I suggested to Mr. Ponnuru that if conservatives use Federalism as a tool with which to reward our friends and strike our enemies, instead of treating it as a valued principle, we are doing a disservice to our country -- as well as to the cause of conservatism."
For the record, Mr. Ponnuru supports a Thompson candidacy.
http://abcradio.com/article.asp?id=395162&SPID=15663
April 23, 2007
Talking About Federalism
"My friend, Ramesh Ponnuru, over at National Review and I had a little disagreement over the issue of Federalism (you can read the original article here). It might seem a little like "Inside Baseball" but, actually, it deals with something that is of importance to everyone who is concerned about the expanding power of government. Our government, under our Constitution, was established upon the principles of Federalism -- that the federal government would have limited enumerated powers and the rest would be left to the states. It not only prevented tyranny, it just made good sense. States become laboratories for democracy and experiment with different kinds of laws. One state might try one welfare reform approach, for example. Another state might try another approach. One would work and the other would not. The federal welfare reform law resulted from just this process.
Federalism also allows for the diversity that exists among the country's people. Citizens of our various states have different views as to how traditional state responsibilities should be handled. This way, states compete with each other to attract people and businesses -- and that is a good thing.
Everyone in Washington embraces Federalism until it comes to someone's pet project designed to appeal to the voters. Then, oftentimes, even the most ardent Federalist throws in with the "Washington solution" crowd. I fought this for eight years in the Senate. I remember one vote (I believe it was 99 to one) when mine was the only vote cast for Federalism. The bill would have created a federal good Samaritan law.
Now I can assure you that I have nothing against good Samaritans. If a person stops to help someone in distress on the highway and something bad happens, generally, the good Samaritan should not be sued by some overly ambitious trial lawyer. But states are, and have been for years, perfectly capable of handling this burning issue -- as well as all of the sub-issues that are raised, such as who should be protected as a good Samaritan. What if he was intoxicated and made a slight misstep while applying medical relief? What if he was not impaired, but made a gross error and turns a minor problem into a significant one? You get the idea. This is traditionally state law stuff. Is this really something the federal government should involve itself in?
I thought not, but even some of my conservative colleagues (as well as writers) get caught up in the desire to federalize an issue if they could help a "good guy" or stick it to a "bad guy." This may be a desirable goal in the abstract but I don't think our Founding Fathers had this in mind. Adhering to basic principles that have served our country well is much too important. That's why I suggested to Mr. Ponnuru that if conservatives use Federalism as a tool with which to reward our friends and strike our enemies, instead of treating it as a valued principle, we are doing a disservice to our country -- as well as to the cause of conservatism."
For the record, Mr. Ponnuru supports a Thompson candidacy.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Press Statement: Thompson Releases Report About Government Problems
June 5, 2001
Thompson Releases Report on Urgent Federal Government Management Problems Facing the Bush Administration
Tells OMB Director Daniels Government is "at the Brink" of Major Program Failure
Washington - U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, today released a comprehensive report documenting the daunting management problems facing the federal government. Thompson presented the recently compiled report, which includes his recommendations for addressing those problems, to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. at a press conference in Washington.
"For some time now, our government has been mismanaged to an extent that the average American would find shocking," Senator Thompson said. "The federal government’s core management problems have persisted for years, and, in fact, have grown worse."
Thompson’s report includes an analysis of the four biggest challenges facing the federal government:
Workforce Management
Financial Management
Information Technology Management
Overlap and Duplication
"We commend Sen. Thompson and his Committee for pushing the Federal government to be more efficient and effective. Improving government performance is a top priority of President Bush, so the problems and suggestions outlined in this report will be a great resource and road map as we implement our management reform agenda. It will take the unremitting attention of both executive and legislative leadership to make headway against old habits and low expectations," said OMB Director Daniels.
In addition to a description of these problems and examples of how they affect the government’s ability to serve the American people, the report includes an agency-by-agency appendix that catalogues the most recent examples of waste, fraud, and abuse throughout the federal government.
The report also highlights the "Top Ten" worst examples of mismanagement in the federal government (page four). Some of the items on the list include: Boston’s Big Dig, a federal infrastructure project so mismanaged that its cost has ballooned from over $2 billion to over $13 billion; the Department of Interior’s total inability to account for monies it held in trust for Native Americans; and NASA’s numerous mission failures.
"These management problems exact a terrible toll on public trust and confidence in the federal government," Thompson said. "A degree of public skepticism toward our government is a healthy thing. Rampant cynicism is not."
http://hsgac.senate.gov/060501_press.htm
Thompson Releases Report on Urgent Federal Government Management Problems Facing the Bush Administration
Tells OMB Director Daniels Government is "at the Brink" of Major Program Failure
Washington - U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, today released a comprehensive report documenting the daunting management problems facing the federal government. Thompson presented the recently compiled report, which includes his recommendations for addressing those problems, to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. at a press conference in Washington.
"For some time now, our government has been mismanaged to an extent that the average American would find shocking," Senator Thompson said. "The federal government’s core management problems have persisted for years, and, in fact, have grown worse."
Thompson’s report includes an analysis of the four biggest challenges facing the federal government:
Workforce Management
Financial Management
Information Technology Management
Overlap and Duplication
"We commend Sen. Thompson and his Committee for pushing the Federal government to be more efficient and effective. Improving government performance is a top priority of President Bush, so the problems and suggestions outlined in this report will be a great resource and road map as we implement our management reform agenda. It will take the unremitting attention of both executive and legislative leadership to make headway against old habits and low expectations," said OMB Director Daniels.
In addition to a description of these problems and examples of how they affect the government’s ability to serve the American people, the report includes an agency-by-agency appendix that catalogues the most recent examples of waste, fraud, and abuse throughout the federal government.
The report also highlights the "Top Ten" worst examples of mismanagement in the federal government (page four). Some of the items on the list include: Boston’s Big Dig, a federal infrastructure project so mismanaged that its cost has ballooned from over $2 billion to over $13 billion; the Department of Interior’s total inability to account for monies it held in trust for Native Americans; and NASA’s numerous mission failures.
"These management problems exact a terrible toll on public trust and confidence in the federal government," Thompson said. "A degree of public skepticism toward our government is a healthy thing. Rampant cynicism is not."
http://hsgac.senate.gov/060501_press.htm
Thomspon urges attack of High-Risk Problems
THOMPSON AND VOINOVICH URGE ADMINISTRATION TO ATTACK HIGH-RISK PROBLEMS
Leadership needed to spur action
WASHINGTON – Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN)
and Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring and the District of Columbia Subcommittee Chairman George Voinovich (R-OH) Thursday asked the Administration to take concrete steps to solve the twenty-two problems on the General Accounting Office’s current High-Risk List. These problems constitute the worst examples of fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the federal government, and waste billions of taxpayer dollars every year, impeding service to the public, and undermining confidence in government.
In a joint letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell Daniels, the Senators urged OMB to establish specific performance goals and target deadlines to solve each of the twenty-two problems, and to include those goals in the annual government-wide performance plans required by the Government Performance and Results Act.
"Unfortunately, the prior Administration refused to develop goals to solve the high-risk problems," the Senators wrote. "As a result, we have made little progress. We think the Bush Administration must take this task on."
Although the GAO has published its High-Risk List for years, the Clinton Administration chose to issue their own list of "Priority Management Objectives" that acknowledged only some of the challenges on the High-Risk List.
"The Clinton Administration not only failed to establish and accomplish their own tangible goals," Senator Thompson said, "but they also failed to address the outstanding management challenges consistently appearing on the High-Risk List. I’m encouraged by the interest the Bush team has already shown in taking on these problems," Thompson added. "I hope that making the specific commitments we’re asking for will further demonstrate their leadership resolve and sound a powerful signal throughout the government."
"Attacking these high-risk problems will be no easy task," said Voinovich. "Fortunately, the President has chosen a team with proven management skills. They are clearly up to the challenge, and Senator Thompson and I will do all we can to help."
http://hsgac.senate.gov/040201_press.htm
Leadership needed to spur action
WASHINGTON – Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN)
and Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring and the District of Columbia Subcommittee Chairman George Voinovich (R-OH) Thursday asked the Administration to take concrete steps to solve the twenty-two problems on the General Accounting Office’s current High-Risk List. These problems constitute the worst examples of fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the federal government, and waste billions of taxpayer dollars every year, impeding service to the public, and undermining confidence in government.
In a joint letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell Daniels, the Senators urged OMB to establish specific performance goals and target deadlines to solve each of the twenty-two problems, and to include those goals in the annual government-wide performance plans required by the Government Performance and Results Act.
"Unfortunately, the prior Administration refused to develop goals to solve the high-risk problems," the Senators wrote. "As a result, we have made little progress. We think the Bush Administration must take this task on."
Although the GAO has published its High-Risk List for years, the Clinton Administration chose to issue their own list of "Priority Management Objectives" that acknowledged only some of the challenges on the High-Risk List.
"The Clinton Administration not only failed to establish and accomplish their own tangible goals," Senator Thompson said, "but they also failed to address the outstanding management challenges consistently appearing on the High-Risk List. I’m encouraged by the interest the Bush team has already shown in taking on these problems," Thompson added. "I hope that making the specific commitments we’re asking for will further demonstrate their leadership resolve and sound a powerful signal throughout the government."
"Attacking these high-risk problems will be no easy task," said Voinovich. "Fortunately, the President has chosen a team with proven management skills. They are clearly up to the challenge, and Senator Thompson and I will do all we can to help."
http://hsgac.senate.gov/040201_press.htm
Thompson Introduces Federal Accountability Act
THOMPSON INTRODUCES FEDERALISM ACCOUNTABILITY ACT
Bill Will Protect Authority of State and Local Governments
Washington, DC -- Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) introduced legislation late yesterday to protect state and local governments from unchecked federal intrusion. The “Federalism Accountability Act” would impose accountability on Congress and the Executive Branch before they could override state and local law.
“The Founding Fathers divided power between the federal government and the states. The constitutional principle of federalism -- embodied in the Tenth Amendment -- raises two fundamental questions that policy makers should answer: What should government be doing? And what level of government should do it? Everything else flows from them. That’s why federalism is at the heart of our democracy,” said Senator Thompson.
“Our governmental structure is based on an optimistic belief in the power of people and their communities,” added Thompson. “I share that view.”
A recent General Accounting Office report shows that there has been gross noncompliance with a 1987 executive order directing federal agencies to prepare federalism assessments for actions that would preempt state and local laws. In a review of over 11,000 issued over a 3-year period, GAO found that the agencies had prepared only five federalism assessments under the executive order.
“Congress and the Administration should not take lightly the preemption of state and local laws,” Thompson said. “We need to face the fact that Congress too often has acted as if it has a general police power to engage in any issue, no matter how local. Both Congress and the Executive Branch have neglected to consider prudential and constitutional limits on their powers.”
The Federalism Accountability Act would:
require Congress and agencies to issue an explicit statement of congressional or agency intent when they preempt state or local law, and if so, an explanation of the reasons for such preemption;
require each agency head to designate a federalism officer to implement the requirements of this legislation and to serve as a liaison to state and local officials;
require agencies early on to notify, consult with, and provide an opportunity for meaningful participation by state and local public officials that could potentially be affected by a rule;
require agencies to provide a federalism assessment for rules that have federalism impacts;
require the Congressional Budget Office to compile a report on preemptions by federal rules, court decisions, and legislation;
amend the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 to clarify that performance measures for state-administered grant programs are to be determined in cooperation with public officials;
and amend the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 to clarify that major new requirements imposed on states under entitlement authority are to be scored by CBO as unfunded mandates. It also would require that when Congress caps the federal share of an entitlement program, the Committee report and the accompanying CBO report must analyze whether the legislation includes new flexibility or whether there is existing flexibility to offset additional costs.
This legislation was developed with representatives of the “Big 7" organizations representing State and local government, including the National Governors' Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the International City/County Management Association.
Cosponsors include Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), George Voinovich (R-OH), Chuck Robb (D-VA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Bill Roth (R-DE), John Breaux (D-LA), Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Evan Bayh (D-IN).
http://hsgac.senate.gov/061199_press.htm
Bill Will Protect Authority of State and Local Governments
Washington, DC -- Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) introduced legislation late yesterday to protect state and local governments from unchecked federal intrusion. The “Federalism Accountability Act” would impose accountability on Congress and the Executive Branch before they could override state and local law.
“The Founding Fathers divided power between the federal government and the states. The constitutional principle of federalism -- embodied in the Tenth Amendment -- raises two fundamental questions that policy makers should answer: What should government be doing? And what level of government should do it? Everything else flows from them. That’s why federalism is at the heart of our democracy,” said Senator Thompson.
“Our governmental structure is based on an optimistic belief in the power of people and their communities,” added Thompson. “I share that view.”
A recent General Accounting Office report shows that there has been gross noncompliance with a 1987 executive order directing federal agencies to prepare federalism assessments for actions that would preempt state and local laws. In a review of over 11,000 issued over a 3-year period, GAO found that the agencies had prepared only five federalism assessments under the executive order.
“Congress and the Administration should not take lightly the preemption of state and local laws,” Thompson said. “We need to face the fact that Congress too often has acted as if it has a general police power to engage in any issue, no matter how local. Both Congress and the Executive Branch have neglected to consider prudential and constitutional limits on their powers.”
The Federalism Accountability Act would:
require Congress and agencies to issue an explicit statement of congressional or agency intent when they preempt state or local law, and if so, an explanation of the reasons for such preemption;
require each agency head to designate a federalism officer to implement the requirements of this legislation and to serve as a liaison to state and local officials;
require agencies early on to notify, consult with, and provide an opportunity for meaningful participation by state and local public officials that could potentially be affected by a rule;
require agencies to provide a federalism assessment for rules that have federalism impacts;
require the Congressional Budget Office to compile a report on preemptions by federal rules, court decisions, and legislation;
amend the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 to clarify that performance measures for state-administered grant programs are to be determined in cooperation with public officials;
and amend the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 to clarify that major new requirements imposed on states under entitlement authority are to be scored by CBO as unfunded mandates. It also would require that when Congress caps the federal share of an entitlement program, the Committee report and the accompanying CBO report must analyze whether the legislation includes new flexibility or whether there is existing flexibility to offset additional costs.
This legislation was developed with representatives of the “Big 7" organizations representing State and local government, including the National Governors' Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the International City/County Management Association.
Cosponsors include Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), George Voinovich (R-OH), Chuck Robb (D-VA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Bill Roth (R-DE), John Breaux (D-LA), Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Evan Bayh (D-IN).
http://hsgac.senate.gov/061199_press.htm
Passage of Thompson Regulatory Right-to-Know Legislation
Senators Thompson, Stevens, and Breaux Announce Final Passage of Regulatory Right-to-Know Legislation
WASHINGTON - Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN), Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, (R-AK), and Senator John Breaux (D-LA) announced that the Senate yesterday approved the Thompson-Stevens-Breaux Regulatory Right-to-Know Act. The Act will require the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to disclose to the public the costs and benefits of regulatory programs in a report to be included each year in the Federal Budget. The legislation is contained in Section 624 of the Treasury-Postal Appropriations conference report, which now goes to the President for his signature.
"The Regulatory Right-to-Know Act is based on a simple but important idea," Chairman Thompson said. "People have a right to know the costs and benefits of important regulatory decisions. This will help the Congress, the President, and the public better understand whether regulations are sensible and fair."
Senator Stevens, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said, "This is an important tool for decision-makers. It will give Congress the ability to perform its oversight function in a more efficient and effective manner. In order to make sound decisions, Congress must have access to how and why agencies make decisions, and what the consequences of those decisions would be."
"Government has an obligation to carefully consider mandates that impose costs on people and limit their freedom," Senator Breaux said. "Now we members of Congress and the American people will know, each year, the real value of proposed Federal regulations."
The Thompson-Stevens-Breaux legislation, which has been included in the Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill as a one-year reporting requirement for the last two years, strengthens and makes permanent the original regulatory accounting provision secured by Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) in 1996. The Regulatory Right-to-Know Act requires the OMB director to provide Congress with a report on the total annual benefits and costs of Federal regulatory programs, as well as an analysis of the impacts of federal regulation on State, local, and tribal government, small business, wages, and economic growth. It also requires OMB to issue agency guidelines and to solicit public comment and expert peer review to continually improve the quality of the reports.
"This is about good government," Thompson said. "This legislation will help hold Federal agencies accountable for the cost and effectiveness of their regulations and reduce needless waste and red tape. It will promote responsible efforts to protect public health, safety and the environment, and it will promote the economic security and well-being of our families and communities. I am pleased that the costs and benefits of regulation can now receive the attention of the Executive Branch and Congress when we debate the Federal Budget each year."
http://hsgac.senate.gov/101300c_press.htm
WASHINGTON - Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN), Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, (R-AK), and Senator John Breaux (D-LA) announced that the Senate yesterday approved the Thompson-Stevens-Breaux Regulatory Right-to-Know Act. The Act will require the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to disclose to the public the costs and benefits of regulatory programs in a report to be included each year in the Federal Budget. The legislation is contained in Section 624 of the Treasury-Postal Appropriations conference report, which now goes to the President for his signature.
"The Regulatory Right-to-Know Act is based on a simple but important idea," Chairman Thompson said. "People have a right to know the costs and benefits of important regulatory decisions. This will help the Congress, the President, and the public better understand whether regulations are sensible and fair."
Senator Stevens, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said, "This is an important tool for decision-makers. It will give Congress the ability to perform its oversight function in a more efficient and effective manner. In order to make sound decisions, Congress must have access to how and why agencies make decisions, and what the consequences of those decisions would be."
"Government has an obligation to carefully consider mandates that impose costs on people and limit their freedom," Senator Breaux said. "Now we members of Congress and the American people will know, each year, the real value of proposed Federal regulations."
The Thompson-Stevens-Breaux legislation, which has been included in the Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill as a one-year reporting requirement for the last two years, strengthens and makes permanent the original regulatory accounting provision secured by Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) in 1996. The Regulatory Right-to-Know Act requires the OMB director to provide Congress with a report on the total annual benefits and costs of Federal regulatory programs, as well as an analysis of the impacts of federal regulation on State, local, and tribal government, small business, wages, and economic growth. It also requires OMB to issue agency guidelines and to solicit public comment and expert peer review to continually improve the quality of the reports.
"This is about good government," Thompson said. "This legislation will help hold Federal agencies accountable for the cost and effectiveness of their regulations and reduce needless waste and red tape. It will promote responsible efforts to protect public health, safety and the environment, and it will promote the economic security and well-being of our families and communities. I am pleased that the costs and benefits of regulation can now receive the attention of the Executive Branch and Congress when we debate the Federal Budget each year."
http://hsgac.senate.gov/101300c_press.htm
Thompson Measure Increases Govt Access to Commercial Markets
THOMPSON MEASURE INCREASES GOVERNMENT ACCESSTO COMMERCIAL MARKETS
(Washington, DC) -- Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson yesterday introduced legislation to revise accounting standards used for Federal government contracts (S. 1151). In addition, Senator Thompson was successful in getting the bill language included as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2000 National Defense Authorization Act approved last night by the Senate.
Senator Thompson said, "Industry sellers and government buyers continue to identify the government’s Cost Accounting Standards as a remaining barrier to the integration of commercial items into the government marketplace. This bill carefully balances the government’s need for greater access to commercial items, particularly those of nontraditional suppliers, with the need for strong accounting standards to protect taxpayer dollars."
Joining Senator Thompson in this effort are Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), and the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee, Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Carl Levin (D-MI).
In recent years, Congress has enacted two major acquisition reform statutes which changed the trend in government contracting toward simplifying the government’s acquisition process and eliminating many government-unique requirements. In keeping with this trend toward commercial market practices, this bill further streamlines the federal procurement system to save taxpayer dollars.
Senator Thompson’s bill would:
· raise the threshold for coverage under the Cost Accounting Standards from $25 million to $50 million;
· exempt contractors from coverage if they do not have a contract in excess of $5 million;
· exclude coverage based on firm, fixed price contracts awarded on the basis of adequate price competition without the submission of certified cost or pricing data; and
· provide for waivers by agencies under certain situations.
http://hsgac.senate.gov/052899_press.htm
(Washington, DC) -- Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson yesterday introduced legislation to revise accounting standards used for Federal government contracts (S. 1151). In addition, Senator Thompson was successful in getting the bill language included as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2000 National Defense Authorization Act approved last night by the Senate.
Senator Thompson said, "Industry sellers and government buyers continue to identify the government’s Cost Accounting Standards as a remaining barrier to the integration of commercial items into the government marketplace. This bill carefully balances the government’s need for greater access to commercial items, particularly those of nontraditional suppliers, with the need for strong accounting standards to protect taxpayer dollars."
Joining Senator Thompson in this effort are Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), and the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee, Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Carl Levin (D-MI).
In recent years, Congress has enacted two major acquisition reform statutes which changed the trend in government contracting toward simplifying the government’s acquisition process and eliminating many government-unique requirements. In keeping with this trend toward commercial market practices, this bill further streamlines the federal procurement system to save taxpayer dollars.
Senator Thompson’s bill would:
· raise the threshold for coverage under the Cost Accounting Standards from $25 million to $50 million;
· exempt contractors from coverage if they do not have a contract in excess of $5 million;
· exclude coverage based on firm, fixed price contracts awarded on the basis of adequate price competition without the submission of certified cost or pricing data; and
· provide for waivers by agencies under certain situations.
http://hsgac.senate.gov/052899_press.htm
Signs of Intelligence?
From The Fred Thompson Report:
April 19, 2007
Signs of Intelligence?
One of the things that's got to be going through a lot of peoples' minds now is how one man with two handguns, that he had to reload time and time again, could go from classroom to classroom on the Virginia Tech campus without being stopped. Much of the answer can be found in policies put in place by the university itself.
Virginia, like 39 other states, allows citizens with training and legal permits to carry concealed weapons. That means that Virginians regularly sit in movie theaters and eat in restaurants among armed citizens. They walk, joke and rub shoulders everyday with people who responsibly carry firearms -- and are far safer than they would be in San Francisco, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, New York City, or Washington, D.C., where such permits are difficult or impossible to obtain.
The statistics are clear. Communities that recognize and grant Second Amendment rights to responsible adults have a significantly lower incidence of violent crime than those that do not. More to the point, incarcerated criminals tell criminologists that they consider local gun laws when they decide what sort of crime they will commit, and where they will do so.
Still, there are a lot of people who are just offended by the notion that people can carry guns around. They view everybody, or at least many of us, as potential murderers prevented only by the lack of a convenient weapon. Virginia Tech administrators overrode Virginia state law and threatened to expel or fire anybody who brings a weapon onto campus.
successfully prevented a number of attempted mass murders. Evidence from Israel, where many teachers have weapons and have stopped serious terror attacks, has been documented. Supporting, though contrary, evidence from Great Britain, where strict gun controls have led to violent crime rates far higher than ours, is also common knowledge.
So Virginians asked their legislators to change the university's "concealed carry" policy to exempt people 21 years of age or older who have passed background checks and taken training classes. The university, however, lobbied against that bill, and a top administrator subsequently praised the legislature for blocking the measure.
The logic behind this attitude baffles me, but I suspect it has to do with a basic difference in worldviews. Some people think that power should exist only at the top, and everybody else should rely on "the authorities" for protection.
Despite such attitudes, average Americans have always made up the front line against crime. Through programs like Neighborhood Watch and Amber Alert, we are stopping and catching criminals daily. Normal people tackled "shoe bomber" Richard Reid as he was trying to blow up an airliner. It was a truck driver who found the D.C. snipers. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that civilians use firearms to prevent at least a half million crimes annually.
When people capable of performing acts of heroism are discouraged or denied the opportunity, our society is all the poorer. And from the selfless examples of the passengers on Flight 93 on 9/11 to Virginia Tech professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who sacrificed himself to save his students earlier this week, we know what extraordinary acts of heroism ordinary citizens are capable of.
Many other universities have been swayed by an anti-gun, anti-self defense ideology. I respect their right to hold those views, but I challenge their decision to deny Americans the right to protect themselves on their campuses -- and then proudly advertise that fact to any and all.
Whenever I've seen one of those "Gun-free Zone" signs, especially outside of a school filled with our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, I've always wondered exactly who these signs are directed at. Obviously, they don't mean much to the sort of man who murdered 32 people just a few days ago.
From: The Fred Thompson Report
http://abcradio.com/article.asp?id=389928&SPID=15663
April 19, 2007
Signs of Intelligence?
One of the things that's got to be going through a lot of peoples' minds now is how one man with two handguns, that he had to reload time and time again, could go from classroom to classroom on the Virginia Tech campus without being stopped. Much of the answer can be found in policies put in place by the university itself.
Virginia, like 39 other states, allows citizens with training and legal permits to carry concealed weapons. That means that Virginians regularly sit in movie theaters and eat in restaurants among armed citizens. They walk, joke and rub shoulders everyday with people who responsibly carry firearms -- and are far safer than they would be in San Francisco, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, New York City, or Washington, D.C., where such permits are difficult or impossible to obtain.
The statistics are clear. Communities that recognize and grant Second Amendment rights to responsible adults have a significantly lower incidence of violent crime than those that do not. More to the point, incarcerated criminals tell criminologists that they consider local gun laws when they decide what sort of crime they will commit, and where they will do so.
Still, there are a lot of people who are just offended by the notion that people can carry guns around. They view everybody, or at least many of us, as potential murderers prevented only by the lack of a convenient weapon. Virginia Tech administrators overrode Virginia state law and threatened to expel or fire anybody who brings a weapon onto campus.
successfully prevented a number of attempted mass murders. Evidence from Israel, where many teachers have weapons and have stopped serious terror attacks, has been documented. Supporting, though contrary, evidence from Great Britain, where strict gun controls have led to violent crime rates far higher than ours, is also common knowledge.
So Virginians asked their legislators to change the university's "concealed carry" policy to exempt people 21 years of age or older who have passed background checks and taken training classes. The university, however, lobbied against that bill, and a top administrator subsequently praised the legislature for blocking the measure.
The logic behind this attitude baffles me, but I suspect it has to do with a basic difference in worldviews. Some people think that power should exist only at the top, and everybody else should rely on "the authorities" for protection.
Despite such attitudes, average Americans have always made up the front line against crime. Through programs like Neighborhood Watch and Amber Alert, we are stopping and catching criminals daily. Normal people tackled "shoe bomber" Richard Reid as he was trying to blow up an airliner. It was a truck driver who found the D.C. snipers. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that civilians use firearms to prevent at least a half million crimes annually.
When people capable of performing acts of heroism are discouraged or denied the opportunity, our society is all the poorer. And from the selfless examples of the passengers on Flight 93 on 9/11 to Virginia Tech professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who sacrificed himself to save his students earlier this week, we know what extraordinary acts of heroism ordinary citizens are capable of.
Many other universities have been swayed by an anti-gun, anti-self defense ideology. I respect their right to hold those views, but I challenge their decision to deny Americans the right to protect themselves on their campuses -- and then proudly advertise that fact to any and all.
Whenever I've seen one of those "Gun-free Zone" signs, especially outside of a school filled with our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, I've always wondered exactly who these signs are directed at. Obviously, they don't mean much to the sort of man who murdered 32 people just a few days ago.
From: The Fred Thompson Report
http://abcradio.com/article.asp?id=389928&SPID=15663
Thompson "Truth In Regulatory Act"
THOMPSON INTRODUCES “TRUTH IN REGULATING” ACT
Bill Encourages Better Rulemaking at Federal Agencies
Washington, DC -- Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) has introduced legislation to give Congress access to key data on which major regulations are based before the regulations go into effect.
“This information will support Congressional oversight to ensure regulations are efficient, effective, and fair,” Thompson said. “It will also help Congress make sure that regulations follow congressional intent.”
Joining Thompson in introducing this bipartisan legislation are: Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), George Voinovich (R-OH), Bob Kerrey (D-NE), John Breaux (D-LA) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA).
“This legislation will help Congress participate in federal agency rulemaking before the horse gets out of the barn,” Thompson said. “So in a real sense, this legislation not only gives people the right to know; it gives them the right to see -- to see how the government works, or doesn’t.”
The legislation is designed to make the regulatory process more transparent, more accountable, and more democratic. Under the three-year pilot project established by the “Truth in Regulating Act of 1999,” a Committee of either house of Congress may ask the General Accounting Office (GAO) to review an economically significant rule as it is being developed. The GAO must submit a report within 180 days, allowing Congress ample time to decide whether it wants to disapprove the rule under the Congressional Review Act. This Act enables Congress to reject regulations under expedited procedures.
“I hope this legislation will encourage federal agencies to make better use of modern decision-making tools, such as risk assessment and benefit-cost analysis,” said Thompson. “Currently, these important tools often are viewed simply as options -- options that aren’t used as much or as well as they should be.”
The Comptroller General’s independent analysis of the rule would have to include:
An analysis of the potential benefits of the rule;
The potential costs of the rule;
Any alternative approaches that could achieve the goal in a more cost-effective manner or that could produce greater net benefits;
The extent to which the rule would affect state or local governments; and
A summary of how the results of the analysis of the Comptroller General differ, if at all, from the results of agency analyses.
http://hsgac.senate.gov/062299_press.htm
Bill Encourages Better Rulemaking at Federal Agencies
Washington, DC -- Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) has introduced legislation to give Congress access to key data on which major regulations are based before the regulations go into effect.
“This information will support Congressional oversight to ensure regulations are efficient, effective, and fair,” Thompson said. “It will also help Congress make sure that regulations follow congressional intent.”
Joining Thompson in introducing this bipartisan legislation are: Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), George Voinovich (R-OH), Bob Kerrey (D-NE), John Breaux (D-LA) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA).
“This legislation will help Congress participate in federal agency rulemaking before the horse gets out of the barn,” Thompson said. “So in a real sense, this legislation not only gives people the right to know; it gives them the right to see -- to see how the government works, or doesn’t.”
The legislation is designed to make the regulatory process more transparent, more accountable, and more democratic. Under the three-year pilot project established by the “Truth in Regulating Act of 1999,” a Committee of either house of Congress may ask the General Accounting Office (GAO) to review an economically significant rule as it is being developed. The GAO must submit a report within 180 days, allowing Congress ample time to decide whether it wants to disapprove the rule under the Congressional Review Act. This Act enables Congress to reject regulations under expedited procedures.
“I hope this legislation will encourage federal agencies to make better use of modern decision-making tools, such as risk assessment and benefit-cost analysis,” said Thompson. “Currently, these important tools often are viewed simply as options -- options that aren’t used as much or as well as they should be.”
The Comptroller General’s independent analysis of the rule would have to include:
An analysis of the potential benefits of the rule;
The potential costs of the rule;
Any alternative approaches that could achieve the goal in a more cost-effective manner or that could produce greater net benefits;
The extent to which the rule would affect state or local governments; and
A summary of how the results of the analysis of the Comptroller General differ, if at all, from the results of agency analyses.
http://hsgac.senate.gov/062299_press.htm
Citizens Group Award
For Immediate Release May 7, 2003For Further Information, Contact:Maureen Tell, Peter J. Sepp, (703) 683-5700
Citizen Group Salutes "Taxpayers' Friends" in Congress
Just 36 Lawmakers Receive Awards for Scores on NTU's 2002 Rating
(Washington, DC) – Many Members of Congress talked about strengthening America’s economic security last year, but far fewer consistently backed up their words with votes. Today a Capitol Hill ceremony sponsored by the 335,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU) presented “Taxpayers’ Friend Awards” to an elite group of 36 lawmakers who earned top scores on the group’s comprehensive and widely-respected Rating of Congress in 2002.
“Not all Members of Congress fought day in and day out during 2002 for the principle of limited government that is the cornerstone of our country’s greatness,” said NTU President John Berthoud. “Fortunately, at least 36 allies in Congress demonstrated an unwavering commitment to taxpayers. We are proud to honor this fiscal ‘coalition of the willing.’”
NTU officials furnished a special certificate to “Taxpayers’ Friend Award” winners during the ceremony that recognized each recipient’s efforts to “further the cause of vitally needed fiscal integrity.”
The Rating, which since 1978 has been based on every roll call vote affecting fiscal policy, assigns a “Taxpayer Score” to each Member of Congress that indicates his or her support for reducing or controlling federal spending, taxes, debt, and regulation. In the year 2002, a total of 139 House and 115 Senate roll call votes were selected. The average Taxpayer Score was 41 percent in the House – roughly equal to 2001’s mark. However, averages slumped significantly in the Senate, to 40 percent in 2002 versus 46 percent the year before.
Lawmakers who received the Taxpayers’ Friend Award for the year 2002 had to achieve a score of at least 64 percent in the House or 70 percent in the Senate. The highest scorers in the House and Senate, respectively, were Ron Paul (R-TX) with 88 percent and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) with 82 percent.
NTU is a non-profit, non-partisan citizen organization founded in 1969 to work for lower taxes, less wasteful spending, and accountable government at all levels. Note: The 2002 Rating, which reports Taxpayer Scores for all lawmakers, is available via fax or online at www.ntu.org. Staff members are available for comment on particular scores. Recipients of the 2002 Taxpayers’ Friend Award follow:
U.S. House of Representatives
Todd Akin (MO)
Virgil Goode (VA)
Joe Pitts (PA)
Bob Barr (GA)
Gil Gutknecht (MN)
Dana Rohrabacher (CA)
Chris Cannon (UT)
Joel Hefley (CO)
Ed Royce (CA)
Steve Chabot (OH)
John Hostettler (IN)
Jim Sensenbrenner (WI)
Christopher Cox (CA)
Brian Kerns (IN)
John Shadegg (AZ)
Mac Collins (GA)
Donald Manzullo (IL)
Nick Smith (MI)
Phil Crane (IL)
Gary Miller (CA)
Cliff Stearns (FL)
John Duncan (TN)
Jeff Miller (FL)
Tom Tancredo (CO)
Jeff Flake (AZ)
Ron Paul (TX)
Pat Toomey (PA)
U.S. Senate
John Ensign (NV)
Jon Kyl (AZ)
Rick Santorum (PA)
Mike Enzi (WY)
Richard Lugar (IN)
Craig Thomas (WY)
Phil Gramm (TX)
Don Nickles (OK)
Fred Thompson (TN)
http://www.ntu.org/main/press_release_printable.php?PressID=113&org_name=NTU
Citizen Group Salutes "Taxpayers' Friends" in Congress
Just 36 Lawmakers Receive Awards for Scores on NTU's 2002 Rating
(Washington, DC) – Many Members of Congress talked about strengthening America’s economic security last year, but far fewer consistently backed up their words with votes. Today a Capitol Hill ceremony sponsored by the 335,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU) presented “Taxpayers’ Friend Awards” to an elite group of 36 lawmakers who earned top scores on the group’s comprehensive and widely-respected Rating of Congress in 2002.
“Not all Members of Congress fought day in and day out during 2002 for the principle of limited government that is the cornerstone of our country’s greatness,” said NTU President John Berthoud. “Fortunately, at least 36 allies in Congress demonstrated an unwavering commitment to taxpayers. We are proud to honor this fiscal ‘coalition of the willing.’”
NTU officials furnished a special certificate to “Taxpayers’ Friend Award” winners during the ceremony that recognized each recipient’s efforts to “further the cause of vitally needed fiscal integrity.”
The Rating, which since 1978 has been based on every roll call vote affecting fiscal policy, assigns a “Taxpayer Score” to each Member of Congress that indicates his or her support for reducing or controlling federal spending, taxes, debt, and regulation. In the year 2002, a total of 139 House and 115 Senate roll call votes were selected. The average Taxpayer Score was 41 percent in the House – roughly equal to 2001’s mark. However, averages slumped significantly in the Senate, to 40 percent in 2002 versus 46 percent the year before.
Lawmakers who received the Taxpayers’ Friend Award for the year 2002 had to achieve a score of at least 64 percent in the House or 70 percent in the Senate. The highest scorers in the House and Senate, respectively, were Ron Paul (R-TX) with 88 percent and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) with 82 percent.
NTU is a non-profit, non-partisan citizen organization founded in 1969 to work for lower taxes, less wasteful spending, and accountable government at all levels. Note: The 2002 Rating, which reports Taxpayer Scores for all lawmakers, is available via fax or online at www.ntu.org. Staff members are available for comment on particular scores. Recipients of the 2002 Taxpayers’ Friend Award follow:
U.S. House of Representatives
Todd Akin (MO)
Virgil Goode (VA)
Joe Pitts (PA)
Bob Barr (GA)
Gil Gutknecht (MN)
Dana Rohrabacher (CA)
Chris Cannon (UT)
Joel Hefley (CO)
Ed Royce (CA)
Steve Chabot (OH)
John Hostettler (IN)
Jim Sensenbrenner (WI)
Christopher Cox (CA)
Brian Kerns (IN)
John Shadegg (AZ)
Mac Collins (GA)
Donald Manzullo (IL)
Nick Smith (MI)
Phil Crane (IL)
Gary Miller (CA)
Cliff Stearns (FL)
John Duncan (TN)
Jeff Miller (FL)
Tom Tancredo (CO)
Jeff Flake (AZ)
Ron Paul (TX)
Pat Toomey (PA)
U.S. Senate
John Ensign (NV)
Jon Kyl (AZ)
Rick Santorum (PA)
Mike Enzi (WY)
Richard Lugar (IN)
Craig Thomas (WY)
Phil Gramm (TX)
Don Nickles (OK)
Fred Thompson (TN)
http://www.ntu.org/main/press_release_printable.php?PressID=113&org_name=NTU
CAGW Praises Thompson Report On Federal Mismanagement
CAGW PRAISES THOMPSON REPORT ON FEDERAL MISMANAGEMENT
Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today commended U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), the outgoing chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, for a report released today documenting the federal government's staggering levels of waste, abuse, and mismanagement. Thompson presented the report, which includes his recommendations for addressing those problems, to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitch Daniels at a press conference in Washington.
"Once again, Chairman Thompson deserves great credit for exposing the pervasive problems in the federal government," CAGW President Tom Schatz said. "As CAGW has documented repeatedly, many federal agencies and programs are duplicative, unaccountable, nontransparent, get poor results, lose money, are mismanaged, and outdated. These problems have persisted for decades, and as this report indicates, are growing worse and require rapid action."
Thompson's report includes analysis of the four biggest challenges facing the federal government: workforce management, financial management, information technology management, and overlap and duplication. In addition, the report includes an agency-by-agency appendix citing examples of waste, fraud, and abuse. The report also contains a list of the "Top Ten" worst examples of mismanagement in the government.
"As CAGW has documented for 17 years, every year the federal government literally flushes hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain," Schatz added. "It is a disgrace and would be intolerable in any sphere outside government. Hopefully, the new Democrat majority in the Senate will follow Thompson's lead to root out waste and work with President Bush for reform."
"OMB Director Daniels deserves thanks from taxpayers for remaining focused on a common-sense waste-cutting agenda, and this report will help him target some of the worst bloat for elimination," Schatz concluded. "CAGW continues to recommend the White House empanel a nonpartisan waste commission for a stem to stern audit of the government. This is the surest way to achieve fundamental and lasting reform."
CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_NewsRelease_06052001b
Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today commended U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), the outgoing chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, for a report released today documenting the federal government's staggering levels of waste, abuse, and mismanagement. Thompson presented the report, which includes his recommendations for addressing those problems, to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitch Daniels at a press conference in Washington.
"Once again, Chairman Thompson deserves great credit for exposing the pervasive problems in the federal government," CAGW President Tom Schatz said. "As CAGW has documented repeatedly, many federal agencies and programs are duplicative, unaccountable, nontransparent, get poor results, lose money, are mismanaged, and outdated. These problems have persisted for decades, and as this report indicates, are growing worse and require rapid action."
Thompson's report includes analysis of the four biggest challenges facing the federal government: workforce management, financial management, information technology management, and overlap and duplication. In addition, the report includes an agency-by-agency appendix citing examples of waste, fraud, and abuse. The report also contains a list of the "Top Ten" worst examples of mismanagement in the government.
"As CAGW has documented for 17 years, every year the federal government literally flushes hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain," Schatz added. "It is a disgrace and would be intolerable in any sphere outside government. Hopefully, the new Democrat majority in the Senate will follow Thompson's lead to root out waste and work with President Bush for reform."
"OMB Director Daniels deserves thanks from taxpayers for remaining focused on a common-sense waste-cutting agenda, and this report will help him target some of the worst bloat for elimination," Schatz concluded. "CAGW continues to recommend the White House empanel a nonpartisan waste commission for a stem to stern audit of the government. This is the surest way to achieve fundamental and lasting reform."
CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_NewsRelease_06052001b
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Leadership Challenges in the 21st Century: Panetta Conference 2004
Transcript of Panetta Conference in 2004 featuring Fred Thompson and George Mitchell
Challenges Facing Leadership in the 21st Century
The Challenges of Leadership In The 21st Century"World Leadership in The 21 Century" George Mitchell and Fred Thompson
Monday, May 23, 2004
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Leon Panetta.
[applause]
Leon Panetta: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the seventh annual Leon Panetta lecture series, presented by Panetta institute, as well as California state university, Monterey bay. I'd like to thank you for joining us this evening in my hometown of Monterey here at the Steinbeck forum at the Monterey conference center. The overall theme of the lecture series, as many of you know, is to focus on the issues and challenges that we face in the 21st Century. Today we live in a very uncertain world.
We and elected officials in this country are confronted with a number of unprecedented issues that challenge our fundamental foreign and domestic policies, from terrorism and September 11 to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the Middle East to North Korea, from trade and our economy, the issue of outsourced jobs, the deficits, to nuclear proliferation, to the challenges of health care, and so much more. These issues test our ability to be able not only to lead this country, but to lead the world. The theme of tonight's lecture is world leadership in the 21st century. To discuss these and other issues, we are honored to have two very distinguished former members of the United States Senate. Our first guest served for 14 years in the United States Senate, six of them as majority leader.
He was voted the most respected member of the Senate for six consecutive years. He led the Senate in the ratification of NAFTA and the world trade organization. He was instrumental in the passage of the Americans with disabilities act. He was a leader on environmental issues, re-authorization of the clean air act. He authored the first national oil spill prevention cleanup law, and he led the Senate to the passage of the nation's first child care bill. After retiring from the Senate, he was solicited by the British and Irish governments to serve as chairman of the peace negotiation in Northern Ireland, resulting in an historic accord that ended decades of violence in that area.
For his service, he received the presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award that is awarded by the U.S. Government.
At the request of President Clinton, former Prime Minister Barak, Chairman Arafat, the Senator served as a chairman of the international fact finding Committee on Violence in the Middle East. The resulting recommendation, known as the Mitchell Report, won the support of the Bush Administration, the European Union, as well as many other governments.
After having dealt with crises in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, he was prepared, well prepared, to become chairman of the Disney Corporation, which tests all of his diplomatic skills.
He earned his law degree from Georgetown University, later served as a trial lawyer in the justice department. He was appointed U.S. Attorney, later moved on to become a U.S. District Court Judge in May.
He's the author of four books, currently with the national firm of Piper Rudnick. I've had the opportunity to work closely with him in Congress and as chief of staff.
He is truly an outstanding public servant in this country. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the Honorable Senator George Mitchell.
[applause] Leon Panetta: Our second guest this evening has an equally formidable background in the realm of politics. Although he is known to much of America through his appearances in 18 motion pictures, and as the actor currently playing the District Attorney in the highly acclaimed television show "Law and Order," he has also proven he can work without writers.
He has a distinguished career in public service that dates back to his role as an assistant counsel in the Watergate investigation. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994, reelected in 1996, receiving more votes than any previous candidate for any office in the state of Tennessee's history, something he reminds Al Gore about every other day.
As a Senator, he served on the Senate Committee on Finance, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the National Security Working Group. In 1997 he was elected Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, and there he sought to produce a smaller and more efficient and accountable government, holding hearings on topics such as improving the regulatory process, reforming the I.R.S., and worked on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies as well. He proposed legislation to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by China and other countries, and advocated a streamlined export control policy to try to protect our national security. In 2002 he was elected to the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations.
A native of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, the Senator received an undergraduate degree in philosophy, political science, and a law degree from Vanderbilt University. Two years after graduating from law school, he was named an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and at the age of 30 was appointed Minority Counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee. He's the author of a Watergate memoir, "at that point in time," and was recently named a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. I've also had the opportunity to work with him as Chief of Staff and more recently, work with him and Paul Volker in an effort to attract good people to service in government. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Mr. District attorney, former Senator Fred Thompson.
[applause] Leon Panetta: welcome, both of you, to the Monterey Peninsula. Let's begin by talking a little bit about the broad subject of leadership in the 21st century.
Last century we defeated fascism and communism. In order to do that, we had to build a strong defense. We had to build strong alliances. We built NATO, helped create the U.N.. This century, the threat is obviously terrorism.
We have a strong defense, but can we win without building strong alliances? Has Iraq hurt our credibility, or our ability to develop those kinds of alliances? George Mitchell: It clearly has had a negative effect to the present time, but the situation surely can be redeemed. I think that the North Atlantic alliance is arguably the most successful political and military alliance in modern human history, and accounts for much of the post-world war ii growth, prosperity and spread of democracy. Certainly Europe, in concert between us and Europe, to other parts of the world. That relationship is under strain. There are obviously differences not only about Iraq, but exacerbated by the situation in Iraq.
But they surely are not final and irredeemable. I think with the proper policies, the proper approach, we can repair the breaches that have occurred, and we can work closely, as we indeed are, with many of our European allies in other areas, in the war on terror. That will be essential because it is clear that traditional military force, while an absolutely essential component of the preservation of our defense and security, cannot by itself be completely successful in the struggle against the modern scourge of terrorism. That takes effective intelligence, perhaps most importantly, effective police - effective police work around the world.
That comes from close cooperation, coordination with other countries in the world. When the President addressed the nation and Congress in his stirring address after September 11, he pointed out that Al Qaeda operates in 60 countries.
A few months later in his state of the union address, describing the successes in the war against terror, he said arrests had been made of Al Qaeda operatives in seven major cities. Only one of them was in the United States.
It was Buffalo. The other six were all outside the United States, so it points up, his own words pointed up the necessity of cooperation with others in this conflict, and so we are the most dominant economic and military power.
We will continue to be for certainly as far as human beings can see. But even with that vast power, we cannot, in my judgment, successfully prevail without cooperation and support from our allies. I believe we can get it, and I hope that we will. Fred Thompson: Leon, we shouldn't have to worry about whether or not we could go it alone if we had to. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. We should strive to avoid that, if for no other reason because in any democracy, I think the people's willingness to sustain protracted hostile and unpleasant activity is limited, and I think that when there is a lack of national support, it's more difficult to maintain the support inside your own country, when people see that. However, it's not exactly like we're in the habit of doing that. I think we've gotten a bit of a bum rap because of that.
We certainly had a coalition in 1991. We went to Iraq. We were part of a group with regard to Kosovo. There are over 30 countries involved in Iraq today, so it's not like we're going out and looking for ways to become unilateral. The real issue is, we're the world's leading power and the world's leading target. What about those instances when try as we must -- and admittedly we could have done better in our diplomacy this time around, but let's say, try as we must, we see a situation that we think is of vital importance to us, and we cannot get the French and Germans, for example, to go along, or the united nations, who is usually, you know, relying upon the United States to be the end of the spear when we agree on activities to do together.
What about it then?
Obviously none of us will want to give anyone else a veto over United States actions, that it feels like it needs to take in its own self-interest, so the question becomes instance by instance, what is really in our self-interest and what is worth going it alone for. We've been given a lot of blame recently. I think some of it justified, a good deal of it is not, but you have to look at the other side of that equation.
Why is it that some of the European countries try every way they can to not cooperate with us?
Why were the French and Germans and Russians trying to get economic sanctions lifted from Saddam?
Why were so many leaders around the world apparently in on the food for peace scandal that we're seeing now?
So there's some blame on the other side. Why were so many countries doing deals with Saddam for oil before all this broke?
So there are two sides to it, and it all comes back to situation by situation, and our need to properly evaluate each situation as to what's in our legitimate self-interest and how far we're willing to go in protecting it. Leon Panetta: Let me ask you about -- the President has said, the Solicitor General said in arguing before the Supreme Court, that we are a nation that is at war and admittedly we are losing men and will on the battlefield, but we are also a nation that when we are at war has demanded shared sacrifice by the American people. But we have not been asked to pay for this war and we're looking at a price tag that could run anywhere from $150 to $200 billion. Most of that's borrowed money. We have not been asked -- we have a military force that's deployed almost everywhere in the world. You're talking about a deployment of 130 to 150,000 troops in Iraq for an indefinite period of time, but we've not been asked to institute a military draft.
And we are asked not to pay attention to the pictures of caskets that return from Iraq. Can we be a nation at war and somehow pretend that that war is not real, and demand sacrifice? Fred Thompson: well, I don't think anyone is trying to avoid recognition of the caskets that are coming home. But I agree that we have not been treating this as it is, a war. I don't think the average person feels that way. I think we could have done more to spread the burden. I think, for example, this would have been a great opportunity early on to say ok, we don't want to do it, but now we're going to have to have a tough energy policy.
The source of a lot of this is our dependency on oil from that part of the world, so we're going to have to give something, business is going to have to give something, and we're going to need a better energy policy.
So yeah, I think we could have done a lot better in terms of sharing the sacrifice. So it makes it very important that we have some fiscal policies, in order to carry on those things.
Let's take, for example, that this was a just endeavor in Iraq, which I happen to agree with. But it's going to be extremely expensive. Homeland security, we just merged 22 departments of homeland security. It's going to be extremely expensive.
We don't realize how much we're going to have to do in terms of protecting our infrastructure. Most of it's in private hands in this country, all the railroads and rail lines and highways and bridges and things of that nature, nuclear plants and things of that nature.
The cost is going to be tremendous. When a long drawn-out protracted war that our leadership has not properly explained to us yet, we've had war declared Against us back, the first time was 1996 and then 1998 again by Osama Bin Laden. Nobody paid much attention to it.
We're going to have to pay for it.
That means we're going to have to have very sound fiscal policies to keep our economy churning, and that's why George and I will launch into another debate as to what sound fiscal policy is, and the right mixture of taxes and spending. Our non-defense discretionary spending from 2001-2003 went up, what, 15%. We cannot sustain the spending side. Others say we can't sustain the tax cuts.
Whatever, we've got a big deficit, and it's going to get bigger when the retirees retire, so it all mixes together.
We've got to pay for it, it's going to be extremely expensive, but we're not doing the things on the fiscal side that are necessary to put us in the economic position, strength wise, in order to get the job done. Leon Panetta: George. George Mitchell: we probably could have a vigorous debate on what is the right fiscal policy. But I think we can all agree on what is not the right fiscal policy. And that is to spend $150 billion on the war in Iraq while providing huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans here at home, and taking --.
[applause]
And taking a $500 billion surplus to a $500 billion deficit. As I said, we can debate about what the right thing to do is, but I think that clearly is the wrong thing to do.
On the concept of sacrifice, it is one of the fundamental problems in any democratic society, indeed in life in general, that sacrifice is never equally distributed.
In every war, some are called, some are not. Of those who are called, some fight, some do not. Of those who fight, some die, some do not. There is no policy, government or otherwise, which can ensure the completely equitable distribution of sacrifice in any society. But there is also a strong and overwhelming national feeling that there ought to at least be an effort, even though perfection cannot be attained, or full success. I think what's lacking now is the complete absence of any effort to achieve any distribution of sacrifice. I agree completely with freed about energy policy.
Our country desperately needs one. Everyone agrees on the need. Very few agree on the solution.
Therefore, the easiest thing to do is to let it pass. I do not favor reinstitution of the draft because while it does appear to pose an attractive alternative to the current situation in terms of distribution of sacrifice, throughout our history, conscription has been plagued with inequities of its own. There's no way we could draft every military eligible person in the country, and therefore you begin right away with the fundamental question, who gets drafted, who gets exempt.
To this day we're still arguing in our country about who served in Vietnam, why they did and why they didn't.
And so in the guise of solving one problem, you create another, and one of the things I learned in Washington is that the most effective legislators were those rare few who had the wisdom to anticipate the unintended consequences of what they were trying to do, that is, they thought about the problem that would be created. Never forget that the solution to every human problem contains within itself the seeds of a new problem.
That would happen if we reinstituted the draft. Leon Panetta: I'm well aware of the Ted Koppel controversy. But, don't you think we are entitled to share in the pain of those losses? Fred Thompson: yes. But I think it's a waste of time and energy to have a big controversy over that, but the question gets into motivation and I don't know what's in Ted Koppel's mind.
I tend to be a little bit skeptical myself, but it's not enough to, you know, tear the sheets up over, in my opinion. I think we need to all recognize that what's happening there, and the full picture of what's happened, and the reason we're there, as well as the difficulties we're having while we are there. Leon Panetta: let me ask you about Iraq. We've had a rough few weeks in Iraq.
We've had the bloodiest month that we've ever had, in April. We obviously have now these pictures of abused prisoners. That isn't going to help our situation with regards to the Arab world. In Fallujah, we are now beginning the process of turning power over to former members of Saddam's army, some of whom have been members of the Republican Guard.
We fought this war to get rid of Saddam Hussein and those who supported him and now we're returning power to his generals. What's wrong with this picture? Where did we go wrong, and what do we need to do to fix the situation? Fred Thompson: I'm very concerned about this. There's a lot wrong with this picture. Was it napoleon who said if you say you're going to take Vienna, you'd better go ahead and do it, and we are looking weak right now.
I don't know what's going on there, what the strategy is, why they're doing what they're doing, bringing in a former Saddam general, television cameras, people applauding and so forth, and the next day I hear, well, this guy is probably not going to be the guy anyway.
The whole situation is a great challenge. You've got to make a decision between two very bad choices. It looks to me like if they take Fallujah, that it's going to play Al-Jazeera, you know, forever. And it's going to be rough and it might cause uprisings in other parts, and it might prove to be disastrous.
On the other hand, in my opinion, if they do not take Fallujah, that is guaranteed -- and bring in Saddam's old generals, that is guaranteed to prove disastrous.
A fellow who spent time down there and whose opinion I judge, I value highly, has said that the one thing we need to remember is that we must keep the Shi'ites on our side, and I just don't see how that does that. They are talking tactics as well as strategy, I guess, in terms of battle situations down there, but mistakes have been made. Sound like Nixon, don't I? I think -- it seems to me war is a succession of mistakes. Mistakes were made in the Korean war, mistakes and setbacks came about in world war ii. Certainly here, we probably went in without enough troops in retrospect, certainly now it seems like a no-brainer, although that's still debated. Some people think that running off the old Saddam military was a bad idea. As conventional wisdom, maybe that's true.
I don't know.
Underestimating the difficulty of pacifying the place clearly was a mistake, although I don't remember that many commentators and experts before the fact predicting that this was what's going to happen.
A lot of people thought we shouldn't go. A lot of people thought we were going to meet more resistance than we in fact did. We made a mistake as to the strength of the resistance to start with. It was easier than what we thought, turned out to be. But regardless, if you're carrying out this operation, it's your responsibility not to make mistakes, if they can be avoided, and that was a mistake. So we can spend a lot of time looking backward, but looking forward, I believe that over a period of several years now, we have slowly but surely developed a reputation, not as a country that's looking for a fight or looking to unilaterally invade folks for the fun of it, but if we pull out when things get tough, as we did in Somalia, as we turned around in Haiti, the port there, as we did in Lebanon, a lot of people interpret our leaving when we did in Iraq in 1991 in retrospect, as weakness. The many times we've been attacked from African embassies to the attempt in the airport in Los Angeles, the following year, to the following year of the world trade center before, and our tepid responses to all that. All of that has led us to a situation where people are expecting us to do that again and if we do that again, it's going to make for a much more dangerous situation.
That's a fear for us.
That's a theater of war there. If we got out of war tomorrow and had no involvement forever, it would be a terrible blow to us, but it would just simply change the theater to another one.
Or several more, including the possibility of a very real possibility -- and I think probability, of a theater of war in this country, many cells are here already.
Some think, you know, waiting to be activated. I do not know. So it is a problem. It is a mess.
But it is not one that I think we asked for. It is one that we're struggling to come to the right answer to, and I think pulling out of there and running and not doing what's necessary to be successful there -- and at least give those people an opportunity, ultimately they've got to be the ones to decide what kind of country they're going to have, but giving them an opportunity to live in a different kind of society now that Saddam and Uday and Husay, how soon we forget, now that they're not running things anymore. George Mitchell: First, let's identify what went right. The military, the active military phase of the operation was clearly well planned and executed.
That only pointed up the dramatic contrast with the absence of effective planning and implementation on the effort to secure the peace. Leave aside the whole question of whether we should have gone in and if we did, did we go in on a pretext or on a genuinely proper basis, but once there, what went wrong?
Of course the first and most fundamental problem upon which everything else is built or from which everything else flows, as Fred pointed out, is the inadequate intelligence and what appears to be the enormous amount of self-delusion that occurred within the Administration.
We would be greeted as liberators, flowers in the streets, the Iraqis are going to pay for the reconstruction themselves with their own money.
There's a long litany of that, grounded in fact in part on an excessive reliance on expatriates, some of whom had not been in Iraq for decades, who had direct interests, financial, personal, political ambitions, and who clearly did not provide a complete and accurate picture of what could have been expected.
On that delusion, the following errors in judgment occurred.
First, the effective stiffing of the U.N. and others. The attitude that Iraq was a prize which we had won from which others should be excluded, rather than Iraq is a burden which we should invite others to share. The refusal to give the U.N. A meaningful role. That has now been completely reversed. The Administration's position is the exact opposite of what it was a year ago, and we are asking the U.N. To take over the political process, and in fact Ambassador Barzami will go there in the next few days to select. He will personally select the new transitional government to which sovereignty will be transferred in a limited way on June 30. The second mistake was the total disbandment of the Iraqi army and all Iraqi security forces. Ambassador Bremer's first major act when he took over last year. It not only removed from Iraqi society what had been a large and active and influential institution, thereby creating a political vacuum, it immediately created a large army of hundreds of thousands of men who had once had status in Society, had jobs, who now were unemployed, unable to feed their families, and who were easy prey for those recruiting insurgents, and it's quite clear that they have led the effort. Now we've again reversed that policy and we're moving toward what we should have had, a sensible vetting policy to identify and disqualify the top leadership but not the entire army and the entire security force. So I think those changes are under way and that is one reason why I think the policy can be redeemed.
I do agree with Fred that we simply can't leave. In the memorable phrase that Bob Woodward tells us Colin Powell used with the President, he said--you break it, you own it. Well, we broke it, we own it.
As difficult as that might seem, what we need to do is leave as soon as we possibly can, when we have created a circumstance in which the people of Iraq have a fair and reasonable chance to create a society of their own choosing.
And one final mistake was to set the expectations so high. Who can now recall, it seems like decades, not months, that the Administration was talking about a model democracy that would cause the dominoes to fall in a democratic way throughout the Middle East, which would serve as a model for everyone. There was no nation of Iraq before 1921. For 400 years previous to that, under the Ottoman Empire, the Kurdish north, the Sunni center and the Shi'ite south had been separate districts. A British civil servant placed a large map on the table in Paris in 1921 and he drew a series of lines, creating a nation which had never before existed.
He also, incidentally, same guy, same map, same day, created Jordan, which had never previously existed. The British were not interested in the wishes or the hopes or the needs of the people who lived there. They had their immediate political problems which they were trying to solve. And so this is tough going.
This is not easy to do, and the reality is if we can create a modest opportunity for them to live, probably in some kind of federated democracy that won't look anything like the American system but will give people a chance to decide their own lives, we should count it a success and leave at that time, but not before. Leon Panetta: let me ask you on the weapons of mass destruction, because we all -- when I was in the white house, we were briefed on the existence of weapons of mass destruction. I'm sure you had briefings that were very similar to that, and Bob Woodward's book, George Tenet says when the President even raises a question about it, that it's a slam dunk, that weapons of mass destruction are there. And that obviously we found out that they were all wrong. How could our intelligence, how could our intelligence be so wrong about something so important? George Mitchell: First, let's be clear. One of the things the Administration skillfully did was to conflate three separate categories of weapons into a single slogan, weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical, biological.
There was no evidence that there was, last year or the year before, an active nuclear weapons program, and all of the evidence since then has confirmed that.
There had been evidence back in 1991, but as is clear, it had not been reconstituted. So there was no basis for the statement by Vice President Cheney that Iraq will have a nuclear weapon very soon.
There was evidence, substantial evidence, that in 1998 and 1999 when the U.N. Inspectors left, Iraq had previously accumulated a substantial volume of chemical and biological weapons which they had not credibly accounted for as either destroyed or consumed or otherwise disposed of.
So the fair argument, the truthful argument, was that the united nations had certified that Iraq has previously possessed chemical and biological weapons.
Iraq has not accounted for the disposition of those weapons, and it is fair, therefore, in the absence of such evidence, to deduce that they still exist. That was the fair argument.
The problem was that the Administration, of course, felt that that would not be enough to generate the kind of support for the war that existed, and the arguments went well beyond it.
How could our intelligence be so wrong?
Well, first, Leon, as you well know, intelligence is not a perfect mathematical accumulation of facts.
It's highly subjective. It's contradictory. It's vague. It's ambiguous.
Added to that, the fact that our human intelligence capacity has atrophied as our intelligence gathering capacity has grown. So the result is we can intercept millions of telephone conversations but we don't have many people on the street corner in Baghdad reporting to us. That's a real problem which I think has to be corrected. And third point, the volume of information collected is so much that our capacity to translate, analyze, interpret and collate it, has not kept pace. So you've got mountains of material and a very slow rate, it's not in real time, that it's developed.
So I think all of those things contributed to the failure. Leon Panetta: we've got just a few minutes before the break, but I'd like to give you a chance, Fred. Fred Thompson: I agree with George. I think it's a matter of lack of adequate human intelligence and lack of adequate analysis. We let down our guard after the Cold War in many respects.
Intelligence was one of them, especially human intelligence. Our military budget, our military personnel cut back and so forth, all for some years, led up to September 11. It takes a lot sometimes to get our attention. Osama had declared war on us. We'd been attacked several times, abroad usually, weren't paying that much attention. That's the intelligence background in a nutshell.
On the weapons of mass destruction, the people who thought there were weapons of mass destruction include, besides President Clinton, our C.I.A. The business about Saddam being capable of reconstituting his nuclear program came from a national intelligence estimate. That was not made up by Dick Cheney.
All the foreign intelligence allies that we have came to the same conclusion. All of the members of the Senate select Committee on intelligence that I served on, that I know of, came to the same conclusion. Some of the President's most vigorous critics now said at that time that Saddam posed an imminent threat at that time, including myself.
We were apparently all wrong about that. The jury is still out and maybe he hasn't had them for a while, maybe they're in Syria, who knows. But the significant thing is, I believe, is that if we had left Saddam alone, he still had his infrastructure.
He still had his scientists. He still had his capability. He still had his desire.
I can't prove this, but in my opinion if we had not gone in there, there's no question, in my opinion, in a few years, Saddam would have had nuclear capability to go along with what he admitted in terms of having chemical and biological. Leon Panetta: Let me just give you a few seconds. George Mitchell: It is true that the national intelligence estimate said Iraq had the capacity to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, but that's not what Vice President Cheney said. He said they have an active nuclear program and they will have nuclear weapons fairly soon. If he had said what the national estimate said, he would have been completely accurate.
One final point on the intelligence. We relied upon the expatriates who told us what we wanted to hear and that is human nature. Every time somebody says something to me that is a repeat of something I said elsewhere or I previously believed, I say boy, that guy is really smart. Leon Panetta: We've come to the conclusion of the first part and it goes very fast when we're talking about these kinds of issues. We'll take a 10 minute break and then we'll return for your questions.
Thank you. [applause] Leon Panetta: If I could, I'd like to take a moment before we begin the second half to introduce our question review team. They're the people who are responsible for reviewing the questions this evening, and if you'd please hold your applause while I introduce the entire group. They're Carolina Garcia, who's the Executive Editor of the Monterey County Herald. Fran graver, our veteran question review team member. Pete Elfish, another veteran question review team member. Jody Jones, anchor for Fox News.
Thank you. [applause] Leon Panetta: I'd also like to take a moment and ask the students who attended the afternoon session--we do an afternoon session with students from the central coast and they have the opportunity to ask our guests questions; we had a great session today-- if I could ask them to please stand.
These are students from the Monterey peninsula college, and Santa Catalina school. One high school, and our local community college.
[applause] George Mitchell: The constitution does not define cruel and unusual punishment, but surely it must include these students having to listen to two ex-politicians on the same day. Leon Panetta: Our first question deals with the Middle East, and I wanted to -- I want to follow up on the question because obviously, what we're seeing today, Ariel Sharon is the -- his party did not support his proposal to basically withdraw from Gaza. Recently, President Bush made what looked like a fundamental shift in Middle Eastern policy, by recognizing the Israeli claims to major settlements in the west bank. And the U.S.-- I guess the question I wanted to ask you, George, having spent your time there, has the U.S. backed away from the peace plan that was agreed to in the past, and has it lost its ability to be a fair broker between Israel and the Palestinians? George Mitchell: The Administration says it has not backed away from the peace plan, the so-called road map, which incorporates in its entirety the plan that our commission delivered to the President when we completed our work. It remains to be seen whether the recent action was, or becomes, a part of a more comprehensive effort to push the road map, which I believe offers some opportunity for progress, although it's a very difficult situation.
If it is not that and if it is merely a single isolated act in response to an Israeli initiative, then it is not likely to advance the process further down the road.
I spent a week in Israel just a short time ago, with both Israeli and Palestinian, political and other leaders. There is a sense of pessimism. I would call it consensus that not much is going to happen this year. We have a presidential election in this country.
As you know, Sharon has not only had this difficulty with his own party, there are two current criminal investigations under way in which there's usually some discussion of whether he will, or a member of his family, will be indicted. On the Palestinian side, there has been a disintegration of the authority of the Palestinian authority itself. That is, the governing institution, resulting in a dramatic increase in crime, the dissolution of law and order among large segments of the population, and within the Palestinian authority, a sharp decline in the authority of Chairman Arafat. He's alienated many of his own leaders, the part of the group that's been with him for so many years, so with the crisis of leadership, there are questions of leadership among Israelis, the American election, there's a sense nothing is going to happen this year.
But I come away with one note of optimism. What I did detect is an attitude among the public on both sides that is quite similar to what existed in Northern Ireland just before we were able to get a peace agreement there. I've been asked thousands of times, how did you get a peace agreement in Northern Ireland after 30 years of war and so many failed efforts? And my answer is that the public on both sides became sick of war. They became weary of the overwhelming essential of fear and anxiety that pervaded all segments of society and made a normal life impossible, and I think that's happening now among Palestinians and Israelis, a sense that they can't get what they want following the present course.
I think that's right. The Israelis want security. The Palestinians want a state.
I believe that in the end, neither can achieve its objective by denying to the other its objective. The Palestinians will never get a state by the suicide bombing of Israelis. Each suicide bombing is not only morally reprehensible, it's politically counterproductive and retards progress toward a state. So they're not going to get a state until the Israelis have security, and I don't think the Israelis can have any sustainable security until the Palestinians get a state, and I think that realization is dawning, and I hope and pray they will move toward the accommodation necessary so that each will have its objective and they're not going to become friends or trusting. They're still not that in Northern Ireland.
But the end of active conflict, the end of killing, I think, has to be the immediate objective before you move on to the second stage of political stability and the third stage of genuine reconciliation. Leon Panetta: can the U.S. play the role -- George Mitchell: Yes. Yes. The United States is committed to Israel.
Have been since the day it was founded. We are openly committed to its survival as a sovereign state with defensible borders. But we are also publicly committed, as President Bush has said, to a Palestinian State.
It is true that the overwhelming majority of Arabs believe that the United States is hopelessly biased in favor of Israel, but that doesn't disqualify us from acting because they recognize that no one else can do it. Think about the fact, every time something bad happens in the Middle East, most Arab government leaders hold a press conference to ask for greater American involvement.
They don't say we want the Americans to go away. They say the problem is, there hasn't been enough involvement by the United States.
So they recognize that yes, we are committed to Israel, but also, yes, the United States government is the only entity with the capacity to create the conditions to which an agreement can be reached and most importantly, to guarantee implementation.
One final point. It comes down to money. We all celebrate Camp David.It was a great success. The glue that holds Camp David together was the American guarantee of $3 billion a year minimum to Israel and $2 billion a year to Egypt. 25 years, we're still paying it out. 125 billion dollars have been paid to guarantee that implementation. You American taxpayers are the implementers of peace in the Middle East when it comes.
[applause] Leon Panetta: Senator Thompson, the U.S. did a pre-emptive strike in Iraq because of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. How difficult will it be for the U.S. to ever get support again for a pre-emptive strike against another country? Fred Thompson: Well, I still think it depends on the circumstances that the United States is faced with and how effective we make our case about those circumstances.
I think part of our problem in this case was that so many of our European friends as well as other people around the world did not be appreciate or believe the nature of the threat, that terrorism essentially was our problem, we were the number one target, and we didn't make an effective enough case as to the nature of the situation.
I think unfortunately, the war will be seeing that play out, in other ways, as the Spanish have. I think that had more to do with their support than just their support of us in Iraq.
And Bali -- other places, of course, we've already seen. But I think there are two parts to it.
First, our allies, as I was alluding to earlier, I think we've got to make the case, we've got to have much better intelligence, and as you pointed out earlier, intelligence is never perfect. It's an imperfect science, and ours is certainly not where it should be.
There are all kinds of scenarios in the future that would present terrible quandaries for all of us. We're all focused now on this one place.
It will be resolved one way or another before long. What kind of world are we going to live in afterwards?
Are we going to have a situation where we cannot act unless we have 100% intelligence that is unassailable, which I think probably virtually never happens.
Suppose someone comes in and tells the President that they have information of something that's about to happen and particular place and location of the most severe consequences.
But the source, there's only one source, and the source of that has a spotty record, sometimes he's been wrong and sometimes he's been right.
What do you do in a situation like that?
Those are the tough decisions we're going to be required to make more than anybody because we're the number one target and we're the leading nation.
So we're going to have to work effectively and try to make our case as best we can to our allies.
On the other hand, I think that some of our allies have to have a different attitude themselves about things. I think there was certainly mixed motives and most of them not very laudable in terms of some of our European friends with regard to Iraq. I think they had self-interest, self-dealing. I think that they were more than happy to kind of stick it to the United States.
They had been chafing for a long time because of -- chafing for a long time because of everything from our turning down the Kyoto Treaty to back even before the Bush Administration. There's been talk of American arrogance and that sort of thing. So hopefully, they will see what Thomas Friedman wrote about in the "New York Times" a while back.
He said, this is a war between the forces of order and the forces of disorder, and if the forces of order do not understand this and pull together and come together and get over their petty differences, we're going to be in deep, deep trouble, because the forces of disorder are everywhere. They're organizing, and they can be tremendously destructive and a handful of people can get their hands now on the technological resources to kill thousands and thousands of people. We don't even talk about weapons of mass destruction anymore, out of the context of Saddam Hussein.
But they're still out there, they're proliferating, we're always finding new countries and rogue nations that have stuff that we didn't know that they had, so that's the kind of world that we live in, and the United States and our allies, better learn how to work together and confront this problem jointly, because as I say, it is everybody in the free world's problem. Leon Panetta: You're both lawyers, and you're a former Judge. What are your feelings about holding American citizens and denying them basic rights in the name of fighting terrorism? I think there was a case that was argued within the last few weeks that involved holding a U.S. citizen and declaring him an enemy combatant and therefore depriving him of right to counsel, right to a hearing, et cetera. Is the executive branch justified in doing that in the name of war? George Mitchell: No, it is not.
There are two cases. The facts are different. In one, the American citizen was captured in Afghanistan in a circumstance that can fairly be described as combatant.
In the other, another American citizen was arrested in Chicago. I don't believe in either case any American, including the President, has the authority to deprive a citizen of his constitutional right simply by declaring him to be a noncombatant.
[applause] George Mitchell: The essence of liberty and the entire concept of equal justice under the law rests upon the premise that we're a government of laws, not men. The founding fathers went to great lengths to ensure that no person would have the power that this President now claims. There's an argument to be made with respect to the person captured in Afghanistan. I believe there can be no credible argument with respect to an American citizen who's captured in Chicago.
The constitution does not have any qualifications, any conditions, does not set forth any circumstances in which the constitutional rights of any American citizen can be so denied and abridged.
Remember, held in prison, not able to see an attorney, not able to see anyone, not charged with any crime, simply held indefinitely in prison. Now, it's easy to say terrorism, threats to our society, all of that may be real. But I think that the constitution in this case is clear.
I hope very much that the supreme court will reach the conclusion that as powerful as the President is, he does not possess the power to deprive any American citizen of his or her constitutional rights.
[applause] Fred Thompson: That of course begs the question, what is his constitutional rights? I think the history of warfare and our judicial system, from what I recall, weighs in on the side of the President in this case. I think that President Roosevelt, for example, exercised these prerogatives under the war making powers and the constitution given to the President.
The real question is whether or not this is a typical kind of situation. Obviously the President can't violate any citizen's rights as such, or whether or not this is a wartime situation, where the rules of the game are totally different, and if someone can be detained just like a prisoner of war, until the hostilities are over.
Incidentally, if they were tried here and sentenced, they would probably wind up serving a lot more time in confinement than under their present circumstances even though hostilities are probably going to go on a long time, they'll probably get out sooner. The situation involving the Chicago case is Mr. Padilla. His parents were, I believe, citizens of Saudi Arabia.
They were in the United States briefly and this is not relevant legally, but he was born in the United States. He'd just come back from Pakistan. The allegation is that he was planning to -- he and others, to set off a dirty bomb here in the United States.
I think the resolution to this -- the problem that I have with it is that there needs to be a procedure to cover situations where someone is captured and held in error.
Everyone ought to have the right, like I think article 5 under the Geneva Convention, ought to have the right to come before a judge and say you've got the wrong guy and I can prove it.
And I think that's where the Administration made a mistake and I think hopefully that's what they're gravitating toward. But simply showing some threshold, not as in a regular criminal case where you have to prove a criminal case beyond a reasonable doubt, but at least some kind of prima facie showing that ok, we got him, here is where we got him, here were the circumstances and we got a right to keep him, and at least press that threshold.
I'm uncomfortable with anybody, even under wartime circumstances, if they're not in an active combat situation abroad, being held indefinitely without some kind of judicial review, but I don't think it's required to have the same kind of judicial review that you have in a typical criminal proceeding. Leon Panetta: George, what obstacles do you foresee for the Kerry campaign in the upcoming election? George Mitchell: Well, to begin with, 180 million of them. That's the amount that the President's campaign has raised.
And it's been an amount without precedent in American history at this stage of the campaign, so since it's never occurred, no one can be secure in predicting what the outcome is going to be.
Secondly, it's quite clear that there are certain disadvantages that accrue to incumbents because they have to actually do things and make decisions, but there are also enormous advantages that accrue to incumbents. Leon, you ran as an incumbent every time but once, and so you know what the advantages are, as Fred and I do as well. I think it's going to be a very close election. I think the country is about evenly divided.
Right now my guess is that it will go down to the wire, and it will be very close.
I think that Kerry faces the challenge of a financial disadvantage, a non-incumbent, and also the importance, the need to present a credible alternative to the President, particularly in the area of terrorism and conflict and strong leadership. I think he can do that. I am of course an active democrat, but Fred and I, I guess, will cancel out our votes this fall. Fred Thompson: I was about to say, good to see a couple of old Clinton supporters decrying money in Presidential politics. [applause] George Mitchell: all I can say, Fred, is that Bush outspent Clinton and so did Dole. Fred Thompson: Inflation. Leon Panetta: Let me ask you, there is a lot of money obviously involved not only in the Bush campaign, but Kerry is out raising the same kind of money. We've got television ads appearing. They're beating the hell out of each other.
They're accusing each other of virtually being unpatriotic, that both have not served this country well, and I think it was John McCain who finally said, you now, the Vietnam War is over, for goodness sakes, let's move on.
If they're beating each other up this badly now, I mean, in six months, what is the impact of that in terms of the American people's attitudes towards the Presidential race? Fred Thompson: The American people have shown boundless capability to absorb unprecedented onslaughts to their sensibilities in politics. And I guess this will be no exception.
I don't know what -- obviously, what they're doing is -- you know, the thing that bothers me most about presidential politics and the mud slinging, I'm sure before it's over with, they'll have enough -- each side will have enough money to sling about all the mud they want to, so that doesn't -- but it's that we have to wait until the presidential campaign is over before we can have some serious discussions about serious problems.
A presidential campaign is the last place in the world you're going to have a serious discussion about a serious problem. We're sitting here watching ourselves walk off a cliff, you know, in the out years, past the projections that we're all talking about now in terms of entitlements and what's going to happen when the boomers start to retire, and just as one example, there are others, but everybody is afraid to talk about it, and the common statement each year is that well, we can deal with that as soon as the election is over.
That's what elections are supposed to about. And that has to do with leadership, and it has to do with not just being a sponge and receiving what you're getting out there and your poll numbers tell you, but actually leading and I think that politicians underestimate the ability of the American people to appreciate something like that, and I think the precise answer to your question, I think most people will turn it off, will turn most all of it off, and probably until sometime after the world series and the important things are over with. And then they'll see who's standing and the election will actually depend upon things that haven't happened yet. George Mitchell: The polls tell us consistently two things. The American people say they detest negative campaigns, and secondly, the American people are consistently persuaded by negative campaigns. The challenge of leadership is to reconcile these conflicting views. Can I take a couple minutes to tell a joke -- not a joke, a story about this.
Leon and I became fast friends. We spent months together during our huge budget disagreement during the first Bush Administration, months and months and months, and we got a lot of publicity and it was almost all negative, oh, they're like kids in a sandbox scrapping away, and I used to go back to Maine every weekend and hold town meetings and when one Saturday a huge crowd assembled, disproportionately elderly, and the first guy got up and says Senator, I want to make a statement and ask a question.
He said to me, you are a disgrace. You represent us and we don't like the way you're representing us. You're doing a terrible job.
He said, I want to tell you, we're sick of all this bickering between you and President bush. We want you to go back there and settle this issue like
Gentlemen from Maine, as the two of you are. Then he said that's my statement.
Here is my question. So what are you fighting about? And of course when he made the statement, the crowd roared and approved. So it turned out that one of the biggest issues was Medicare funding, so I explained to him we're fighting over Medicare funding. When we finished the explanation, he said Senator, I want you to go back there and don't you budge an inch, and the crowd erupted.
So I went back with two clear messages. Settle the issue but don't budge an inch. And I think that's one of the consequences, and I think people don't like them, but they're influenced by them. Leon Panetta: Let me ask you both, if there were another -- god willing it won't happen, but if there's another terrorist attack, what will be the impact between now and the election?
We saw what happened in Spain. What is the likely impact of another September 11 on the race between President Bush and john Kerry? Fred Thompson: That's a very good question. I think there will be two competing factors if that happens, and one is the feeling that oh, my god, all this wouldn't Have happened if we'd not been so energetic abroad, obviously working to bush's detriment. The other one would be we're not going to show the people of The world that we're like the Spanish.
They're not going to decide who's going to be our President, these terrorists are not. I think you'll have those two competing things. I also think, it depends on when it happens. I think if it happened real close to the election, people would rally around the flag and that would benefit Bush. I think if it happened somewhat out from it, that that would probably work to his detriment. Leon Panetta: George. George Mitchell: that was a pretty cold political analysis of something so serious, but I guess we've got to think about that, it's so speculative, and I believe so dependent upon the circumstances at the time of the event, of the response, that one can really only guess, but I think Fred's analysis is probably fairly close.
I would have to say, guessing, without knowing the circumstances, that it's likely to help the President. People everywhere tend to rally around their national leader in a time of crisis.
Margaret Thatcher was under 20% in the polls when the Falklands war occurred.
She went up to 80%. You saw what happened with President Bush and September 11. You've seen that in Israel, with Prime Minister Sharon and indeed with Chairman Arafat. Arafat's poll numbers have been steadily going down and the only time they blip up is when the Israelis lob a couple of tank shells into his compound there, then they blip up, then they drop again.
So I think the immediate reaction would be rallying around the President or the leader at a time of crisis. Leon Panetta: what is the appropriate role of the federal government when it comes to outsourcing of jobs overseas? George Mitchell: I was a Senate majority leader and led the Senate to ratification of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization. The most severe criticism came from within my own party. But I believe that the record is clear that the people of this country have been the principal beneficiaries of the expansion of trade, the spread of stability and democracy that has occurred in the half century since the close of the Second World War. This is not to say that our trade policy has been perfect or without error or adverse consequences.
Indeed they have, but remember, most economic dislocations occur because of innovation in a dynamic free market economy, not as a consequence of trade agreements. I come from Maine.
We once had a thriving industry in New England with hundreds of people engaged in the manufacture of stage coaches. There is not one person in America now employed making stagecoaches. The people who lost their jobs and the towns where those jobs were concentrated were hard hit, but every reasonable person can conclude that the invention of the motor vehicle has been a dramatic benefit to our country as a whole.
Now we have to do a better job on environmental, health, and wealth fare, and labor standards, in other countries, where jobs are going, because there is an unfairness about the competition that exists. But it is the pursuit of an illusion to believe that if we can just somehow erect walls around our country, we're going to protect ourselves and improve our economic condition. We're not going to. It's like holding back the tide. We should direct our energies not to trying to create a fantasy world that won't benefit our people, but to doing a much better, more aggressive and more innovative job about mitigating the adverse effects that comes from trading with other countries. In so doing, we'll benefit ourselves and we'll benefit others with whom we deal. Fred Thompson: I think that the recent rise of protectionist sentiments are very detrimental potentially to our economy. I agree with Senator Mitchell 100% on what he said about free trade and the benefits, and it helps our people buy cheaper products. It helps other people in other nations who aspire to be economically successful, to lift their standard of living. And we gain in the process. Nations that trade openly are by and large successful nations.
Nations that do not, by and large are not successful. That's the whole thing for me. I do think that it would be a mistake to impose environmental and labor standards on these fledgling, some younger countries or small countries or poverty stricken countries, because I think the best thing we could do as a condition for free trade with us, the best thing we can do to alleviate those kinds of problems is to have free trade, and it's only helping lift them out of poverty that free trade will bring about that they will improve their environmental conditions, for example, not because of any mandates we lay on them. Leon Panetta: President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney testified before the 9/11 commission with no press coverage. Should the public know what was said and why? Fred Thompson: I think that there's something to be said for a certain amount of informality in a situation like this. They're trying for -- in a way, I would like to have had a transcript of it, but I think the main thing is to impart information, and if they're really interested in information, on having a frank back and forth and give and take as they did with the President and Vice President as they did with President Clinton and Vice President Gore, I think this forum and this format with regard to this commission, which I think is a bipartisan commission and nobody is going to get away with anything of any substance, I think, is a decent format to do that in. And I incidentally think that from all the turmoil that they've had from time to time and controversies that the commission has had, that a couple of important things are going to come out of it.
One is that the American people now know what those of us who have been in the Senate, especially those of us who have been on intelligence Committees, and the American people, if they have been paying attention, should have already known, and that is that we have a great deficiency in terms of our intelligence capabilities and what that leads to, and I think President Bush has now said that we need reform, we need to do some things differently. He has somewhat of an excuse, I think, in a way seven months, how much can you do it, takes longer and longer to get a team together, each succeeding President it takes longer and so forth.
Up to a point. But it became obvious some time ago that we had great deficiencies there and it had to be done. I think he's making that statement now, one that's long overdue, quite frankly, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that now everybody has seen how bad the situation is and what the consequences are. The other thing that's coming out of the 9/11 Commission is the consensus, it seems like by the Commission, that sometimes, sometimes pre-emptive action is something you have to do. We can debate over when and where and so forth, but the President is taking a lot of criticism, by the majority of the Commission, it seems, for not having done more before September 11 in terms of -- it could only be described as, pre-emptive terms. Leon Panetta: what do you think, George? George Mitchell: Well, I like and respect Fred so much, I'm always embarrassed to disagree with him, but on this I do. I think Clinton, Gore, Bush and Cheney should have testified, their testimony transcribed, televised if necessary. This is a democracy, not a monarchy. The President is the President. He's not a king, even though we treat Presidents like kings in this country. And if bill Clinton as President could be compelled to testify under oath on the record before TV about his sex life, I think the current President could testify under similar circumstances --. [applause] George Mitchell: -- Let me finish -- about what is one of the greatest tragedies in American history, and I think the gravity of the event by itself should have been sufficient to require that kind of testimony. Leon Panetta: Let me ask Fred: how did a person who was a counsel become a movie actor? And then become District Attorney on "law and order"? Fred Thompson: First of all, I appreciate the compliment. I once pointed out, I said I just happened into this thing, I never took an acting lesson.
They said we know, we saw it. We've seen your work. No, it's like most things that have happened of any importance in my life, total serendipity. I was practicing law, they made a movie about a case I had and I played myself in the movie, so it was a terrible mistake that they made, letting me in on the inside there, because I wouldn't turn them loose, so I did 18 features and then for the Senate, and I often say that with all of the political activity in Hollywood, that I had to leave the Senate and go back into show business to get my points heard again. Leon Panetta: George, let me ask you about your role as chair of Disney. What was tougher, being majority leader or being Chair of the Disney Board? George Mitchell: well, I didn't realize that, but the good lord has a way of working mysteriously and pulling strings, so my work as Senate Majority Leader, my work five years in Northern Ireland working on a peace agreement, and the one year I spent in the Middle East, were all preparations for my current position. Fred Thompson: You know, it just occurred to me, he's Disney. I still try to make a movie occasionally. I may be working for him. I want to apologize for anything -- George Mitchell: I'll tell you one thing. I think you're a hell of a Senator and I think you're a great actor. Fred Thompson: thank you very much. George Mitchell: can that substitute for money, as psychic remuneration, the applause? Fred Thompson: Much more so. Leon Panetta: Well, you're both not only great actors but great public servants, and we have been honored this evening to have had the benefit of your views. These are tough issues that this country is facing, and the important thing we want to do is to ensure that everyone here and everyone, for that matter, throughout America, participates in this process. The most important thing in democracy is that we're willing to talk about these issues and not be afraid to talk about them, because probably the ultimate of patriotism is the willingness to debate and discuss our differences, and we do that here at the Panetta Lecture Forum, and we thank both of you for your participation.
[applause]
http://www.panettainstitute.org/lib/04/mitchell_thompson.htm
Challenges Facing Leadership in the 21st Century
The Challenges of Leadership In The 21st Century"World Leadership in The 21 Century" George Mitchell and Fred Thompson
Monday, May 23, 2004
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Leon Panetta.
[applause]
Leon Panetta: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the seventh annual Leon Panetta lecture series, presented by Panetta institute, as well as California state university, Monterey bay. I'd like to thank you for joining us this evening in my hometown of Monterey here at the Steinbeck forum at the Monterey conference center. The overall theme of the lecture series, as many of you know, is to focus on the issues and challenges that we face in the 21st Century. Today we live in a very uncertain world.
We and elected officials in this country are confronted with a number of unprecedented issues that challenge our fundamental foreign and domestic policies, from terrorism and September 11 to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the Middle East to North Korea, from trade and our economy, the issue of outsourced jobs, the deficits, to nuclear proliferation, to the challenges of health care, and so much more. These issues test our ability to be able not only to lead this country, but to lead the world. The theme of tonight's lecture is world leadership in the 21st century. To discuss these and other issues, we are honored to have two very distinguished former members of the United States Senate. Our first guest served for 14 years in the United States Senate, six of them as majority leader.
He was voted the most respected member of the Senate for six consecutive years. He led the Senate in the ratification of NAFTA and the world trade organization. He was instrumental in the passage of the Americans with disabilities act. He was a leader on environmental issues, re-authorization of the clean air act. He authored the first national oil spill prevention cleanup law, and he led the Senate to the passage of the nation's first child care bill. After retiring from the Senate, he was solicited by the British and Irish governments to serve as chairman of the peace negotiation in Northern Ireland, resulting in an historic accord that ended decades of violence in that area.
For his service, he received the presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award that is awarded by the U.S. Government.
At the request of President Clinton, former Prime Minister Barak, Chairman Arafat, the Senator served as a chairman of the international fact finding Committee on Violence in the Middle East. The resulting recommendation, known as the Mitchell Report, won the support of the Bush Administration, the European Union, as well as many other governments.
After having dealt with crises in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, he was prepared, well prepared, to become chairman of the Disney Corporation, which tests all of his diplomatic skills.
He earned his law degree from Georgetown University, later served as a trial lawyer in the justice department. He was appointed U.S. Attorney, later moved on to become a U.S. District Court Judge in May.
He's the author of four books, currently with the national firm of Piper Rudnick. I've had the opportunity to work closely with him in Congress and as chief of staff.
He is truly an outstanding public servant in this country. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the Honorable Senator George Mitchell.
[applause] Leon Panetta: Our second guest this evening has an equally formidable background in the realm of politics. Although he is known to much of America through his appearances in 18 motion pictures, and as the actor currently playing the District Attorney in the highly acclaimed television show "Law and Order," he has also proven he can work without writers.
He has a distinguished career in public service that dates back to his role as an assistant counsel in the Watergate investigation. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994, reelected in 1996, receiving more votes than any previous candidate for any office in the state of Tennessee's history, something he reminds Al Gore about every other day.
As a Senator, he served on the Senate Committee on Finance, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the National Security Working Group. In 1997 he was elected Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, and there he sought to produce a smaller and more efficient and accountable government, holding hearings on topics such as improving the regulatory process, reforming the I.R.S., and worked on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies as well. He proposed legislation to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by China and other countries, and advocated a streamlined export control policy to try to protect our national security. In 2002 he was elected to the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations.
A native of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, the Senator received an undergraduate degree in philosophy, political science, and a law degree from Vanderbilt University. Two years after graduating from law school, he was named an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and at the age of 30 was appointed Minority Counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee. He's the author of a Watergate memoir, "at that point in time," and was recently named a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. I've also had the opportunity to work with him as Chief of Staff and more recently, work with him and Paul Volker in an effort to attract good people to service in government. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Mr. District attorney, former Senator Fred Thompson.
[applause] Leon Panetta: welcome, both of you, to the Monterey Peninsula. Let's begin by talking a little bit about the broad subject of leadership in the 21st century.
Last century we defeated fascism and communism. In order to do that, we had to build a strong defense. We had to build strong alliances. We built NATO, helped create the U.N.. This century, the threat is obviously terrorism.
We have a strong defense, but can we win without building strong alliances? Has Iraq hurt our credibility, or our ability to develop those kinds of alliances? George Mitchell: It clearly has had a negative effect to the present time, but the situation surely can be redeemed. I think that the North Atlantic alliance is arguably the most successful political and military alliance in modern human history, and accounts for much of the post-world war ii growth, prosperity and spread of democracy. Certainly Europe, in concert between us and Europe, to other parts of the world. That relationship is under strain. There are obviously differences not only about Iraq, but exacerbated by the situation in Iraq.
But they surely are not final and irredeemable. I think with the proper policies, the proper approach, we can repair the breaches that have occurred, and we can work closely, as we indeed are, with many of our European allies in other areas, in the war on terror. That will be essential because it is clear that traditional military force, while an absolutely essential component of the preservation of our defense and security, cannot by itself be completely successful in the struggle against the modern scourge of terrorism. That takes effective intelligence, perhaps most importantly, effective police - effective police work around the world.
That comes from close cooperation, coordination with other countries in the world. When the President addressed the nation and Congress in his stirring address after September 11, he pointed out that Al Qaeda operates in 60 countries.
A few months later in his state of the union address, describing the successes in the war against terror, he said arrests had been made of Al Qaeda operatives in seven major cities. Only one of them was in the United States.
It was Buffalo. The other six were all outside the United States, so it points up, his own words pointed up the necessity of cooperation with others in this conflict, and so we are the most dominant economic and military power.
We will continue to be for certainly as far as human beings can see. But even with that vast power, we cannot, in my judgment, successfully prevail without cooperation and support from our allies. I believe we can get it, and I hope that we will. Fred Thompson: Leon, we shouldn't have to worry about whether or not we could go it alone if we had to. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. We should strive to avoid that, if for no other reason because in any democracy, I think the people's willingness to sustain protracted hostile and unpleasant activity is limited, and I think that when there is a lack of national support, it's more difficult to maintain the support inside your own country, when people see that. However, it's not exactly like we're in the habit of doing that. I think we've gotten a bit of a bum rap because of that.
We certainly had a coalition in 1991. We went to Iraq. We were part of a group with regard to Kosovo. There are over 30 countries involved in Iraq today, so it's not like we're going out and looking for ways to become unilateral. The real issue is, we're the world's leading power and the world's leading target. What about those instances when try as we must -- and admittedly we could have done better in our diplomacy this time around, but let's say, try as we must, we see a situation that we think is of vital importance to us, and we cannot get the French and Germans, for example, to go along, or the united nations, who is usually, you know, relying upon the United States to be the end of the spear when we agree on activities to do together.
What about it then?
Obviously none of us will want to give anyone else a veto over United States actions, that it feels like it needs to take in its own self-interest, so the question becomes instance by instance, what is really in our self-interest and what is worth going it alone for. We've been given a lot of blame recently. I think some of it justified, a good deal of it is not, but you have to look at the other side of that equation.
Why is it that some of the European countries try every way they can to not cooperate with us?
Why were the French and Germans and Russians trying to get economic sanctions lifted from Saddam?
Why were so many leaders around the world apparently in on the food for peace scandal that we're seeing now?
So there's some blame on the other side. Why were so many countries doing deals with Saddam for oil before all this broke?
So there are two sides to it, and it all comes back to situation by situation, and our need to properly evaluate each situation as to what's in our legitimate self-interest and how far we're willing to go in protecting it. Leon Panetta: Let me ask you about -- the President has said, the Solicitor General said in arguing before the Supreme Court, that we are a nation that is at war and admittedly we are losing men and will on the battlefield, but we are also a nation that when we are at war has demanded shared sacrifice by the American people. But we have not been asked to pay for this war and we're looking at a price tag that could run anywhere from $150 to $200 billion. Most of that's borrowed money. We have not been asked -- we have a military force that's deployed almost everywhere in the world. You're talking about a deployment of 130 to 150,000 troops in Iraq for an indefinite period of time, but we've not been asked to institute a military draft.
And we are asked not to pay attention to the pictures of caskets that return from Iraq. Can we be a nation at war and somehow pretend that that war is not real, and demand sacrifice? Fred Thompson: well, I don't think anyone is trying to avoid recognition of the caskets that are coming home. But I agree that we have not been treating this as it is, a war. I don't think the average person feels that way. I think we could have done more to spread the burden. I think, for example, this would have been a great opportunity early on to say ok, we don't want to do it, but now we're going to have to have a tough energy policy.
The source of a lot of this is our dependency on oil from that part of the world, so we're going to have to give something, business is going to have to give something, and we're going to need a better energy policy.
So yeah, I think we could have done a lot better in terms of sharing the sacrifice. So it makes it very important that we have some fiscal policies, in order to carry on those things.
Let's take, for example, that this was a just endeavor in Iraq, which I happen to agree with. But it's going to be extremely expensive. Homeland security, we just merged 22 departments of homeland security. It's going to be extremely expensive.
We don't realize how much we're going to have to do in terms of protecting our infrastructure. Most of it's in private hands in this country, all the railroads and rail lines and highways and bridges and things of that nature, nuclear plants and things of that nature.
The cost is going to be tremendous. When a long drawn-out protracted war that our leadership has not properly explained to us yet, we've had war declared Against us back, the first time was 1996 and then 1998 again by Osama Bin Laden. Nobody paid much attention to it.
We're going to have to pay for it.
That means we're going to have to have very sound fiscal policies to keep our economy churning, and that's why George and I will launch into another debate as to what sound fiscal policy is, and the right mixture of taxes and spending. Our non-defense discretionary spending from 2001-2003 went up, what, 15%. We cannot sustain the spending side. Others say we can't sustain the tax cuts.
Whatever, we've got a big deficit, and it's going to get bigger when the retirees retire, so it all mixes together.
We've got to pay for it, it's going to be extremely expensive, but we're not doing the things on the fiscal side that are necessary to put us in the economic position, strength wise, in order to get the job done. Leon Panetta: George. George Mitchell: we probably could have a vigorous debate on what is the right fiscal policy. But I think we can all agree on what is not the right fiscal policy. And that is to spend $150 billion on the war in Iraq while providing huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans here at home, and taking --.
[applause]
And taking a $500 billion surplus to a $500 billion deficit. As I said, we can debate about what the right thing to do is, but I think that clearly is the wrong thing to do.
On the concept of sacrifice, it is one of the fundamental problems in any democratic society, indeed in life in general, that sacrifice is never equally distributed.
In every war, some are called, some are not. Of those who are called, some fight, some do not. Of those who fight, some die, some do not. There is no policy, government or otherwise, which can ensure the completely equitable distribution of sacrifice in any society. But there is also a strong and overwhelming national feeling that there ought to at least be an effort, even though perfection cannot be attained, or full success. I think what's lacking now is the complete absence of any effort to achieve any distribution of sacrifice. I agree completely with freed about energy policy.
Our country desperately needs one. Everyone agrees on the need. Very few agree on the solution.
Therefore, the easiest thing to do is to let it pass. I do not favor reinstitution of the draft because while it does appear to pose an attractive alternative to the current situation in terms of distribution of sacrifice, throughout our history, conscription has been plagued with inequities of its own. There's no way we could draft every military eligible person in the country, and therefore you begin right away with the fundamental question, who gets drafted, who gets exempt.
To this day we're still arguing in our country about who served in Vietnam, why they did and why they didn't.
And so in the guise of solving one problem, you create another, and one of the things I learned in Washington is that the most effective legislators were those rare few who had the wisdom to anticipate the unintended consequences of what they were trying to do, that is, they thought about the problem that would be created. Never forget that the solution to every human problem contains within itself the seeds of a new problem.
That would happen if we reinstituted the draft. Leon Panetta: I'm well aware of the Ted Koppel controversy. But, don't you think we are entitled to share in the pain of those losses? Fred Thompson: yes. But I think it's a waste of time and energy to have a big controversy over that, but the question gets into motivation and I don't know what's in Ted Koppel's mind.
I tend to be a little bit skeptical myself, but it's not enough to, you know, tear the sheets up over, in my opinion. I think we need to all recognize that what's happening there, and the full picture of what's happened, and the reason we're there, as well as the difficulties we're having while we are there. Leon Panetta: let me ask you about Iraq. We've had a rough few weeks in Iraq.
We've had the bloodiest month that we've ever had, in April. We obviously have now these pictures of abused prisoners. That isn't going to help our situation with regards to the Arab world. In Fallujah, we are now beginning the process of turning power over to former members of Saddam's army, some of whom have been members of the Republican Guard.
We fought this war to get rid of Saddam Hussein and those who supported him and now we're returning power to his generals. What's wrong with this picture? Where did we go wrong, and what do we need to do to fix the situation? Fred Thompson: I'm very concerned about this. There's a lot wrong with this picture. Was it napoleon who said if you say you're going to take Vienna, you'd better go ahead and do it, and we are looking weak right now.
I don't know what's going on there, what the strategy is, why they're doing what they're doing, bringing in a former Saddam general, television cameras, people applauding and so forth, and the next day I hear, well, this guy is probably not going to be the guy anyway.
The whole situation is a great challenge. You've got to make a decision between two very bad choices. It looks to me like if they take Fallujah, that it's going to play Al-Jazeera, you know, forever. And it's going to be rough and it might cause uprisings in other parts, and it might prove to be disastrous.
On the other hand, in my opinion, if they do not take Fallujah, that is guaranteed -- and bring in Saddam's old generals, that is guaranteed to prove disastrous.
A fellow who spent time down there and whose opinion I judge, I value highly, has said that the one thing we need to remember is that we must keep the Shi'ites on our side, and I just don't see how that does that. They are talking tactics as well as strategy, I guess, in terms of battle situations down there, but mistakes have been made. Sound like Nixon, don't I? I think -- it seems to me war is a succession of mistakes. Mistakes were made in the Korean war, mistakes and setbacks came about in world war ii. Certainly here, we probably went in without enough troops in retrospect, certainly now it seems like a no-brainer, although that's still debated. Some people think that running off the old Saddam military was a bad idea. As conventional wisdom, maybe that's true.
I don't know.
Underestimating the difficulty of pacifying the place clearly was a mistake, although I don't remember that many commentators and experts before the fact predicting that this was what's going to happen.
A lot of people thought we shouldn't go. A lot of people thought we were going to meet more resistance than we in fact did. We made a mistake as to the strength of the resistance to start with. It was easier than what we thought, turned out to be. But regardless, if you're carrying out this operation, it's your responsibility not to make mistakes, if they can be avoided, and that was a mistake. So we can spend a lot of time looking backward, but looking forward, I believe that over a period of several years now, we have slowly but surely developed a reputation, not as a country that's looking for a fight or looking to unilaterally invade folks for the fun of it, but if we pull out when things get tough, as we did in Somalia, as we turned around in Haiti, the port there, as we did in Lebanon, a lot of people interpret our leaving when we did in Iraq in 1991 in retrospect, as weakness. The many times we've been attacked from African embassies to the attempt in the airport in Los Angeles, the following year, to the following year of the world trade center before, and our tepid responses to all that. All of that has led us to a situation where people are expecting us to do that again and if we do that again, it's going to make for a much more dangerous situation.
That's a fear for us.
That's a theater of war there. If we got out of war tomorrow and had no involvement forever, it would be a terrible blow to us, but it would just simply change the theater to another one.
Or several more, including the possibility of a very real possibility -- and I think probability, of a theater of war in this country, many cells are here already.
Some think, you know, waiting to be activated. I do not know. So it is a problem. It is a mess.
But it is not one that I think we asked for. It is one that we're struggling to come to the right answer to, and I think pulling out of there and running and not doing what's necessary to be successful there -- and at least give those people an opportunity, ultimately they've got to be the ones to decide what kind of country they're going to have, but giving them an opportunity to live in a different kind of society now that Saddam and Uday and Husay, how soon we forget, now that they're not running things anymore. George Mitchell: First, let's identify what went right. The military, the active military phase of the operation was clearly well planned and executed.
That only pointed up the dramatic contrast with the absence of effective planning and implementation on the effort to secure the peace. Leave aside the whole question of whether we should have gone in and if we did, did we go in on a pretext or on a genuinely proper basis, but once there, what went wrong?
Of course the first and most fundamental problem upon which everything else is built or from which everything else flows, as Fred pointed out, is the inadequate intelligence and what appears to be the enormous amount of self-delusion that occurred within the Administration.
We would be greeted as liberators, flowers in the streets, the Iraqis are going to pay for the reconstruction themselves with their own money.
There's a long litany of that, grounded in fact in part on an excessive reliance on expatriates, some of whom had not been in Iraq for decades, who had direct interests, financial, personal, political ambitions, and who clearly did not provide a complete and accurate picture of what could have been expected.
On that delusion, the following errors in judgment occurred.
First, the effective stiffing of the U.N. and others. The attitude that Iraq was a prize which we had won from which others should be excluded, rather than Iraq is a burden which we should invite others to share. The refusal to give the U.N. A meaningful role. That has now been completely reversed. The Administration's position is the exact opposite of what it was a year ago, and we are asking the U.N. To take over the political process, and in fact Ambassador Barzami will go there in the next few days to select. He will personally select the new transitional government to which sovereignty will be transferred in a limited way on June 30. The second mistake was the total disbandment of the Iraqi army and all Iraqi security forces. Ambassador Bremer's first major act when he took over last year. It not only removed from Iraqi society what had been a large and active and influential institution, thereby creating a political vacuum, it immediately created a large army of hundreds of thousands of men who had once had status in Society, had jobs, who now were unemployed, unable to feed their families, and who were easy prey for those recruiting insurgents, and it's quite clear that they have led the effort. Now we've again reversed that policy and we're moving toward what we should have had, a sensible vetting policy to identify and disqualify the top leadership but not the entire army and the entire security force. So I think those changes are under way and that is one reason why I think the policy can be redeemed.
I do agree with Fred that we simply can't leave. In the memorable phrase that Bob Woodward tells us Colin Powell used with the President, he said--you break it, you own it. Well, we broke it, we own it.
As difficult as that might seem, what we need to do is leave as soon as we possibly can, when we have created a circumstance in which the people of Iraq have a fair and reasonable chance to create a society of their own choosing.
And one final mistake was to set the expectations so high. Who can now recall, it seems like decades, not months, that the Administration was talking about a model democracy that would cause the dominoes to fall in a democratic way throughout the Middle East, which would serve as a model for everyone. There was no nation of Iraq before 1921. For 400 years previous to that, under the Ottoman Empire, the Kurdish north, the Sunni center and the Shi'ite south had been separate districts. A British civil servant placed a large map on the table in Paris in 1921 and he drew a series of lines, creating a nation which had never before existed.
He also, incidentally, same guy, same map, same day, created Jordan, which had never previously existed. The British were not interested in the wishes or the hopes or the needs of the people who lived there. They had their immediate political problems which they were trying to solve. And so this is tough going.
This is not easy to do, and the reality is if we can create a modest opportunity for them to live, probably in some kind of federated democracy that won't look anything like the American system but will give people a chance to decide their own lives, we should count it a success and leave at that time, but not before. Leon Panetta: let me ask you on the weapons of mass destruction, because we all -- when I was in the white house, we were briefed on the existence of weapons of mass destruction. I'm sure you had briefings that were very similar to that, and Bob Woodward's book, George Tenet says when the President even raises a question about it, that it's a slam dunk, that weapons of mass destruction are there. And that obviously we found out that they were all wrong. How could our intelligence, how could our intelligence be so wrong about something so important? George Mitchell: First, let's be clear. One of the things the Administration skillfully did was to conflate three separate categories of weapons into a single slogan, weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical, biological.
There was no evidence that there was, last year or the year before, an active nuclear weapons program, and all of the evidence since then has confirmed that.
There had been evidence back in 1991, but as is clear, it had not been reconstituted. So there was no basis for the statement by Vice President Cheney that Iraq will have a nuclear weapon very soon.
There was evidence, substantial evidence, that in 1998 and 1999 when the U.N. Inspectors left, Iraq had previously accumulated a substantial volume of chemical and biological weapons which they had not credibly accounted for as either destroyed or consumed or otherwise disposed of.
So the fair argument, the truthful argument, was that the united nations had certified that Iraq has previously possessed chemical and biological weapons.
Iraq has not accounted for the disposition of those weapons, and it is fair, therefore, in the absence of such evidence, to deduce that they still exist. That was the fair argument.
The problem was that the Administration, of course, felt that that would not be enough to generate the kind of support for the war that existed, and the arguments went well beyond it.
How could our intelligence be so wrong?
Well, first, Leon, as you well know, intelligence is not a perfect mathematical accumulation of facts.
It's highly subjective. It's contradictory. It's vague. It's ambiguous.
Added to that, the fact that our human intelligence capacity has atrophied as our intelligence gathering capacity has grown. So the result is we can intercept millions of telephone conversations but we don't have many people on the street corner in Baghdad reporting to us. That's a real problem which I think has to be corrected. And third point, the volume of information collected is so much that our capacity to translate, analyze, interpret and collate it, has not kept pace. So you've got mountains of material and a very slow rate, it's not in real time, that it's developed.
So I think all of those things contributed to the failure. Leon Panetta: we've got just a few minutes before the break, but I'd like to give you a chance, Fred. Fred Thompson: I agree with George. I think it's a matter of lack of adequate human intelligence and lack of adequate analysis. We let down our guard after the Cold War in many respects.
Intelligence was one of them, especially human intelligence. Our military budget, our military personnel cut back and so forth, all for some years, led up to September 11. It takes a lot sometimes to get our attention. Osama had declared war on us. We'd been attacked several times, abroad usually, weren't paying that much attention. That's the intelligence background in a nutshell.
On the weapons of mass destruction, the people who thought there were weapons of mass destruction include, besides President Clinton, our C.I.A. The business about Saddam being capable of reconstituting his nuclear program came from a national intelligence estimate. That was not made up by Dick Cheney.
All the foreign intelligence allies that we have came to the same conclusion. All of the members of the Senate select Committee on intelligence that I served on, that I know of, came to the same conclusion. Some of the President's most vigorous critics now said at that time that Saddam posed an imminent threat at that time, including myself.
We were apparently all wrong about that. The jury is still out and maybe he hasn't had them for a while, maybe they're in Syria, who knows. But the significant thing is, I believe, is that if we had left Saddam alone, he still had his infrastructure.
He still had his scientists. He still had his capability. He still had his desire.
I can't prove this, but in my opinion if we had not gone in there, there's no question, in my opinion, in a few years, Saddam would have had nuclear capability to go along with what he admitted in terms of having chemical and biological. Leon Panetta: Let me just give you a few seconds. George Mitchell: It is true that the national intelligence estimate said Iraq had the capacity to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, but that's not what Vice President Cheney said. He said they have an active nuclear program and they will have nuclear weapons fairly soon. If he had said what the national estimate said, he would have been completely accurate.
One final point on the intelligence. We relied upon the expatriates who told us what we wanted to hear and that is human nature. Every time somebody says something to me that is a repeat of something I said elsewhere or I previously believed, I say boy, that guy is really smart. Leon Panetta: We've come to the conclusion of the first part and it goes very fast when we're talking about these kinds of issues. We'll take a 10 minute break and then we'll return for your questions.
Thank you. [applause] Leon Panetta: If I could, I'd like to take a moment before we begin the second half to introduce our question review team. They're the people who are responsible for reviewing the questions this evening, and if you'd please hold your applause while I introduce the entire group. They're Carolina Garcia, who's the Executive Editor of the Monterey County Herald. Fran graver, our veteran question review team member. Pete Elfish, another veteran question review team member. Jody Jones, anchor for Fox News.
Thank you. [applause] Leon Panetta: I'd also like to take a moment and ask the students who attended the afternoon session--we do an afternoon session with students from the central coast and they have the opportunity to ask our guests questions; we had a great session today-- if I could ask them to please stand.
These are students from the Monterey peninsula college, and Santa Catalina school. One high school, and our local community college.
[applause] George Mitchell: The constitution does not define cruel and unusual punishment, but surely it must include these students having to listen to two ex-politicians on the same day. Leon Panetta: Our first question deals with the Middle East, and I wanted to -- I want to follow up on the question because obviously, what we're seeing today, Ariel Sharon is the -- his party did not support his proposal to basically withdraw from Gaza. Recently, President Bush made what looked like a fundamental shift in Middle Eastern policy, by recognizing the Israeli claims to major settlements in the west bank. And the U.S.-- I guess the question I wanted to ask you, George, having spent your time there, has the U.S. backed away from the peace plan that was agreed to in the past, and has it lost its ability to be a fair broker between Israel and the Palestinians? George Mitchell: The Administration says it has not backed away from the peace plan, the so-called road map, which incorporates in its entirety the plan that our commission delivered to the President when we completed our work. It remains to be seen whether the recent action was, or becomes, a part of a more comprehensive effort to push the road map, which I believe offers some opportunity for progress, although it's a very difficult situation.
If it is not that and if it is merely a single isolated act in response to an Israeli initiative, then it is not likely to advance the process further down the road.
I spent a week in Israel just a short time ago, with both Israeli and Palestinian, political and other leaders. There is a sense of pessimism. I would call it consensus that not much is going to happen this year. We have a presidential election in this country.
As you know, Sharon has not only had this difficulty with his own party, there are two current criminal investigations under way in which there's usually some discussion of whether he will, or a member of his family, will be indicted. On the Palestinian side, there has been a disintegration of the authority of the Palestinian authority itself. That is, the governing institution, resulting in a dramatic increase in crime, the dissolution of law and order among large segments of the population, and within the Palestinian authority, a sharp decline in the authority of Chairman Arafat. He's alienated many of his own leaders, the part of the group that's been with him for so many years, so with the crisis of leadership, there are questions of leadership among Israelis, the American election, there's a sense nothing is going to happen this year.
But I come away with one note of optimism. What I did detect is an attitude among the public on both sides that is quite similar to what existed in Northern Ireland just before we were able to get a peace agreement there. I've been asked thousands of times, how did you get a peace agreement in Northern Ireland after 30 years of war and so many failed efforts? And my answer is that the public on both sides became sick of war. They became weary of the overwhelming essential of fear and anxiety that pervaded all segments of society and made a normal life impossible, and I think that's happening now among Palestinians and Israelis, a sense that they can't get what they want following the present course.
I think that's right. The Israelis want security. The Palestinians want a state.
I believe that in the end, neither can achieve its objective by denying to the other its objective. The Palestinians will never get a state by the suicide bombing of Israelis. Each suicide bombing is not only morally reprehensible, it's politically counterproductive and retards progress toward a state. So they're not going to get a state until the Israelis have security, and I don't think the Israelis can have any sustainable security until the Palestinians get a state, and I think that realization is dawning, and I hope and pray they will move toward the accommodation necessary so that each will have its objective and they're not going to become friends or trusting. They're still not that in Northern Ireland.
But the end of active conflict, the end of killing, I think, has to be the immediate objective before you move on to the second stage of political stability and the third stage of genuine reconciliation. Leon Panetta: can the U.S. play the role -- George Mitchell: Yes. Yes. The United States is committed to Israel.
Have been since the day it was founded. We are openly committed to its survival as a sovereign state with defensible borders. But we are also publicly committed, as President Bush has said, to a Palestinian State.
It is true that the overwhelming majority of Arabs believe that the United States is hopelessly biased in favor of Israel, but that doesn't disqualify us from acting because they recognize that no one else can do it. Think about the fact, every time something bad happens in the Middle East, most Arab government leaders hold a press conference to ask for greater American involvement.
They don't say we want the Americans to go away. They say the problem is, there hasn't been enough involvement by the United States.
So they recognize that yes, we are committed to Israel, but also, yes, the United States government is the only entity with the capacity to create the conditions to which an agreement can be reached and most importantly, to guarantee implementation.
One final point. It comes down to money. We all celebrate Camp David.It was a great success. The glue that holds Camp David together was the American guarantee of $3 billion a year minimum to Israel and $2 billion a year to Egypt. 25 years, we're still paying it out. 125 billion dollars have been paid to guarantee that implementation. You American taxpayers are the implementers of peace in the Middle East when it comes.
[applause] Leon Panetta: Senator Thompson, the U.S. did a pre-emptive strike in Iraq because of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. How difficult will it be for the U.S. to ever get support again for a pre-emptive strike against another country? Fred Thompson: Well, I still think it depends on the circumstances that the United States is faced with and how effective we make our case about those circumstances.
I think part of our problem in this case was that so many of our European friends as well as other people around the world did not be appreciate or believe the nature of the threat, that terrorism essentially was our problem, we were the number one target, and we didn't make an effective enough case as to the nature of the situation.
I think unfortunately, the war will be seeing that play out, in other ways, as the Spanish have. I think that had more to do with their support than just their support of us in Iraq.
And Bali -- other places, of course, we've already seen. But I think there are two parts to it.
First, our allies, as I was alluding to earlier, I think we've got to make the case, we've got to have much better intelligence, and as you pointed out earlier, intelligence is never perfect. It's an imperfect science, and ours is certainly not where it should be.
There are all kinds of scenarios in the future that would present terrible quandaries for all of us. We're all focused now on this one place.
It will be resolved one way or another before long. What kind of world are we going to live in afterwards?
Are we going to have a situation where we cannot act unless we have 100% intelligence that is unassailable, which I think probably virtually never happens.
Suppose someone comes in and tells the President that they have information of something that's about to happen and particular place and location of the most severe consequences.
But the source, there's only one source, and the source of that has a spotty record, sometimes he's been wrong and sometimes he's been right.
What do you do in a situation like that?
Those are the tough decisions we're going to be required to make more than anybody because we're the number one target and we're the leading nation.
So we're going to have to work effectively and try to make our case as best we can to our allies.
On the other hand, I think that some of our allies have to have a different attitude themselves about things. I think there was certainly mixed motives and most of them not very laudable in terms of some of our European friends with regard to Iraq. I think they had self-interest, self-dealing. I think that they were more than happy to kind of stick it to the United States.
They had been chafing for a long time because of -- chafing for a long time because of everything from our turning down the Kyoto Treaty to back even before the Bush Administration. There's been talk of American arrogance and that sort of thing. So hopefully, they will see what Thomas Friedman wrote about in the "New York Times" a while back.
He said, this is a war between the forces of order and the forces of disorder, and if the forces of order do not understand this and pull together and come together and get over their petty differences, we're going to be in deep, deep trouble, because the forces of disorder are everywhere. They're organizing, and they can be tremendously destructive and a handful of people can get their hands now on the technological resources to kill thousands and thousands of people. We don't even talk about weapons of mass destruction anymore, out of the context of Saddam Hussein.
But they're still out there, they're proliferating, we're always finding new countries and rogue nations that have stuff that we didn't know that they had, so that's the kind of world that we live in, and the United States and our allies, better learn how to work together and confront this problem jointly, because as I say, it is everybody in the free world's problem. Leon Panetta: You're both lawyers, and you're a former Judge. What are your feelings about holding American citizens and denying them basic rights in the name of fighting terrorism? I think there was a case that was argued within the last few weeks that involved holding a U.S. citizen and declaring him an enemy combatant and therefore depriving him of right to counsel, right to a hearing, et cetera. Is the executive branch justified in doing that in the name of war? George Mitchell: No, it is not.
There are two cases. The facts are different. In one, the American citizen was captured in Afghanistan in a circumstance that can fairly be described as combatant.
In the other, another American citizen was arrested in Chicago. I don't believe in either case any American, including the President, has the authority to deprive a citizen of his constitutional right simply by declaring him to be a noncombatant.
[applause] George Mitchell: The essence of liberty and the entire concept of equal justice under the law rests upon the premise that we're a government of laws, not men. The founding fathers went to great lengths to ensure that no person would have the power that this President now claims. There's an argument to be made with respect to the person captured in Afghanistan. I believe there can be no credible argument with respect to an American citizen who's captured in Chicago.
The constitution does not have any qualifications, any conditions, does not set forth any circumstances in which the constitutional rights of any American citizen can be so denied and abridged.
Remember, held in prison, not able to see an attorney, not able to see anyone, not charged with any crime, simply held indefinitely in prison. Now, it's easy to say terrorism, threats to our society, all of that may be real. But I think that the constitution in this case is clear.
I hope very much that the supreme court will reach the conclusion that as powerful as the President is, he does not possess the power to deprive any American citizen of his or her constitutional rights.
[applause] Fred Thompson: That of course begs the question, what is his constitutional rights? I think the history of warfare and our judicial system, from what I recall, weighs in on the side of the President in this case. I think that President Roosevelt, for example, exercised these prerogatives under the war making powers and the constitution given to the President.
The real question is whether or not this is a typical kind of situation. Obviously the President can't violate any citizen's rights as such, or whether or not this is a wartime situation, where the rules of the game are totally different, and if someone can be detained just like a prisoner of war, until the hostilities are over.
Incidentally, if they were tried here and sentenced, they would probably wind up serving a lot more time in confinement than under their present circumstances even though hostilities are probably going to go on a long time, they'll probably get out sooner. The situation involving the Chicago case is Mr. Padilla. His parents were, I believe, citizens of Saudi Arabia.
They were in the United States briefly and this is not relevant legally, but he was born in the United States. He'd just come back from Pakistan. The allegation is that he was planning to -- he and others, to set off a dirty bomb here in the United States.
I think the resolution to this -- the problem that I have with it is that there needs to be a procedure to cover situations where someone is captured and held in error.
Everyone ought to have the right, like I think article 5 under the Geneva Convention, ought to have the right to come before a judge and say you've got the wrong guy and I can prove it.
And I think that's where the Administration made a mistake and I think hopefully that's what they're gravitating toward. But simply showing some threshold, not as in a regular criminal case where you have to prove a criminal case beyond a reasonable doubt, but at least some kind of prima facie showing that ok, we got him, here is where we got him, here were the circumstances and we got a right to keep him, and at least press that threshold.
I'm uncomfortable with anybody, even under wartime circumstances, if they're not in an active combat situation abroad, being held indefinitely without some kind of judicial review, but I don't think it's required to have the same kind of judicial review that you have in a typical criminal proceeding. Leon Panetta: George, what obstacles do you foresee for the Kerry campaign in the upcoming election? George Mitchell: Well, to begin with, 180 million of them. That's the amount that the President's campaign has raised.
And it's been an amount without precedent in American history at this stage of the campaign, so since it's never occurred, no one can be secure in predicting what the outcome is going to be.
Secondly, it's quite clear that there are certain disadvantages that accrue to incumbents because they have to actually do things and make decisions, but there are also enormous advantages that accrue to incumbents. Leon, you ran as an incumbent every time but once, and so you know what the advantages are, as Fred and I do as well. I think it's going to be a very close election. I think the country is about evenly divided.
Right now my guess is that it will go down to the wire, and it will be very close.
I think that Kerry faces the challenge of a financial disadvantage, a non-incumbent, and also the importance, the need to present a credible alternative to the President, particularly in the area of terrorism and conflict and strong leadership. I think he can do that. I am of course an active democrat, but Fred and I, I guess, will cancel out our votes this fall. Fred Thompson: I was about to say, good to see a couple of old Clinton supporters decrying money in Presidential politics. [applause] George Mitchell: all I can say, Fred, is that Bush outspent Clinton and so did Dole. Fred Thompson: Inflation. Leon Panetta: Let me ask you, there is a lot of money obviously involved not only in the Bush campaign, but Kerry is out raising the same kind of money. We've got television ads appearing. They're beating the hell out of each other.
They're accusing each other of virtually being unpatriotic, that both have not served this country well, and I think it was John McCain who finally said, you now, the Vietnam War is over, for goodness sakes, let's move on.
If they're beating each other up this badly now, I mean, in six months, what is the impact of that in terms of the American people's attitudes towards the Presidential race? Fred Thompson: The American people have shown boundless capability to absorb unprecedented onslaughts to their sensibilities in politics. And I guess this will be no exception.
I don't know what -- obviously, what they're doing is -- you know, the thing that bothers me most about presidential politics and the mud slinging, I'm sure before it's over with, they'll have enough -- each side will have enough money to sling about all the mud they want to, so that doesn't -- but it's that we have to wait until the presidential campaign is over before we can have some serious discussions about serious problems.
A presidential campaign is the last place in the world you're going to have a serious discussion about a serious problem. We're sitting here watching ourselves walk off a cliff, you know, in the out years, past the projections that we're all talking about now in terms of entitlements and what's going to happen when the boomers start to retire, and just as one example, there are others, but everybody is afraid to talk about it, and the common statement each year is that well, we can deal with that as soon as the election is over.
That's what elections are supposed to about. And that has to do with leadership, and it has to do with not just being a sponge and receiving what you're getting out there and your poll numbers tell you, but actually leading and I think that politicians underestimate the ability of the American people to appreciate something like that, and I think the precise answer to your question, I think most people will turn it off, will turn most all of it off, and probably until sometime after the world series and the important things are over with. And then they'll see who's standing and the election will actually depend upon things that haven't happened yet. George Mitchell: The polls tell us consistently two things. The American people say they detest negative campaigns, and secondly, the American people are consistently persuaded by negative campaigns. The challenge of leadership is to reconcile these conflicting views. Can I take a couple minutes to tell a joke -- not a joke, a story about this.
Leon and I became fast friends. We spent months together during our huge budget disagreement during the first Bush Administration, months and months and months, and we got a lot of publicity and it was almost all negative, oh, they're like kids in a sandbox scrapping away, and I used to go back to Maine every weekend and hold town meetings and when one Saturday a huge crowd assembled, disproportionately elderly, and the first guy got up and says Senator, I want to make a statement and ask a question.
He said to me, you are a disgrace. You represent us and we don't like the way you're representing us. You're doing a terrible job.
He said, I want to tell you, we're sick of all this bickering between you and President bush. We want you to go back there and settle this issue like
Gentlemen from Maine, as the two of you are. Then he said that's my statement.
Here is my question. So what are you fighting about? And of course when he made the statement, the crowd roared and approved. So it turned out that one of the biggest issues was Medicare funding, so I explained to him we're fighting over Medicare funding. When we finished the explanation, he said Senator, I want you to go back there and don't you budge an inch, and the crowd erupted.
So I went back with two clear messages. Settle the issue but don't budge an inch. And I think that's one of the consequences, and I think people don't like them, but they're influenced by them. Leon Panetta: Let me ask you both, if there were another -- god willing it won't happen, but if there's another terrorist attack, what will be the impact between now and the election?
We saw what happened in Spain. What is the likely impact of another September 11 on the race between President Bush and john Kerry? Fred Thompson: That's a very good question. I think there will be two competing factors if that happens, and one is the feeling that oh, my god, all this wouldn't Have happened if we'd not been so energetic abroad, obviously working to bush's detriment. The other one would be we're not going to show the people of The world that we're like the Spanish.
They're not going to decide who's going to be our President, these terrorists are not. I think you'll have those two competing things. I also think, it depends on when it happens. I think if it happened real close to the election, people would rally around the flag and that would benefit Bush. I think if it happened somewhat out from it, that that would probably work to his detriment. Leon Panetta: George. George Mitchell: that was a pretty cold political analysis of something so serious, but I guess we've got to think about that, it's so speculative, and I believe so dependent upon the circumstances at the time of the event, of the response, that one can really only guess, but I think Fred's analysis is probably fairly close.
I would have to say, guessing, without knowing the circumstances, that it's likely to help the President. People everywhere tend to rally around their national leader in a time of crisis.
Margaret Thatcher was under 20% in the polls when the Falklands war occurred.
She went up to 80%. You saw what happened with President Bush and September 11. You've seen that in Israel, with Prime Minister Sharon and indeed with Chairman Arafat. Arafat's poll numbers have been steadily going down and the only time they blip up is when the Israelis lob a couple of tank shells into his compound there, then they blip up, then they drop again.
So I think the immediate reaction would be rallying around the President or the leader at a time of crisis. Leon Panetta: what is the appropriate role of the federal government when it comes to outsourcing of jobs overseas? George Mitchell: I was a Senate majority leader and led the Senate to ratification of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization. The most severe criticism came from within my own party. But I believe that the record is clear that the people of this country have been the principal beneficiaries of the expansion of trade, the spread of stability and democracy that has occurred in the half century since the close of the Second World War. This is not to say that our trade policy has been perfect or without error or adverse consequences.
Indeed they have, but remember, most economic dislocations occur because of innovation in a dynamic free market economy, not as a consequence of trade agreements. I come from Maine.
We once had a thriving industry in New England with hundreds of people engaged in the manufacture of stage coaches. There is not one person in America now employed making stagecoaches. The people who lost their jobs and the towns where those jobs were concentrated were hard hit, but every reasonable person can conclude that the invention of the motor vehicle has been a dramatic benefit to our country as a whole.
Now we have to do a better job on environmental, health, and wealth fare, and labor standards, in other countries, where jobs are going, because there is an unfairness about the competition that exists. But it is the pursuit of an illusion to believe that if we can just somehow erect walls around our country, we're going to protect ourselves and improve our economic condition. We're not going to. It's like holding back the tide. We should direct our energies not to trying to create a fantasy world that won't benefit our people, but to doing a much better, more aggressive and more innovative job about mitigating the adverse effects that comes from trading with other countries. In so doing, we'll benefit ourselves and we'll benefit others with whom we deal. Fred Thompson: I think that the recent rise of protectionist sentiments are very detrimental potentially to our economy. I agree with Senator Mitchell 100% on what he said about free trade and the benefits, and it helps our people buy cheaper products. It helps other people in other nations who aspire to be economically successful, to lift their standard of living. And we gain in the process. Nations that trade openly are by and large successful nations.
Nations that do not, by and large are not successful. That's the whole thing for me. I do think that it would be a mistake to impose environmental and labor standards on these fledgling, some younger countries or small countries or poverty stricken countries, because I think the best thing we could do as a condition for free trade with us, the best thing we can do to alleviate those kinds of problems is to have free trade, and it's only helping lift them out of poverty that free trade will bring about that they will improve their environmental conditions, for example, not because of any mandates we lay on them. Leon Panetta: President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney testified before the 9/11 commission with no press coverage. Should the public know what was said and why? Fred Thompson: I think that there's something to be said for a certain amount of informality in a situation like this. They're trying for -- in a way, I would like to have had a transcript of it, but I think the main thing is to impart information, and if they're really interested in information, on having a frank back and forth and give and take as they did with the President and Vice President as they did with President Clinton and Vice President Gore, I think this forum and this format with regard to this commission, which I think is a bipartisan commission and nobody is going to get away with anything of any substance, I think, is a decent format to do that in. And I incidentally think that from all the turmoil that they've had from time to time and controversies that the commission has had, that a couple of important things are going to come out of it.
One is that the American people now know what those of us who have been in the Senate, especially those of us who have been on intelligence Committees, and the American people, if they have been paying attention, should have already known, and that is that we have a great deficiency in terms of our intelligence capabilities and what that leads to, and I think President Bush has now said that we need reform, we need to do some things differently. He has somewhat of an excuse, I think, in a way seven months, how much can you do it, takes longer and longer to get a team together, each succeeding President it takes longer and so forth.
Up to a point. But it became obvious some time ago that we had great deficiencies there and it had to be done. I think he's making that statement now, one that's long overdue, quite frankly, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that now everybody has seen how bad the situation is and what the consequences are. The other thing that's coming out of the 9/11 Commission is the consensus, it seems like by the Commission, that sometimes, sometimes pre-emptive action is something you have to do. We can debate over when and where and so forth, but the President is taking a lot of criticism, by the majority of the Commission, it seems, for not having done more before September 11 in terms of -- it could only be described as, pre-emptive terms. Leon Panetta: what do you think, George? George Mitchell: Well, I like and respect Fred so much, I'm always embarrassed to disagree with him, but on this I do. I think Clinton, Gore, Bush and Cheney should have testified, their testimony transcribed, televised if necessary. This is a democracy, not a monarchy. The President is the President. He's not a king, even though we treat Presidents like kings in this country. And if bill Clinton as President could be compelled to testify under oath on the record before TV about his sex life, I think the current President could testify under similar circumstances --. [applause] George Mitchell: -- Let me finish -- about what is one of the greatest tragedies in American history, and I think the gravity of the event by itself should have been sufficient to require that kind of testimony. Leon Panetta: Let me ask Fred: how did a person who was a counsel become a movie actor? And then become District Attorney on "law and order"? Fred Thompson: First of all, I appreciate the compliment. I once pointed out, I said I just happened into this thing, I never took an acting lesson.
They said we know, we saw it. We've seen your work. No, it's like most things that have happened of any importance in my life, total serendipity. I was practicing law, they made a movie about a case I had and I played myself in the movie, so it was a terrible mistake that they made, letting me in on the inside there, because I wouldn't turn them loose, so I did 18 features and then for the Senate, and I often say that with all of the political activity in Hollywood, that I had to leave the Senate and go back into show business to get my points heard again. Leon Panetta: George, let me ask you about your role as chair of Disney. What was tougher, being majority leader or being Chair of the Disney Board? George Mitchell: well, I didn't realize that, but the good lord has a way of working mysteriously and pulling strings, so my work as Senate Majority Leader, my work five years in Northern Ireland working on a peace agreement, and the one year I spent in the Middle East, were all preparations for my current position. Fred Thompson: You know, it just occurred to me, he's Disney. I still try to make a movie occasionally. I may be working for him. I want to apologize for anything -- George Mitchell: I'll tell you one thing. I think you're a hell of a Senator and I think you're a great actor. Fred Thompson: thank you very much. George Mitchell: can that substitute for money, as psychic remuneration, the applause? Fred Thompson: Much more so. Leon Panetta: Well, you're both not only great actors but great public servants, and we have been honored this evening to have had the benefit of your views. These are tough issues that this country is facing, and the important thing we want to do is to ensure that everyone here and everyone, for that matter, throughout America, participates in this process. The most important thing in democracy is that we're willing to talk about these issues and not be afraid to talk about them, because probably the ultimate of patriotism is the willingness to debate and discuss our differences, and we do that here at the Panetta Lecture Forum, and we thank both of you for your participation.
[applause]
http://www.panettainstitute.org/lib/04/mitchell_thompson.htm
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Fred Thompson
Former U.S. Senator (R-TN)
