 Welcome to the New America event for the 2022 Bringing Americans Home Report by the James Foley Foundation. I'm Peter Bergen, Vice President, New America. Delighted to introduce Diane Foley, President of the Foley Foundation, who will say a few words before we begin this event. Thank you, Peter. I want to thank the New America Foundation for their generous support. And thank you, Peter, and I'm not for being our moderators today and all our wonderful panelists. And thank you to each of you who've taken time to join us, because while lots of progress has been made in terms of the return of our wrongful detainees and hostages. We have some real strong concerns that we found through our research this year that we want you all to be aware of so please listen in, send your questions and know how grateful we are to each and every one of you. Thanks a million. Thanks, Diane. So, on our first panel, the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape, we're going to be led off by Cindy literature, who is going to explain the findings of her report that she authored for the Foley Foundation. We've got some reaction from Chris Costa, the executive director of the International Spy Museum former special assistant to the president senior director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, among many other things that he's done in his career. Also, Brian Jenkins who's long followed the hostage issue for, and is more or less invented the field of counterterrorism in the United States. He's the president of ran corporation and I use to find chairman and CEO of the Siobhan group, former FBI agent, and somebody's done also so much work to keep America safe. So, and keep Americans safe. So Cindy will start with you and you're going to do the presentation and then we'll hear from the panelists and their reactions about your findings. Thank you so much, Peter. Hello, I'm Cynthia Lercher, the director of research hostage advocacy and legislative affairs for the James Foley Foundation. I would like to thank New America for hosting this year's report launch and to the fantastic team over a wise blood for publishing this year's bringing Americans home report, and to all of you viewers and moderators and are very, very talented panelists for joining us today. I'm deeply humbled to have the opportunity to write the Foley Foundation's fourth annual bringing Americans home report. It's a great honor of mine to be able to reflect the successes and challenges many hostages and wrongful detainees and their families face this year interviewed 60 individuals associated with a specific hostage or wrongful detention case. The majority being family members family representatives advocates and former hostages and wrongful detainees themselves. First of all, the structures created in the 2015 presidential policy directive 30, what we call PPD 30 and executive order 1369 eight remain impactful, but many Americans are still not coming home. Before PPD 30 we had an entirely classified hostage policy called NSP 12. In addition to its classification level the policy lacked critical components that we see in PPD 30 today, one being the creation of the hostage recovery fusion cell, which is an interagency currently housed in the FBI. Second, the hostage or excuse me the office of the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department, and the hostage response group over at the National Security Council. In addition, another important component to PPD 30 was the creation of the family engagement coordinator. These structures have greatly improved the quality of family engagement information sharing and consistency. This is a significant coordination of US government engagement with hostage and wrongful detainee families. However, not everyone has access to these government entities wrongful detainee families report more delays and gaining access to the special presidential envoys up. Excuse me office, citing challenges and elevating their cases out of consular affairs. Overall, more and more Americans are still not coming home in a timely manner. The current number of Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained track by the fully foundation is currently 64 with an average length of captivity of four years, over some of those cases are wrongful detention cases, hostage families and not quite hostage families and wrongful detainee families are calling for more and faster decisions coming out of the White House, more negotiation expertise within the community. For the director of the hostage recovery fusion cell and special presidential envoy for hostage affairs to be given more authority and have direct access to the president of the United States. In addition, wrongful detainee families are having a difficult time obtaining wrongful detention status, which was codified by the Robert Levinson act back in December of 2020. The potential wrongful detention cases continue to languish in consular affairs and for sometimes years. Overall, the wrongful detainee families, what experience working with a special presidential envoy for hostage affairs is a vast improvement from working with consular affairs. So we'll go to the first slide. Since, since 2001, there have been at least 153 us nationals wrongfully detained by state actors with approximately seven us nationals detained per year. Over the last decade, the number of us nationals wrongfully detained has increased from 2001 to 2011 49 us nationals were wrongfully detained, an average of four approximately four us nationals per year. Now, I just want to emphasize these are incidents that we're talking about. So we're looking at that. It's a lighter red line. So, okay, so from 2012 and average of 11 us nationals were wrongfully detained each year so it's increased and that number represents 175% increase in the number of incidents of us nationals wrongfully detained. We're looking at the darker shade of the red, the number of us nationals who continue to be wrongfully held by foreign governments has increased 585 580% over the last decade. So from 2001 to 11, an average of five us nationals were wrongfully held by foreign governments each year. And from 2012 and average of 34 us nationals were wrongfully held by foreign governments. This number again represents a 580% increase. So since 2012, the number of releases each year has not kept pace with the number of detentions resulting in a cumulative increase in the number of us nationals, you remain wrongfully held. And it's important to note, nearly one third of us nationals who have been wrongfully detained are still being held. So we're looking at the full database there, a third of the database and nearly half of those currently detained have been held for more than 40 years. And we'll move to the second slide. Next, looking at the hostage taking by non state actors. This section was also co authored by stuff lurcher. According to the data, there are indications that the number of Americans taken hostage has decreased, but the trend may not be durable. The average number of us nationals taken hostage each year has decreased by approximately 40% from 2012 to 22 compared to 2001 to 11. The decrease in the number of hostage taking is roughly one third is encouraging. It should be treated with caution for two reasons first travel has been restricted. Due to COVID COVID-19 pandemic and second, over the past several years there's been a decrease in the territory controlled by terrorist organizations as Western led counterterrorism efforts in the Middle East, and Africa pushed back boundaries of terrorist control group, excuse me. In addition, hostage taking of us nationals appear to becoming more difficult to resolve. Nearly half of the US national still held have been held for more than five years, while the number of us nationals taken hostage has decreased over over the past 11 years, many of the cases are not being resolved. As a result, the total number of us nationals currently held each year has increased. And that's the dark red that we're looking at and you can see the dark red. Those are the, those are the Americans being held where the gray are the incidents. So the average duration of us national captivity, when taken hostage has a crease increase, excuse me, approximately 60% over the past 10 years. So I'm not slide in. And, but of note, right after completing this year's report, there were two hostage releases, one being the most recent Mark Frerichs, the timing of this event could not be better because we can all celebrate Mark's return to freedom. The Foley Foundation applauds all those within the hostage enterprise, Mark's dedicated family and the family hostage advocate Eric Lebson who who's on the Foley Foundation's advisory council who work tirelessly to bring Mark home. But what's interesting about Mark case is that it resembles so many other ongoing hostage and wrongful detention cases that we see today. One question to ask is, did the US government use all opportunities to bring to bring in in this case Mark home. Someone argue that Mark's return could have been a precondition of the peace Accord signed a month after his kidnapping in February. This case has a great deal of relevance because it highlights the importance of making these cases a priority over other policy equities. It also highlights the critical role that families play and how they can be effective advocates for their loved ones. It also further highlights the importance of having a productive working relationship between advocacy groups and government entities like the hostage recovery fusion cell, special presidential envoy for hostage affairs and the hostage response group. Today is a day we can celebrate, but the findings also highlight that it is a day when we need to redouble our collective efforts to bring Americans home now. Thank you. Thank you Cindy. Let's get some reactions to that from our panel to start with Chris Costa the executive director of the International Spy Museum. Hey Peter thank you as always for moderating and thank you Cindy and Diane and my esteemed colleagues on the panel. It is a privilege to be able to talk about hostages today. So, I had an opportunity to review some of the recommendations and also to reflect on on these recommendations while I travel overseas last week, frankly, and the bottom line is from my perspective is these recommendations are not revolutionary. They are absolutely necessary, and they are grounded by a new paradigm of states wrongfully detaining Americans in a in a broader fashion. It seems to be a trend that is deeply troubling. So it is absolutely critical and necessary for PPD 30 to evolve and I think that the recommendations are inspired. I'd be happy to talk about specifics, but I have five other points I want to make very briefly. First and foremost, and we'll probably hear from Brian on this, but hostage hostage taking remains profitable. It certainly remains profitable now by states taking hostages, or wrongfully detainees, regardless the effect is the same, taking away people's individual freedom for some kind of leverage hybridizing hostage taking as part of a state's state graph is a malign form of insurance in that do is profitable for states like Russia for states like China for states like Venezuela. So that is significantly part of that trajectory. I'm talking about. And I guess the third point in this goes back to the counterterrorism enterprise writ writ large, and that is diplomat statesman if we can come together the way we did historically to focus on counterterrorism, regarding hostages, not just hostages held by terrorists but hostages that are wrongfully detained, I think we will be much better posture to handle these cases. And again, the recommendations that Cindy lays out in her report and in this report is absolutely crucial for doing that. And I guess the last point is just to highlight again, I believe we are at an end with regard to states taking hostages wrongful detainees. And I think that is a significant problem. And at the end of the day, it is gut wrenching to remind our audience that my predecessors and my successors alike. They always have unfinished hostage work. So we can never rest on our laurels and we collectively don't so I very much appreciate this forum and this particular report. Thank you, Brian Jenkins need to come off mute Brian, Brian you're on mute. Before answering the question just let me quickly add my thanks to Diane Foley and to the Foley Foundation for their, for their continuing efforts to bring Americans back this is a noble service to, to those held captive abroad to their families and, and to the nation and this is certainly applied to many of the people here on the panel and, and in the audience. Cindy and I had had an opportunity to talk about her report and I, and I had an opportunity to review it I think it's, I think it's excellent. I think the suggestions are reasonable I agree with Chris that that this is an evolving problem and therefore policies are going to evolve with it. The government side and I'm not here representing the government but on the government side this is, this is still a work in progress. We have come a long way there's still a lot more to be done. In bringing in bringing hostages home and looking at some of these figures. First of all with regard to the decline in in kidnappings by non government groups that historically tends to follow its own trajectory so I wouldn't try to infer too much of a cause and effect there I mean we saw ways of kidnappings in South America in the 70s. We saw another wave connected with the Civil War in Lebanon in the 1980s. We saw a wave of them again in Latin America, especially Columbia in the 90s and early 2000s and and we saw another wave connected with the with the intervention in Iraq. Now they say that tends to go up and down wherever there's a complete breakdown in law and order we're going to see kidnappings both ordinary ransom kidnappings and politically motivated kidnappings in increase. The, the increase in detentions wrongful detentions by states is a trend, I think more. We, it's not just, it's not just Iran, although there are a handful of serial detainers who account for a disproportionate number of cases and Iran certainly is at the top of that list. So here I would, I would, I would probably add a cautionary note, which really in dealing with Iran just to take one example. I think it underscores the complexity of these cases. I mean if you look at US relations with Iran we have a long list of issues their ambition for nuclear weapons there. There are lots against American officials abroad and even here in the United States. Their sponsorship of of militias and terrorist proxies elsewhere in the Middle East. And, and in that sense, bringing bringing individuals back is one other complexity and this becomes kind of kind of a Rubik's cube of trying to get all these pieces in place it's not going to work every time. Similarly, as these captivities increase and we end up with a number of people who face very long captivities, then in fact that cumulative total and that's what that line is, is inevitably going to be to go up. And I think where the challenge for the US right now is really as Chris, I would agree with Chris here is number one, not only dealing with each case as it comes up, but also attempting to create a broader international community and enlisting allies in dealing with the phenomenon in general. The Canadians have have launched a diplomatic initiative aimed at this specific issue. I think beneath and beneath international conventions. I think there is work that that is going on to create really a network of affected countries by this who are quietly working together increasingly so to bring Americans to bring Americans back home I'll leave it there. Thank you Peter. Thank you for hosting and thank you for the New America Foundation. I am fully for being an amazing advocate for this and Cindy for putting this fantastic report I know this is your fourth report and the numbers and the recommendations of the people who speak for themselves I don't want to, you know, repeat some of the issues that my colleagues Chris and Brian brilliantly outlined, I just wanted to go more from the strategic into the operational. The PPD 30 and the whole hostage enterprise need to be updated. This is something, you know, sometimes some of the stuff in it cannot be relevant as it is it's like any business you start the business couple of years you figure out what you need to do what's working what's not working. And definitely we need to do the same with with the hostage enterprise in general and Sydney actually mentioned that as part of her recommendations. Also, on the same time we need to figure out a way. How can we bring Americans home. I mean if you talk to the folks in the fusion cell, and if you talk to Roger Kirsten and his office and the White House and State Department. Everybody's heart in the right place. The problem is when you put all the interagency together around the same table. Sometimes a bureaucracy take over direct date takes over things that need a month will need, you know, a year and things that needs a week it will take a month and so forth. So, I think when we have the opportunity, and I hope they listen to this recommendation from the report to update the hostage enterprise, all these bureaucratic elements, what's working. We need to build upon and what does not work. We also need to fix another thing is and this is something Brian mentioned the multilateral response. You know, a lot of citizens are being not only our citizens but citizens also from Western countries like England and Canada and France. All are subject to this, this phenomenon. And unfortunately, sometimes when we're working to get our citizens back, we see ourself compete against each other. Some countries don't have the same rules and regulations like us in the UK, for example, regarding paying ransoms regarding, you know, what level, where do you take the negotiations to in getting hostages back. I think we need to have some kind of a multilateral response and also in the same time, work closely with partners who are in the regions who are allies of the United States, and we can depend on them in opening negotiations and opening a path to bring Americans back home. Another thing I would like to add is the role of the private sector and trusted third parties, a lot of third parties have, you know, the mission they share the mission with the government and the family to bring people home. Unfortunately, from the experience that we've been seeing some third parties can complicate the situation more than helping it. So how can we put the third parties and the government and create some kind of a framework where they can work in tandem together to towards the objective. I want to add something about, you know, build on something that Cindy mentioned in the report is listening to the hostage families. Some of the biggest problems sometimes we notice that the government is doing a lot of work, but they don't know how to communicate that with the families, either because of bureaucracies or because of classifications or because of other issues that, you know, they always the families always feel left out the families know a lot about the, the case of their loved ones they, you know, a lot of they developed a network and extremely important network that's feeding them information also about what's going on trying to help them. And, and the families proved again and again to be a significant, you know, power to the government and to others, in order to get justice and release hostages I mean the prosecution of the Beatles is a testament of what these families can achieve when they work together and work closely with the government. So, in general, I mean I don't want to say that slogan it take network to bring down network, but the families with third parties with the government with allies around the world we need to figure out a strategy to work together to do this. State actors now are more involved in illegally detaining Americans and non state actors but I agree 100% with what Brian said on this, this can change, and we need to develop a strategy to deal with the world as it is today, not as it was five years ago. Thank you. And if your audience have questions please put them in the Slido box on the right of your video, and I'll ask the panelists questions but so let me ask all of you. I'm to kind of assess the Biden administration's approach I mean, you know, I think early on there was a certain amount of skepticism about the Biden administration that they weren't doing enough they weren't really prioritizing this. You know Cindy mentioned Mark Ferrick's being released of course it was also Safi Raff and his brother who's a British citizen with American green card. President Biden recently met with Brittany Griners family and Paul Wellens family. It seems that the intention, a level, and also the success level is better than it might have been if we'd had this discussion. Early on in the administration so anybody just jump in to react to that. I'll take that I think look, Peter, we have a lot of great people in this enterprise as we speak today you know you have, you know, Chris O'Leary with the fusion cell you have Roger Kirsten, who President Biden continued to keep him in that post and he was appointed President Trump, but also on the same time one of the things that I think is benefiting everyone is Josh Geltzer being in his position in the NSC who cares about these cases he worked closely. You know, on the hostage issues when he was out of government, and he has been really kind of like, you know, a person ironing all these issues behind the scenes so I think again, when you talk to people under the former administration or under this administration, everybody's hard in the right position in the right place everybody wanted to bring Americans home but also at the same time you have the personalities. You have kind of like really good people today in the FBI at state and having Josh in the White House, playing the role that Chris Costa played before and also trying to work with Robert O'Brien under the other, the former administration and putting these things together so I think so far, things are moving. We have successes. We've, you mentioned, some of the people who have been released and there is more people who have been released. And it's because of the great work that's happening in the interagency because of the leadership of the fusion cell, the leadership of Roger Kirsten in his office, and the support that they are getting from the NSC, especially from Josh Delta. Peter, if I could just jump on there and reiterate some of the, some of the points that Ali just made, all of those names just mentioned and Roger Carstens, Josh Guelter, Chris O'Leary, we're all collectively communicating. People, all of us are talking about specific cases. We're trying to apply appropriate pressure. We're trying to call it as we see it. And I think that also too is extremely healthy. The fact that an extended network to put a finer point on what Ali just said about the network to defeat a network, we're also a network that's communicating with each other because we've all learned hard lessons. And for those that want to throw stones at any respective administration, it took us in the Trump administration from January 2017 inauguration day until October of 2017 until we brought our first hostage home. That was Caitlin Coleman. And it's a lot of work. It's difficult. And until you walk in those shoes. It is really hard for anyone to cast any aspersions because everyone's heart is in the right place. That said, I also agree with Ali to use a general McChrystalism. We have to continue to work to crush the bureaucracy and to break down the barriers and to ensure that consular affairs, for example, is in consonance with what, you know, the president wants to summit in some respects. So those interness in battles that take place, the families should not be participating in those fights whatsoever. They shouldn't even know that they happen. It should be completely seamless. We owe the families one thing and that is hostage resolution. So the fight continues and we can never rest on our laurels. As I've said, so I agree with everything Ali just articulated. And I just think that we continue to get better and more effective and more efficient, but we can never be satisfied because it's not good enough until we bring everyone home. If I could also just jump into, I agree, there are some, there are fantastic individuals within the national security now that are working on these cases. And, you know, in the year before we had roughly around eight to 10 releases and we're having some releases this year. But, you know, I just don't want to move away from the fact that we still have 64 Americans that are held, and on average for four years or longer, where they're continuing to be held. And, you know, and the report's going to highlight, you know, how to how to look beyond just this current administration and also, you know, in the future administrations, for instance, one of our recommendations is to create a new position within the Security Council to prioritize hostage cases and continue productive relationships inside the administration with a strong focus on regional counterparts at the State Department National Security Council and up to the national security level. Without those relationships, the ability to find common ground becomes more and more difficult to prioritize hostage cases. Most participants in the report believe that the key actors who focus whose focus is required to obtain their loved ones release as a president, Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor. So essentially the President's National Security Council. You know, and for some participants, wrongful detainees, they believe that the challenge is actually on the regional side of the National Security Council, and they struggle to manage how to prioritize their case on the regional side. And, you know, these regional directorates and rightfully so are focused on current policy and the administration, the policy that the administration is put forward, so adding a position like this is critical to build good relationships and to prioritize and focus on wrongful detention and hostage cases. There's nothing more important than, you know, partner building in order to maintain focus to ensure that the regional directorates understand hostage and wrongful detainee issues, which is why we are emphasizing on creating this position, because we don't want to base decisions off of personalities that are currently within the White House. We want to focus on how do we continue the legacy and proceed towards it into future administrations. I just wanted to point out to the audience that the report is now live on the, on the FOB foundation website. If you want to look at the, the executive summary or the full report. Brian, and your reactions and also your reactions as well and the rest of the panel to the idea of putting what I guess would be a senior director for detainee affairs on the National Security Council. Is that just another person, or is that a good idea? Peter, let me make a couple of, of, I think, realistic, even if they sound a cold blooded observations about this. It's possible to create new positions that is possible to push these things of this issue further, further into the White House and up the ladder. The reality at the same time is that the president, any president in dealing with hostage situations on the one hand is dealing with very difficult situations where our ability, especially in dealing with, in dealing with state detainees, our ability to affect their behavior is realistically limited. Many of these nations that are engaged in this practice, Iran, North Korea, and so on, have poor human rights records and treating they treat their own citizens poorly. They operate outside of international norms. Most of them do have sanctions, diplomatic sanctions, economic sanctions, impose them on them anyway for, for as a consequence of their behavior. So there isn't a lot of, of, of headroom for escalation with, without in some cases, the use of military force. That's a reality. Now, to elevate that issue, in a sense, underscores that vexing reality, and, and that creates a real problem. The second observation is that there's no question that over the, as we've seen in addition to the US government. In a sense, in getting its act together and creating platforms and procedures for dealing with this issue more effectively than it has in the past. At the same time, the, the, the families of the hostages and individuals and groups representing of those families and those hostages have themselves increased their organization in a sense. Now, the, for the danger here is that is that you don't want to see advocacy, advocacy, turning into an adversary relationship. And, and that's something we have to be mindful of that is where the, the advocates of hostages will see the, the US government as an adversary, and that it must, it must push along. The, the final thing is a final observation is that there is in fact no agreement in this country on policies and strategies. There is still a debate, not just within the government, but a national debate. In, in a sense, among those who feel that the appropriate approach is to do whatever the nation possibly can. Whereas others who will argue that that number one is is contrary to national interests it's contrary to national dignity. And that it is inappropriate to do so moreover it encourages repetition of this, of this activity. So the fact is the reality is that a president is navigating between a desire to bring hostages back every president wants to bring hostages back. But on the other hand, is being pushed in one direction has limited capacity in terms of making it happen. And whatever that president does will be especially in our highly partisan environment. He will be criticized and pummeled for doing it. Yeah, sobering. Let me ask you Cindy, a question about your findings. So this this average of four years is a pretty astonishing statistic. Is it our states detaining wrongfully detaining Americans longer than terrorist groups, or is it sort of the same or roughly the same what what is what accounts for this number. Right, without, you know, one of the things that we don't do is differentiate between the number of hostages and wrongful detainees with the current cases just for an added level protection. But to answer your question, the, it's significantly profoundly greater with wrongful detentions. One of the cases is years. Yeah, so states are holding Americans for prolonged periods, even more than terrorist groups. Correct. I'm finding. Ali, and we have five minutes left. I just want to make sure that everybody I've got I've got some questions from the audience. Maybe I'm just going to bunch them together in the five minutes we have. Well, this is a great question. So I'm up for Eric's you know he was taken by the economy network which then became became the government of Afghanistan. And could this affect the strategy of getting him home. And could the panel address the correlation between family advocacy such as an iguana case, and us government involvement. Some complain. Yeah, was it yeah so a question about family versus the government. What can families do individually versus the USG. And also the frerich case where this terrorist group became the government of Afghanistan. If fall back on a comment that, and Caitlin Coleman gave me permission to, to publicize a question that she asked me and she said, When am I going to get my justice and frankly I said, I don't know Caitlin, because I would like to see surgeon. Go to US court and face justice at some point in the future. And I think that we should never take our eye off the ball, whether he is a part of the Afghanistan government or not. His network violated the rights of Caitlin Coleman and her children, as such we have to be relentless in our pursuit of justice long term. And it certainly complicates things when the Hikani network becomes the, when Hikani becomes the minister of interior, and oh by the way, Hikani is also giving sucker to, to zahiri, who is number one on our terrorist list. You know after bin Laden or certainly he was elevated to that position and took bin Laden's place. So it does complicate the mosaic of trying to solve these cases. On the day the United States government at some point I can only presume, figured out what was very, very important to the Hikani government, and that was getting a drug lord released from prison and in exchange if I remember the case it's been a dizzying amount of hostage reporting that's the first question and the second question is, I think if I understood the context it's about hostages, or hostage families, being public putting pressure on the administration, and trying to seek, you know, find that balance, I suspect, on being careful not to cause any harm for negotiations that are ongoing. At the same time, all I can do, or all I did when I was in the government is strongly encourage that families engage with the National Security Council and the FBI's hostage fusion cell to ensure that they're being disruptive of some kind of effort that is ongoing. And that goes back to Ali's point, the US government also has to be forthcoming with the, with the efforts that are ongoing. So we do not. The unintended consequences are not causing harm to hostages that are being detained by terrorists or foreign governments, like, like the Taliban government so it is a balance, but I strongly encourage that families continue to engage with the US government, but at the end of the day they have to do what they think is right. And in some cases that's going to be to be outspoken about the situation that their family members are in. I know Ali has hard out in one minute, so Ali, let's go to you for your final thought. I fully agree with what Chris mentioned on both cases. And I think when it comes to Hakkani being the Minister of Interior of the Taliban government. I think lots of things. The devil, the devil is in the details in any of these negotiations and Hakkani wanted to be at the front and center of the negotiations with Mark Farrakh. But, you know, towards the end, he wasn't as much involved in the final as much as Taliban government and that makes a lot of sense. And I think the US government was able to play that thin line between Hakkani and his network holding Mark in between negotiating the deal with the entity of the government that they have been talking to. Since the Obama administration, the Trump administration and the Biden administration in Afghanistan. So I think, I think that balance has been achieved and I think the devil is in the details towards the end. As for the second question, I have nothing else to add to what my brilliant friend Chris mentioned about the families and the government. Okay, in order to stay on time, I'm going to thank Cindy for the report and her participation Chris Costa, Alice you found and Brian Jenkins for their very interesting and informed commentary on the report. And I'm going to turn it over to Amna Nawaz, who's the chief correspondent of PBS News Hour, who's going to moderate the next panel. There are still some questions from the audience that haven't been answered and I presume Amna will get to those as she now takes over. Thank you. I will indeed do my best, Peter. Thank you so much for that. Thank you to New America as well for hosting this forum and to Diane Foley and the Foley Foundation. I'm Amna Nawaz from the PBS News Hour, and I'm honored to be leading this conversation. This one will focus on the challenges and the urgency of recovering US hostages and wrongful detainees. And if you allow me now I'll just introduce our panel as they all come online. Joining us now is Diane Foley, the president and founder of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, the mother of course, of Jim Foley who was kidnapped and murdered by the U.S. President in 2014. Also with us on the panel is Jared Genzer, managing director of Perseus Strategies. Jared, good to see you. Thanks for having me. Also with us is Nizar Zaka, he's president of Hostage Aid Worldwide and also himself, a former wrongful detainee in Iran. And Neda Shargi is also with us. Neda is the sister of Ahmad Shargi, who is a U.S. citizen wrongfully detained in Iran since 2018. Neda, good to see you. Thank you for having me. And I believe we see Diane with us now as well. Diane, we can see you and let's make sure we can hear you as well. You're still muted. Yes. There we go. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. And Diane, I will, I will start with you here. We just heard the details of the latest report, of course, from Cindy, but let's, let's set the foundation from the family's perspective. Since the 2015 hostage policy reforms, the landscape has really changed globally and the U.S. response has had to change as well. So just give us kind of a broad sense. How has the entire hostage enterprise changed in that time? How well has it adapted to the current hostage and wrongful detainee landscape? What do you think? Well, at least we have a structure. When Jim was taken in 2012, there was no hostage enterprise. So we currently have an interagency fusion cell. We have a brilliant office at the State Department and certainly some advocates at the national security level. So we're very grateful for all that progress. Our concerns are that it's difficult, more and more difficult to bring people home because of this increased detention, wrongful detention by state actors, by countries. It used to be primarily Iran and China who took our people, but these days, we have 19 countries in the last 10 years who have in fact found this tactic, something they want to pursue and are taking our innocent U.S. nation-wide. So we're very concerned. Those are our concerns. We just want to, as Ali Supant and Chris said, we must continually adapt and update our strategies because it appears that it's becoming an increasing national security risk for U.S. nationals. And my apologies. I just want to introduce one more panelist. Mickey, I wasn't sure you'd be able to join us or not. I'm so glad you are. This is Mickey Bergman, Vice President and Executive Director of the Richardson Center. Thank you for being with us. And I'll put the next question to you. We heard those numbers from the latest report this year's Bringing Americans Home says there's been a significant increase of 580% in the total number of U.S. health from 2001 to 2011. When you hear that number, it is striking. I mean, what should people who are learning about this for the first time, what should they understand about those numbers? Well, thank you. And I apologize for the background here. I just wanted to make sure I get in time for this. I think the numbers are staggering. I think we need to understand that there's, there's nuance in it. There are several countries that have become serial offenders. Namely, you look at Venezuela, Russia, China, Iran. If you take the numbers from these countries conveniently out, we're actually going down to more or less regular levels, which is still unfortunate and too big. But we certainly have a very specific problem here. And it is, I think was even articulated by the President of the United States, it is a national security crisis. And everybody listening to this need to understand that it can hit, it can hit everybody. And it's, it's, we tend to think about it as, I say, oh yeah, those people, they travel, they take risks, or they do risky things. When you actually look at the facts, there are people who just traveled to safe countries, did their thing and got trapped. And before they know it, the families find themselves in an unmanageable situation. That's number one, to understand that this can hit anybody, it's not just people who are taking risks or anything that has to do with their fault. The second issue, and that's important, is I think we need to recognize that one of the consequences of us not dealing with it as a national security for the time it's been going up is, is resulting in more and more people being taken. I think we need to address it seriously from all levels from the US government, from civil society from organizations from families to understand this has to be addressed seriously in it and when I said that there might be measures that are not going to be comfortable. But we need to bring all of those who have been taken we need to bring them back, and then we need to take as a country as a government take the measures to deter and to make sure that that behavior changes. So I see you nodding your head as Mickey is talking do you agree this is a national security issue that needs to be treated as such. Definitely that's Mike what you're saying is perfectly correct we need to take it seriously and it's not being taken seriously and this. We have different channels and I don't think we are ready for the government is doing what what it should to get the hostages back. I believe the government should be doing I mean there there is I wanted to ask you about this issue about being specifically designated as a wrongful detainee it's a very specific designation it's not always easy for families to get for their loved ones. What do people need to understand about that. I don't think currently the government is trying in order to be to be designated as wrongfully detainee it's a long process it's it's not clear nobody will understand how it works. You just have to send a letter to the secretary and then it goes and no reply no response it's really everything they're doing is so vague. There is not one stop shop where some where a family can go and get a proper answer and information is everybody will drop it on the other entity is that they don't have the power or like they're not like entitled to do that or whatever. This is what we're facing. I believe I believe the families are suffering returning like the speed today. We believe that it is becoming an entity just to keep like to keep everybody calm and not to speak up and not to speak about what's going on with with their loved ones. And, and I don't see any serious matter even for return is like take a small example what the fullest foundation that the fullest interviewed us over the past few years more than the State Department, or the FBI interviewed us about what happened to us to learn from what happened and to take to know what's going on when we are on the inside, or to take care of our families like the most important thing for the current hostages or on offer detainees is how what what is happening to their families how how they are being treated in their absence. There is nothing whatsoever about about taking care of the families of the detainees, nor about giving the families any information so for both sides, there is a big problem. Otherwise, to keep the families quiet to go to to to call to call siamaka is a family officer of to call back and Bobak Namazi every day and tell him that everything is fine. Whenever you talk to an official he will tell you yes we are in touch with Bobak and Bobak is calm. Yes he's calm but siamak has been for seven years in prison so so there is something wrong. There is no real action and exactly like Mickey say it should it should we should put an end when we should do whatever it takes to get our hostages back to do a swap to pay to do whatever like like they did in the UK. And then we have to open a new page where this we put an end completely and have a very strict guidelines about what happened to anybody who take a US citizen or LPR hostage or on offer detach. I think this is about time to do it. I have to say I'm really struck by what you share that you had more contact and more interviews with folks from the Foley Foundation after being released then you ever did with the US government I think that in and of itself is striking and Jared I'll turn to you to get a better sense of that US government response now over time I mean, we've laid out how did landscape has shifted you have more state actors you've seen the increase in wrongful detainees. As Diane mentioned there is now is it an interagency process but has the US response shifted to meet what we're seeing in the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. So I mean, I think as was said by the last panel, you know the progress has been incremental not exponential and we need a response commensurate with the severity of the problem, which has to be a much greater sense of urgency. And really drive home the point on the designations of the Levinson act for a person to be found to be unlawfully or wrongfully detained. There are 11 criteria in the act that are supposed to be evaluated. And right now, for example, I've had a case in Cambodia of Terry saying is a dual national and prison there. And in this particular case we've had the US government the State Department itself publicly called for her release and three senior US government officials to the State Department of the US aid, and yet three months later she hasn't been designated as unlawfully or wrongfully detained, which is obviously rather bizarre. I also think that you know we don't have to wait to get the current decks cleared in my view to try to do something to improve our overall efforts. And I did in July, this past summer in the Wall Street Journal proposing that the President Biden lead a new multilateral effort to create potentially draconian consequences, you know, for four countries that engage in hostage taking illegal hostages or for detainees for a pattern of practice if there's behaviors. You know, we've been engaging in this whole hostage enterprise really the same way, going back to 79 and the Iran embassy takeover one case, one country one hostage at a time, right you know and this is not obviously working for us. If you can get a multilateral approach and if you can get 50 or 60 countries together onto a single multilateral agreement, saying these are actions we will take, consider taking, you know, individually, you know, bilaterally and multilaterally, in order to respond to individual countries hostage taking, you can dramatically incur, increase the cost of countries of taking hostages. And that's the only way you change the hostage taking practice, you know, the incentives are still there as we were have involved in discussing. The only way you're rewarding the only way you change the calculus is making it very damaging, not very rewarding. So I've even put forward and happy to share with anyone wants to reach out to me after this. You know, a draft of what a multilateral agreement might actually look like that identifies about 25 different specific consequences that countries could potentially impose in response to individual cases and patterns of practices of hostage taking. We've talked a lot about the US government response let's talk about families and their role in all of this you've recently taken on a much more active role in the bring our families home campaign that's a family led campaign is asking the US government to understand the urgency of bringing loved ones home. Tell us about the campaign, how it came about and why you believe it's messaging in particular is so critical right now. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on I'm the only family member on a current hostage and it's, it's difficult to be on a panel when you have a loved one currently detained abroad but I have to say it's incredibly important. And, you know, the campaign started because I think families in general feel that what our government does and what our experts do experts in this field is that they often couple the issue of bringing Americans home with deterrence. And the purpose of this campaign really is to decouple those two things to add a sense of urgency and of course to appeal to our president to meet with us. Now, this issue of decoupling, you know, in medicine, you did decouple diagnosis and treatment from prevention. And I think about hostages. We seem to lump it all together. And one of the biggest obstacles to families and getting their loved ones home is this prevention piece. And what what, you know, I think families in the campaign do, and also, you know, individually and our advocacy is to try and encourage experts in this field and our government to not do that. We need to separate things and need to be handled differently. So, for example, you know, one of the things that we urge our government to do and to bring our families home is to bring our loved ones home as soon as possible, because data shows that if you get them home quickly, they end up staying longer. And that's why we have folks who are staying, you know, my brother has been there for four and a half years the Nazis have been there almost for seven years. So the urgency is to get them home quickly. If you don't get them home quickly. We have seen that several things happen that actually impede the efforts. These, these individuals become more entrenched in the hands of their captors to coincidental world events happen that make it difficult to bring our, our loved ones home. And the other thing that we see is that, you know, the longer it takes to bring our loved ones home, the more domestic politics, sort of interfere with, with our national responsibility to bring home our loved ones so the campaign is really trying to reshift the conversation on wrongful detainees to say look, bring them home. First, if you don't bring them home, you know, it's actually more damaging in many way not not only for the wrongful detainees but also for, for our own internal politics and the divisiveness and the partisanship that sometimes gets involved in recovery of our detainees. Mickey, when you hear now that sharing this can can these things be decoupled. I mean when you're talking about domestic pressures. You have more countries now involved in in US hostage and wrongful detainee taking. How does it not get wrapped up in larger government conversations. Well, I think listening to net I think she's, she's a million percent right. Those things, not only that they can be decoupled, it's critical that they do get decoupled. I'll make an analogy when when there's a domestic kidnapping in the United States for ransom criminal. Okay, FBI steps in. What can they do. First priority is to help the family figure out a way to get the victim back home. If it means to pay ransom they arrange for it. They help the family arrange for it safely to maximize the chances of the person coming back home safely. Why because 90% of the time if that's the approach that is taken. The person comes back the victim comes back home. Now once the victim is home. If it doesn't pack their stuff and go away. They go and the prosecute and they find the people responsible for it and bring them to justice. But again, first the victim comes home. Then you deal with the with the deterrence and the punishment for this. So I think it's not only that it's it's possible it has to be decoupled. I think that holding the heels to bring back prisoners are prisoners are hostages back in the name of future deterrence is as if we are holding them hostage to our own policies, and that is morally bankrupt. We cannot do that. I want to just add one more thing. It is not a coincidence that the countries that are serial offenders and we mentioned them here are the same countries that were already maximized on sanctions. Which means if you already maximized on sanctions, adding more sanctions is not going to be effective. And I know that sanctions have become unfortunately the tool of diplomacy over the last decade. They are a tool. They're not the tool. And I believe that some people who have taken Americans and have wronged Americans and Diane has led has led the prosecutions on this need to be prosecuted in the United States. They need to be indicted in the United States, even if they don't recognize our jurisdiction, you can put extradition notice on them, not sanctions on the judge. The judge doesn't do business with the United States not going to impact their lives. But if a judge can't go to a family vacation anymore, because of a fear of being extradited, because there's been an indictment in the US I know it sounds radical. But again, we are in really, really serious crisis here, and we need to make deterrence and again has to be absolutely independent of the effort to bring back those who are already being taken. Diane, what do you make of what Mickey's saying here, especially in terms of prioritizing this for the US government? Well, I totally agree with everyone. This is a very urgent nonpartisan issue. And that is why the Fully Foundation is really calling for a comprehensive all of government review. Why is it getting more and more difficult to bring our people home? Why are state actors steadily seeing the taking of our citizens as an important hostage tactic, if you will. We must deter it, yes, but before we do that, we need to look at why this is happening and bring our people home. We have a moral obligation to have the backs of our brave citizens who are out in the world doing their work or visiting family. So we are really calling for, because this is a national security crisis, we must treat it as such and do a comprehensive review of why this is alarmingly increasing and people are being held much, much too long. It is something we must address as a nation. Jared, I see you nodding too. I mean, I want this idea of it being seen as a national security crisis. I can't tell you how many families who have loved ones detained overseas have told me they feel like it's not a priority. Do you think it is, there's a turning point, is there a tipping point where it is seen as a national security issue to bring Americans home? Yeah, I mean, we're clearly not there. And, you know, we obviously see cases come and go, you know, on the global stage, you know, Brittany Griner's case has obviously attracted a lot of attention recently. And while I would definitely say that she's arbitrarily detained as a matter of international law, you know, her case isn't the most ideal case to be putting forward to talk about these issues, because, you know, she may have done something wrong, even if she's arbitrarily detained because of the abject lack of due process and, you know, disparate targeting, sentencing, et cetera. You know, the reality is that these kinds of cases come and go, but the attention of the US government, especially from the White House does not remain sustained. There are also distinctions that are made that to me are very arbitrary between, you know, who is considered a hostage versus unlawfully or wrongfully detained. If you're designated as a hostage, you have the, you know, the hostage fusion cell at the White House that will help you, the FBI will help you, et cetera. But, you know, I have had many conversations with people in the White House and the State Department over the years, especially in the legal advisor's office. And, you know, many of the detainees that we would call a lawfully wrongfully detained are in fact hostages. You know, Iran is holding all of these. And I think that we do need to attract much more attention on this. I think that the work that's being done, you know, to, you know, to shine the images of hostages on buildings, the beautiful mural in DC, you know, these are all, you know, awareness-raising efforts. But I think we do very much agree with virtually everything in the report, everything I've read so far of the report from the Foley Foundation, which has done a brilliant job looking at these issues. And one of their recommendations is to have somebody senior at the White House as we were discussing, I think that that's very, very important, you know, to have a person there at the White House. One of their recommendations is to have somebody senior at the White House as we were discussing. I think that that's very, very important, you know, to have a person there at the White House. While Roger Carstens and the SPIHA office, the Special Envoy's office, do a great job from where they sit, you know, working for the Secretary at the State Department. The bottom line is, and some of the statistics of people interviewed by the Foley Foundation, 85% of the families believe that nothing short of White House engagement will get their loved ones out. It may not be an accurate assessment, but it's probably an accurate assessment in most cases or in many cases that we're talking about here. And we need that high-level engagement, not just on a one-time basis on a high-profile case, but, you know, consistently and over time. The reality is most Americans, when they travel abroad, have no idea that, you know, that they could get themselves into trouble and be grabbed in really any country that is not a democracy. Or you can even just be grabbed because you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. And, you know, you know, the most amazing thing to me when I talk to people who were detained, you know, hostages and were grabbed, is that, you know, their thought was, well, gosh, if I am, for example, returning to Iran to see my family, I figure, you know, how can I get into trouble if I do nothing wrong, right? And of course that you don't have to do something wrong to be taken hostage anywhere in the world. And then tell us what you can about your experience. As you mentioned, you are uniquely positioned on this panel with your brothers still held in Iran. Help us understand what it is like for you right now, what support you are receiving, and what support you need. Well, I have to, you know, commend the Foley Foundation for being here for us and for putting out these research reports that are actually data driven and not based on anecdotal sort of myth. And, you know, one of the things that I think Diane mentioned is she would like the government to sort of try to understand why this is happening more and more and more. And one of the things that we say as part of the bring our families home campaign is, there are many reasons why Americans are being taken, but one of the reasons that they're not being taken is because we are bringing other Americans home, we are, we are securing the freedom of our Americans That is something that's also very important to understand. There is a myth that makes it very challenging for families like mine, as we advocate for our loved ones. And that myth is that if you bring home an American who's wrongfully detained, you are going to incentivize and encourage future hostage taking. And that tell you how problematic that is, it's not based on data, it's not based on evidence, and it's, it's crushing as a family to be told that over and over and over again. So it's really important for us to have the data that we have in this new report. I know Brian Jenkins has, you know, very scientifically done data that they can show that this is there is no correlation between those. So, I think as as a family member it's the lack of urgency, the myths that are currently circulating among very people that are really supposed to be helping us get our loved ones home. Nazar, what about you, from your experience, can you talk a little bit about the support when you returned home, what you were able to receive, what you think improvements that need to be made. For me, for example, like my case and I believe we have, I haven't received any support, the only support, zero support from the government. And, in fact, not even a medical support I had to, I had to pay when you come back you have no credit card you have nothing in place, and I had to pay my family had to cover everything. And most important, even when you are taken hostage and it's obvious case of hostage shaking, like, like mine, for example, but everybody has exactly like the same cases where you are invited where you go to the country and you're taken by a terrorist group with which is RGC. And, and for only reason for considered like collaborating with the US government. And you have to pay for your lawyer, you have to make a campaign to get to your family have to pay everything company they have, in order to cover for to make awareness to create awareness to travel to DC to do all the same, and nothing from the government until today we don't see, we don't see the system is changing. They don't appoint your lawyers they don't do anything they, I don't, I don't understand how it's, it's going to move unless we have a completely change I know all the regulation and all the act are very important because they're changing. They're doing more attention to hostage shaking but, but there is nothing straightforward there is nothing really clear systematic that we know this is if this happened this is the reaction that will happen. And more importantly, there is no taking a hostage US citizen hostage is an act of war, and till today we are we are, it's an act of war against the US until today we're not considering it this way with to consider every single way, except an act of war. Even they're using it for diplomacy and they may be open a diplomatic channel and this I really we cannot understand as former hostages at our organization we have many former hostage and when we discuss we don't understand why this is happening. What's the reason of further government doing it this way. And this will keep on course. This is what I have. Well Diane I don't think most people know that about the burden born by families I mean how how does that change. So true, to be honest, the reason the fully foundation started was because I wanted no other American family to go through the horror of what we did. To be honest, this just breaks my heart. As I've gotten to know, and these are Mickey and Jared, all of these folks who know families and know the horror of being held hostage when you're totally innocent and only held because you have a US passport. I challenge our President Biden and his administration to prioritize this issue we have, we need to have the moral courage to have the backs of our people. It comes down to that. And if we don't, we're not going to make any progress on this issue so I, there are many issues that need addressing the Levinson act. The hostage shaking and accountability act was awesome, but it's not funded wrongful detaining families have no funds to help their loved ones, should they have the success of coming home or should they be held hostage year after year. There's no funding to help detainees in prison who need that. There's no funding to help as me as I said when they come home, there's no funding to help return hostages. So we have many holes as a government that we must prioritize and fix. And again, that's why I challenged the current administration and all Americans from right or left to prioritize the return of our people by taking a look at this issue. What is this happening? Why are more people being taken? Why are they not coming home in a reasonable manner. And then once that happens, yes, we need deterrence but they are, they must be separate because we must bring our people home. I hope you don't mind if I put those to the panel if you feel compelled to answer just let me know and jump in and we'll go through a few of these before I turn back to Diane for the last word here if you don't mind but one that's just come in is about the extent family efforts are someone has submitted this question I'll read it here it says to what extent our family efforts networked with similar efforts in other countries from families of non Americans held by various governments or groups. Is there any kind of coordination that anyone knows about? In fact, what we have with the hostages of families of hostages all around the world now they're coordinating we're working together and we have from like from France, Germany, Sweden, UK, they all connect coordinate together and try to to address it like to address the issues but but because the governments are not unified in their approach towards hostage taking each country at end up doing their advocacy on their own. And this is something like but what what we do somehow we try whenever we find out that something is happening in Europe or in Belgium there is a swap or something. We try also to inform that to other in other countries so they can coordinate this or the Levenson or like we tell them about what happened with Levenson act and all the things so they coordinate. Heather, did you want to say something to that. Right, I mean, I think Nizar is right I mean in terms of our campaign to bring our families home campaign, you know, we don't have a coordination with any of the other hostage families living abroad we do keep in touch with them via Instagram and Twitter and try to support one another. But because, you know, every government is different and the strategies that we have to use here to get the attention of, you know, the White House and that and others are very different than what other countries require there's no coordinated effort I do have to say one thing that I've noticed is that, you know, as, as, you know, we, we get the good news that we have detainees being released. One of the things I noticed is that when a detainee is released and they're given a chance to recover and they join sort of at the organization that Nizar, for example, runs. The, the, the, the thinking switches from let's get our loved ones home and immediately goes into deterrence. And oftentimes, that is at odds with what we are trying to accomplish as as wrongful detainees so that's something that you know, Nizar you and I should should talk about in the way to how to manage that but that's unfortunately when when hostages come home we want to get their support to advocate the government to do whatever is necessary to get our loved ones home. But we, what we find is that when hostages come home after a while they switched on to the deterrence and often that sort of impedes our efforts to get our loved ones home. So here's a related question that Jared I'd love to get your and Mickey's take on. Someone's asking could the panel address the correlation between family advocacy and they cite the example of Brittany Griner and US government involvement to some they write only families who complain. I would add to that that maybe even families who give media interviews and who raise a fuss and you know, maybe even go against government advice to go public with their cases that they tend to get more attention what do you think of that. Yeah, I mean, well, I think there's obviously so many to it I think there's a high correlation, although it's not a perfect correlation between families that speak out and the kind of attention that they can get. Brittany Griner's family obviously can get a unique level of attention that really few others I've ever really seen so quickly you get the attention of the president vice president of the United States. You know, making a decision to go public is always a very difficult decision and having service pro bono council to countless wrongfully imprisoned Americans. You know it's something you have to think through very carefully. At the end of the day, you know you need the help of the US government to help get your loved one out. And so a decision to come out for example and criticize us government is a very tough one, you have to make. Undoubtedly though there are times when coming out publicly if commitments have been broken, or if you don't see the sense of urgency that's necessary is really, really important. You know one of the things that families can do that's quite effective prior to necessarily coming out against the US government or, or even coming out publicly about a case in at all is of course to get support from Capitol Hill and to get bipartisan support from the Hill to be reaching out to, to the State Department and pressing them on various issues of concern to the particular family, but I think it is very important to use the media. You know, if you can try to get a person out through private diplomacy in the first instance. Mickey what would you say. Yeah, I think there's every family in a situation like that gets gets pushed in many many directions, and it's really really hard for them they they're making, they need to make decisions that will impact their loved ones, based on false partial information or no information at all in conflicting information for sure. And there is a knee knee jerk reaction by the government to sell don't go public. And when we work with families and currently I'm working typically we would work on six families simultaneously, we're now working on 22 families at the same time at the Richardson Center and Richardson Center is is the governor myself and two other short term consultants were about half of these cases are have gone public half of them have not when a family needs to consider going public. They need to realize that nothing that they will say will convince the captor to release their loved one. The captor is not the object, the object of, of going public, as Jared actually said correctly, and the objective of going public is to deploy pressure on our own government to have urgency and take action. And so you need to assess as a family whether you go public or not. First, considering where you believe our government is at bringing your loved one back home. And I think Brittany Griner, because of her status has been able to garner a lot of attention. I have to give a lot of credit to Cheryl Griner and to Brittany's team. They're using this not only for the sake of bringing up Griner. They have elevated this issue for all the families they're being very very supportive and inclusive in this. And I, and I hope that when Brittany comes home that that attention doesn't go away but it actually stays there. And the point that I made before about prisoners coming back and then switching into into into deterrence focus. It's true. It makes sense. You can understand why they would do it. And, and that is absolutely right. We need them to stay focused also on bringing back the people that were just in the position that they were. I think Trevor read after coming back has been a great example of how to do that. And I think what we're saying like, and this is my last point with this. It doesn't matter how bad, bad in quotations the deal look like in terms of the people you have to give up or whatever concessions you make in order to bring back Americans. We have to dispel the myth that it makes us look weak, or that it makes us weak it doesn't. It actually makes us stronger. Even if the deal is really really bad on justice perspective. It makes us stronger because we do everything we can to bring our people back home. And that we have to change that concept in order to to get that done. So I think we need to get your take on this because you are living this right now when to speak when not to speak weighing all of these incredibly difficult decisions what are your thoughts on this. I mean it's true. I think we have to be very patient with families they have to go through their own, you know, you know their own comfort level of when they're quiet when they're not when they come out and we just have to support them. I do also want to say, you know, there's a lot mentioned about, you know, Brittany Griner and the fact that she's getting a lot of attention because of her celebrity status but I like Mickey, you know being in the bring our families home campaign. I have to tell you these projections that we just did in New York City where we projected the images of 19 of our Americans on buildings around, you know, Manhattan, that was done in partnership with bg's with Brittany's team. And that's something that we probably couldn't have managed to do alone. And so I think families are realizing, whether you're famous, whether you're not that the end of the day we are Americans, and we come together to try to get attention and to support one another You know, we put Britney on our mural in Washington DC and you know we had lots of folks from from Congress come and look at it and talk to us and we got a lot of press about it so I do feel a little bit defensive about, you know, all the sort of comments that Britney's Britney's getting about getting too much attention she she has through her team and through our our campaign really to put a spotlight on this issue for all of us. And we're grateful. We have just a few minutes left and I do want to be respectful of everyone's time so if you don't mind I will turn it over to Diane to give us a final word here there's been a lot covered there's a lot for people to go through in the latest report. And clearly a lot of work to be done. So Diane I turn it over to you just to leave us with final thoughts on what you hope people take away from this report from these conversations. Well, I hope people recognize the fact that we are grateful for the steps that have been taken. However, it is so poignant in our government that families who are going through the horror of this ordeal have to organize their campaign and go to the UN, which they did in New York City, try to beg for funds to put the pictures of their loved ones on buildings to get the attention of this administration to get the attention of our people. This is an American issue. We need to have the moral resolve and commitment to in fact bring our people home. And this is something that we need champions in Congress. There's no question about that. We need our congressional congressmen and women and senators to become more and more aware of what is going on and the alarming increase in incidents. And we do also need my vital multilateral efforts such as hostage aid worldwide. And as Jared said through the UN of countries coming together. When Jim was taken in 2012 he was taken with 18 other US allies, but instead of us coming together to figure out a way to bring them back, every country did it their own way. So all the Americans, all the British were murdered. That was the way it was resolved. That doesn't have to be. I think it's time for our country to take the leadership on this issue, and to make sure that we show the strength and our moral resolve to bring our people home. So that's my hope for this panel. Thank you. And all of you so appreciate your time. Thank you, Diane. Thank you to Neda Sharkey, to Nazar Zaka, Mickey Bergman, and Jared Genser. Thank you to all of you for joining us. Just a reminder the 2022 Bringing Americans Home Report is now on the website. Thank you again for joining us in particular to Diane Foley and the Foley Foundation.