 My name is Tim Weimel and I am the sitting privilege to introduce Professor Travis Morris, Executive Director of the Colby Symposium and Director of the Norwich Peace and War Center to open the 23rd Annual William E. Colby Military Writers Symposium. Dr. Morris is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice here at Norwich. He holds a GAC from the University of Nebraska and an Ad Mass in Criminal Justice from Eastern Kentucky University. And a BA in Criminology from Northern Illinois University. He also served as a Ranger Qualified Infantry Officer with the 10th Mountain Division, U.S. Army. And a Police Officer in Lexington, Kentucky. His research interests include violent experience in property and analysis, information warfare, and comparative justice systems. He's also published on a relationship between policing, peacekeeping, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and has conducted ethnographic research in Yemen and Israel. His recent book, Dark Ideas, focuses on how the United States and the violent reality of the laws has shaped modern terrorism. Last year, he directed an annual National Championship team in a National Leadership Competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and Department of Homeland Security aimed at countering domestic and foreign online radicalization. He also leads any students on a peace in conflict field studies in Israel and in Macedonia. Without further ado, Dr. Travis Morse. Welcome. It's great to see everybody here and the authors and panelists. Thank you so much for being here. We're extremely excited. So welcome to the 23rd Annual William E. Colby Crisis Symposium at North University in Northern Illinois. This event is a signature event for North University peace and war center. And this symposium is unique, the only one of its kind in existence at an American institution. Over 23 years, the symposium has brought some of the most prominent military, intelligence, and international fair writers of our time to central Vermont. The symposium is designed to educate, to enlighten, to challenge, and to inspire. And as always, the symposium is designed to be relevant to each of you sitting out here and watching us online. And it's never avoided the hard issues central to our optimism of standing. So a bit of context for each of you that are familiar with the symposium. Back in 1996, the symposium was conceived by co-founders W.E. Griffith and Carl Desi with the support of former North President and General Russell Todd. This event was seen as a way to bring in most writers and their ideas and their expertise to North University. So in the past, we focused on a myriad of topics to the range from PTSD to Vietnam, to Afghanistan, to the wars and impact on families. This year, our focus is to continue programs winning the war, the loss of peace, the US legacy, and Iraq. This is a very relevant and current topic that for those of you who will be entering military service, this topic will directly impact you. Sitting before you, you have some of the most leading authorities on the subject and also that lightening. We are very fortunate to have each member sitting on the panel and we hope that you appreciate each of you. It may not be familiar with the background because of your majors, but we grant it that you're very fortunate to have in here at this university and in here from there shortly. So before I introduce the moderator, I'd like to recognize and thank several people who made this event possible. So if you could please, when I call your name, please stand. President Richard Snyder, and let's go all the way to the end. The interim president and CEO of the Pritzker Military Museum and library John Juan. I would also like to note that the symposium is made available to the general students of our ship of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library. You have retired, general, works all in the class of 1959. You have retired, major general, and North president and emeritus, Russell Todd, class of 1950. I'd also like to thank all those in the low 90s who were on and off campus, so let's give them all a round of applause. I'd like to welcome all of you that are joining us online, watching us in different parts of the globe, in different circumstances, and in different countries and specifically who'd like to welcome Colonel Ron Loss, Miss Marshalls, and Colonel Jerry Morlock. Before I introduce our moderators, just a couple of house keeping issues. I'm sure all of you have already done it. First, make sure to turn off your cell phones. Just a reminder for the guests, with tickets to tonight's dinner, there is a venue change for those of you that have attended in the past to be here lonely, and so have the National Guard Army. So don't worry, show up here. There's a sign that will redirect you where you need to go. And then after the panel, the authors will be signing books in the lawn of all rooms directly across us at 4.30. So if you have questions, comments, and you'd like to buy and purchase a book, if you would like for you to do, we'd do so. Our moderators for today's panel are Starr and Pesachemery. Starr and Pesachemery is an academic professor of political science, and he is a applied research fellow at the Peace and War Center in Orange University. He's also a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association. His independent course at Orange focuses on the Australian strategy. He's an author, and current various commentator is noted for his text for T-Sign, U.S.-EU relations, as well as NATO. A foreign international businessman, he has served as a communications advisor to several Fortune 100 companies, and he brings his global business perspective to his work in the U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security Strategy. He's offered two books, NATO 2.0, Reboot for Delete, and America in Europe of 9-11 in Iraq, a great divide. He sees frequently for businesses, foreign policy associations, and military accesses. He's also on television, and frequent radio appearances, and he's a regular writer, and he may have read some of his work, not knowing it, for the U.S. to use more of his work. He is the author of the North Atlantic Reorganization in the U.S. Common Security and Defense Policy Inter-Secondary Judges. He has written several publications for numerous articles, and currently he hosts the China and Focus podcast series on the U.S.-China relations with the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Please join me in giving this hour a very warm welcome. This is Travis. My mother always said, and somebody said something nice about you, so thank you and leave. Thank you. So, good afternoon, everybody. This is the second of the trilogy that Professor Morris and the pieces of war set up for this event, annual event. One of the war, boss of peace. Last year we talked about the close world war. This year we are talking about Iraq, the legacy of Iraq, and next year we'll be completing that trilogy and talking about what are the future. So, I'll introduce the panel in a moment, but I did want to say that any one of these panelists would make an event, a major event, and have all four of them here together is quite a deal. So I want you to realize that and enjoy it and make sure you have questions, because this is your chance to get all of the questions answered that you've thought about as far as Iraq. What I would like to do is, what I would like to do is talk to you a little bit about the atmosphere in the country with the Iraqi invasion to place. Right, so I recognize that many of the people in this room were in the first grade, or second grade, or third grade, of the Iraqi invasion to place. In fact, I recognize some of you from the Plain Beach in kindergarten. So, why is this happening? What is this? Some of you may think that the Iraqi invasion was, should never have happened. Others of you may think that it should have happened. But regardless of what you think, not, yes. I think you need to understand where the country was when all of this began, and that's what I'd like to spend a few minutes on. And you know, it's almost a trite statement these days that 9-11 changed the world. Right, you all heard that, 9-11 changed the world, changed the country, changed the world. So what you're looking at here is the view of Manhattan a few days before 9-11. And you can see from the cockpit of this airplane that it's aimed directly at the World Trade Center. And the World Trade Center is that rectangular, square-ish-looking building. Straight ahead, if I'm looking at this. And the center is the Empire State Building, and then there are other buildings that go on. But there's the World Trade Center. And it was as beautiful a day as this one is today. And my offices then were just a few blocks from the Empire State Building. So we were about six, I'd say roughly six miles from 9-11. Right, and it was a day just like this. Beautiful people going to work, provided by those who've taken them all the way to the World Trade Center. Now, this is a part, a few minutes after. So there's an office paper floating down, there's furniture floating down. This is the first of all the towers, two of them being re-entered to Southern Power, and all hellen breakers. By the way, how far after this federal statement? It wouldn't be paper coming down, it would be people coming down. Jumping out of windows, and then themselves being burned because they couldn't see. So this is a central moment that you all need to keep in your mind. I think about the impact of this. And you can see the nervousness and the fright of the person's voice as they're talking about this. That's what it would look like after it was done. Now, every New Yorker has their own story about 9-11, the World Trade Center. Every American knows where they were. I do too. I met my wife and our father in the Trade Center. We had our first dinner in the World Trade Center. We attended all the functions at the windows on top of the world, which is a restaurant on the top floor of the World Trade Center. And I think I walk up as far as I could go three days later, and I could still smell, I could still smell the debris from the World Trade Center. A line of trucks coming in from New Jersey, the group of drivers that are in the flags, carrying what remained of the World Trade Center. And all I would think of was, how could I go somewhere and strangle somebody from out there? And by the way, I spent my life being trained, educated, but I just was a fighter of that weight. I think others probably felt a lot worse. So that's kind of where this story begins. And I'm gonna take you just a little further, right in this. So 9-11 happens, word changes, country changes. Two months after that, President Bush sent a special forces team with the Special Forces, the CIA team, the O'Garson, and there's a very wonderful called the Horse Soldiers, which you should read. It talks about how, within a few short months, they put the Taliban to fight, they had the first cavalry charge, they put the saddles, all for an expense of $70 million. It sounds like a lot of money, but that's what it costs. And then it's about two years later, two years later, we changed direction and invaded Iraq. Right, some of the things I wanna know from the panel are why didn't we do it, did we have to do it, I mean, why did we change focus? Those are the kinds of things I'd like to know, and I urge you to keep thinking about your questions. So we invaded Iraq, and it was sort of that it would all be over in two months. In fact, two months later, the President of the United States said, hey, it's over, we should accomplish it. Here it is. The U.S.S.A. Pam Lincoln, Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended, and in the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. So, the war is over, didn't quite go about that way. So opinion later. To bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end, to the sacred national security and to starting American leadership around the world, and to take office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all large groups by the end of 2011. As Commander-in-Chief is assuring the success of the strategy that has been one of my highest national security powers. Last year, I announced the end to our combat mission in Iraq, and today we move more than 100,000 troops. Iraqis are taking full responsibility for their country's security. A few hours ago, I spoke with Iran Prime Minister, Mali. I reaffirmed that the United States he dismissed, he spoke of the determination of the Iraqi people to forge their own future. We are in full agreement, and I'm out of control. So today, I can report that as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, the American War in Iraq will be over. Or in Iraq will be over. As you know, it's still not over, and now we have a different person. I should add here, by the way, that the military did everything that they were supposed to do, right? Every hill the military was asked to take, they took. There isn't any question about the bravery, the training, the adaptability, in fact, I belong to the camp of those who believe that the training and adaptability had not been at the level it was to a country where they would have been in even bigger trouble. So, things that I want to learn today from the experts is so what happened, the military did a job, did it better than they were asked to, you know? So, what happened there? Now, let me turn to the panelists. This is for some of you, if you're going to visit here, the founder of the University wanted to make this a model of the Citizen Soldier College. And so we have diverse range of students, departments, and studying different subjects. And what we thought of doing today is inviting six of them to come here from different departments at the college and tell you what they hope to learn from you. I thought that might give you some a notion to think about, so please join us. So, the first stop is Ms. Elizabeth Hells. She is majoring as a civil engineer in the graduate in 2018, herself. Imagine a world with no basic human rights for its people, no police force for our education system. For some, this is the reality one of the Iraqi people faces each day. Between January and June 2013 alone over 2,800 children were killed due to violence in the country. With 180 million U.S. dollars in funds, only 6 out of 142 health clinics slated for construction have been built. And unless the half of the arts population we claim will have access to cold water, that is 18.6 million people. One out of every 80 Iraqis of the historic infrastructure, non-drought creation for our living constitution should be the government's top priority. And so far, the total reconstruction time has climbed to 45 billion dollars. With the country ranking second for the loss of health and 10th for the loss of education, I hereby understand why after 15 years of American occupation, there's still such a lack of social infrastructure in Iraq. Next up is Mr. Benjamin Paulus-Garce as a chemistry major graduating in 2019. As the naturalist trials of our own said, it is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. In science, adaptability is a key aspect of how we are able to make necessary changes to ideas that have helped for a set of periods of time. As I have learned from the chemistry department here at Norwich, new theories are created every year to explain the knowledge we have. Because of the advances within the medicine, there has been a scores of American lives in the course of the war. With the tragedy that we felt the American people on September 11th, 2000, the world changed. America went from a state of peace and stability to a state of war and confusion. Frequently, fighting was done home to home with people who were traditionally considered non-combatants. With the war in Iraq, an entire generation has grown up with major conflict being part of their everyday lives all the way around. As we go into the United States, we need to be able to adapt to new circumstances from our current style of war in the world. And I'd like to learn today why the largest and most important in the world, American cause makers have not focused enough attention on adapting to this new style of war. Except for the suspense of the UML English major graduating in 2018. Hello, Norwich students, faculty, and distinguished members of the panel. First, I would like to draw your attention to the monitors behind me. My reading of this picture is two children whose future looks unclear, sitting in the rubble of their now short city, no parents inside and no one to help pick up pieces. These boys are looking on the street, which is an incredibly unfortunate reality, a reality that affects 600,000 Moroccan children. As an English major, here in Norwich, I have developed a sense of what illness makes us human. This list includes romance, desire, identity, power, and parenting, all attributes still missing from your acting life today. I'd like to draw attention to arguably the greatest problem, the problem of children growing up in the world without knowing anything but the devastation and loss caused by the war in Iraq. So, I'm here to learn today how with a $650 billion defense budget, the United States went on caring for the mental health involved in the Iraq children. South Business Erin Proctor, a nursing major graduating in 2019. Has been US troops who have served in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered from PTSD. Fortunately, due to advancing medical care on the war front, soldiers who vibrate are increasing, leading to an emerging need for treatment of psychological injuries. As a nursing major, we learned to look at people as a whole, the physical as well as the emotional mental. Sometimes more are only physical as seen, the missing limbs and the massive stars, but there's so much more to people than just physical. The psychological needs to be addressed and cared for as well, but this does not just affect the soldiers that return, it affects all the people involved. I am here today to ask why so many people are being watched by that for themselves and why I would like to more value on regards to the animal over the minds of those who build them. Thank you. Put it on the least, Ms. Faggar Burr, physics major graduating in 2019. Show people as one thing, as only one thing over and over again, and that is what they become. African author, Shemmanda Khadiji, warns us of the dangers of accepting a single cultural story as an older generalization of a region of the country of people and how consequential cultural misunderstanding could have dangerous repercussions. This is especially relevant with regards to those who come from a completely different social background like America and Iraq. It is difficult but imperative to understand the complexity of intricate global differences. I hope to hear from the panel more on our own thoughts and experiences of the broad variety of human challenges that America may avoid. And what the American is missing in American doctrine and policies. How can we accomplish our goals without losing the trust of the people we're trying to help? In office, we'll be rehearsing with the students that I've got and they need to also be rehearsing me and a very convenient people to talk to as I'm a hunker. So I'd be invited as I'm a hunker here, mechanical engineering major. That's okay. Good afternoon. A car stops at a spaceship at a point headed across a muddy mass street. A man appears, stops the car and asks, are you suing or she out? The car driver answers and the man says, wrong answer, get him. A door swings open and I'll confide man to take his life. There's a moment of silence before a woman calls and I forget her. This is an actual account from a reporter on the ground of one boy and his five brothers all between the ages of six to 12. Three weeks prior, these boys had seen their teacher killed in the same way and thus began to leave the games with it. Not only did the children of the rocks see rocks killed by their own soldiers, they see the Americans soldiers who seem to do the exact same thing. Think back to your own childhood and your own parents and what I would like to know today is whether or not American soldiers need to be exposed to these situations before they answer another man. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Walker. Well, it's time now for me to introduce our panelists. I will then ask them a question myself and as soon as I start asking them my question, that would be your cue to line up for microphones that would be placed on the floor. There are squares drawn by the microphones. If you would step into the squares and you speak so you'll be at the right distance. So let me now introduce our expert panel. So to my extreme left is Mr. Sefton D. Uppelrimand. Sefton D. Uppelrimand is Vice President at IWG, the U.S. Perth, providing consulting, logistics, and construction work in Iraq. He has now seen a post in the government of Iraq, the Virginia-Iraq election law during the days of the Iraqi governing council, served as the Director General of the Parliament Research Directorate, participated in the negotiations on the damage to the forces agreement with the United States. Next to him is Ms. Al-Sqai. She is the Director of the Yale Greenberg World Fellows, the Senior Fellow of the Yale University Jackson Institute, where she teaches Middle East politics. She is the author of Unraveling, High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq. Skye served as advisor to the Community General of U.S. Forces in Iraq from 2007 to 2010, as advisor to the Commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. In 2006, as advisor to the U.S. Security Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process in 2005, and as the Governor and Coordinator of Kikuk for the Coalition Provisional Authority 2003-2004. Next to her is Ms. Andrew Basovic, grew up in Indiana, graduated from West Point, Princeton, served under the U.S. Army, became an academic, and is now a writer. He's the author, co-author, or editor of a dozen books among them, The American Empire, The New American Militarism, Limits of Power, Washington Rules, Breach Across, and most recently, America's War for the Greater Middle East, the Military History. And then, as Alan King is an award-winning author and an autist speaker on terrorism, 21st century security matters, counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, strategic communications, particular style, cultural understanding, and irregular warfare, and Middle Eastern geopolitical issues. King is advised to congressional leaders, serve as an advisor to senior leaders in the Department of State and Defense. In July 2004, King returned from Iraq after spending 16 months as a civil affairs battalion commander, and then as the Deputy Director of the Office of the Provincial Outreach Coalition for Regional Authority, Iraq. He's the author of Python, an American soldier's battle for hearts and minds. So that's your panel, and this is your chance to ask all those questions you've been wanting to ask. And as you line up before the microphones, let me ask a question myself. I'd like to start with Mr. Seford Day and then go around the panel. And what I'd like to ask is that each one of you, the United States is an international part, right? So the United States has interests all around the world. But what I'd like to know from each of you is, what is the remaining national, vital national interests that the United States has in Iraq? Does it have any of that? What would make a commander achieve, to send these people to a country? What is our vital national interests in Iraq? So please, go ahead. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here at Norwich University. Thank you for having me. This has been a great program. I appreciated the questions that we had yesterday. I think this is quite a challenging question, but I want to revert back to something Colin Powell said when asked about this particular situation. I think he talked about what a pottery barn rule. And that was, you break it, you own it. And essentially, at this point in time, that's it, we broke it. We are responsible for the initial and then the later situations. And that essentially is one of the most fundamental reasons why we own it and should own it. Another economic component to this, and I think that this ties into some of my work personally. And it's been said that we were there for the oil. And I think that that's a really simplistic argument. And I think the way to look at it is, oil is not necessarily what we want, but what we need is to continue to have stability in the energy markets overall from an economic perspective. And making sure that we are still in the Middle East plays a fundamental role in ensuring that stability in the energy markets because of the amount of energy that's in that particular region, be it Iraq or around Iraq. Thank you, Mr. Scott. And I really want to be here at Norwich University. You asked a question about vital interests. And in the 24 hours that I've been in, a number of students have come up to me and spoken about Israel and how they go on field trips out to Israel, Palestine. And Israel remains a vital interest to the United States. And Israel's security remains something that is never taken for granted. And we can see in recent weeks the security threat to Israel continues to change before it was very much a focus on terrorism. Now the challenge is coming, a struggle that's going on between Israel and Iran. And you can see this playing out movement inside Syria. So Israel remains a vital security interest, a vital national interest to the United States. Thank you, Mr. Spaceswich. Oh, I too am very grateful to be here and actually at lunchtime, an additional reason why I'm so grateful. They gave us this little card and I'm told that if I go to the gift shop, I can get $50 worth of Norwich swag. It happens to be that I need a new sweatshirt and I will have it before the sun goes down. So I would argue that we have no vital interest in this region. We have interests that are far greater importance when we're talking about addressing the implications of the rise of China, implications of climate change, growing threats in the realm of cyber. But I think the reason we did what we did in the wake of 9-Eleven is that the 9-Eleven attack was a direct assault on a fundamental conviction held by most of our fellow citizens and certainly sustained by people who work in Washington. And that fundamental conviction is the myth of American exceptionalism, that we are the chosen people, we are God's chosen people, we are the agents of history. History has a purpose and our responsibility is to bring history to its foreordained conclusion which will occur when the rest of the world believes what we believe. So 9-Eleven directly challenged that notion and therefore 9-Eleven required a violent and conservative response to demonstrate that the questions raised by the events of 9-Eleven simply were not true, that through the conservative use of military power, not simply in Iraq, but in the places that were to come after Iraq, we would demonstrate to ourselves and to the rest of the world beyond the shadow of a doubt that we are God's chosen people. Alas, here we are all these years later in that effort to sustain this myth have not worked. And I think really the greatest challenge incumbent upon us today as citizens is to finally come around to realizing that that myth is a great lie and that trying to sustain it does great harm to ourselves and indeed in places like Iraq does great harm to others as well. I am so happy to be back in Norwich to see some old friends and faces and I appreciate the invitation to return. I will tell you that what we did in Iraq was like hitting the beehive and when the bee started to swarm, we turned to run and it was in the water to jump into. And so when I was here previously, 2008, 2009, I got to tell you some great war stories and I was told once that nothing runs a great war story like I witnessed. And I got two of them on the panel with me that shared the same ground so that the story may not be as good as it was this year. But with all that being said, Iraq is an interest that we have to, we have a responsibility to. But I don't think, as Andrew pointed out, I don't think it's as viable as some of the other interests that are growing around the globe and China being one of those and while Russia is a concern and one that's pushing on us, particularly in the Middle East and Syria is the one that we have to worry about, but we do have a responsibility to Iraq. But we have to remember with all the stories and questions that the students ask, it is now a sovereign nation and we don't get to just walk in and impose our ideas. We have to take from Iraq what they want from us and that may not be what we consider in our best interest, but one that we're going to have to learn to work within. So you all need to be thinking about questions. The microphones are up. I have a couple more, but please step out to the microphones. Those who have questions. And so the question I want to ask now is about this so-called Sunni-Ishia divide. Right, it's in headlines. Everyone knows about it. The Qanayn, nobody has heard of what Sunni was or Shia was, what she was, what Iraq was. So now we talk about the Sunni-Ishia divide. And what I want to ask you, interestingly, three of these panelists, with the exception of Mr. Basavich, all the three others, were all in Iraq at the same time. So some of their perspectives are formed in that crucible that they serve together. But what I'd like to ask is, Sunni-Ishia has been together in Iraq for years and years. I mean, there were minor tests here, minor tests there, but there was no divide. And there are some people that I've talked to who said that the divide really started red. The United States went through Iraq, the government in Iraq, and then had to form a new government. And then decided to have numbers of Sunni, numbers of Shia, a number of Kurds, and therefore injected this kind of religious, if you will, interest in the governing bodies. So the United States basically is responsible for creating this divide, which is truly a tip, but not a divide. But anyone who'd like to take a shot at that? Let me tell a personal story to start us off. It's very interesting to be, so my family is originally from Iraq, and in order to Iraq, which you turn it off because of ISIS, but you should have heard of it because of the tister. So I have a Sunni background, and my aunt happens to be married to a surgeon who is Shia, living in Western Baghdad in 2004, a place called Qanabiyah, and I was a Sunni young man who was involved in the government who had to negotiate with Sunni insurgents to release my aunt's husband who had been kidnapped and threatened to be killed. And they had been married for 25 years or whatever it was, and these issues weren't discussed in the household. And when he approached my grandfather for my aunt's hand in marriage, it wasn't an issue. But this is not to say that we should take the simplistic view that this divide didn't exist. I think the divide didn't exist, but it wasn't a primary identifier or the primary issue that people identified with the terms of their identity. And the Iraqi identity was there. And the biggest evidence for that, in my mind, continues to be that if you ask, we always talk about the Iraqi Shia in Iran, but if you ask the vast majority of the Iraqi Shia in Iraq, how they feel about Iran, you will actually hear some very interesting answers because they feel like they were treated very badly by the Iranians and had a very negative view. And I'll end, I think that we did amplify that division and we amplified very straight divisions on the cover of the council when we created it. The Kurds and the Sunnis, for example, we say we're creating this, but the Kurds are Sunni, the vast majority of the Kurds are Sunni. And then even the Shia parties are parties that were from the outside of Iraq or fostered outside. And the last thing I'll say here is the biggest bath party organization, the biggest bath party membership was in Southern Sidney, Baghdad. And if you're not aware of this history now, it's making me feel a little bit old. But Southern Sidney was where, that's how Southern, you all have heard of his name, where this was a very large Shia population of Baghdad. It's in the eastern part of Baghdad and probably 95% of the population of that city of Shia. But they were the largest bath party being what's left of them essentially was in charge of during his reign over Iraq. There's a microphone on this side too, please line up. I'll ask one more question and then we'll go directly into students and my question is this, why has nobody ever been able to account for these unending wars, is it called, without results? And why has anybody ever been able to account? And let me start with Mr. Bacevich to answer that and then the other two, Mr. Skye and Mr. King, can you join in and then we'll go to you. Well, it's a very good question and I don't believe I have an adequate answer. I think the closest I can come is to say that within the policy elite, Republican, Democrat, senior professional military officers, other people who make their living within the felt way, there is a common mindset and a common mindset is one that believes without reservation that both that the United States needs to remain the most powerful nation on the planet and also that power is measured primarily in military terms. So why is this true, at least in my judgment, that the invasion and subsequent occupation of the Iraq particular subject of this panel were catastrophically stupid? Nonetheless, that stupidity stems from this common mindset, this collective view. So in our political establishment, in our national period establishment, there is virtually no one who is willing to render a fundamental critique, I've got to say a critique that goes beyond what happened in Iraq to examine why didn't we get to Iraq in the first place? And as long as, I mean, there are people who offer that critique, but they're marginalized. You know, they publish books and op-eds that don't get read, don't matter. But there will be no accountability until there is a willingness and a part of the people in the political establishment who have those leads to take into account the possibility that the fundamentals informing our national security policy may themselves be wrong. So Ms. Cai, if you would briefly handle it and then if we go to the students and I'll start with you, Mr. King, when I ask, please. So in the UK in stark contrast from the US, there has been a large public demand for accountability. There has been an inquiry that was established that published its results a year or so ago at the Trump Cotton inquiry, that interviewed everybody involved in the run-out of the war, the decision-making, and the failure of the aftermath. That report came out, it was very skilful in its findings. Prime Minister Blair, the former prime minister of Blair, cannot show any space in the public in the UK. There are demands from the public and also from politicians that have been tried for war crimes. That's not possible, but that just gives you an idea of the sentiment. So the impact of the war has really been far-reaching. It has led to a distrust of the elites and their ability to make the right decisions. In the whole discussions in the run-out to Brexit, you heard people say, why should we trust the elites? It was the elites who got us into the wrong call. Why should we trust their ability to make the right adjustments? So although the inquiry was not able to convict people, that's not what it was set up to do, it certainly was there to make sure that everybody understood what went wrong and why, that there was a public record on that. That it's led to changes in the way the processes and policies are made in the UK. There has been a dramatic downsizing of the British military. So the British military will no longer be able to be involved in occupations overseas again. And the ghosts of the right call linger on. So when there's a vote in Parliament over whether the UK should do anything about Bashar Assad's use of chemical weapons, the MPs are very aware that they have voted in the support of the right call, voted against doing anything to stop Bashar Assad using chemical weapons. And that decision in the British Parliament had big effects over here. When President Obama, we kind of got everybody lined up to respond with a telly to the chemical attacks in Syria with true that decision following the vote in the British Parliament and part of it of the Congress and the full world of Congress would never get around to making a decision on anything. Thank you. Let's go there and re-organize. Please tell us who you are. Keep the comments and introductions short. Go ahead, please. Thank you, sir. I'm Cadet Massikar Shain Hudgens, President of the United States of America in 2019. So my question for the panel is, will the U.S. has successfully rebuilt a coup d'etat for the border? Given an unlimited amount of time and all of the resources that the United States can muster, what in your opinion would it take to turn Iraq into a stable, prosperous democratic nation? Or is it too late for that at this point? Having given an unresolved rule, is that not an opportunity anymore? Mr. King, let's start. The first thing I realize is that the U.S. military did exactly what's designed to do. We decisively defeated the military in another country. We won war. We did not secure the victory. We did not bring the resources of the United States to bear to bring Iraq around to be the nation that we envisioned it to be. Some of the mistakes we made were erroneous and we believe that Jeffersonian democracy was the way. Democracy is relevant to what their society contained. The other thing is that we wanted to bring around an Anglo-Saxon capitalism economy, and it wasn't designed for that. Mark, socialism economy probably would have been better in our regard. It is a sovereign nation now, and they're going to have to make their own decisions. We're not going to change the democracy that they have is what they choose to have, how they decide to run their constitution or comply with their constitutions up to them. But we need to be there and be prepared to provide whatever assistance that they think is necessary for us. I realize the influence that Iran and other countries, Turkey and particular like up in the north, is something that we have to take into consideration. I'll let one more panelist answer that before we go to the question here, please. I'm actually going to ask you to challenge the premise of your question. And the reason I ask you to do that is the question is, are we capable of doing something to make Iraq into a democracy that is successful? Do you use the word successful? Democracy? I wrote that down, sorry. I may have missed the question, but I mean, essentially you're going to have to reoccupy a country, because as Alan just said, Iraq is now an independent nation. But I think the premise behind the question is what we really need to ask ourselves as Americans, and that is, are we capable of doing that or are we simply trying to imprint our will or what we perceive to be the proper country onto that nation or any other country? And if we look at our history, how many successful times, how many times have we done that successfully? You know, there's a couple of them, but when you look at the vast majority of wars that we've waged in our history, those successful models start to look sparse. And I think that, and Alan said, we have to look at the full spectrum of what we're capable of doing and what we're not. We shouldn't be asking our military to become the one and only tool of diplomacy, nation-building, you know, emergency relief, Navy. Thank you very much. Okay, let's go ahead. I apologize for my question, but I'm more forward-thinking towards Syria. My personal opinion is that our country has become one half-meters. We start something, and if you said, Mr. King, our military is exactly what it's intended to do, decisive to defeat the enemy, but we lack the conviction to finish our mission and actually follow through, whether that be, we create a power vacuum and then we don't fill the vacuum, and then that's a radicalization and there's more problems for us. So looking forward to Syria, do you believe that we have any imperative, whether that be a more romanticized notion that we should be global police and like a tool for good, if you will? Do we have any real moral imperative to actually join conflict there as our President is very bombastically regarded? I don't really have a very strong opinion either way. I just believe that I'm not educated enough to form one, so I'd like to know what any of you think regarding that. And I want to just refer back to the last question as well, because we're talking about 15 years after the invasion of Iraq. You have to look at what happened during that period. Do you honestly think the Iraqis are saying all Americans, please come back and give us democracy? They didn't exactly say it the first time. So when you look today at Syria, you have to look at where we're at. And the Syrian war's been going on for over six years. And you could say that that war has pretty much come to an end now. Why has it lasted so long? It lasted so long because so much external interference from different countries. Including us. We gave enough support to the opposition so we couldn't lose, but we did give enough support so we could win. And so this civil war has continued for six years. We've got Iran involved, Russia involved, the Gulf countries, Turkey, everyone involved. Half a million Syrians have been killed. Half the population of Syria is displaced from its home. So we're hardly at a position to start thinking about should the US invade or not. This discussion about should we drop a few bombs just to make ourselves feel I don't know if it's a catharsis or something. But when we look at where Syria is at today there are very different options from where it was at six years ago or four years ago. And I think today we just want the war fighting the killing to come to an end. So doing research, I was born in 1998 and I'm currently 20 years old but perfectly as yesterday so we're around just over 85% of my life. Thank you. I really appreciate that. But to the point just for over 85% of my life and the life of my peers our country's been at war. So I was just wondering if any of you thought there was some legitimate imperative that we actually take action or whether or not there was a legitimacy to the claims that Bashir al-Assad did actually use chemical weapons on his constituents or if that was a rebel ploy to try to get us to be more involved. I definitely agree with you that we shouldn't feel as if the barrel were gone. I was just hoping for more development whether or not there is a legitimate reason for us to go. Mr. Bashir bitch, you want to try that? The sky was pretty precise on it. Are you implying that I won't be precise? No. No, I think that you might be precise in the opposite way. Well, I'll dissent a little bit I think of my colleague in his judgment of U.S. military efforts whether in Iraq or elsewhere. The war is a political act. It really doesn't matter how many battles you win. Victory requires achieving your political purposes. Real victory requires achieving your political purposes expeditiously and at a reasonable cost. Now if you accept that sort of definition of success you don't have to, then it seems to me pretty plain that virtually all of our post 9-11 military efforts whether in Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya or Somalia or Yemen or wherever you want to they have uniformly failed. And indeed it seems to me this gets to back to the accountability question and the sort of thing that the children have done. There was a crying need for us in this country to have a serious effort to understand why the greatest military in the world has not achieved its purposes. But your question I think on Syria was really getting to the moral question and even in reference to the moral obligation to the Iraqi people. I must say I'm somewhat torn by that but what I would say is to the extent that we have a moral obligation to Syrians then the action we take to equip that moral obligation should be actions that address the problem. And the problem is the plight of these people who have been caught in this civil war year after year hundreds of thousands of them displaced. And it's beyond me how any military action undertaken by the United States short of invading and occupying the country for the next several decades it's beyond me how any military action can actually equip that moral obligation. Well what could we do what could we do to address the suffering of the Syrian people? Oh, here's an idea. Why do we allow the displaced Syrians to come to the land of the free and the home of the burglary? We have a very big country. We actually could accommodate a couple more refugees from Syria and that would have a very direct immediate and practical benefit to the people who have suffered. Now please raise your hand if you think that the majority of our fellow citizens would subscribe to a program bringing several hundred thousand displaced Syrians to live in the United States of America. How many would believe that? Two. Three. Okay, that seems to me about right. 497 to three. Thank you. Thank you very much. Indeed Mr. Pym you take two questions from you and you and then try and treat these all. Good afternoon. My name is Ryan Phelps and Mr. Base Pitch, I read your book. I read the book. And in the first couple pages I want to be a smart dog which book? First of all it was the war for great release. In the first couple pages you decide that the tactics and strategy of the U.S. forces going into Iraq was originally decided to uphold law and they wanted to promote the overall security of the country and instead we went in with kind of an opposite of that and we wanted to arrest them in the first couple pages and when I was reading that I thought it kind of made sense but I was just wondering if you could elaborate on that just on like the specifics because when I was thinking about it if we're there to promote law and we're there to do the overall security of the country, is that rescuing in that it didn't really make sense to me. So I have a second idea to take this question here. My name is Hilary, I'm class of 2019 junior and my question really pertains to not the military standpoint of protecting the Iraq now we're seeing more of like Turkey how it's Turkey and Iran are basically trying to have this ideology of hey let's you know put a proxy government should I say inside of Iraq now to gain their spirit and what should I say and I was wondering what you guys concerned to do in regards to this because I know for Turkey should I say you know you have Erdogan who basically has this ideology of hey let's go back to the same ideology of the auditory where we should possibly bring a sense to the Ottoman Empire back and seeing that Iraq is in such a standpoint of the Middle East do you believe that something like this ideology is another conflict where different presence inside of the Middle East on the lower scale okay so I let Mr. Basavich answer the question about the book you'll have to buy five copies and then Mr. King you can feed the second question and I have a feeling that if I did I may have been trying to be ironic my let me try to get the question the key point here is in my judgment we went to war in Iraq not because Iraq posed any kind of threat to the United States we went to Iraq war with Iraq because Iraq was weak vulnerable we kicked our army around 1991 the country had been under strict sanctions ever since we although nobody was paying attention the United States sometimes had been buying Iraq through most of the 1990s on a persistent basis not large scale buying but basically Iraq had become a very weak military power so we invaded because it was weak we invaded because a coalition of neo conservatives and hardcore realists people like Wolfowitz would have been a neo conservative camp people like Brownsville and Cheney would be in a hardcore realist camp that coalition persuaded President George W. Bush who had persuaded himself after 9-11 and was a serious believer persuaded himself after 9-11 that he had been anointed by God to transform that part of the world so that coalition chose to invade Iraq because they expected an easy win because they expected an easy win in Iraq basically to position the United States to increase our leverage to increase our influence so that we could move beyond the transformation of Iraq soon to be easy in order to bring about change elsewhere in the region now whether the results would have been Wolfowitz would have hoped a bunch of liberal democracies or whether the results would have been this is what Cheney and Brownsville would have hoped basically America and the Gemini unquestioned America and the Gemini in either either case it would have been great benefits to the United States and America so the invasion of course the invasion is conducted using the most recent precepts of conventional warfare emphasizing the use of precision guided munitions with all those zero thought given to what's going to happen after we get back down and we got it back down it was going to be great then everything fell apart now who's involved in that I have to say I believe the principal responsibility for that failure was a military responsibility the senior officers planning that operation didn't give any serious thought to what was going to happen once the Saddam-Saharan regime was overcome and that created the opportunity for all that ensued I've got to follow up with that question because I was the first civil military officer in the bag yet and the night that I arrived on April the 8th, 2003 they came up to me and said you have 24 hours to come on the plane so five and a half million people with no civil society and a functioning government I was fortunate that my mentors for the last 10 years before that had been a military governor to the night of this and labored over their stories and I fell back on their stories and said in 96 hours focused on four primary areas public safety, fire and police public utilities, electric and water and public administration called everybody back to work and we debated long the night about calling them back my final argument was that they shore up with the rest and in fact we did and we were 26 on the deck of cars and we were back to work, we were arrested in 13 days we had 97 hospitals up and operating we had 5000 policemen armed and back to work we had 1500 firemen back on the job 25 of the 100 emergency vehicles back in operation and then Oroch showed up and they said stop we wanted a two week assessment sorry who showed up or the office of Reconstruction Management Assistance so Oroch shows up and they said we wanted this to be a language I can tell you where it's at today and the only question that was asked of me in my hand off the only question was how many women are on the police force and I said man I don't know the answer to that I suspect zero well that's the most important thing that we've got to focus on right now we don't have a distribution system for food we don't have the sewage working the water is not being properly taken care of we don't have all these other functional things and that was the only question that was of concern and that's why I said we didn't bring the resources to bear we did the best that we could do in the amount of time that we had granted the higher level did not play with that being said I want to answer your question just to show off how many believe the Islamic State is a terrorist group and that's why we believe our world the Islamic State is not a terrorist group during insurgency insurgencies want to take over a government terrorists want to change policy and in Obama fought the Islamic State in Syria as a counter terrorist in operation that was a counter terrorist strategy you kicking doors taking the jail counter-insurgency is you look at them in the face shake their hand and drink tea the difference and so for us we got to be able to we got to be able to do that first with you every country is going to try to influence other countries particularly their neighbors we do it in Mexico we do it in Canada we still try to do it in the UK since 1776 so Iran is going to do it to Iraq and I will tell you that a very interesting official once told me and we were talking about the influence of Iran and he said listen you're going to leave your history shows you're going to leave and who are we going to look to are we going to look to our Saudi neighbors for help the only person we have to look to is Iran and that's sort of where they left at I'm sorry for the long answer no thank you very much so I'm going to take two more questions and if you will this guy you will answer the first one and I'm sorry you will answer the second one so in the interest of time short questions, short answers let's start Hi my name is Chris Williams I'm a junior and I too I think I'm going to talk about Mr. Peggy's questions because he alluded to them and in that there's a lot of cultural change in our generation specifically like millennials era and that they grew up in a country that's always the same people so there's always the same people in news so there's a lot of apathy or apathetic individuals and there's a lot of people that care about it but a lot more that they're used to or just confed up with it and kind of don't do much what would you say to someone that doesn't care about the Iraq mess it's kind of sitting in the middle of a space and they play video games kind of thing what would you say to them to make them care about this again or should they not care so in this guy you want to take this and then you come back Mr. Peggy can I make a step while she's thinking about it your taxes are going up you know by the way report to the draft board a lot of people care you know America has been at war as you said since you were very young but America's forever at war and never winning and it makes no difference to Americans it's only 1% that serve tiny and that's kind of like genetically produced America's taxes didn't go up it really makes no difference they just say thank you football games go first onto the planes and that's about it so you've got to wonder what has happened that we have a whole war economy that we can just keep going that the outcome of the wars doesn't really affect most vast majority of Americans at all jobs in every state are dependent on the defence industry we are gutting our diplomatic service that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller but the military budget and the military is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and I worry about the early questions that said how are we going to use the US military budget to build squads in Iraq or deal with mental health problems in Iraq this is kind of getting out of control and we're in danger of being forever at war and never winning and not really understanding what the future threats to us are nobody's going to invade America what if the future will be a cyber if you want to attack America you take down a protected infrastructure you have to tax on tanks and so for you millennials you've got to be asking questions about this how do you end up perpetually at war and that's the question you need to ask why are we forever at war and why are we never winning thank you I'm going to ask I personally see a lot of parallels between the Vietnam war the war in Iraq and Afghanistan the biggest point being it seems like we're fighting purely conventional methods we've had huge success in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq like you mentioned war soldiers Jim began to have a lot of success and I feel like we just keep repeating the same mistakes I'm curious what's the future and take care of the problems in the man from our natives for example first of all I got this question yesterday and you've got a great professor that can probably answer it for you you talked to David Alberg but you know are we ever going to learn or lessen I think you all are going to answer that question right the fact that 15 years later I got a man whose birthday was yesterday 20's birthday three days ago it was the 15th anniversary of when that soldier started to put that American flag on the statue of Sultan Hussain and then they put the Iraqi flag there after and the statue came out and if you read the Iraqi press all of it was about that and I challenge you to find articles in our newspapers about that 15 years ago because it was such an important day in our history but how much did you read about it and I think the fact that Professor Morris and President Schneider and this university put it on a panel like this and bringing you all to reflect and bringing distinguished panelists to talk about this is a great way at least to begin to institutionalize some of that knowledge and I think that's what really should happen is the institutionalization of the lessons learned I'm not a military person I was intrigued by the task ceremony last night first one I attended so thank you for that but the question that I sent back to you all and to the leadership of the military is are we institutionalizing the lessons learned and if we're not lying because it seems like we went through some of this in Vietnam we went through we learned a lot in Iraq and if you speak to Duke Luka yesterday he talked about selling the units institutionalizing but not the system as a whole and I think that's very problematic but if you allow me just to touch on the last question very quickly on the Turkey Iran question that I think this is a direct result of the almost fading of past in our economy and I think when we look back at history we'll see that this coming period maybe this coming century is not our century and the question and challenge that we need to face is how we deal with that because we are pulling back if you look at our current administration and the administration report that we are kind of saying we've had enough of the world world will deal with your own problems and the question now becomes is how do we deal with that challenge when we decide that we're not going to play anymore my question is in America we often say that we're a Chinese city on a hill a beacon of freedom to others but there are plenty of people that sit at the bottom of that hill that will look up and look at this great freedom and the nations like Iraq Syria Afghanistan and Sudan where we destroy those nations and kids go out in the streets and they see bombs trapped on the city property in the United States is it America's duty is it America's job to take care of this lost generation let them come over here and give them the child that they never had who would like to answer that before I end the video please I'm actually going to offer you an economic answer you know Andrew was talking about whether we want to bring Syrian refugees here let me postulate that 150,000 Syrian refugees from an economic standpoint are going to cost us a lot less than sending any bombs that cost us a million how many million in peace for each missile or whatever it takes to send a carrier group or whatever it may be and I wonder whether we shouldn't start thinking along those lines Turkey is taking in a million maybe more than a million Germany's got a million and yet if you look at the G20 economies last year Turkey had the highest growth rate of the G20 economy it was 7.3% their GDP growth rate hours was 2.3 and they've taken in a lot of refugees from Syria Hello, my name is Benifest and Mr. King I alluded to my question earlier but to my knowledge the original plan during the invention of Iraq was going not disable the government ministries but for the most part leave it functioning and then the state department came in and decided to tear it all down and build the ground up were there any positive outcomes from that choice short term and nowadays are there any is Iraq still familiar with any repercussions, positive or negative from that choice if you want some specific response to that from the panel there was actually a state department program called the future of Iraq and they had been put together for a couple of years before the invasion and they had gone all over the world and found technocrats to be able to go in and discover them in a box and fulfill the ministries so the actual idea was to take it all the way down take away the bad distance and start back from the beginning the way I understood it were supposed to be there for 6 months and then this technocrats transition out and we move on and the Iraqi people quickly made a note to us that that was not what they wanted and then things changed so the office of reconstruction and their assistance quickly went away and then the coalition with their authority came in with Ambassador Renner and he has an ethics he takes a lot of kicks for what he did but remember the follower there's always a boss and he was fulfilling what had come out of Washington he and I were together in October 2012 and the question was posed in a forum like this if there's anything that could have done a different role than that had been and his comment was I don't think we should have disbanded the military that was probably the most destructive thing we did to that country there were people that had been trained to kill people and break things and set them out to do just that and then we tried to believe that the insurgency wasn't taking place that what we were corrected in was so great that people would love us for it and it would take hold so are the regrets or the things that the Iraqis probably wished hadn't happened there's some people that wish the Dominic that was still there we are starting to run short of time and I'll feel this needed here President Siner you pushed me out of the Washington area so I'm going to take two questions the people behind if you would just come up after the event and I'm sure the panelists will be able to answer your questions so I'm going to take your question a quick one your question a quick one and this if you would just come up please one, two I'm a staff architect I'm just going to I have a written down question so my question is why do the US leaders believe it is our obligation to impose our western politics on countries that don't want to adopt the democratic style of government and why do we continue to use our military as police force to protect countries that obviously don't want our assistance Ms. Sky do you want to answer that? that's a great question a really good question yes partly it's because the US is all powerful but also partly you know you think of all the problems internal to a Mac the problems that we don't deal with so if you look at infrastructure infrastructure you look at gun crimes you look at all of this and if somebody is killed by somebody who happens to be Muslim then all hell breaks loose and sometimes it's easy to deal with things overseas then it is to deal with things alone and we've always got people diverting attention overseas for whatever reasons it's a way to drama support domestically and the fear of terrorism is blown way way way out of proportion the more I need to be killed by your surfer then you are somebody who is a less terrorist more like to be killed by a beast then so it is blown way way way out of proportion and all resources are some of the throne or a throne of this then that creates a whole new set of problems so Ms. Sky take your time I was just looking at my watch and the program and the impact I hear you could speak to so take your time and the people who are lining up sorry go ahead okay how many of you have heard of Dwight D. Eisenhower have you read his last speech as president of the United States of America what did he warn us about military industrial complex military industrial complex and I challenge you as cadets to actually think about that from a president celebrated military man who turned a civilian life and had this prescient look to the future of our country and whether we need to act upon what President Eisenhower was talking about back in the 50's 66 61 61 to historic thank you so now that we have a few more minutes I do want to all of you seem to be touching on the issue that the United States does not go to war or really fighting to be accomplished but just seem to be going to war just to keep the economy going or the defense industry going where things have come through my understanding is properly and I understand the truth to be thinking about this so that as they get into more and more positions you know I'm reminded of the previous Secretary Gates who said why is it that we have more musicians in the army than we have foreign service officers in the diplomatic or the defense sector go ahead well there are one of the reasons it's so difficult to come to grips with this penchant for war is that there are a variety of factors it's not like there's one single cause and I think you stress that and it brought this up but I think that one of the contributing causes is is American history American history as we choose to remember American history the pieces of American history we choose to either forget or place on the margins in 1947 all my parents were a World War II veteran lately I've come to reflect on the continuing centrality of World War II as an event that continues to define our sense of who we are and the role we are in playing in World War II even our memory of World War II is radically distorted I mean if you had to pick one country and say that's the country that defeated the Nazis who would that be Soviet Union this alliance we made with the mass murderer Joseph Stalin to bring about the victory against the Germans that's not how we remember it you remember it my parents remembered it remembered the war as the absolute indication of this country this was when we demonstrated our capacity to liberate and in the wake of 1945 we demonstrated our capacity we came to believe and to concretize our recollection of the post war occupation of Germany and of Japan is that we brought democracy to them we don't credit them with having anything to do with that even though it was actually their choice and their leaders who had so much to do with that and my point would be that here in the 21st century with all that has happened since World War II certainly Vietnam the larger experience of the Cold War of all the miscalculations and moral compromises certainly post 9-11 wars we ought to arrive at a common historical narrative it doesn't abandon World War II it doesn't dismiss it as a non-advent but now places World War II in a much broader context and quite frankly in a more complicated context complicated both in terms of US interest, US actions and the moral consequences that have stemmed from that so we need to rethink our history right here go ahead my question so we touched on the argument that the US needs to fix what we broke in Iraq that implies that we still have work to do that we still have to help Iraq rebuild and we've also touched on the fact that there are other conflicts that are more pressing and the question is with all these growing issues that some of your team are taking precedence over this conflict what still needs to be done from us and what should we expect Iraq to be held responsible for as we face these new threats to our nation Iraq's in a different place at the moment it's heading towards elections May the 12th and it's a fundamental crossroads it's a defining moment again for the country similar to what happened in 2010 and there is still a threat from terrorism ISIS has been defeated but there's still aspects of ISIS around but the bigger challenge is from the governance of the country itself it's from corruption it's in the top 5 most corrupt countries in the world it's from its appointment politics so these are the these are the issues that Iraq is grappling with and that's a really difficult thing for outside countries to try and help we have spent billions in Iraq and as we spent more than the Marshall plan for Europe so we're not talking about us understanding we spent billions in these countries and why is there so little to see from it partly because the way in which we spend money there's a whole lot of problems with our contracts lots of problems so a good question would be why would you keep throwing money at stuff so what can we help Iraq with there's still some training that is useful for military forces and that training can be provided by US forces a small contingent as advisors or the NATO and that's a discussion there's also a useful role for American companies to invest get the private sector going that is really critical it's going to come from businesses investing Iran invests a lot Turkish companies invest a lot we are the private sector to go that way we are not in the business anymore occupying that country but there's useful things that we can do to show that we're still helping that we're useful that helps balance Iran because Iraq is a battlefield between the Iranians on one hand and the Saudis on the other they instrumentalise religion to try and fight each other so the US just by training military by getting companies to invest there can help Iraq move forward but Iraqi space is in Iraqi's hands you know one of the one of the I don't know if I told you show me show me just tell the moderator I'm going to give you a personal example because this is something I saw in 2007 actually it was earlier than that my partners my business partners who at the time worked on business partners had a project to do a water treatment plant in southern city this was a project okay this was a project that US funded and that project was given if I recall the numbers correct I may be off by a couple numbers but it's not significant but if I remember correctly they've given it to a US company for something like 80 million dollars and that US company contracted it to another US company for something like 67 million and that company contracted it to a Kuwait company for about 48 million and it contracted it to my business partners for 18 million and my business partner put the best material in and it only cost 13 million okay so we went from 13 million dollars all the way out to 80 something which was what was built to the US structure and this is a problem that we really need to figure out and based on I think part of what Sigurd's responsibility at the time was to look at some of this the inspector general for the Iraqi construction so that's a lesson the other comment that I want to add is if you ask any Iraqi today what did the British leave for Iraq as bad as the British experience was for the Iraqis you know but they will still recall fondly that the British left the railroads ask any Iraqi and they'll tell you that the British left the railroads in Iraq and they have this good feeling that this is something that is still being used today ask any Iraqi what did we as Americans do in Iraq and you will not find an answer and that's a problem Mr. President so our event is focused on Iraq so it's not surprising the question comes up what should we do for Iraq but let me complicate the question a little bit because Iraq is not the only country on the planet where we may have some unpaid debts how do we establish the priorities in that regard I mean if the American people were in fact willing to equip that responsibility should Iraq become in front of Afghanistan a country that would be stabilized back in the 1980's before abandoning after the Soviets withdrew should Afghanistan come before the Central American Republic which during the first half of the 20th century were effectively American and protectorates where we threw in with corrupt dictators whose presence we felt served our interests what are you reading the papers today about Honduras Guatemala do we have some responsibility for that how about the people of Vietnam if you read the papers you know in Vietnam there are still people regularly being injured as a result of unexplored ordnance bombs that we dropped that didn't explode covered the large parts of the country what's our debt to the Vietnamese what's our debt to the Native Americans maybe that debt should come first they were here first we took their country so I am not trying to suggest that we should not discuss seriously what our debt to the Iraqi people may be but I would argue strongly the debt to the discussion needs to be broader because they're not the only ones who have claims thank you good afternoon I'm Kedap Rathen from our university and this is the question primarily directed to Mr. Facebook earlier on you spoke of the concept of American exceptionalism and how it's gotten us in the situations we are in today with Iraq what steps can we take to essentially challenge this so we don't end up in future situations similar to what we are today I think the first step that you should take the young people is to read the following book called the irony of American history published in 1952 by Brian Cole Newborn Theologian, Public Intelligential most important book ever written about U.S. foreign policy because it proves these internal ideological class-cyber religions origins of U.S. policy and warrants against them so that's my answer read me more and think about it good afternoon my name is Dylan Brian from class of 2020 this is a documentary 2007 called note and insight which talked about the early days of the Iraqi occupation and they talked about how while America was there while there was no police or government official force in place Americans in the American government and military decided to guard areas like oil facilities and oil boundaries instead of places like government buildings and civilization in the early days of the occupation looting took place in many of these priceless artifacts were destroyed and stolen this kind of looks back at the idea of culture and the idea that the Iraq has looked at America not there to maintain law and order but there to maintain the oil fields what was the impact of culture the abandonment of culture for America in Iraq and how can we fix this problem if that ever presents itself again Mr. King when we first arrived in Iraq that was the when I was doing the 90 news conference that was the question that kept coming up that in the zoo but I'll tell you after having met the curator of the museum in anticipation of us coming most of the artifacts were removed from the museum before we got there and speaking to them later on in 1932 or 1937 that were destroyed or stolen that were truly irreplaceable the ones that were left behind were counterfeits and we found them all over the country afterwards and they had been marked they were counterfeited the art that they had taken out in the markets and they left them in the vaults and that's what actually was stolen for us when you get there and you have a number of so many troops and you have so many buildings and other infrastructure that has to be secured you've got to secure what is the most likely to be damaged and we tried to secure the water sites in some of the police and fire areas that had the vehicles but there just wasn't enough troops to go around and I got meet up one night on the news they asked me they said there are seven or there's what are you doing about the weapons in the city and I said well there are seven million AK-47s in the Baghdad there are five and a half million people so the mass that everybody man, woman, child has to want to help you out too you know what you want to do and the guy said where did you get that information I said I don't know I read one of your newspapers this morning and he said we're not credible sources I said can I point you on that but afterwards as I walked out under the newscast and he said what are you going to do about the zoo what are you going to do about the zoo what are you going to do about the zoo and I said you know what I'm going to do about the zoo I'm going to go open the cages and in two weeks I'll go back and figure out what to do about the zoo we have 97 in the hospital operating we have no blood or oxygen people are dying in front of them and you're worried about the animals and so that night they came back and said college officials say there's no blood or oxygen in the city people are dying so we had a flood a flood coming into the country so much so that they were spoiled so my boss appreciated the version but he asked me to talk to him in the future there was a plan I wasn't touching the curators of the museums and I actually did confiscate some very valuable artifacts that dated back to 300 BC that were returned to the zoo so there wasn't as many as were reported in the news we destroyed those we really did and I'll tell you from someone who had to work from a very small office shared by 10 people because the ministry that I was responsible for was burned to the ground a ministry that had 158,000 Iraqi employees across Iraq across 63 entities but what I would possibly now is that it wasn't there wasn't so much taken why didn't we have a handover from the US government of all the artifacts that were taken given to the Iraqi ambassador who did it back they were taken but the curator had taken the majority of the most valuable ones away and we covered those for them about three months after the invasion but the other part of this is if you go to the historic sites in Babylon unfortunately because of the lack of cultural training and having this wider view our own troops were actually destroying some of the Iraq historic sites we don't realize it we had tanks rolling over places that were immensely valuable for the historic family ISIS did what they did in the north to finish it off if you will in destroying the many units of Afghanistan that had back other places but I think what it tells us is that we really need to have a better understanding of where we're going before we go there and I want to just take a minute here because I think that we're also being very harsh and I understand that maybe the perception and it's not to be harsh so that we learn lessons because as I said in one of the earlier comments is you all as cadets going into a military you should be as a military only a certain part of the whole strategy of a nation dealing with external issues and I think the challenge for you all as you articulate into your different positions is to always ask yourself are my perceptions correct or am I just simply going along and not asking the right questions so even listening to this really terrific discussion for a little while don't go away unless you finish with your question okay but what I want is to show fans how many people now after sitting an hour and a half here believe the decision to go into Iraq was the right one let's have a show of hands not very many ask the right question why don't you say right or wrong the question is for someone whose family suffered under Dr. Sane I would tell you that absolutely is but then the other part of that is didn't do it right and I think that's where it you know and again it might be a challenge for a US audience right but then I look at it from both of my opinions as an American and as someone who originally is from Iraq so then my question would be would we once again send back with the country more stable with the country beyond the war what do you think what about the other three patterns what's it all saying be better for Iraq today than what exists if a state radicals running all around breaking up people getting killed go ahead I'd love to hear that you understand the rationale for the reason for going to Iraq and the rationale for invading Iraq was the premise that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and in the panic and fear of the 9-11 there was concern that the weapons of mass destruction would fall into the hands of terrorists that was the premise now you could ask how did we get to that premise and we look at the CIA's own report on this which they made public years later was they criticized themselves for lack of imagination because Saddam behaved in a manner that looked like he had weapons of mass destruction everybody thought that maybe he did have weapons of mass destruction but it was a deception strategy he didn't want to get attacked by Iraq or Iran but he assumed that the US with all the intel about war knew that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction so that was going on but the reason for invading Iraq it wasn't a humanitarian intervention it wasn't because we cared for the oppressed Iraqi people Saddam had mass murdered his people for a long time we supported Saddam during the war on Iraq war when he used chemical gas against Iranians no comment was made because he was our bad guy at the time when he we had President Bush senior called for Iraqis to rise up after the 1990 intervention in Kuwait he called for Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam and they rose up and Saddam massacred 100,000 or so in the south and the US did nothing so we didn't go there as a humanitarian intervention that was not the reason and so we can't say you wouldn't have met with Saddam or not but you have to have a reason to go to war it's international law so the question is what would have happened had we not invaded Saddam in the city of power and of course the only answer is who the hell knows the posing the question seems to presume that Saddam Hussein or his perhaps his sons would today in 2018 to be in power and that's certainly a possible outcome but let us know that it is an outcome that in a sense denies any agency on the part of the Iraqi people assumes that no internal process could have occurred that would have overthrown the dictator and that couldn't have been the case how do you got a hand we have seen in the not so distant past where people have risen up and overthrown the evil dictator and I don't see any reason why we would necessarily assume that that couldn't have happened in Iraq had we not intervened on the distinguished colleagues and they can't know like that but I do say in my book that I think going to Iraq was the right thing to do based on the information and the reasons we went that would have been the question asked was do you think going there was the right thing the question would have been do you know why we went because I talk about it but I'm very fortunate I caught people off the deck of cars and the top most wanted people the chairman of atomic energy I surrendered to me the ministry of industrial fair research and development scientists surrendered to me and I got to hear all these stories and Emma is exactly right what they had told me was the night that we went to Iraq the night we crossed the berm chemicalology went to Saddam and said uncle what do I have the amphibians are here and he said get out of my office and he said no uncle not this time what do I have to use to be an amphibian where are the weapons at and Saddam brought this head and he said I don't have anything he said I only told these stories because I didn't want anyone in Israel to attack us because we have nothing and so what he proved was he was a world class propagandist and we single sourced most of the intelligence that we had in that single source which I got to track down a lot of the stuff that he had claimed even about the downed pilot spiker was not true and he was getting paid for that information that wasn't validated and sourced sourced out Saddam needed to go did we need to do it that's the thing but he was a terrible dictator he killed a lot of people I got to witness in my own eyes the horror what he did in some of the torture chambers so I say yes but we need to know why we don't Can I pose a question for Emma please with regard to the weapons of mass destruction and a question relates to the now famous meeting I guess what was called the war cabinet when the chief of was it the chief of MI6 speaking with Blair and other members of the cabinet stated that the intelligence is being fixed around the case this is prior to the invasion in other words the senior most members of the British government not speaking to the press but behind closed doors stated that they knew that the argument being presented by US officials about weapons of mass destruction was not true I just want to hear your evaluation of that episode and its significance so the correspondents were referring to said that the US was cherry picking the information and you know there was that whole build up to the war and that's the context where that correspondence was taking place because some argue that there were efforts to try and prevent an intervention taking place by giving the weapons inspectors more time to prove that the world weapons of mass destruction but on the whole when we look at the intelligence community in the US and in the UK the overall assessment was that sit down with weapons of mass destruction when it came to the argument that sit down was in cahoots with Al Qaeda which was also being put forward by a particular American senior American official that was dismissed by most of the intelligence community they said that is nonsense that has been politically driven but what happened on the WMD side is a real lesson in confirmation bias when the guy at the top says show me the evidence then everybody down the line is looking for the evidence to pass up and all the information that showed that there wasn't any didn't get passed up so you guys when you think in the future when you have to set your commander's critical information requirements be wary of confirmation bias so don't just ask for what you think ask also for what you don't think so you can then assess what's there evidence or not but I think with this WMD it was confirmation bias and even within the British system even though the guy was setting up their cherry picking as in there is no doubt and when you look over to Corbyn Powell's testimony when he talks about that he says he wished he had caveated what he said much more instead of speaking with trust certainty and Alan was referring to curveball his great source great source in inverted commas he was like a fantasist and he was paid for by the Germans paid for by the Iranians everybody was paying for him and they interviewed him couple of years ago and they said why do you lie and he said because I hated to sit down and say again I would do anything to remove Saddam Hussein from power so everybody was being paid along there and there was failures in leadership failures in intel and failures in imagination yes sorry go ahead what do you think the consequences have been in military activity since the Vietnam war of victimization of the ordinary non-military people in the countries we have invaded in terms of recruitment of recruitment for opposition forces I think it has contributed greatly to the recruitment of militants and terrorists and like people thank you let me now I'm afraid this time for real I need to rewind this and let's be forget we had a great ceremony last night the number of wonderful Norwich University students who were killed in the Iraq war and in your program first page inside there's a poem it's one of the most famous it's a verse from one of the most famous poems that is often read in military fields and I'm going to read it if you like it in Germany so it's for the fall days to long grow as we did our left to grow eight kilometers in all the years to come as we're going down in the sun and in the morning we will remember that so I wanted to thank our panelists our wonderful panelists for coming here today Mr. Southedin and your base image I want to thank you all for coming that ends this edition of the of the Covey panel