 Well, welcome every morning, everybody, and thank you very much for joining us this morning for this event on counterterrorism in Yemen. It will not come as a surprise to anyone in this room that Yemen has become an increasingly visible security challenge for the United States over the past year. That is in large part because of its status as a weekly governed country, one in which al-Qaeda is seeming to gain some momentum. The one response to this has been increased attention to Yemen from the media, where we have seen all kinds of speculation about Yemen's future, including the possibility that Yemen is poised to become the next Afghanistan-failed state. And we have also seen an increased response from the U.S. government, which has made counterterrorism one of the pivots of its engagement with Yemen, and one of the central elements of its overall policy with Yemen more broadly. Now whether counterterrorism should be the pivot of U.S. policy in Yemen, and if it is, what kind of counterterrorism policy is most appropriate for a country like Yemen, which faces quite an extraordinary range of challenges, and whereby all accounts or by many accounts the numbers of al-Qaeda in the country remain relatively low, are very important questions for U.S. policymakers, and the reason why the Yemen Working Group at the U.S. Institute of Peace, which I direct, I'm Steve Heidemann, decided to focus our session this morning on the question of counterterrorism in U.S. policy in Yemen, and as a component of U.S. policy more broadly toward Yemen. And I can literally think of no one more qualified to address the subject of counterterrorism in Yemen than our speaker today, Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, who is the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism. Counterterrorism is a subject that Ambassador Benjamin has focused on for much of the past 20 decades in a variety of different capacities. No, two decades, 20 years, excuse me. You're very well preserved. Two decades, two decades. As a journalist, he has written two books on the subject. He has held a variety of senior positions relating to counterterrorism, both in and out of government, as a member of the staff of the National Security Council, as a foreign policy speechwriter and advisor to President Clinton, as director of counterterrorism in the Office of Transnational Threats. So this is a specialist on counterterrorism, I think, without peer in Washington and in the U.S. government. And we're delighted to have him here to comment on where counterterrorism fits in U.S. policy toward Yemen. I'm also especially pleased to have Ambassador Benjamin here because among his many impressive accomplishments is his tenure as a former USIP senior fellow. Ambassador Benjamin spent 2,000 here as a Jennings Randolph fellow. We're always particularly pleased to welcome our alumni back to USIP, especially after they have made good. And so please welcome Ambassador Benjamin. Thank you very much, Steve, for that kind introduction and for clearly designating me as the Methusel of CT specialists. However, I'll return to my regular age now if you don't mind. Anyway, it's a great pleasure to be at USIP. Again, always a pleasure to be in this room. I want to thank you and the Institute's Yemen Working Group for the invitation. I'm delighted to see colleagues who I think would have every bit as much to contribute to this subject right in the front row. Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was one of my predecessors, as well as Ambassador in Yemen, and Ambassador Steve Krajewski. And there are many other people here I'm sure who could say just as much of value. Let me say it's also a particular pleasure to be at the Institute because of the role it played in my career, which you mentioned. And it gave me a home after I left the NSC at the end of 1999. That was really a critical opportunity for me to work through some of the ideas that I was developing about why Al Qaeda and its brand of terror was distinctive from what we had seen before. And it really was an extraordinarily valuable experience for which I will always be grateful. I also want to say that working where I do now, I see your new building quite frequently. It's extraordinarily beautiful. We very much look forward to having you in the neighborhood and having even more convenient conversations like this. So I hope you'll be kind enough to invite me to recapitulate this speech there. I'm sure many of you saw the recent Washington Post story claiming that government officials now rank Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and specifically in Yemen as the most urgent threat to United States security, even a greater threat than the Al Qaeda Corps in Pakistan. Let me just say for the record that we have no such rankings and such statements are of little value except to highlight a threat. Terrorism emanating from Yemen is a major security concern for the United States, but the Al Qaeda Corps in Pakistan remains an extraordinarily formidable and dangerous terrorist organization whose targeting of the United States continues despite the pressure that the group is under in the federally administered tribal areas. As we've seen over the last year though I think it's also important to note that the threat, the terrorist threat continues to evolve in ways that make a purely geographical focus less and less important. So we need to put away the ranking tables and turn our attention specifically to the danger and the nature of the threat. Let me also make clear what many of you and certainly Ambassador Bodino knows very, very well. Yemen isn't a new security concern. Al Qaeda has had a presence in Yemen since at least December of 1992 when it carried out. It was probably the first of Al Qaeda's attacks when it attempted to bomb in a hotel in Aden where American personnel were staying. Those troops you may recall were en route to Somalia to support the UN mission there. This was almost eight years before the bombing of the USS Cole. Al Qaeda has really always had a foothold in Yemen and it has always been a major concern in the United States, always that is to say as long as there's been an Al Qaeda. In the 1990s a series of major conspiracies were based in Yemen, most of them aimed at Saudi Arabia. Following the attack on the Cole, the Yemeni government with support from the United States dealt significant blows to Al Qaeda in Yemen through military operations and the arrests of key leaders. What is important today is that the December 25th conspiracy demonstrated that at least one Al Qaeda affiliate, AQAP, has developed not just the desire but also the capability to launch strikes against the United States in the homeland. The gravity of the AQAP threat was clear to the Obama Administration in day one and it has been focused on Yemen since the outset. In the spring of 2009 the Administration initiated a full scale review of our Yemen policy. That review led to a new whole of government approach to Yemen that aims to coordinate our counter terrorism efforts as well as our non-counter terrorism efforts with those of other international actors. Our new strategy seeks to address the root causes of security and to improve governance and central to this approach is building the capacity of Yemen's government to exercise its authority and deliver security and services to its people. To advance this strategy we've engaged consistently and intensively with our Yemeni counterparts at the highest levels I might add. Senior Administration, civilian and military officials including Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeff Feldman, Assistant Secretary, I'm sorry, former Sencom commander David Petraeus and myself have all visited Yemen to discuss how we can jointly confront the threat of Al Qaeda. We've put an unprecedented priority on Yemeni issues, Yemeni issues and continue to engage with a broad array of Yemenis from the government and from civil society. Recently as many of you know the National Defense University hosted a group of Yemeni officials for two weeks and I can tell you that an unprecedented number of senior representatives from numerous U.S. agencies met with the group while they were here. I actually met with them twice and just last week I met again with representatives from a Yemeni human rights organization. I've seen a lot of press pieces and think tank papers that discuss the need to deal with AQAP not just through security means but through a wide range of other efforts. What I haven't seen yet is much discussion of how we're doing just that. Of course we're working on the security issues, we would be negligent in our responsibilities to the American public if we were not. However we're also putting significant effort and resources into helping Yemenis achieve a more stable, peaceful, prosperous and democratic Yemen. So are other bilateral and multilateral players and we are also working to find ways to improve these efforts. But they are real and they should be recognized. Yemen's future is tied to its neighbors and to others in the global community. I already mentioned AQAP's ambition to strike the United States at home. Within the Gulf AQAP has already shown itself to be a formidable threat to Yemen itself with many recent attacks on security services throughout the country. And it continues to target Saudi Arabia including the attempted attack against the assistant minister of the interior and counter-terrorism chief Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. While terrorism knows no borders we must also be mindful of the regional dimension of the AQAP threat including its ties with Somalia. The large refugee population from Somalia amplifies the historic ties between these two states and we know that the vast majority of these connections are not related to terrorism but rather are a matter of economic migration or Somali refugees fleeing political strife. But clearly there are connections across the Gulf of Aden between extremists and they are concerned. Yes Somalia's al-Shabaab is a different kind of organization from AQAP in Yemen in many ways. It's much more focused on a Somalia centered agenda while AQAP continues to pursue a more classical al-Qaeda course of global terrorism. Even so we see a serious threat to regional stability in the connections between these groups and that gives greater urgency to our work against AQAP and to support the constructive forces of moderation and peace in Somalia. What is critical today is that the government of Yemen is fully aware of the threat emanating from AQAP. It has conducted multiple operations designed to disrupt AQAP's planning and to deprive its leadership of safe haven within Yemeni territory. These security operations may over time weaken the enemy's leadership and deny at the time and space it needs to organize, plan and train for operations. At the same time countering violent extremism in Yemen over the long term must involve the development of credible institutions that can develop, can deliver real economic and social progress. That's why our strategy in Yemen is two fold. To assist the Yemeni government not only to confront the immediate security concern of AQAP but also to mitigate the serious political, economic and governance issues that the country faces. The logic behind the strategy is that while we work with the Yemeni government to constrain and dismantle AQAP, we along with the international community will also assist the Yemeni people to build more durable and responsive institutions. Our goal is a more hopeful future and a more capable Yemeni government that will meet more of the needs of its people, a good in itself but also key for reducing the appeal of violent extremism. In fact, the United States has made capacity building one of the cornerstones of our Yemen policy. In the important areas of security, economic development and governance, the U.S. and its international partners are helping the Yemeni government address the state insufficiencies that are exploited by terrorists. As I mentioned, the United States isn't doing this alone. The international community has been active in helping Yemen address its shortcomings and our efforts in the country are part of a global partnership to enhance security and improve governance. We're working with all of Yemen's international partners to better coordinate foreign assistance and to make sure that it has an impact on the ground. Through the Friends of Yemen process, the United States is engaged with international partners including regional states and we're working with the Friends of Yemen to help address a multitude of problems. The Friends of Yemen Forum launched nine months ago in London has provided an environment for international coordination and created working groups on economy and governance as well as justice and rule of law issues. The Friends of Yemen are helping Yemen to support a national dialogue and parliamentary elections in 2011. Plan for new courts and an increase in police and judicial process in remote areas. Radicalization action plans and renew a push for coordination improvement in border security. The Friends of Yemen will hold a ministerial meeting later this month in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly. We're encouraged by the progress to date and we expect further international coordination in this arena. The stability of Yemen is essential as well to the broader Gulf region and to global security and de-legitimizing AQAP also requires addressing Yemen's challenges to break the cycle of radicalization. AQAP takes advantage of insecurity in various regions of Yemen which is worsened by internal conflicts and competition for governance by tribal and non-state actors. Yemen's myriad social and political problems in the context of under-governed spaces means areas of Yemen are serving as incubators for extremism. The only way to address the problem of terrorism in Yemen is from a comprehensive and long-term perspective. We're working to help strengthen Yemen's capacity to provide basic services and good governance. Yemen, as you all know, is grappling with severe poverty. It is the poorest country in the Arab world. Its per capita income of $930 ranks at 166 out of 174 countries. Its oil production steadily decreasing. Water resources are fast being depleted and with over half of the people living in poverty and the population having grown from $8.4 million in 1980 to an estimated $23.8 million today, economic conditions threaten to worsen and further tax the government's already limited capacity. Moreover, corruption is all too prevalent in various sectors and further impedes the ability of the government to provide essential services. Therefore, the United States is providing development assistance to improve governance and help meet pressing socioeconomic challenges. USAID has started two development initiatives, a responsive government project and a community livelihoods program. In looking to tackle the areas that are most in need and most vulnerable to extremism, US assistance includes political and fiscal reforms, reducing corruption and implementing civil service reform and economic diversification to generate employment. In addition, the Middle East partnership initiative, MEPI, is working with Yemeni civil society to empower Yemenis to build a more peaceful and prosperous future. Let me provide you with some numbers. Baseline US assistance to Yemen increased from 17.2 million in fiscal year 2008 to 40.3 million in 2009 and will be around 67.5 million in 2010. The president has requested approximately 106.6 in baseline assistance for 2011. These numbers do not include let me emphasize that do not include counterterrorism assistance of 67 million in FY 2009 and 150.5 million in 2010, nor do they include humanitarian assistance. On July 24th, the president announced an increase in US humanitarian assistance to Yemen of 29.6 million, raising the total to 42.5 million for this fiscal year. This assistance will provide food, water, sanitation, shelter, and health care for over 324,000 individuals displaced by the conflict in northern Yemen, as well as refugees in southern Yemen. The United States urges other donors to support international agencies working to meet these urgent humanitarian needs as the United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan remains woefully underfunded. We're also working internationally to prevent funds from getting to AQAP. As soon as it announced its formation in January 2008, we began gathering evidence to build an international consensus behind designating AQAP under UN Security Council Resolution 1267. After our designation of the group as a foreign terrorist organization, and its senior leaders as designated terrorists, the UN announced the designation of AQAP as well as its leader, Nasser al-Wahishi and Saad al-Shihri, and more recently, Anwar al-Alaki on the consolidated list. This move requires all UN member states to implement an assets freeze, a travel ban, and an arms embargo against these entities. With these designations, the US and the international community concurred the financial networks and the freedom of movement of known terrorists. In the case of Anwar al-Alaki, this designation has made clear his role as an operator in a terrorist group. We should make no mistake about al-Alaki. This is not just an ideologue, but someone who has been personally involved in planning terrorist operations against Americans, against US interests, and against the homeland. Anwar al-Alaki prepared Umar Farouk Abdul-Muttalib for his attempted detonation of a bomb aboard Northwest Airlines flight 253 on December 25th of last year. In mid-July, al-Alaki was designated by the Treasury Department under Executive Order 13224 before he was added to the 1267 consolidated list of individuals and entities associated with al-Qaeda or the Taliban. In order to succeed in Yemen, it's vital that we understand how recruits are radicalized. What their motivations are and how we can address the drivers of radicalization so that we can begin to turn the tide against extremism. Some of our aid programs will help address underlying conditions for at-risk populations. Reducing corruption, building legitimate institutions, increasing economic opportunity with our assistance will also reduce the appeal of terror. And we will continue to build positive people to people engagement with the people of Yemen through educational and cultural exchanges. Programs that have had a multiplier effect as participants return to Yemen and convey to friends and families the realities of American culture and society and dispel damaging and persistent stereotypes. These initiatives contribute to the long-term health of our bilateral relationship and helps us allay suspicion and misunderstanding. We know the tasks are daunting and that's why we're looking for new partners from Yemeni civil society to work with us as we deepen our engagement with Yemen in this regard. In addition to such initiatives we are committed to supporting internal peace within Yemen and we support international efforts to achieve that goal. A ceasefire is currently in place in the conflict centered in the Sada government of northwestern Yemen between the central government and the Houthi rebels. A few weeks ago Houthi leaders and Yemeni government officials met in Qatar to further discuss implementation of the ceasefire agreement that they reached in February. The U.S. continues to encourage the Yemeni government to move forward toward a lasting peace in Sada as well as to allow for the provision of humanitarian and development assistance there. In the south of Yemen a growing protest movement has led to riots and sporadic outbreaks of violence and it is fueled by long standing political grievances. The U.S. continues to urge political dialogue and peaceful settlement of grievances to address the many concerns of southern Yemenis. The U.S. also calls for a comprehensive and inclusive national dialogue between all opposition groups and the ruling party. Such a dialogue needs to be undertaken in good faith and with haste by all parties to address legitimate grievances that facilitate successful parliamentary elections in 2011 and increase stability in Yemen. Our strategy recognizes that Yemen has not always had the political will or the focused attention to address its problems. We're working hard with our international partners to address Yemen security and other challenges. We're encouraged because the Yemeni government has shown more resolved than ever before to confront AQAP and to engage with the international community on domestic non-security issues. The United States commends Yemen on its counterterrorism operations and we are committed to continuing support for security initiatives and economic development initiatives. In closing let me just reiterate our approach to the problem of terrorism in Yemen must be comprehensive and it must be sustained. It must take into account a wide range of political, cultural, and socioeconomic factors. Ultimately the goal of the United States and international efforts is a stable, secure, and effectively governed Yemen. We know this is a long-term challenge. We've taken some steps since this administration came into office and we have taken toward that goal and we have taken some towards curtailing the threat. As the government of Yemen grows more transparent and more responsive to the requirements of its citizens, the seeds of extremism and violence will find less fertile ground and a more positive and productive dynamic will begin to prevail. Thank you for listening and I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much both for that very sort of thorough overview of U.S. policy but also for a very interesting diagnosis of the range of problems that Yemen confronts. We will soon move to questions and answers from the floor. We are webcasting this event and have welcomed questions from those who are hearing or viewing the event on the web. We understand that the U.S. Embassy in Yemen has assembled a number of people to hear what Ambassador Benjamin had to say and so we may find some questions coming from Yemen. Just one quick question to get things started. You mentioned that we have requested support from the government of Yemen to deal with issues of governance that seem to be contributing to conditions of alienation and conflict within the country. Could you be a little bit more specific beyond national dialogue which you referred to in which IA is clearly important about what we have asked from the government of Yemen and in particular how they have responded in its concrete way as you feel able to do so. Obviously this is an important part of the discussion and U.S. interlocutors raise it at every juncture because we know that governance is really at the very heart of the country's problems but also of the problems of radicalization in many different contexts around the world and especially wherever we find un- and under-governed spaces. Why don't I just leave this by saying because these are government to government discussions that the Yemenis have welcomed AID's governance program. We have found many positive and willing and committed interlocutors and implementers as well because AID of course is using lots of different partners on the ground. The Middle East partnership initiative is also active in this space and I think that we are hopeful that over the long term these many different seeds will bear real fruit. I think that one of the things that perhaps wasn't captured in my remarks enough but it's important to keep in mind is that for a number of years this decade our engagement was quite minimal so we know where we are starting from on this and related issues and it's important to keep that historical context in mind as we go forward. Questions? If you, we have microphones on the side and if you could identify yourself in advance of asking your question. I'm Hussein El-Hussein with a great newspaper. I see that you focused on the AQAP but somehow left out the reports on Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah training and then arming the Houthis in the north. Are these reports credible by any means? Thanks. We have seen the reports and as I and Assistant Secretary Feltman and others have said on numerous occasions we are unable to confirm them. We have not seen that these have been born out. Eli Lake from the Washington Times. Mr. Ambassador, can you give your assessment of the security of Yemeni prisons in the event that the U.S. would transfer detainees from Guantanamo to Yemen? Do you trust Yemeni jails to keep detainees from Guantanamo detained? Well obviously we've had some well-known jail breaks and they have actually contributed to the problem of AQAP in the region. As you know right now the administration has suspended the return of Guantanamo detainees to Yemen except in cases where the courts have ruled on habeas corpus petitions. It is an issue that we are concerned about and that has also been brought up in the context of the friends of Yemen and we understand that this is an area in which improvements clearly need to be made and in which in a very serious way U.S. security is affected. So we are looking at it now and as I mentioned we are not returning any more detainees at this time. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. My name is Mohammed Khardar from CSIS. You mentioned that you were looking for partners in civil society of Yemen to aid in these efforts. I was wondering if you could speak to how that search is going as well as to the potential role that civil society actors in the U.S. and around the world could play and specifically if you would consider or there has been consideration of including Yemen in the Economic Empowerment Strategic Regions project at the state. You know it's a wise man who knows when he's out of his lane and I'm going to refer you to my colleagues at AID. I know that whenever I am speaking to Yemenis I'm confronted with any number of new NGOs that I had not known of before and I know that AID is working on getting to know these different organizations and I know that my colleagues seem to be optimistic about the opportunities for working in Yemen but as the counter-terrorism coordinator I can't give you the day-to-day on which organizations are looking hopeful and which aren't so I would suggest you contact AID. Hi, Chris Franders from the American Civil Liberties Union. We've been very concerned about the Target Killing Program and I was wondering if you'd be able to comment on the Target Killing Program as it relates to Yemen and to al-Aqi and in particular we've been very concerned about the government's refusal up to this point about disclosing legal justification for the program as well as what the criteria are for getting off or on it which really is kind of the core of the UN rapporteur on extrajudicial killings critique of the program. Well thanks for that question. As you know ACLU has brought suit on this issue and we are currently in court on this matter and I learned a long time ago not to comment on ongoing litigation for any number of good bureaucratic and legal reasons so I'm going to refer you to my colleague Harold Koh, the legal advisor. Let me just say about Anwar al-Aqi that underscoring what I said before this is not just an ideologue, this is an active terrorist and the United States is committed to preventing harm from being done to its citizens by those who would commit acts of violence against us. Ambassador, I'm Howard Sumpke, I'm the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East at USAID and I can't answer his question but the numbers that I have I appreciated to run through the budgets are more or less the same. I think the important point is to note that for USAID figures since 2008 we've gone from about 11 or 12 million aiming toward about 94 million in fiscal 2010 which reflects the community livelihoods program as well as the governance program as well as a very serious monitoring and evaluation effort that we're undertaking to try to understand what works. My question for you is how you see the interface between counter-terrorism actions which are immediate, which are addressed to deal with the threats that we might face in a very near future with the longer term requirements that these kinds of projects have, it's not possible as you know to build a community, to create good governance, to increase livelihoods in the immediacy of a terrorism threat but rather these are 2 year, 5 year, 10 year programs that require extensive development. Well first of all let me refer you to the earlier gentleman who wants to talk about NGOs in Yemen that we partner with but you raise an important question, it really goes to the very heart of what we're trying to do and how closely interwoven these different efforts have to be. Development is not going to proceed if there is no security, we know that that's absolutely true but we also know that if we can't get development projects going then we have abandoned the field to extremists and they will find ample pickings if that is the case and that's really been the president's approach throughout and he has really tasked us repeatedly to keep working and keep finding more ways in which we can address a fairly grave economic and social situation in Yemen and there's no walking away from it. We know that the demographic bulge that Yemen has experienced, the decline in its economic output especially in the hydrocarbon sector all these things, the water table these things are very, very serious indicators of a very troubled future and the demographic we've seen a leveling off in many Muslim majority countries of birth rates in Yemen the story is still quite dramatic and the projections 20, 30 years down the line are quite striking. So we do need to work together as one government and I think that we also need to and we are working to improve that connection where also our development efforts are specifically addressing radicalization and around the world I think development communities are recognizing how that really does fall within their ambit and that governments are going to look to them to be able to target those particular problem areas and work on them. Thank you. Before we You can't stop the New York Times. Sir, we have a couple of questions from both the website and the overflow room and let me just pass on a couple of them to you now. Tony Capaccio from Bloomberg asks, in terms of when did you conclude he was an active planner and not just an ideologue? Is this a recent judgment? That's a good question and I would have to go back through my own papers to find out when we made this conclusion but it was certainly clear in the aftermath of December 25th that he had played an integral role in the planning and the execution of the attempted bombing of Flight 253 and as I said we did have the designation this summer so my guess is that we were somewhere in that period. I can't rule out the possibility that we certainly knew that he was a problematic individual last year and his presence on the web and elsewhere has been widely attested to. Of course he came to light as well in the Fort Hood case so his role has been well attested to. The question is when we actually decided that he was not in one category but in the other and I would have to place it earlier this year but I couldn't say with certainty. One other question focuses on different conceptions of counterterrorism policy. What you've presented here today is a very expansive definition of counterterrorism in which the kinetic dimensions are complemented by attention to a wide range of economic, social and political concerns. How widely accepted is that definition of counterterrorism within US government agencies? Where are the fault lines in conceptions of counterterrorism and how are different visions being addressed in the interagency process? We could talk all day about that. I think the important thing is that there is a wide agreement across the government in all the relevant agencies that as John Brennan put it in a speech at CSIS a while ago, you have to also look at the upstream factors. Now we as a government face an interesting dilemma because we don't want to fall into the trap of saying that everything we do is counterterrorism because that is not productive and we don't want everyone who we engage with to feel like they are a target because everything we are doing is because of counterterrorism. As I mentioned before, we support a strong and capable Yemeni state, unified state that is answering to the needs of its people because that is a good in its own right. But I think we also recognize that there are many things that we do that have benefits that encountering radicalization, encountering violent extremist organizations. So to a certain extent the question becomes what do you label counterterrorism? What do you label countering violent extremism? What do you label just good governance? Labeling exercises can often be scholastic and counterproductive. The key thing is that we have to have the right focus and we recognize that it's more than kinetics, it's more than law enforcement, it's more than border security. It's also getting these very complex situations in places like Yemen in Somalia and a lot of other areas that have real governance problems and where the rate of the government may be limited. It's in addressing those broader issues. Hi, Eric Schmidt with the New York Times. At the end of the last administration there were proposals being discussed about creating essentially a rehabilitation center in Yemen modeled after what the Saudis have done somewhat successfully in terms of religious reorientation, job training and putting the onus back on tribes and families of course. What has happened to that initiative in this administration whether I understand the limitations of the US government trying to push this through but either working through the Saudis or the friends of Yemen this would seem to be a constructive way of trying to deal with at least some of the lower security type detainees that are at Gitmo. Thanks for that Eric. We continue to have active discussions on what we can do in terms of rehabilitation in Yemen and the Saudi model is a very attractive one. There are discussions going on within the friends of Yemen and in other fora on this matter. I think one of the things to keep in sight of however is that there are aspects of the Saudi model that are very much Saudi specific to look at two of them. One is that the Saudi model is very much configured to take advantage of the relationship between individuals, families and tribes. Not all of Yemen is as tribally oriented I guess you could say as Saudi Arabia so that is one important difference. Another absolutely critical difference is that Yemen doesn't have the kind of resources to put into this effort that a Saudi Arabia does. In fact very very very few countries do. And when we look at all of the different issues that need to be addressed in dealing with the terrorist threat in Yemen you have to prioritize as well. So rehabilitation remains an important issue but I don't know that we would be able to get to that kind of rehabilitation facility at least not immediately. We had two questions from the overflow room relating to U.S. plans for its military role in Yemen. One from John Bennett of the Defense News who asks what are the odds on a 1 to 100 scale that U.S. troops will be needed in Yemen meaning thousands or hundreds of thousands. The related question is can you go into more detail from Jeff Hines at American University. Can you go into more detail about how U.S. military involvement will evolve over the long term in Yemen? Let me try to answer both of those at once. I think the President has been quite clear in ruling out that kind of military engagement in Yemen if we're talking about major combat forces. I think he's been quite explicit about that and I don't see anyone contemplating that any time in the foreseeable future. So we will continue to be actively engaged in training Yemeni forces to deal with the threats that they face and getting them the equipment that they need and the skills and that will be the key military effort and it goes on in a military channel but there's also an awful lot going on in terms of training civilian authorities in the ministry of the interior so that they can also deal with the counter-terrorism mission. So there's both a military and a civilian side to it. You're not willing to. I'm going to pass on that and consign it to the same waste bin as U.S. news type tables on the al-Qaeda threat. Where is it worst and where is it best? Viewers on the website had two related questions and we can take these as the last of our questions unless there are others from the audience. I would encourage you to move to the microphones if you have them. The first is from a viewer from Gaston Mennonite University who asks how do you see Yemeni stability contributing to Middle East stability more broadly? What are the linkages there? And the second has to do with what capacity Yemen seems to have in being a source for export of terrorists under the al-Qaeda brand more broadly and in particular into sensitive areas in Africa across the Horn. The Yemeni role in broader Middle East stability obviously it's quite important. I think that it's fair to say that Saudi Arabia is deeply concerned and understandably so about the terrorist threat to its south and having suffered the traumas of May 2003 and the attacks there has really been resolved to remove violent extremism from the Arabian Peninsula and has been a terrific partner to the United States in that context and has also been a great partner together on Yemeni issues. Obviously anything that would affect security for Saudi Arabia has a very significant, it's a matter of great significance and concern for anyone who cares about the stability of the region. In terms of the whole region also to the extent that AQAP can maintain a foothold and be a source of extremist ideology but also extremist operatives it is a danger to the region and you know there are Yemeni communities in many different areas in the Gulf across the water in Djibouti and any number of other places and it will be a great concern and of course there are Yemeni diasporas around the world and hence when you find some of the shall we say culturally savvy operators like Al-Laki like some other people who were either American citizens or lived for quite a while here in the United States and who can broadcast that message in a sort of idiomatic way and appeal in a way that al-Qaeda operatives who were working through translation couldn't then obviously that's a big concern for us. There's no question that Al-Laki himself has had an effect on radicalization in this English speaking world that goes beyond what his predecessors had so it is a matter of great concern. Again to repeat what I said before he's also a terrorist operative not just someone who's making use of the opportunities afforded by free speech over the internet so he's a matter of great concern to the United States but the ability to use Yemen as a platform for radicalization especially in an ever more globalized connected electronic world is something we are worried about. You reference Saudi Arabia and Saudi stability as a principal consideration in thinking about connections between Yemen and the region more broadly. You didn't reference Iran and Yemen's repeated claims that Iran has played a role in the Houthi rebellion in the north in support of Houthi forces what is the current thinking in your office about Iran's role in this region? As I mentioned before we don't see an Iranian hand in the Houthi rebellion obviously one would like not to repeat the whole point so often that Iranians start to wonder whether they should be involved but to this point we have seen lots of accusations but we have not seen the evidence. So that has not changed from over the past several months thank you. Les Campbell from the National Democratic Institute or NDI I noted your comments about the importance of better governance in Yemen both to bring better livelihoods as well as potentially build institutions in capacity and certainly would agree with that. I guess a comment and question one comment I would make is that the Yemen government is also suffering from perhaps declining legitimacy and different reasons for that one is that southerners increasingly and I think you also addressed this increasingly would like to in a sense renegotiate the terms of unity and that has caused unrest as well as a perception of perhaps the government, the central government not treating the south well the Houthi rebellion caused for different reasons perhaps more selfish reasons from the Houthis though has kind of contributed to this idea of a government that is lacking legitimacy and finally perhaps good news, an increasingly assertive and organized opposition has drawn attention to things like a legitimacy debate. President Saleh perhaps is trying to groom his son, there are other pretenders for the presidency and so on and I just wonder if you have any view or if you can express a view on the importance of, you mentioned that the plan 2011 election parliamentary election but and I don't want to concentrate on that election but the importance of political processes that are seen to be fair and inclusive you've mentioned dialogue with opposition parties but for example on the election could you comment on the importance of an election that is carried out with agreed upon rules and in a transparent way that could perhaps start to address some of these legitimacy questions around the government Well I think your question sets the table very well obviously it's essential for Yemen to have free and fair elections, to have agreed upon rules of the road, I think that the national dialogue is essential, Ambassador Sesh who just finished his tour, worked very hard on promoting this goal, obviously you know we're going to have a hard time getting from here to there if we do not emphasize the governance aspect of this and you know we have spoken the Secretary at the Friends of Yemen conference made a point of underscoring the need for a unified Yemen, this is actually to come back to your question earlier this is absolutely essential for regional stability and for the future of the Yemeni people and anything that promotes any of these divisive tendencies will be harmful both to the people of Yemen but also to security in the Gulf and beyond so I can't do more than underscore how important it is that the April elections do go well and that we make progress, the Yemenis make progress in bridging these divides which have in the past also had a very negative effect in terms of diverting attention from the threat of extremism within the country so I think there's an abundance of reasons why the political process needs to continue in a positive way I'll in key sweater with Middle East Institute and see no resources Tom Friedman this week had a column called Super Power Super Broke talking about the U.S. and if I do my arithmetic correctly the U.S. aid programs are two to three hundred million dollars a year this year and that's about the number of al-Qaeda agents estimated in the press at least to being there and the prescription is wholesale reform of the society I'm sorry how many al-Qaeda the press I've read it said two to three hundred but maybe it's more I thought you said two hundred three hundred million no no no no no two to three hundred about a million dollars a piece is the point and the prescription is a fairly wholesale change of Yemeni society and long-term trends and this is just the tip of the iceberg so I guess this is a conceptual question and is there any thinking in the CT community about approaches that are not so expensive and that may be more affordable well let me turn your question a little bit on its head and say that I think that this is actually the more affordable way of going in comparison to many of our other assistance programs this is still not that large compared to what we have to deal with when a country is broken as in the case of Iraq or in Afghanistan this is really a very very small amount I would underscore as the president and as the secretary have that this is a matter for the international community and there are an awful lot of countries that have recognized this challenge and are showing their commitment with their pocket books it's a very difficult time obviously for us I think that right now you could argue that our British friends are on a very very difficult course of austerity but they're maintaining their commitment to Yemen and maybe increasing it there are regional actors who have very deep pockets who we continue to encourage to do what is necessary in Yemen whenever you get to the point where you have to use kinetic force things get a lot more expensive that's the first thing and if there are many other options other than waiting until you're sort of at the point of delivery of a terrorist attack and dealing with it then or stopping it earlier on I'm eager to hear them if you had any particular suggestions of course we continue to work aggressively on all the different Homeland Security programs that will restrict terrorist travel that was one of the conclusions or one of the initiatives that came out of December 25th that we had to redouble our efforts on that particularly in an era very inventive terrorist conspiracies in which people who had no prior records who were not in the usual databases were being deployed against us so obviously you know we don't like spending lots of money if we don't have to but this is a key security matter and also a key global issues so we'll continue to pay and to appropriate funds as necessary and I think the Congress has also seen the wisdom of taking this course so if you have that third way I'm eager to hear about it and otherwise I'm afraid we've got the strategy we've got for now it is not common for Yemeni citizens to have the chance to interact with senior U.S. officials I have two questions from people who've identified themselves as citizens of Yemen let me just pose those to you first does the U.S. speak with one voice in Yemen who has the upper hand over the Yemeni file the CIA or the State Department I suspect many Yemenis probably wonder that the second is did the U.S. military give Yemen or Saudi any assistance against the rebels let me answer the second question first with a categorical no on kinetic assistance we are not involved in that part in that conflict we have told them we have told the Yemenis repeatedly that the provision of military supplies is strictly related to the al-Qaeda threat and not to be used elsewhere and we have very comprehensive and used monitoring there was of course an attack against Saudi forces that went across the border that is to say Houthi forces that went across the border and attacked Saudis so in that particular case although I don't have the specifics in front of me the Saudis would certainly be able within their rights to use whatever we had delivered to them in terms of military assistance over the years so let me just be clear about that one there is only one U.S. government policy in Yemen it is hammered out in the interagency process in which the State Department, the Defense Department the intelligence community and others all participate in there isn't anyone that has an upper voice if anyone has a dominant voice it's the president and he's been quite clear that he wants to see this two pronged strategy proceed with all possible haste and sir I think you have the last question for our session I'm Sid Mahanto at Mother Jones Magazine I wondered how human rights abuses on the part of the Yemeni government would contribute to radicalization and perhaps undermine an effective counter-terror strategy in Yemen Human rights abuses are a driver of radicalization I don't think there's any question about that I had the opportunity to deliver the US view on that in a meeting at the UN Security Council earlier this year were quite categorical that human rights abuses together with poor governance the non-delivery of services these things are drivers of radicalization and it is for that reason that we communicate to our international partners and those we work with on counter-terrorism all the time that this is a key part of dealing with their threat when we do lots of different kinds of counter-terrorism training around the world whether it's through the anti-terrorism assistance program that my office runs jointly with diplomatic security or whether it's with any number of other kinds of assistance that are delivered we include human rights training so that our partners understand just how vital it is to maintain standards to avoid anything that will violate human rights and that is something that we do because it is appropriate in its own right but also because we are concerned about how it will contribute to radicalization and this is something my office is very concerned about I believe it's something that the Department of Defense is concerned about there's now a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Rights at DOD and it's part of the whole policy so I hope that answers your question and it's been a great pleasure Ambassador Benjamin thank you very much before you leave for the day on behalf of the institute you have not only our thanks but I wanted to give you a copy of a very recent USIP publication Crescent and Dove peace and conflict resolution in Islam we hope that you will find ways to make it useful in your work with our thanks again for your insights into a very complex set of challenges we are wrestling with in the US thank you