c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. ♪ >> the house will be in order. >> this year, c-span celebrates years of covering congress like 45 no other. since 1979, we been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government. we take it to where the policies are debated and decided with the support of america's cable companies. c-span, 45 years and counting powered by cable. ♪ >> cia director william byrd highlights u.s. foreign aid to ukraine and the role it could play in repelling russia's invasion during an event in dallas. he also discussed china, the situation in the middle east and u.s. intelligence sharing.

he was introduced by former republican president george w. bush. lican president, george w. bush. >> first of all, i want to thank today's panelist. the discussions were relevant, fascinating, intelligent, and we can't thank you enough for participating in our conference. secondly, i hope a lesson from the conversation was that if the united states withdraws, the world gets worse. and that if we expect to be secure at home, we had better worry about the lives of others abroad. [applause]

he works at the george bush intelligence center which in my case is not oxymoronic. we are really lucky to have them here today. he is knowledgeable, he is a thoughtful guy. so please welcome to the stage cia director bill burns. [applause] >> cia director bill burns. [applause] >> that's all right.

president, thank you very much. i'm david kramer, the executive director director of the george w. bush institute and it's a real honor for me to be here with bill burns the director of the cia. he director of the cia. i want to underscore one thing. monday morning we are wondering what the plan b would be given the developments in the middle east. the fact that you are here is a real tribute to your friendship and dedication to living up to your work. we are very grateful that you are here today. thank you. [applause]bill: i am delighted to be here with all of you and thank you, mr. president for the kind words meaning a lot to me coming from someone who whom i have so much respect. it is good to see david, a friend and colleague from over the years and i would like to thank all of you to allowing me

to escape washington, d.c. for a few hours. david: you bet. last thing i will say and then we will move on is that one of the most smartest and decent people i met at the state department was bill byrne. thank you for being here. let us jump into it. the situation in ukraine with russia unprovoked invasion and we hope that there -- there is a vote we hope coming up on saturday. give us your sense of how important it is to help ukraine. what does it mean if we do not, could putin actually prevail? bill: i cannot think of a more important question, certainly not before the u.s. congress. there is a huge amount at stake not only with ukraine and ukrainians, or about european security, but about xi jinping's china and his ambition and the

indo pacific. and this is really a question of whether or not the adversaries understand our reliability and determination and whether the allies and partners understand that as well. the consequences are enormous for what the house of representatives is considering. first i should say i am very proud of the role that intelligence has played now over -- can you hear me any better now? you missed all of those golden wards -- words. the short answer is that there is an enormous amount at stake in terms of the house of representatives and the congress more broadly decides to act with regards to supplemental assistance for ukraine. i was starting to say that i am very proud of the work of the u.s. intelligence and the cia in particular in the course of ukraine and run up to it.

we did what good u.s. intelligence services are supposed to, to provide an accurate and early warning of the invasion. the president sent me to talk to putin so several months before putin launched his invasion and i must say i found him totally apollo -- unapologetic about what he was planning to do and i told the president that it was convinced that they were going to go. but i do think the credibility of that intelligence did help the president not only to support the ukrainians and to defend themselves, but to put together a strong coalition of countries in support of ukraine. the other thing that we did and the president decided to do which is a little bit unusual which is to declassify some secrets to deny putin the ability to create false narratives. and i think the wider lesson,

which i have watched putin do too many times. the wider lesson is all of us look at the phenomenon of authoritarian regimes is that sometimes you can use the truth and the secrets we collect if you are careful about it and do not expose the sources and methods in a way that puts autocratic leaders like putin on the back for -- back foot in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of not being able to cope with the truth sometimes. we are in a tough moment and ukrainians are in a tough moment on the battlefield. the ukrainians are not running out of courage or tenacity but ammunition and we are running out of time to help them. i was in ukraine a month ago and i have been there 10 times throughout the course of the war and this was three days after the ukrainians were driven out of the town in eastern ukraine,

and i talked to one of the senior officers who was there and he described it in simple terms. we fought as long and as hard as we could, but the russians kept coming and we ran out of ammunition, and we lost. i think the reality is that you look at what happens in the two days before the fall, one entire ukrainian brigade, more than 2000 personnel and a grand total of 15 artillery rounds for the entire brigade per day. another entire brigade had a total of 42 mortar rounds. they were overwhelmed. it was not the lack of bravery or determination and my worry is that we will see more of this in the future without supplemental assistance. with supplemental assistance from the u.s. congress ukrainians can hold their own on the battlefield in 2024 and continue to do damage with deeper strikes in crimea, which

the russians are occupying right now and against the black sea fleet where ukrainians have some 16 warships just over the last six months. so with the boost that would come from military assistance both practically and psychologically, the ukrainians are entirely capable of holding their own through 2024 and putin arrogantly thinks that the time is on his side. without supplemental assistance the picture is more dire and there is risk that the ukrainians could lose by the end of 2024 or put putin a put -- in a position where he can dictate the terms of a political settlement, as i said before, there is an enormous amount of stake. in the first year or two of the war in ukraine, she gigi -- xi jinping and china was sobered.

he expected that the russian military would walk over the ukrainians. he did not expect that the united states and european allies would stand up in support of ukrainians and he did not expect that he would able to -- he would be able to impose economic cost and absorb economic costs themselves and i think if we looked at taiwan contingencies and other ambitions that had an impact, the shortest way to undo the impact was for us to be seen walking away from the ukrainians. the short answer is that there is a great deal at stake. david: if we do not help ukraine, and if putin marches forward into ukraine, does he stop there or is the ambition beyond that? bill: i do not think his ambitions would stop there, and his ability to use hybrid warfare, a combination of conventional military threats and the efforts to undermine

countries in nato and moldova faces an important election and we see a lot of evidence of the russian security services trying to undermine that process right now. there are a lot of ways in which he could continue to be aggressive and realizing ambitions. david: possibly even the baltic states? bill: if i were leadership in the baltic states history tells me i should be concerned about that, whether that takes the form of an overt and conventional attack or other ways of trying to undermine, those countries and nato's integrity as well as a different tech -- different question. we would see has ambitions continue. david: let a shift to the middle east where you have spent a lot of time in lately, but you are the ambassador to jordan and assistant secretary for near eastern affairs.

how do you see the situation in light of iran's attack on israel over the weekend? bill: i used to be a diplomat for 3.5 decades and i spent most of my career split between russia and the middle east. that is where all of my gray hair came from. you know, as i said, i have spent most of the last 40 years working in and on the middle east. and i had rarely seen a moment more combustible than it is today. you have a terrible crisis in gaza provoked by hamas' brutal attack on israel, and now we are also producing a desperate humanitarian situation for innocent civilians right now. and more recently as we saw last saturday night, we had a massive iran he and drone -- iranian missile and drone attack.

there was something like 30,000 missiles combined and it turned out to be a spectacular failure thanks to good intelligence and the israelis themselves supported by the united states and some regional and international partners as well. of those 330 missiles only four or five impacted in israel and none did significant damage. it is a reminder of the quality of the israeli military and the fact that they have friends starting with the united states but others as well. i know that the israeli government as we sit here this afternoon is considering a response to what happened last saturday night. and you know, that is their choice to make that response. the broad hope for the president and policymakers is that we will all find a way to de-escalate, especially at a moment when i think the israelis have demonstrated so clearly their

superiority and the iranian effort was a pretty significant failure as well. we will see what response might come, but i think the broader hope would be to de-escalate the situation quickly. i have gotten very wrapped up over the last six months in efforts to negotiate a cease-fire and the next release of hostages that hamas has held since october 7. it might seem a little strange for a cia director to be as engaged in that but my counterparts are the director of israel and egypt's intelligence service and the prime minister of qatar. the end of last year we achieved a brief cease-fire and the release of 100 of hostages,

women and children at that time. we will keep working hard. it has proven difficult, it is a big rock to push up a steep hill. i meet with the families of the hostages and it breaks your heart because you can see in human terms what is at stake as well. i cannot guarantee that we will succeed in this effort. we put, along with the qataris and the egyptians we put a far-reaching proposal on the table a few weeks ago and it was a deep negative reaction from hamas and that is really standing in the way of innocent civilians of gaza getting humanitarian relief that they so desperately need. part of the challenge is not just the knowledge -- not just the amount of trucks that get to gaza's border but to have a

short term or the beginnings of a longer-term cease-fire that enables you to distribute the goods people who so desperately needed as well. we will keep working hard. i cannot honestly say that i am certain that we will succeed but it is not through lack of trying. i do know that the attorney tubes are worse for civilians in gaza and for hostages in the family and worse for all of us. david: let me shift to the asian pacific. what are the greatest challenges that we face from the chinese communist leadership and what are the greatest challenges that the communist leadership faces within their own borders? bill: none of us should underestimate of xi jinping's china or the nature of competition. in the cold war between the united states and the soviet union, it was about ideology and

military competition. with the people's republic of china today, especially under xi jinping, it is a wider computation extending and -- competition extending into cyberspace, outer space and the technology competition. it is the revolution that is changing the way that all of us live, work, flight, and compete. and the chinese leadership are determined to win that competition. that is the challenge before us. a lot of that challenge extends into east asia and i think that xi jinping is determined in his political lifetime to control taiwan. it does not mean he is planning tomorrow, next month, or next year but we have to take seriously that ambition. you are right. i think that president xi faces a lot of domestic challenges and economic recovery or growth rate

which is not moving nearly as fast as he had hoped after covid. a lot of challenges inside his own country right now too. china, with all of his ambition and expanding capabilities and a really serious military modern type -- modernization program it is not -- that is why we have to approach with a certain amount of confidence if we can get our own act together and not in terms of the economy but the political system and overcome over -- some of our own dysfunction there is every reason to think we have a better hand to play than the people's republic of china does today. the other great asset that we have and we are reminded it -- reminded of it over the war for ukraine in other instances, we have a network of allies and partners. and by comparison, china and russia are lonelier countries. they are working more closely

together now than any time in my memory and that is a significant challenge. but if we are not complacent about the network of allies and partners not only immuno pacific but in europe and other parts of the world, that is another huge asset that would enable us to compete effectively with the people's republic of china over the next few decades. david: you mentioned that these regimes are working more closely than we have seen the past, and at the same time from the russian invasion in ukraine and the tension between china and taiwan, the middle east and the resurgence of authoritarianism, the world seems on fire, how would you put today's situation in the context of the three plus decades you are a -- you were a diplomat? bill: i was a young diplomat when president bush senior was in the white house and the cold war had ended, this was the

moment of unchallenged primacy for the united states. today now more than three decades later, it is fair to say we are not the only big kid on the geopolitical block. i would much rather have our hand to play than anyone else because i think that ours is a stronger hand not the least because of its democratic foundations. as cocky as -- and confident as autocratic regimes can become they understand the challenges and insecurities that they face at home. this is a moment where relative power in the world is not quite as dominant as it was at the end of the cold war but it is quite significant. and if we invest in allies and partners and recognize the competition in emerging technologies that will shape the future of the economy and military, i think we are quite

capable of winning those as well. david: i want to turn to the issue of transnational repression which has come to the forefront and freedom house has done more work on this. it is authoritarian regimes going about going after their critics or opponents outside of their country's borders. arresting them, trying to kill them, threatening their family within the borders. is it a reflection of brazenness , or is it insecurity that they feel like they have to go after these people? bill: both, honestly. putin as you and i have said, as someone who is a combustible combination of grievance, ambition and insecurity wrapped up together. so the phenomenon of transnational repression of government in particular reaching out to kill or

intimidate, opposition, human rights activists outside of their own borders is growing and it is increasingly serious. it requires a lot of cooperation not just amongst domestic law enforcement agencies and intelligence services that allies and partners. we have seen this with the iranian regime which has gone after and plotted to murder some very brave activists who have spoken out against that regime and its repressive new, and we have seen it from the russians and phenomenons that have been traced right back to the russian security service assassinations overseas to the other phenomenon of people falling out of buildings as well, which i do not think is entirely coincidental either. and then the people's republic of china have oftentimes been responsible for efforts to repress and intimidate their citizens and other countries,

whether it is in europe or other parts of asia, in many countries trying to establish what they see as their own police stations in those countries to monitor the activities of citizens and as the chinese diaspora as well aimed at intimidating them. i think it is a growing challenge and one that as an intelligent service we take seriously. david: it is a reminder of how regimes treat their own people within their own borders have spillover effects. and when putin's regime abuses the human rights of russian citizens we should not be shocked that putin invades ukraine or the iranian does not crackdown on's state-sponsored terrorism. how important is it that we pay attention to what is happening? bill: incredibly, because that is where human rights behavior, the intimidation and brutality, whether it is putin's russia or

other regimes is something we pay attention to not only because it is the right thing to do because of the innocent citizens trying to speak their minds and being intimidated or repressed but because of that behavior attending to spillover like you said. it tells you a lot about a regime when people resort to those kinds of methods. david: let us shift to the if ssue of technology. authoritarian regimes have used it and it has opened up a world of those that were shut out before. how much of a role is technology to the cia? what is the threat of it? and what kind of benefits does it give? bill: we as an intelligent service have to be better than our rivals and adversaries at a master of those technologies. it is not a multiple-choice test. this is one of the biggest

challenges that we face as an intelligent service. it is about human beings, recruiting, training and developing the very best in our society to help keep americans safe. it is a shameless recruiting pitch. but we have the biggest number of applicants to the cia since 9/11. so, most of the work that i am incredibly proud of that my colleagues do is quiet almost by definition in hard places doing hard jobs around the world and people appreciate that enough to be attracted to it. and so, i think we have to recruit the right human beings and then equip them with the right technologies. for our operations officers who are trying to manage human assets, people that we work with and other societies and smart cities and the ability of rival governments to mine data to be

able to track those officers and track the people we are working with. we have to be more agile and the terms of the use of technology and artificial intelligence and machine learning and our capacity to work with big data and mine it. the same is true for analysts who are trying to produce the best judgment that we possibly can for the president as well. the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning which we are very sharply focused on can enable the best human analyst to digest huge amounts of information whether it is open-source, unclassified or clandestinely acquired. that can enable those human analysts to do what only they can do which answers these so what question, the second and third order consequence questions. so we are making a lot of progress in that area. of all of the staff that i have

at the cia, one third of the officers work full time every day on cyber, digital science and technology issues. two of the five directorates that help organize the agency are focused squarely on those issues. we also formed a mission planner which is one of the organizational building blocks of cia aim squarely on technology and building better private sector partnerships because for all of the in-house talent and all of the talent across the u.s. government we cannot compete effectively with the chinese, in particular, unless we are building better, stronger and healthier partnerships given the pace of innovation in areas like quantum computing or artificial intelligence. that has been another big focus. david: you referred to the release of classified information to let the world know of putin's plans.

i am curious, how much of a culture shock within the agency when there or orders to release, they have to be handled carefully. bill: small culture shocks are not a bad thing. it is important to challenge conventional wisdom a little bit sometimes but you have to be careful about it. the surest way to dry up that intelligence is to put at risk sources and methods at which you put to risk those methods. washington is that -- washington is the theory that anything worth doing is worth overdoing and you have to be careful. the president and it has been him call -- his call indecision has hit the right balance on ukraine. we could see that putin before the war was trying to create what our call false flag operation so instances in which he would point to some lost of

life in eastern ukraine and blame the ukrainians for that and use that as a justification for his aggression. we, working with the british intelligence service were able to and -- to expose that and make it public which made it harder for him to build and sustain false narratives. there have been other places where we have used that technique and i should say that in this administration and is not the first time the united states has done that. it builds on efforts over previous administrations. in a you came -- ukraine case it has been effective. it is one way as i said before the counter when autocrats and authoritarian regimes have often seen as one of their great asset, the ability to dominate the information state -- space whether it is filled with truth or lies somewhere of the two and we could make it harder. david: can you explain to the

audience what duty to warn means? i think some people were surprised that we provided some information to the russians about an imminent terrorist attack. bill: the duty so worn obligation -- to warn goes back to the 1970's and it is built around the notion that we have a duty that when civilian deaths are potentially were possible at least because we can see a terrorist attack being planned to share that information to help prevent those civilian deaths. there are exceptions in instances where it would put at risk some particularly sensitive intelligence that we have collected or some of our officers, but by and large we have tried to abide by that obligation. we, the u.s. government did provide quite accurate intelligence to the russian services about what we could see

was an impending terrorist attack by isis against a pretty big entertainment center in moscow. and you know, you would have to ask the russian services why didn't you pay more attention to that or act on it? we did the same things in iraq because we could see planning and other isis attacks against a big gathering of iranian civilians as well so we provided that information as well. david: to be clear, the russian claim that the ukrainians and even we were behind the terrorist attack utterly absurd and unfounded? bill: nice try. the russians claimed that the isis operatives responsible for the atrocity were trying to retreat to ukraine. this is a little bit of suspension of disbelief because this is one of the most active

battlefields in the world and it is hard to imagine somebody retreating through that. and then president lukashenko of belarus said no, they were going to belarus as well undermining the kremlin narrative. so isis was responsible for this and we knew in advance what was coming. we provided precise information about what the target was. david: when your closest ally is lukashenko, you might want to look in the mirror. bill: you said the truth out loud. david: in the final minutes, let me ask you what has been the biggest surprise since you became cia director and how different is this from the world of diplomacy? bill: i spend a lot of time working with cia officers over the years when i was a career diplomat as well especially serving overseas.

i never forget that one of my best friends at the first post in the foreign service, the diplomatic sort of session service in jordan one of my best friends was a young cia officer who was later killed in a terrorist attack on pan am 103. i have never forgotten the connections with friends and officers in the agency who make the ultimate sacrifice over the years. but i thought i knew a lot about the agency and then i arrived there and i have been a part of it and i have been proud to lead it. but i still have a lot to learn about the tribes and sub tribes within the institution. i am incredibly proud to do what i do. it is a job that i genuinely love. a lot of people in washington say that but i mean it. i am so proud of what our officers are doing right now.

i learned also that my old institution, the state department, which i also love tends to be more passive aggressive. so even when i was like the number two in the state department, usually if i said something once people would figure if i was really serious i would say it again. the cia is more adjutant -- agile. i would have a bad habit a few months there and i would think out loud and i would discover at the end of the working day there was a 14 page action plan to be drawn out and for all i know aircraft was being taken on so my staff reminds me not to think out loud. one of my pre-disasters -- predecessors gave me some good advice. you said in the state department you can read in the newspapers with the secretary of state is doing. cia it is important to focus on internal communication.

on all the travels that i take and i'm about to leave on my 66th trip, another of one those -- -- another one of those surprises, the amount of time i spend on the road, but i do two things on the plane ride coming home, i write a note to the president, just with my impressions and i try to do it in a conversational way so it is honest and straightforward and not bureaucratic. and then i write a note to the workforce and i try to be equally straight about what i was trying to achieve and about how proud i am of the work that i saw him stations and bases around the world. the last thing, i like to wander around headquarters following the footsteps of george h w bush who did the same thing. again, a little bit unlike the state department people are refreshingly honest. they will stop me in the hall and tell me what they think i

did write where what i screwed up. whether i am standing in line at the subway and the food court or anything else. i was actually -- one of my exceptional assistance reminded me about a year ago that i would go down for a coffee once a day and i was getting a reputation for being bougie because i was going to starbucks instead of dunkin' donuts. now i balance it out. i like dunkin' donuts coffee too. david: since it started in massachusetts you should definitely go in dunkin' donuts. last question and it is one you probably get asked a lot. what keep you up at night? bill: i can give you all sorts of answers that are quite real, terrorist threats. we have a huge obligations to keep americans safe so that is a worry. i worry about the conflict in the middle east and the war in ukraine. honestly what keeps me up at

night more than anything else is people. it is as i said before, my officers and their families who are doing really hard jobs and really hard parts of the world who, in a world in which you can't -- you are never going to have zero risk and you cannot make risko away and -- risk go away. you can mitigate it and anticipated and you can try to manage it. and that is what keeps me up at night. there is one other story that literally kept me up at night. last year about six months ago i took part in the last overnight exercise of our operation officers course down at the farm in virginia. and it seemed like a really good idea at the time, when i agreed to do this. so from 3:00 in the morning in the pitchdark of the virginia

woods i was wondering if this was a good idea. but it was fascinating for me to see the newest operations officers, the very beginning of their careers, not just mastering the tools of the trade, but also learning teamwork and how much, whatever their backgrounds were, those new officers had extensive experience and there was another who was a mother of four who had no experience in the u.s. military. the way they looked out for one another is the f -- the essence of what good -- what good intelligence craft is. the interesting thing was at like 4:30 in the morning and the exercise culminates with a hostage rescue mission by the delta team. and the delta team, the major who was commanding it had only been told that there is a simulated situation where is a -- with cia officers with

someone impersonating a cia officer. so it was worth the price of admission to see the look on the face as a young nature as he came up -- major as he came up the stairs and saw the real-life director tied to the chair. so, that kept me up, but it was a highlight. david: we will not do that to you here. i will just say that when you were ambassador in russia and i was in the state department, nick burns was with us many times, i was always so impressed with the respect that everyone had for you and the care that you showed to the people of the embassy. i have no doubt that that applies to your team at the cia. we are incredibly fortunate to have you where you are and we are grateful for your service over many years. we are incredibly grateful that you took the time to be with us today. thank you so much.

bill: thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [applause] david: so let me just say before we wrap up, please do not forget that in the museum in the cabinet room we have our special studio 43 session, analyzing conflicts and the middle east and ukraine. please feel free to take part in that there with an interactive session read by kimberly and fred. let me finally in closing thank you to bank of america, the advisors at the board of directors and the executive advisory council and all of the amazing speakers that we have had through the day. and i also want to