senior fellow at columbia university's first amendment institute. watch landmark cases monday. #landmarkcases. follow us @cspan. we have a link to the national constitution center's interactive constitution on our website and the landmark cases podcast at c-span.org/landm arkcases. >> now a conversation on u.s.-north korea relations with former joint chief of staff chair mike mullen, including victor cha. this is about an hour.

>> good afternoon. i would like to welcome you to the policy lectureship on international security. the title of the session is u.s.-north korea relations, any progress on nonproliferation efforts. today is a special event because the poll monkey lecture is an annual event. today, we decided instead of a single lecturer, we would have this upstanding panel to talk about an issue that is very preoccupying and perhaps the number one national security challenge for the trump administration. we will have a wonderful conversation with mike mullen and victor cha. i am ellen laipson moderating today. we are related to have members andhe family join us today donors that made this event

possible. as you know, i think our two speakers are well known. we have admiral mike mullen, the chairman of the joint chief of staff and is currently the president and chief executive officer of mgm consulting and was the cochair of a 2016 council on foreign relations task force report, a sharper choice on north korea. we will ask him to update and revise the judgment of that report. victor cha is currently the senior adviser and korea chair at csis. he is the korea foundation chair at georgetown university. he was a member of that council task force and has recently written an article in foreign affairs that brings us up to date on his own thinking on korea, and as many people know, he was tantalizingly close to being the american ambassador to south korea. [laughter] ellen: we are going to start our conversation with a top-down

look. i have asked both victor and admiral mullen to answer this question on the continuum from war to peace with coercive diplomacy, negotiations, nonproliferation progress along the points of the continuum. how would you characterize the current moment? victor chok, would you like to go first? victor: thanks. it is a pleasure to be here today and be part of this lecture. on that particular question, i feel like we are certainly not where we thought we would be in december. in december of last year before the olympics in south korea, i i think many people were concerned we would have a temporary pause during the olympics, both the winter olympics in february and paralympics in march, and the u.s. military exercises

restarted in april, that the north would respond and we would be in a cycle of provocation. that is clearly not where we are today. now we are in a spring of summit diplomacy in asia, north and south korean leaders, prime minister abe coming to mar-a-lago next week. the north korean leader went to china last week or a little over a week ago. of course, the big meeting between president trump and the north korean leader. i certainly think that today, we are in a different place although the place we are today is not without its own set of risks. ellen: thank you. admiral mullen: if i could pick up on what victor said in terms of prognosticating, i think it's tough to figure that out. there is certainly over the course of the last year a tremendous amount of uncertainty and the uncertainty that existed with respect in particular in the case of kim jong-un in north

korea, not knowing a lot, what he would do, etc. i think it was added to significantly by the uncertainty of what the united states of america is going to do, and that is entering -- the entry point with respect to these negotiations. i have said on a couple occasions now -- next month is a huge month for us when you look at what may or may not happen with the iran deal and what may or may not happen with negotiations. there is a lot on the table. as best i can tell, and i think it is important that people understand i am not on the inside, i do not have the kind of information that i used to have when i was in a decision-making position or making recommendations. there is a lot i do not think i do know. we clearly are in a very fast path here in both cases, iran

and north korea, to bring nuclear weapons into play much more so than i thought possible a year ago. in that regard, i think it is much more dangerous. i think the risks, the risk is way up, and as i was taught as a young midshipmen, high risk can bring high reward. at the same time, it can also bring significant downside. honestly, i do not know -- i do not know if anybody knows. i certainly do not know what will happen over the course of the next 60 days except i think it is incredibly critical, dangerous, fragile time.

ellen: while we are trying to calibrate carefully that really it is impossible to make any strong predictions. i wonder, from your own experience how the uncertainty of the preparations for the summit -- how would you rank the odds the summit will take place? do you think there is any prospect that either or both of the parties will decide to hit the pause button? victor: i think it was a surprise to everyone when the u.s. president agreed to meet with the north korean leader. by may, which i think everybody takes to mean by the end of may. as admiral mullen said, these sorts of summits, when they take place, they can be highly rewarding, or if they fail, they are extremely risky, especially when you don't have a months-long negotiating process leading up to this meeting. to me one of the biggest indicators of whether this meeting will take place or

whether it will be postponed will be the inter-korean summit that takes place at the end of this month because i would imagine that coming out of that meeting the south korean president will want to brief the american president on how that meeting went and probably offer recommendation about whether we should go forward, things look good, the light is green, or whether it is yellow or whether it is even red. as admiral mullen said, we are all guessing here because this is a highly unusual situation. if i had to pick one event, it would probably be the meeting that takes place between the north and south korean leaders. ellen: in the task force, there was a lot of discussion about will deterrence and the coercive signaling that takes place.

how would you, if you were advising the president today with the anticipation of a summit within 6 to 10 weeks, how would you calibrate the signals that are sent through our security presence and our security relationship in the run-up to the summit? admiral mullen: i would want them to be strong and leave little room for doubt about the commitment to security in that part of the world. i have been a little bit taken aback. the exercises resumed and there wasn't much that happened with that. if i were in my previous job, at least i would have insight into the preparations for and then recommendations would be tied to how much we should do or not do based on what was actually going on getting ready.

one of the big concerns -- victor and i were talking earlier, and i said, how long does it take to get ready for a summit? he said with an ally, typically three months. think about this -- think about this one, and typically, to the degree you can either control it, you want to know the outcome before you ever have a summit and you kind of plan to that and how much of that kind of work has gone on to this point, i am not really sure. the stakes are high. on the one hand, one of the things we talked about in the report is you have got to move -- china has got to move and china has moved. whoever you want to give credit to, it is very clear that president trump's position has moved xi jinping. a tougher enforcement of the

sanctions, i think china has got almost complete control over the process by the amount of money that flows or does not flow across the border and secondly, the visit the other day by kim jong-un. all of a sudden china -- the signal to me is they want to be in the game. i think china is a hugely important player. one of the things we tried to say in that study was the united states and china have to figure out a way to play here. to me, with -- for the right outcome, it does not make any difference who leads. the other thing tied to the inter-korean summit we talked about in the report is it is possible south korea is in a better position to lead in this than they have been in the past and certainly amongst all of us.

i had no question about somebody stepping forward to do that, which president moon clearly has and make that a part of what i hope would be a constructive outcome. ellen: on the security question, you both participated in the 6 party talks and have been involved in these things, whether signals we may want to send in an adversarial way to the north koreans also send signals to china. how do you balance what the chinese may desire in terms of a military presence in the region, the status of our alliances with japan and korea with trying to resolve this particular problem of north korea. are there trade-offs that are particularly tricky for diplomats to think about? victor: i think that we don't want our north korean policy to be undertaken or executed at the expense of our broader asian

policy. if we get stuck in the tactics of a negotiation with north korea, we tend to lose sight of that broader objective, which is that those things have to be consistent. we used to always say that our north korea policy doesn't start with north korea, it starts with our allies, and the allies have to be in coordination and agree on a common front ideally as well as china. i think that is an important thing as we think about going forward to this u.s.-north korea summit, a summit in and of itself is not a strategy. a summit without a strategy is very dangerous. for that reason, it is important for the united states, the allies, south korea, japan, as well as china, to coordinate at -- on what we are looking at in terms of what we seek from the

north koreans at this meeting and also the difficult question -- perhaps a harder question of what we are willing to give in order to get what we want from the north koreans. i don't think there is any disagreement about what we want from north korea. we want them to give up their nuclear weapons. the hard part to coordinate among allies and with china is what we are going to be willing to give to get that from the north. ellen: did you feel there were trade-offs between a military -- more broadly about the region versus the use of the military as one of the components of our strategy towards north korea? adm. mullen: i thought about this a little differently. i suppose that is true, but my other thought is -- and this goes against a lot of views to the contrary is i am willing to denuclearize that peninsula, to eliminate the possibility of nuclear war, the use of nuclear weapons in that region.

i am willing to trade with china to make it happen. i am willing to give up whatever that piece would be of trade and pay that price, which i think would be far less by any measure than the price we would have to pay if there was some sort of nuclear war breakout or use of nuclear weapons. to the degree that there are military either consolidations or compromises, i am certainly willing to have that discussion. i think victor's point is really critical as well. we need to do this with our allies and not unilaterally. ellen: i see scott snyder is here, he runs the korea program here at the council and his latest book "autonomy or alliance." how the south koreans and i think the japanese as well, how they achieve greater independence and autonomy as security actors and still

revalidate and remain very devoted to the alliance with the united states. do you see any new dynamics in sort of our expectations of the roles that japan and the republic of korea would play in a negotiating process? has it changed at all from the 6 party talk period? victor: i think it has. in one respect, as both of you have already suggested, the south koreans -- they clearly a appear to be the engine of a lot of this diplomacy. if we go back to last december when all of us thought this would be bad in 2018, the south koreans are really working very hard using the olympics and working behind the scenes playing telephone tag between all parties trying to get

something going. in that sense, they have taken on a big responsibility. the other is in the past, the north koreans were not willing to talk to south koreans about nuclear weapons or denuclearization. anytime the south koreans raised it in a meeting, the north koreans would either walk out or say bathroom break or just did not want to talk about it. they said that is something we talk about with the united states. it appears at least the south korean president is carrying messages back and forth suggesting north koreans have had conversations with the south and are inclined to denuclearize the entire peninsula, which is a loaded phrase in and of itself. but there is that.

in that sense there has been a larger role. i was in a different meeting a couple of months ago with academics where we were trying to -- the trump administration. i was supposed to look at asia. in my case, i said for asia,, there is some degree of hedging with regard to china, but that is not what allies are doing. allies are not hedging against the u.s. they are practicing autonomy and giving all the credit to president trump. you will remember when we saw this extraordinary situation where the national security adviser of a foreign country came out in front of the west wing and announced to the world that the u.s. president had committed to a meeting with the north, and extraordinary picture in itself. the first five minutes of the speech was about how president trump is the person to thank for

all this diplomacy that has taken place. i think allies in asia are not hedging like in the traditional sense, but they are practicing a degree of autonomy, but at the same time holding the president really close and giving him all the credit for that. ellen: japan's role, do you see any change in how well we can coordinate with japan over options for north korea? has that changed since your task force? admiral mullen: i think it is clear certainly from a distance that president trump and prime minister abe have a good relationship. victor mentioned the prime minister is coming this week. i think that is really important in terms of -- that has a very positive effect down the chain. i know secretary mattis has visited and been visited by his counterparts and that that

relationship is very close as well, all of which i am very much encouraged by in terms of how we move forward. i think it reinforces the united states' commitment to the region and that has been up and down in recent years. there have been leaders in more than one region of the world that wondered whether we were committed or not. certainly from a security standpoint, with respect to both south korea and japan and other friends in that area. feedback i get is that they are comforted by the fact that from a defense or security standpoint that we are there. ellen: let's focus on kim. how is this crisis playing from his perspective? do you think he is reasonably confident that he knows what his game plan is, or do you think he is reacting to pressures he is feeling? how would you interpret the trip

to china? did that strengthen his hand or demonstrate that he is on a short leash to beijing? what does it look like from his side of the story? victor: i think, as your question almost suggests, it is a combination of both incentives, opportunities they see, and pressure bringing them to this point. on the pressure side, this all started with a new year's speech that the north korean leader gave in which he made some non-negative reference to the winter olympics in south korea. that is where the signaling started. this eventually led to the delegation coming and the olympics, but i think my own view of what drove that was a

combination of things. i think they are feeling the pressure of sanctions. the so-called pressure campaign or the administration calls it maximum pressure or max pressure campaign, has gotten to the point where we have 10 united nations security council resolutions on north korea. i think at least 6 executive authorities that the administration has, and over 10 years ago, we were in government when we did the initial pressure campaign and what is available to the administration now -- you cannot even compare. they have so much more available to the point where almost 100% of north korea's external trade is now sanctioned. we have heard anecdotally from ngo's that commodity prices have gone up and the price of rice, price of gas, all these other things. i think they are definitely

feeling the pressure, and that has brought them back. the other is i think the unpredictability of the administration. there has been a lot of talk in past months about possible military action. i think the north -- that registered. i think that affected them. finally, i also think they probably calculated that they could take a pause in their testing, that they have already announced they are a nuclear weapon state and they feel they can threaten the entire united states with nuclear ballistic missiles, and they probably felt they have reached a point where there are other things they may need to do, but they do not need to do it right now. on the opportunity side, the only thing i will say is i think the north koreans have been waiting for this meeting for four decades, the opportunity to meet the u.s. president as a nuclear weapons state, even if the discussion on the table is about denuclearization. i think they have been seeking this meeting and seeking the

status of this meeting for a long time. just the meeting in and of itself, i think the north koreans will consider a victory. ellen: that brings us to the keyword in the title of today's conversation. what are achievable denuclearization goals? if the summit occurs and in theory the word denuclearization is spoken but with no expectations of short to medium-term steps to implement it, what does the u.s. do next? if the summit occurs and there isn't a game plan for denuclearization, what is our next move? what do you think are plausible and achievable denuclearization goals for the peninsula? is the rhetoric of total denuclearization the right approach to take, or are there downsides to setting a goal that seems very, very far away?

admiral mullen: i am one who believes it has to be denuclearization. i am not a contain them guy because i worry that with nuclear weapons, with a nuclear state for a sustained period of time, that the south koreans will be asking themselves, should i do this? the japanese will be asking themselves the same thing with some indications that they are thinking about it anyway. you end up nuclear rising the region, and it's the same logic for me that works with iran. if iran gets a nuclear weapon, we end up proliferating in two regions of the world of the most devastating weapons man has ever put on earth. in that regard, that has to be the outcome. victor is much smarter on this

than i with what the language means. the language kim jong-un has used is similar to language in the past, which is long-term, glad to denuclearize. i think we need to pull these out. what we don't talk about is all the steps that have to be taken to get to that point to satisfy him to the point where he would actually denuclearize the peninsula. that is a really important part of the discussion, how much of that gets woven into the negotiations and outcomes. leaders do not have these summits so that they cannot have outcomes. if we don't have outcomes, it is hard for me -- i do not know where it goes. certainly, it has got to be a downside, and i hope the downside is not edging closer to conflict. ellen: that was the risk you talked about, a summit that is not prepared sufficiently.

victor: yeah. we all know when you ask your president to get into a negotiation, you usually want at her get in at the end to close it and take it at the finish line, not at the beginning for obvious reasons. on the denuclearization, as someone who used to do these negotiations, this is going to sound pedantic to some of you, you look for these little things that try to show that your counterpart is actually generally interested or at least getting back to where you thought they should have been 10 years ago. so as the admiral said, the denuclearization for the korean peninsula for any of us who of looked at this means absolutely nothing. perhaps that is too strong a phrase.

what it means in the broader context is north korea would be ready to give us their nuclear weapons if u.s. hostile policy ended. that is defined as our alliances in asia, our ground troops on the peninsula, and clarification on what north korea would agree to. the phrase i would seek clarification on is whether north korea would agree to what they agreed to in september 2005, which was not just denuclearization of the korean peninsula. i see some former negotiators out here -- it is the commitment in writing that north korea will abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs. that is a different phrasing from the very broad denuclearization of the korean peninsula. it was conveyed in the newspaper today that the north koreans have also said kim jong-un, apparently said, that a nuclear free korean peninsula was the dying wish of his father. again, that may sound nice on

paper, but that's exactly what his father said about his grandfather when the last two nuclear agreements were found to be dysfunctional. so i think looking for some of those points of clarification -- i mean the broader outline of what they the agreement should look like -- i mean, this is an expert audience on these issues, clearly there are steps one needs to go through to get to a verifiable declaration, to dismantlement. we know what they look like, and we know that there are capable negotiators who could do that, but it is not the sort of thing that the president of the united states can negotiate on his or her own. and certainly not in a summit with a leader with which the united states does not have has diplomatic relations and has never met with before this at this level.

ellen: you captured the paradox earlier when you said the great achievement of this third-generation kim leader is that he is meeting the president on his terms, which is as a nuclear power. victor: that is certainly his view. ellen: so there is a disconnect between the strategic objective of negotiations and his a status. why would he, even if he is invoking his father and grandfather as wanting to denuclearize, he has, in fact, achieved status in the international system by going a different route. victor: right. it's never that the two sides come in and agree on the same thing. that's what diplomats do. they try to close that space. i wonder if the space is not a gaping valley.

admiral mullen:: there are historians in the room that will understand this better than i, but it is eery to me that kim jong-un has been able to his own means in some way reflect away his grandfather was able to do, you know, in the early 1950's and late 1940's, which is bring these great powers together and to figure out what action was going to be taken. in the case of his grandfather, obviously, to bring them together and essentially ignite a conflict that brought them both there. so i am also, just the comparison to me and i'm sure there are things that do not compare, but it is bothersome and is scary from one perspective. the other is kim jong-un is 30, you pick a number, under 35. 32, 33. i do worry when the stakes are

so high how much wisdom is going to be actually be in the room. wisdom is not something that you just, that you just reach out and obtain as a thirty-something. back to outcomes here, and the seriousness of this entire effort. the third piece we have not mentioned, who seems to be playing more and more, just again more uncertainty, and i've asked in recent years when i made trips out to that part of the world, to either china or japan or south korea, what is russia up to? and russia has been pretty quiet until recently. now russia is back in the game. this used to be a very important place for the russian navy. they were very dominant there. so they are playing again, and it is hard to know, and i have no information whatsoever on how

mr. putin is going to play in this as well. ellen: good point. thank you. we are now ready to turn to our members and guests today. we will ask you to please stand when you get the microphone. give us your name and your affiliation, and just a reminder, we are on the record, being recorded by multiple news services. so let's begin. barry blackman, please. >> thank you. barry blackman, stimson center. i think it is may 11 or 12, the president is required to make a decision about re-imposing sanctions on iran that were lifted by the nuclear agreement. by everything he has said and the national security advisor has said, he is likely to do that, reimpose the sanctions. will that have any affect on

north korea's willingness to move towards denuclearization, or vice versa, will concern about that lead the administration to do something more sensible on may 11? mike: that is a statement, isn't it? [laughter] admiral mullen: i mean, one of the very clear things, the first thing i can remember is kim jong-un on talking about gaddafi, he gave up his weapons and how did that work out? there is so much uncertainty right now between now and these two big things. it is hard to know. you have one new player, john bolton has taken over today, whether mr. pompeo will be in place by then is i think somewhat in the air. i do not know. but it is hard for me to believe

that it will not have an impact, that it will not be related. in terms of how whatever happens on may 11 tied to things that may or may not happen in these negotiations long-term that should also, i think to some degree, be informed by the korean summit, which happens i think before that. so i am -- i mean, i do not know. i think -- and i am one who supported the iran agreement, and it has its flaws, but it also has its strengths. the downside of moving out of that in terms of iran's ability to bring nuclear weapons forward, and we forget how rapidly they can move their technology. that is a huge concern i have.

and then the the knock-on effects for other countries is the reason i talk about earlier is part of this as well. i don't know how kim jong-un and his advisers would not be paying a lot of attention to that as well. and actually, it probably could work in the other direction. in a constructive way. in terms of staying with that and that kim jong-un might be able to think he can make a deal. i'm just not sure. victor: can i just offer a slight addendum to that? ellen: sure. victor: as both you do, i don't know what the administration will do on iran. there are a number of different elements related to the iran piece. let me just say on the north korean side, let me offer a personal thought that i had as to how it could affect the negotiation with north korea. in a way we don't normally think about, but if we try, as i have

tried, to think like we think the president thinks, it is entirely conceivable that he might see a pulling out of the iran agreement as a way to put even more pressure on the north koreans by saying, even an iran deal is not good enough. right? i am not even accepting that you -- you have to go further than the iran deal. even as he is saying something like 100% in north korea's trade. yes, it is entirely possible the north koreans could look at that and say, if he doesn't do that, why should we bother negotiating? to try to understand it from the other side, i would guess there are people who believe that is actually a way to put more pressure on the north koreans. ellen: the woman in the back? standing. >> hi. i'm from radio free asia. i have a question regarding the upcoming summit between the u.s.

and north korea. specifically about the location and timing because over the weekend, several news reported kim jong-un delivered his message he is willing to discuss denuclearization. but there is no report on where or even when. we just know that it could be the end of may. some say it is because kim jong-un invites trump, so young pyeongyang should be the location for the summit. but there could be a third country. ellen: what is your question? >> i want to know where the speakers should think the location should be, and also i believe it would take some time to tighten security, so once the

location is confirmed, how long will it take to specify or finalize the date? ellen: thank you. admiral mullen: we actually know where it is, but we are not going to tell you. [laughter] admiral mullen: nobody has any idea where it is going to be. i cannot imagine the u.s. president would go to north korea, i cannot imagine that, but aside from that we have no idea. yes, every minute of a summit is choreographed. every minute. the challenges, as you can imagine, trying to coordinate this with a country with which we have no diplomatic relations, is formidable. admiral mullen: maybe that is a better way to get out it, start eliminating where it cannot be and that will get down to some options. i think it was mongolia that said today that they would be

happy to host it. what that says to me is, it reinforces nobody knows yet, that we are still looking. and i think they will figure that out. ellen: on the aisle side. jim dobbins. >> so, we do not know how many nuclear weapons north korea has and we do not know where they are, which suggests that in -- an agreement to fully denuclearize cannot be reliably verified in all of its aspects. so could you comment on the difficulties and downsides of concluding an agreement that you know you can't fully verify? admiral mullen: even before the verification requirement, they have a pretty rich history of lying about what they are going to do after every other time we got some version of close. so i think we have to go in from

that -- from a verification standpoint with our eyes wide open. one of the reasons i supported the agreement with iran is because i sat down with the technical side, and it is a brutally specific technical verification regime. as i thought about, what do you do in the north, north korea, i think it has to meet that standard. can you generate that in north korea? that is one of the challenges. obviously, it would be up to whether there is any kind of seachange from the perspective of the leadership in north korea in terms of their future. but i worry about the iranian agreement now, are they cheating because they have done it in the past? i would have the same concern

with north korea. victor: the only thing i would add to that is that in the last agreement, the six party agreement, this is where it all eventually broke down because they were at the point where they provided a declaration. that declaration was clearly not a declaration of all of their capabilities that would have to be verified. and so, this is going to be -- this is clearly going to be one of the biggest obstacles, if we even get that far, in some sort of negotiation with them, on the weapons and the materials. admiral mullen: jim, there are technical means that we did not have 10 years ago or 20 years ago. the question is, can you put it in play in a way that would a llow us to be much more comfortable from a verification standpoint? victor: the other thing i would add, i know we are being recorded and if i am offending north koreans, i'm sorry, but there is a human capacity -- there's a human capital problem. the iran agreement is hundreds of pages.

and the agreement we negotiated in 2005, 2007, was like 12 doublespaced pages, if that. it had none of the technical things that were discussed in the iran agreement. even something along those lines, i wonder whether they have the technical capacity to negotiate an agreement like that. ellen: second row. >> lloyd hanking. you mentioned earlier, mr. cha, the importance of maintaining our security relations with the south korea and japan. one concept that has been floated and discussed somewhat in these kinds of forums has been china providing the nuclear umbrella for assuring denuclearization of the peninsula. what do you think about that as a possibility, as an outcome of these discussions?

china providing the nuclear umbrella for the entire peninsula? i would have a hard time with that up front. [laughter] admiral mullen: i mean, when you ask that question one of the things i think of that we are not good at is trying to put ourselves in china's shoes and what their interests are here, even though we can kind of tick them off. is there a way that we can figure out in these negotiations to respect some of their national interests? because they don't trust us, and we don't trust them. so the concern they have with respect to instability. the concern they have with the unification piece. the regime, the potential for a regime change. the u.s. has historically been tasked with securing the nuclear material. i would be a happy camper to have china go do that. i am not sure i am willing at this point to have china provide the nuclear umbrella, although, yeah, maybe i'm missing

something here. certainly, might be willing to talk about that. but i think -- >> [indiscernible] the u.s. umbrella with south korea, but as far as north korea -- so the u.s. as it is now, japan and south korea, and china for north korea. admiral mullen: i think that is different, at least my understanding is different. now, i think that would be worthwhile to discuss. i would have no problem. china's interests here are big, as ours are. and we have to take them into consideration if we're ever going to make progress on the peninsula. ellen: do you want to come in on

this? victor: i would just say that i think that historically, the chinese have a mutual treaty of friendship with north korea that for the duration of the cold war was seen as china's defense commitment to north korea. it was never clear whether that included a nuclear umbrella. probably it did not. as far as i know, china has not extended its nuclear ability to umbrella to any other country. the other thing is that -- the north koreans and the chinese, they share a border. they have fought in a war together, but they do not like each other. the north koreans feel like the chinese treat them like dirt poor province. the chinese can't stand that the north koreans do things that drag china through the mud all the time. so there is not a lot of love between these two countries, let alone trust. certainly not at all like the sort of defense commitment and nuclear umbrella the united states provides to iraq.

>> weekly what's final few minutes of this programming on our website, c-span.org. now, we are going live to the floor of the house. members returning after the easter passover break. live coverage of the house here on c-span. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., april 10, 2018. i hereby appoint the honorable mimi walters to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, paul d. ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 8, 2018, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties. all time shall be equally