correspondent. today, in a writing story coming out online today, about the affects in yemen -- the possible effects of the release of detainees from guantÁnamo. yemen turmoil could stall the effort to" guantanamo. what is the gist of your reporting? president obama said in may that he was lifting the moratorium, the ban, on repatriating detainees at guantÁnamo from yemen. there are a bunch of them. a lot of them have been cleared for release by the u.s. government. havegovernment agencies decided these people do not pose a threat to the united states and should be allowed to leave. yemenis on repatriating was slapped on after the -- i do not know if you remember the underpants bomber, the christmas day bomber. that attack had links to yemen. sendingelt we cannot be if detainees back to yemen it has such an active al qaeda branch. said, we think we can restart this process. we can look at these people again, and see if we cannot send some of them home. none have been sent home since then, and there are 56 of them who have been cleared for release. they have not been sent home. now, with a

uss yemen. they key is that these are defined as war crimes. , nottions of the laws civilian crimes. so the question that dogs them is the weird, half four, half not were status we have, and that has caused problems for military commissions. last year, a conviction was thrown out because it was said that it was not a war crime but a civilian crying. host: can you tell us what these commissions sound like, feel like? take us behind the scenes. guest: there are two courts in guantÁnamo bay. one was created out of a former aircraft control tower. the government spent a couple million dollars to set it up in the mid-2000's. room.a small court there is a very little space between and the attorneys and the witness stand. and the spectators. of course, to be a spectator, you have to get to guantÁnamo, so they are carefully screened, reporters and victim's family members. the municipal courts are where the less serious charges are heard. and that court room, you know, it looks like you're going to traffic court. it is not a very elaborate or impressive-looking space. if you are a reporter

targets in other countries, particularly pakistan, yemen, somalia, libya. have ad at this point to deeper national discussion about where this new 21st-century, very futuristic warfare is going and the president washington has -- before he became director of the cia john brennan made a speech where he said it would be naive for washington and americans to assume other world powers are not going to go forward in the years ahead and use drones for cross-border strikes on what they claim to be their own high-value targets. that is somewhat unsettling if you look at the way the technology is proliferated around the world in the last five or six years, particularly with the rise of high-tech chinese manufacturing and american adversaries like iran getting a hold -- adversaries, like a rant, getting a hold of technology -- like iran, getting a hold of technology. that 87u write countries possess some type of drum. is this turning into an arms race -- -- arms race? it is a different kind of arms race. industry insiders and tell younce sources this is more like a computerized technology. s

are. in the last week, over 950 people were killed in kenya, syria, iraq, yemen, and afghanistan. by terrorists. we are discussing more esoteric things here. because we have stopped terrorist attacks here. we are fortunate. it has not been luck. it is our military and the intelligence community back here. it is nsa, cia, dia, and fbi working together with military and state and local law enforcement. they keep us safe. they cannot do without tools. so we are going to have a debate in the country. do we give up those tools? i am concerned we will make a wrong decision because the facts are not on the table. you have to help us get the facts out. one of those sets of facts is, what about compliance incidences? what is one and what do you mean? what are you doing? it sounds to me like you are out of control. i get this a lot. there are two sets of authorities we operate under. overseas, we call it executive order, 1, 2, triple three. over the last decade, we have had 12 willful violation in the area. where people, normally sitting overseas, have used the cryptologic system inappropriate

people in the region in countries like yemen, for example, that are experiencing great challenges. [translator speaking] so we appreciate the strength and leadership of kuwait and its friendship, and we are looking forward to extensive cooperation in the future. [interpreter speaking arabic] >> i would like to thank president obama. i am happy for the constructive discussion between myself and president obama which included topics related to our bilateral negotiations where we will use determination to achieve what is the best for the mutual interest [speakingth countries. arabic] we also discussed the continued detention of the two kuwaiti detainees in guantanamo and asked president obama to speed up the process of releasing them in line with closing down guantanamo. [speaking arabic] we also stress our satisfaction with the positive developments related to the kuwaiti-iraq relations. we also discussed the subject of the security of the gulf region, and our combined efforts to achieve security, stability, and -- in this important active region, especially given the current develo

. yemen is in great turmoil. the administration has to calculate that we cannot be everywhere. we cannot fight everybody's battles. where is the most important for the united states to be an increasingly, given the humanitarian crisis, and given the apparent use of chemical weapons, we need to be more actively involved in syria in order to limit the possibility of further war. i think that is where the washington discussion in congress and the ministration is now headed. host: let's go to buffalo, n.y., a democrat blind. caller: were you the undersecretary of the state during the bush administration? caller: were you under secretary of state during the bush administration? guest: yes, i was. i was a career official. i also served in the clinton administration. i was an intern in the carter administration. did you ever explained to the president what the heart of secretary and violence is? i do not think the president was aware of a sunni, and what the are. of the conflicts this is lack of knowledge. also, these countries were created by the british and the french after world war i

a cafe in yemen the u.s. operates secret prisons all over the world at so-called black sites where torture occurs to this day. a somali journalist is currently being imprisoned right now at the direct request of barack obama himself for reporting things about cia black sites and secret prisons in somalia. the notion that the u.s. government is democracy and other governments are authoritarian nightmares is something that should be contested because i do not believe it is true, actually. [applause] incumbent ont is people in this country to focus on what our government is doing. i believe it is important to look at what happens in places like tunisia and using equipment produced by u.s. companies. those products are used by the cia as well, which killed a man groaned strikes even when it does not know what their names are -- which kills them in drone strikes even when it does not know what their names are. the u.s. is involved in extensive operations that violate all sorts of basic human rights all over the world. cia and fbi are using these technologies to pursue them. i want to ch

ways that we can improve the economic prospects for people in the region. yemen, countries like who are experiencing great challenges. we appreciate the strength and and itsip of kuwait friendship and we're looking forward to cooperation in the future. to -- it included topics related to our bilateral relations, determination to achieve what is the best for the mutual interests of our countries. we also discussed the continued detention of the detainees and asked president obama to speed up the process of releasing them and also closing down guantÁnamo. the positive developments related to the kuwaiti-iraq relations. we also discussed the security of the gulf region. consideration the current developments in the region. we discussed the suffering of and thean people refugees and the importance of efforts to reach a peaceful solution and keep the region free from the danger of war. we also discussed the importance of achieving security and stability in the arab republic of egypt and support the constructive efforts. we also discussed the peaceful -- the importance of focusing on int