Secretary Hillary Clinton delivered this statement in Washington, DC

Secretary Clinton. Good morning, everyone. I'm here today to present the 35^th annual report to Congress on the state of human rights around the world. The struggle for human rights begins by telling the truth over and over again. And this report represents a year of sustained truth-telling by one of the largest organizations documenting human rights conditions in the world, the United States State Department.

I want to thank Assistant Secretary Mike Posner and the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and our hundreds of colleagues and embassies around the world for working so hard to make this report an honest compendium of global human rights issues. I also want to thank the many people around the world who monitor and fight for human rights in their own societies, and from whose information and recommendations we greatly benefit.

In recent months, we have been particularly inspired by the courage and determination of the activists in the Middle East and North Africa and in other repressive societies who have demanded peaceful democratic change and respect for their universal human rights. The United States will stand with those who seek to advance the causes of democracy and human rights wherever they may live, and we will stand with those who exercise their fundamental freedoms of expression and assembly in a peaceful way, whether in person, in print, or in pixels on the internet. This report usually generates a great deal of interest among journalists, lawmakers, nongovernmental organizations, and of course, other governments, and I hope it will again this year.

As part of our mission to update statecraft for the 21^st century, today I'm also pleased to announce the launch of our new website, humanrights.gov. This site will offer one-stop shopping for information about global human rights from across the United States Government. It will pull together reports, statements, and current updates from around the world. It will be searchable and it will be safe. You won't need to register to use it. We hope this will make it easier for citizens, scholars, NGOs, and international organizations to find the information they need to hold governments accountable.

Here at the State Department, human rights is a priority 365 days a year. It is part of the mission of each of our ambassadors. It is on my agenda or on Under Secretary Otero's or anyone else's who meets with foreign leaders. And it is a core element of the Obama Administration's foreign policy, because it actually is in line with our values, our interests, and our security. History has shown that governments that respect their people's rights do tend, over time, to be more stable, more peaceful, and ultimately more prosperous.

We were particularly disturbed by three growing trends in 2010. The first is a widespread crackdown on civil society activists. For countries to progress toward truly democratic governance, they need free and vibrant civil societies that can help governments understand and meet the needs of their people. But we've seen in Venezuela, for example, the government using the courts to intimidate and persecute civil society activists. The Venezuelan Government imposed new restrictions on the independent media, the internet, political parties, and NGOs. In Russia, we've seen crackdowns on civil society groups turn violent with numerous attacks and murders of journalists and activists. In China, we've seen negative trends that are appearing to worsen in the first part of 2011.

As we have said repeatedly, the United States welcomes the rise of a strong and prosperous China, and we look forward to our upcoming Strategic and Economic Dialogue with Beijing and to our continued cooperation to address common global challenges. However, we remain deeply concerned about reports that, since February, dozens of people, including public interest lawyers, writers, artists, intellectuals, and activists have been arbitrarily detained and arrested. Among them most recently was the prominent artist, Ai Weiwei, who was taken into custody just this past Sunday. Such detention is contrary to the rule of law, and we urge China to release all of those who have been detained for exercising their internationally recognized right to free expression and to respect the fundamental freedoms and human rights of all of the citizens of China.

Beyond a widespread crackdown on civil society activists, we saw a second trend in 2010—countries violating the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly, and association by curtailing internet freedom. More than 40 governments now restrict the internet through various means. Some censored websites for political reasons. And in a number of countries, democracy and human rights activists and independent bloggers found their emails hacked or their computers infected with spyware that reported back on their every keystroke. Digital activists have been tortured so they would reveal their passwords and implicate their colleagues. In Burma and in Cuba, government policies preempted online dissent by keeping most ordinary people from accessing the internet at all.

The third disturbing trend of 2010 was the repression of vulnerable minorities, including racial and ethnic and religious minorities along with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. In Pakistan, for example, blasphemy remains a crime punishable by death. And the blasphemy law has been enforced against Muslims who do not share the beliefs of other Muslims, and also against non-Muslims who worship differently.

In the first two months of 2011, two government officials in Pakistan who sought to reform the law, Governor Taseer and Minister Bhatti, were targeted by a fatwa and assassinated. Also, in Iraq, Egypt, and Nigeria, violent attacks by extremists have killed dozens of people who have been peacefully practicing their religions, Christians and Muslims alike. In Iran, we have multiple reports that the government summarily executed more than 300 people in 2010. Many of them were ethnic minorities. For example, in May, four Kurdish men were hanged in Evin Prison. They had been arrested in 2006 for advocating that Iran should respect human rights. They were reported to have confessed to terrorism under torture. And because I believe, and our government believes, that gay rights are human rights, we remain extremely concerned about state-sanctioned homophobia. In Uganda, for example, homosexuality remains illegal, and people are being harassed, discriminated against, threatened, and intimidated.

But the news is, of course, not all bad. We have seen improvements in the human rights situations in a number of countries, and we've also seen the uprisings of the past months in the Middle East and North Africa, where people are demanding their universal human rights. In Colombia, the government began consulting with human rights defenders. It is supporting efforts to stop violence. It has passed a law to restore land and pay reparations to the victims of the very long civil conflict that occurred in Colombia. Guinea held free and fair elections and inaugurated its first democratically elected president. And Indonesia boasts a vibrant free media and a flourishing civil society at the same time as it faces up to challenges in preventing abuses by its security forces and acting against religious intolerance.

Societies flourish when they address human rights problems instead of suppressing them. Freedom from fear makes economies grow as citizens invest, innovate, and participate. Where human rights matter, children grow up with the precious belief that they matter, too; that they should be able to live in dignity and shape their own destinies. People everywhere deserve no less. And we hope that this report will give comfort to the activists, will shine a spotlight on the abuses, and convince those in government that there are other and better ways.

And we want to see progress. We started doing this report 35 years ago because we believed that progress is possible. And certainly, if you were to do a chart from 35 years ago to today, you would see a lot of progress in a lot of places. But at the same time, we must remain vigilant, and this report is one of the tools that we use to be that way.

Thank you all.

President Barack Obama delivered these remarks in Fort Campbell, Kentucky

Secretary Hillary Clinton delivered these remarks in Washington, DC

Secretary Clinton. We are delighted at the extraordinary work that has been done across our government with the unveiling of this International Strategy for Cyberspace, and we look forward to partnering with our private sector, with other nations, and with others who share the goal that is set forth in this new document that really tries to achieve the goal that is set forth in the very beginning, and that is, the United States will work internationally to promote an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable information and communications infrastructure that supports international trade and commerce, strengthens international security, and fosters free expression and innovation. To achieve that goal, we will build and sustain an environment in which norms of responsible behavior guides states actions, sustains partnerships, and support the rule of law in cyberspace.

This is a policy that very much sums up what the United States seeks. Many of you representing the governments of other countries, as well as the private sector or foundations or civil society groups, share our commitment to ensuring that the internet remains open, secure, and free, not only for the 2 billion people who are now online, but for the billions more who will be online in the years ahead.

What they are able to do in cyberspace, whether they can exchange ideas and opinions openly, freely explore the subjects of their choosing, stay safe from cyber criminals, and engage in professional and personal activities online, confident that doing so will remain private and secure, depends a great deal on the policies that we will adopt together.

Now, many of you know that the State Department has staked out a position as a leader on internet freedom, and I see Alec Ross, who has headed our efforts on that. This is one critical aspect of cyber policy. But we know very well that the numbers of issues seem to be infinitely expanding, and we need to develop, deploy, and coordinate policies that address the full array of cyber issues. That is what the U.S. International Strategy for Cyberspace is intended to help us do. Because it does, as John said, bring together, for the first time under one framework, all the different policies that the United States is pursuing into an integrated whole-of-government approach.

It also articulates, for the first time, all of the principles that guide our work—those that infuse our foreign policy, such as upholding the fundamental freedoms that we consider internet freedom to be part of, and all the other aspects of this policy that will be addressed by my colleagues. We try to really tackle all of the difficult issues and challenges that cyberspace presents. And we know very well that everything we've written today we will have to keep updating as new challenges and opportunities arise. Because while the internet offers new ways for people to exercise their political rights, it also, as we have seen very clearly in the last months, gives governments new tools for clamping down on dissent. And while the internet creates new economic opportunities for people at every point on the development spectrum, it also gives criminals new openings to steal personal data and intellectual property. And while the internet makes it possible for governments and people to collaborate more closely across borders, it presents new terrain for conflict, when states or other actors deliberately disrupt networks or when terrorists use the internet to organize attacks.

So, we seek to maximize the internet's tremendous capacity to accelerate human progress, while sharpening our response and our tools to deal with the threats and the problems and the disputes that are part of cyberspace.

Now, as we look at this strategy, I want to be clear about what it is not. It is not a series of prescriptions, and that's an important distinction. Because as we work to achieve a cyberspace that is open, interoperable, secure, and reliable, there is no one-size-fits-all, straightforward route to that goal. We have to build a global consensus around a shared vision for the future of cyberspace to make sure it serves, rather than impedes, the social, economic, and political aspirations of people worldwide. And that can only happen through patient, persistent, and creative diplomacy.

So the strategy identifies seven key policy priorities that will be the focus of our diplomatic outreach going forward. They are: first, economic engagement to encourage innovation and trade while safeguarding intellectual property; second, cyber security to protect our networks and strengthen international security; third, law enforcement to improve our ability to respond to cyber-crime, including by strengthening international laws and regulations where appropriate; next, military cooperation to help our alliances do more together to confront cyber threats while ensuring that our military's networks remain protected; next, multi-stakeholder internet governance so that networks work the way they should; and then, development to support the rise of new partners by helping countries develop their digital infrastructure and build their capacity to withstand cyber threats; and finally, but for us very importantly, internet freedom. We want to do more together to protect privacy and secure fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly, and association, online as we do offline. Together, these seven priorities comprise a new foreign policy imperative for which the State Department has been exercising and will continue to have a leading role.

Now, what we are trying to do in furtherance of those imperatives is to integrate cyber issues into our programs across the board, from our cooperation with other nations to stop criminal cartels, to our economic diplomacy, to our support for girls and women worldwide. We've created our 21^st century statecraft agenda to harness new technologies to achieve our diplomatic and development goals, and we want to continue to press forward on this with the partners that we see here before us. We are sponsoring capacity-building efforts around the world to help more countries play a bigger role in the internet. And as our focus on internet freedom clearly describes, we are supporting the efforts of human rights and democracy activists to ensure that they have access to an open internet. We are funding cutting-edge programs to give them the tools and the know-how to communicate effectively and safely to get their message out, even as governments try to silence them or cut them off from the internet.

To coordinate these and other efforts, we've created the new Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues. Chris Painter, a longtime expert in the field, is now on the job at the State Department, having joined us from the White House and the NSC, where he helped lead the development of the strategy we're releasing today. Chris's office is taking the lead at the State Department as we work with other nations and partners to promote these broad goals.

Now, we're entering a next phase in our engagement with cyberspace based on this strategy, and we're seeing how countries are adjusting their own policies and approaches. And we're understanding that we can't have disparate, stoved-piped discussions, because as many countries have begun to focus more on internet policies and as more citizens have gone online, too often the international discussions we have about cyber issues deals with each of these challenges separately. Our diplomats meet with their counterparts on cyber crime, and then on another occasion on internet freedom, and then finally, on a third, on network security.

We are not dealing with these issues internationally in a coordinated, integrated fashion, and so now we will based on our strategy. And our hope is that you will actually read this strategy, that you will engage with us on it, that you will look at, understand our principles and our approach, and then join us in helping to put them into practice. We are seeing cyberspace transform before our very eyes. Now we have to shape that transformation, and we are excited that this strategy is going to give us the roadmap that we will follow going forward. And I look forward to working with you in the months ahead to translate this strategy into action.

President Barack Obama, Director James Clapper, and Director Leon Panetta delivered these remarks at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia

Director Clapper. Mr. President, Director Panetta, and members of the intelligence community, both those who are here and those connected electronically: Recently, I received an email from a former student of mine at Georgetown who lost his wife at the World Trade Center. He wanted to thank those responsible for the takedown of Osama bin Laden. It represented closure for him.

And in a sense, this dramatic event represents a measure of closure as well for the intelligence community. It was an historic milestone in a relentless campaign which continues on.

Those heartfelt thanks of my student deservedly go to many. To the men and women in the intelligence community who contributed directly—notably, from CIA, NSA, NGA, NRO, and NCTC—and many others from intelligence organizations who contributed indirectly, taken together a magnificent example of teamwork and intelligence integration.

But most assuredly, thanks must go to the President, our Commander-in-Chief — for making perhaps the most courageous decision I've witnessed in almost 48 years in intelligence. He made this decision based on very compelling, but largely circumstantial intelligence.

And, sir, we are all grateful to you for your faith and trust in us. We're honored by your visit and by your speaking to the intelligence community. And I think it most appropriate that you do so here at the heart of American intelligence, in the presence of the stars on the wall. We remember as well, across the community, those who sacrificed their lives on and since 9/11.

It's now my great honor and privilege and pleasure to introduce Leon Panetta, who himself played a crucial role in this operation.

Leon, you've been a superb Director of CIA, a great partner and a wonderful friend. My thanks to you and the men and women of this magnificent agency.

Leon.

Director Panetta. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. For all of us here at the CIA, it is a privilege and a pleasure to have our intelligence community family here with us, to have all of our military partners with us, and I also want to thank the White House staff, particularly those involved in the national security element, to be with us today. We welcome all of you.

And I think it's fair to say that we've never had a closer, more effective working relationship, both within our community and across the national security sector of our government. We thank all of you—all of you—for the team effort that was involved in the operation to go after bin Laden. It would not have happened without your full cooperation.

Jim Clapper deserves a lot of credit for his leadership in bringing the intelligence community together. And I want to thank you, Jim, for everything you've done.

Mr. President, on behalf of everyone here at the CIA, we are truly honored and very proud to have you here. I can't tell you how much it means to all of us to have you here, to mark one of the greatest intelligence operations in our history. And it's one that had so many of our officers working day and night for so many years.

Throughout that time, some of our officers made the ultimate sacrifice. Last year we lost seven men and women to a terrorist suicide bomber at Khost Base in Afghanistan. Their stars are now on this wall behind me—along with those who gave their lives in this fight. Their devotion, their skill, and the inspiration that we take from their sacrifice helped make this day possible.

Tracking down the most infamous terrorist of our time required the very best tradecraft and the very best technology. But it also demanded the very best of our people—the highest level of creativity, dedication, teamwork, analysis, and just sheer, dogged determination to never give up when the trail went cold. Those are basic American qualities and they are reflected in our country's intelligence officers and in our war fighters—the team that really carried out this mission.

But it also required one other essential American quality—the courage to take risks, the kind of risks that you have to take on if you want to succeed. And Mr. President, joining with Jim, all of us in the intelligence community deeply thank you for the gutsy decision you made to follow the intelligence, to conduct this operation, and to bring bin Laden to justice.

We are grateful to have a Commander-in-Chief who was willing to put great trust in our work. And in return, as we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we commit to you that we will continue to do everything in our power to fulfill your mission of defeating al Qaeda and their militant allies. We will do whatever it takes to protect this country and to keep it safe.

This has been a long and tough fight, and it's not over. But as we have just proven, it's a fight that we're going to win—for you, Mr. President, and for the American people.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor to introduce the President of the United States.

President Obama. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, everybody. Well, thank you, Leon, and thank you, Jim.

When I chose Leon Panetta as Director of the CIA, I said he was going to be a strong advocate for this agency and would strengthen your capabilities to meet the threats of our time. And when I chose Jim Clapper as Director of National Intelligence, I charged him with making sure that our intelligence community works as one integrated team. That's exactly what these two leaders have done, along with all of you.

So, Jim and Leon, thank you for your remarkable leadership, not just in recent weeks, but during the entirety of your tenure. You have done a great job.

This is my third visit here to Langley as President, and each of these visits has marked another milestone in our mission to protect the American people and keep our country safe.

On my first visit, just months after taking office, I stood here and I said that this agency and our entire intelligence community is fundamental to America's national security. I said that I believed that your best days were still to come and I pledged that you would have my full support to carry out your critical work.

Soon after that visit, I called Leon into the Oval Office and I directed him to make the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden the top priority in our war to defeat al Qaeda. And he came back here, and you guys, who had already been working so hard on this issue, redoubled your efforts. And that was true all across the intelligence community.

My second visit, a year later, came under more somber circumstances. We gathered to pay tribute to seven American patriots who gave their lives in this fight at a remote post in Afghanistan. As has already been mentioned, their stars now grace this memorial wall. And through our grief and our tears, we resolved that their sacrifice would be our summons to carry on their work, to complete this mission, to win this war.

Today I've returned just to say thank you, on behalf of all Americans and people around the world, because you carried on. You stayed focused on your mission. You honored the memory of your fallen colleagues. And in helping to locate and take down Osama bin Laden, you made it possible for us to achieve the most significant victory yet in our war to defeat al Qaeda.

I just met with some of the outstanding leaders and teams from across the community who worked so long and so hard to make that raid a success. And I'm pleased today that we're joined by representatives from all of our intelligence agencies, and that folks are watching this live back at all of those agencies, because this truly was a team effort. That's not always the case in Washington. But all of you work together every single day.

This is one of the few times when all these leaders and organizations have the occasion to appear together publicly. And so I thank all of you for coming—because I think it's so important for the American people to see all of you here today.

Part of the challenge of intelligence work is, by necessity, your work has to remain secret. I know that carries a heavy burden. You're often the first ones to get the blame when things go wrong, and you're always the last ones to get the credit when things go right. So when things do go right—and they do more often than the world will ever know—we ought to celebrate your success.

That's why I came here. I wanted every single one of you to know, whether you work at the CIA or across the community, at every step of our effort to take out bin Laden, the work you did and the quality of the intelligence that you provided made the critical difference—to me, to our team on those helicopters, to our nation.

After I directed that getting bin Laden be the priority, you hunkered down even more, building on years of painstaking work; pulling together, in some cases, the slenderest of intelligence streams, running those threads to ground until you found that courier and you tracked him to that compound. And when I was briefed last summer, you had built the strongest intelligence case against—in terms of where bin Laden was since Tora Bora.

In the months that followed, including all those meetings in the Situation Room, we did what sound intelligence demands: We pushed for more collection. We pushed for more evidence. We questioned our assumptions. You strengthened your analysis. You didn't bite your tongue and try to spin the ball, but you gave it to me straight each and every time.

And we did something really remarkable in Washington—we kept it a secret. That's how it should be.

Of course, when the time came to actually make the decision, we didn't know for sure that bin Laden was there. The evidence was circumstantial and the risks, especially to the lives of our special operations forces, were huge. And I knew that the consequences of failure could be enormous. But I made the decision that I did because I had absolute confidence in the skill of our military personnel and I had confidence in you. I put my bet on you. And now the whole world knows that that faith in you was justified.

So just as impressive as what you did was how you did it. It was a tribute to your perseverance, your relentless focus and determination over many years. For the fight against al Qaeda did not begin on 9/11. Among you are veterans who've been pursuing these murderers for many years, even before they attacked our embassies in Africa and struck the Cole in Yemen. Among you are young men and women for whom 9/11 was a call to service. This fight has defined your generation. And on this wall are stars honoring all your colleagues and friends, more than a dozen who have given their lives in the fight against al Qaeda and its violent allies.

As the years wore on, others began to think that this terrorist might never be brought to justice. But you never quit. You never gave up. You pulled together across this agency and across the community.

No one piece of information and no one agency made this possible. You did it together—CIA, National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, everyone at ODNI and the National Counterterrorism Center. Folks across the country, civilian and military, so many of you here today.

And that's exactly how our intelligence community is supposed to work, using every capability—human, technical—collecting, analyzing, sharing, integrating intelligence, and then acting on it.

That's what made this one of the greatest intelligence successes in American history, and that's why intelligence professionals are going to study and be inspired by your achievement for generations to come.

Now, make no mistake—this is not over. Because we not only took out the symbol and operational leader of al Qaeda, we walked off with his files—the largest treasure trove of intelligence ever seized from a terrorist leader. Many of you now are working around the clock; you didn't have much time to celebrate. We've got to analyze and evaluate and exploit this mountain of intelligence.

So today, every terrorist in the al Qaeda network should be watching their back, because we're going to review every video, we are going to examine every photo, we're going to read every one of those millions of pages, we're going to pursue every lead. We are going to go wherever it takes us. We're going to finish the job. We are going to defeat al Qaeda.

Even as we stay focused on this mission, we need you to stay nimble and flexible to meet the full range of threats to our security, from plots against our homeland to nations seeking weapons of mass destruction to transnational threats such as cyber criminals and narcotraffickers.

So I'm going to keep relying on you— for your intelligence, the analysis that comes across my desk every single day. And 300-plus Americans are counting on you to stay a step ahead of our adversaries and to keep our country safe.

I have never been more proud or more confident in you than I am today—not just because this extraordinary success, but because it reminds us of who we are as a people and as a nation. You reminded us that when we Americans set our mind to something, when we are focused and when we are working together, when we're not worried about who's getting the credit and when we stay true to our values, even if it takes years, there is nothing we cannot do.

That's why I still believe in what I said my first visit here two years ago: Your greatest days are still to come. And if any of you doubt what this means, I wish I could have taken some of you on the trip I made to New York City, where we laid a wreath at Ground Zero, and I had a chance to meet firefighters who had lost an entire shift; police officers who had lost their comrades; a young woman, 14 years old, who had written to me because her last memory of her father was talking to him on the phone while her mother wept beside her, right before they watched the tower go down.

And she and other members of families of 9/11 victims talked about what this meant. It meant that their suffering had not been forgotten, and that the American community stands with them, that we stand with each other.

So most of you will never get headlines for the work that you do. You won't get ticker-tape parades. But as you go about your work with incredible diligence and dedication every single day, I hope all of you understand how important it is, how grateful I am, and that you have the thanks of a grateful nation.

God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. Thank you.

Secretary Robert Gates delivered these remarks to the American Enterprise Institute

Secretary Gates. As you know and as Arthur just said, I'm in the final weeks of the greatest privilege of my professional life, serving as America's 22nd Secretary of Defense. Most of my time and attention in this post has been dominated by America's two major post-9/11 conflicts—each marked by swift, exhilarating victories against odious regimes followed by grinding, protracted counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaigns.

In the course of doing everything I could to turn things around first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan, from the early months I ran up against institutional obstacles in the Pentagon—cultural, procedural, ideological—to getting done what needed to get done on behalf of those fighting the wars we are in, whether it was outpatient care for the wounded; armored troop transports; medevac; ramping up intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support; or any number of urgent battlefield needs.

It became evident over time that changing the momentum of these conflicts and increasing the odds of military success in the future would also require fundamentally reshaping the priorities of the Pentagon and the uniformed services and reforming the way they did business: how weapons were chosen, developed and produced; how troops and their families were cared for; how leaders were promoted and held accountable; and, related to all of the above, where money was spent—or misspent, as the case may be.

It is the health and future of the military as an institution—an institution confronted with complex and evolving array of threats abroad while adjusting to an era of debt and austerity at home—that I would like to discuss with you today before taking some questions.

I'll start with America's fiscal situation and how it relates to defense. It is no secret that the United States faces a serious fiscal predicament that could turn into a crisis of credit, of confidence, of our position in the world if not addressed soon. On April 13th, President Obama announced his framework for tackling these challenges. As part of the—that deficit reduction effort, he set a goal of holding growth in the base national security spending slightly below inflation for the next 12 years, which would save about $400 billion, the preponderance of which would come from the Department of Defense.

The president's directive, as well as a number of other proposals—such as Simpson-Bowles, that would have cut defense by up to $1.2 trillion—has stirred a debate about the size, use and cost of our military and, by extension, the appropriate role of the United States in the world.

For starters, I have long believed, and I still do, that the defense budget, however large it may be, is not the cause of this country's—(inaudible)—fiscal woes. However, as a matter of simple arithmetic and political reality, the Department of Defense must be at least part of the solution.

Sustaining this “tooth” part of the budget—the weapons and the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who use them—is increasingly difficult given the massive growth of other components of the defense budget, the “tail” if you will: operations, maintenance, pay and benefits, and other forms of overhead. America's defense enterprise has consumed an ever higher level of resources as a matter of routine just to maintain, staff, and administer itself—the other key reason that major increases in the total base defense budget since 2001 have led to relatively modest increases in usable military capabilities.

As a result, starting last spring, we began to take a hard look at the department's overhead costs, in particular the massive administrative and support bureaucracies—within the military services, and across the defense department as a whole. The purpose was to carve out more budget headroom that could be allocated to force structure and modernization.

The result of these efforts were, frankly, mixed. The military services, in my view, successfully leaned forward and found nearly $100 billion in efficiency savings by closing facilities, combining headquarters, reducing energy costs, and much more over five years, and allocated those funds to make new priority investments and deal with higher than projected expenses. Across the department as a whole, we were able to save another 54 billion (dollars) through freezing civilian staff and pay levels, eliminating one four-star command and downgrading two others, eliminating or downgrading more than 350 generals, admirals, and civilian executive positions, reducing reliance on contractors, getting rid of unnecessary reports and studies, and more.

Then there was the effort to pare down the overhead costs of DOD components outside the military services—in particular, the Office of Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the defense agencies and field activities, plus the major regional and functional military headquarters—referred to as combatant commands—apart from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Overall, the fourth estate savings were disappointing: less than a billion dollars in annual projected savings from a group of organizations that consume at least $64 billion a year by our latest estimate. I believe we can and should do much better. There are still too many headquarters, offices, and agencies employing too many high ranking personnel and contractors, consuming too many resources relative to real military missions and measurable results.

The efficiencies project also showed that the current apparatus for managing people and money across the DOD enterprise is woefully inadequate. The agencies, field activities, joint headquarters, and support staff functions of the department operate as a semi-feudal system—an amalgam of fiefdoms without centralized mechanisms to allocate resources, track expenditures, and measure results relative to the department's overall priorities.

But above all, if we are to avoid a hollowing effect, this process will need to address force structure: the military's fighting formations such as Army brigades, Marine expeditionary units, Air Force wings, Navy ships, and supporting aviation assets. The overarching goal will be to preserve a U.S. military capable of meeting crucial national security priorities, even if fiscal pressure requires reductions in that force's size. I've said repeatedly that I'd rather have a smaller, superbly capable military then a larger, hollow, less capable one. However, we need to be honest with the president, with the Congress, with the American people, indeed ourselves, about what those consequences are: that a smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and be able to do fewer things.

For example, the assumption behind most of our military planning ever since the end of the Cold War has been that the U.S. must be able to fight two major regional wars at the same time. One might conclude that the odds of that contingency are sufficiently low, or that any eruption of conflicts would happen one after the other, not simultaneously. What are the implications of that with respect to force structure, and what are the risks? One can assume certain things won't happen on account of their apparent low probability. But the enemy always has a vote.

These are the kinds of scenarios we need to consider, the kinds of discussions we need to have. If we are to—going to reduce these—the resources and the size of the U.S. military, people need to make conscious choices about what the implications are for the security of the country, as well as for the variety of military operations we have around the world if lower-priority missions are scaled back or eliminated. They need to understand what it could mean for a smaller pool of troops and their families if America is forced into a protracted land war again—yeah, the kind that no secretary of defense should recommend anytime soon, but one we may not be able to avoid. To shirk this discussion of risks and consequences and the hard decisions that must follow, I would regard as managerial cowardice.

In closing, while I've spent a good deal of time on programmatic particulars, the tough choices ahead are really about the kind of role the American people—accustomed to unquestioned military dominance for the past two decades—want their country to play in the world.

Secretary Hillary Clinton delivered this statement in Washington, DC

Secretary Clinton. Today, the UN Human Rights Council adopted the first ever UN resolution on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons. This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans-gender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love.

The United States worked with the main sponsor, South Africa, and a number of other countries from many regions of the world to help pass this resolution, including Brazil, Colombia, members of the European Union, and others. This resolution will commission the first ever UN report on the challenges that LGBT persons face around the globe and will open a broader international discussion on how to best promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons.

All over the world, people face human rights abuses and violations because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, including torture, rape, criminal sanctions, and killing. Today's landmark resolution affirms that human rights are universal.

People cannot be excluded from protection simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The United States will continue to stand up for human rights wherever there is inequality and we will seek more commitments from countries to join this important resolution.

Secretary Hillary Clinton delivered these remarks on the release of the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report in Washington, DC

Secretary Clinton. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you all, and good afternoon and welcome to the State Department. It is truly wonderful to see the Ben Franklin Room packed as it is today. I especially want to welcome all the ambassadors who are here. I know many of you and I'm delighted that you could join us for this important event.

I want to thank Under Secretary Maria Otero for her leadership on this and so many of the global, transnational, cross-cutting issues that she is responsible for. And I think you certainly got a small taste of the passion and conviction that Ambassador Lou CdeBaca brings to this work. He is tireless and he, with his wonderful team, are working around the clock and around the world to heal wounds and to save lives, and I'm very grateful to Lou for his leadership and deep, deep commitment.

And because human trafficking unfortunately hurts women and girls disproportionately, Lou has worked closely for over a decade with Melanne Verveer, our Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues. This is a natural partnership because trafficking isn't just a problem of human bondage; it fuels the epidemic of gender-based violence in so many places—here in our country and around the world. So I thank our team at the State Department that has done so much to continue this work, and to make sure that we not only issue a report, which as Lou said, is just one part of the work. The report itself is a tool, and what we're most interested in is working with countries around the world and working across our own government to get results. The decade of delivery is upon us.

And I know it's not just our State Department and not just our Congress, but many of you in this room, many of you from other governments who have taken on this issue, many of you from the NGO community that have been on the front-lines standing up for millions of victims. Last year, I visited in Cambodia a place of healing and support, a shelter for survivors. I met with dozens of girls, most of them very young, who had been sexually exploited and abused. They had been given refuge at the shelter and they were learning valuable skills to help them reenter society. These girls wanted the same thing that every child wants—the opportunity to live, to learn, a safe place, people who cared about them. And not too long ago, a shelter like this would not have been available. The idea of trafficking in persons was as old as time. And it wasn't particularly high on the list of important international issues. And certainly, speaking for my country until relatively recently, we were not investing the resources or raising the visibility of these issues, of these stories, of these young girls. There were so many attractive children at that shelter; lots of liveliness. There were some very withdrawn and set apart from the others.

And there was one little girl who had the biggest grin on her face, and then when I looked into that face, I saw that one of her eyes was badly disfigured. She had glasses on. And I asked one of the women running the shelters, I said, “What happened to her?” And she said, “Well, when she was sold into a brothel, she was even younger than she is now, and she basically fought back to protect herself against what was expected. So the brothel owner stabbed her in the eye with a large nail.” And there was this child whose spirit did not look as though it had been broken, who was determined to interact with people, but whose life had only been saved because of a concerted effort to rescue girls like her from the slavery they were experiencing.

The world began to change a little over 10 years ago, and certainly, I'm grateful for the work that my country has done, but I'm also very grateful for the work that so many of our partners have done as well. When my husband signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, we did have tools—we had tools to bring traffickers to justice and tools to provide victims with legal services and other support. Today, police officers, activists, and governments are coordinating their efforts so much more effectively. Thousands of victims have been liberated around the world, and thanks to special temporary visas, many of them are able to come to our country to have protection to testify against their perpetrators.

Every year, we come together to release this report, to take stock of our progress, to make suggestions, and to refine our methods. Today, we are releasing a new report that ranks 184 countries, including our own. One of the innovations when I became Secretary was we were going to also analyze and rank ourselves, because I don't think it's fair for us to rank others if we don't look hard at who we are and what we're doing. This report is the product of a collaborative process that involves ambassadors and embassies and NGOs as well as our team here in Washington. And it really does give us a snapshot about what's happening. It shows us where political will and political leadership are making a difference.

Take the case of Bangladesh, for example: The minister of home affairs and joint secretary have drafted progressive legislation that promises to confront the traffickers behind thousands of Bangladeshi migrants to the Middle East and North Africa. Or the United Arab Emirates, where leaders are advancing initiatives to improve protections for migrant workers in the Gulf region. Or the case of Taiwan, where the director of immigration has taken steps to ensure that victims of trafficking are identified, provided immigration relief and work permits, and have the opportunity to recover from their ordeals.

Now, these achievements and so many more, which we highlight in the report, are certainly worthy of the recognition that they are given, but we all have to do more. Unfortunately, because of the ease of transportation and the global communications that can reach deep into villages with promises and pictures of what a better life might be, we now see that more human beings are exploited than before. There are as many as 27 million men, women, and children.

And governments have taken important steps, but we have to really mix the commitments with actions in order to get results. For example, the number of prosecutions worldwide has remained relatively static. And so the measure of success can no longer be whether a country has passed laws, because so many have in the last decade; now we have to make sure that laws are implemented and that countries are using the tools that have been created for that. And governments should work more closely with the private sector and use new supply chain monitoring techniques to let consumers know if their goods and services come from slavery-free, responsible sources. In partnership with the NGO community, we have to develop new mechanisms for shielding potential victims and bringing more perpetrators to justice.

Now it's only fair that countries know why they have a certain ranking, and that we, then, take on the responsibility of working with countries to respond. So we are issuing concrete recommendations and providing technical assistance. This week, U.S. diplomats around the world will be meeting with their host country governments to review action plans and provide recommendations when needed. And I'm instructing our embassies and the trafficking office to intensify partnerships in the coming months so that every country that wishes to can improve its standing.

So while this report is encouraging more countries to come to the table, none of us can afford to be satisfied. Just because a so-called developed country has well-established rules, laws, and a strong criminal justice system, does not mean that any of us are doing everything we can. Even in these tight economic times, we need to look for creative ways to do better. And this goes for the United States, because we are shining a light on ourselves and we intend to do more in order to make our own situation better and help those who are interested in doing the same.

Our TIP—our TIP heroes today show us that individual action can lead to some astounding results. For example, in Singapore, Bridget Lew Tan has dedicated her life to protecting migrant workers. And Singapore, albeit a small country, has more than 800,000 immigrants. And she has been volunteering with a local archdiocese. And while there, she met 30 Bangladeshi men assembled behind a coffee shop in the middle of the night, and she helped to set up shelters—one for men and one for women—to provide refuge to migrant workers who had been abused.

Or take Mexico, where Mexico City Attorney General's Office Deputy Prosecutor Dilcya Garcia tried a case in 2009 that resulted in the first trafficking sentence in Mexico. Since then, she has developed indictments against more than 100 alleged traffickers, and forged partnerships to provide comprehensive victim protection services.

Stories like these and the others you will hear about our TIP heroes give us hope, because they inspire us, but also tell us very practically what we can do to make a difference. And the story of all the victims really is one that should motivate all of us. And when we hear the stories of the TIP heroes, we know that it's not hopeless, we know that it is not overwhelming, we know that person by person, we can make a difference.

I think a lot about that little girl that I met who finally was rescued. I don't know what will happen in her life in the future. But many of the adult women who were working there themselves had been rescued, and now they were passing on to the next generation the support that they themselves had received. And the children that I met with, when I asked them, “What do you want to do when you grow up,” they wanted to do what children everywhere want to do—they wanted to be a teacher, they wanted to be mothers, they wanted to be the best that they could be. And that's what we want for all of the world's children.

So I am honored to be here with you. I thank all the countries who are here today. I thank all the leaders around the world who recognize that we can make progress by working together to end modern day slavery. And I particularly thank our heroes who have showed us it is possible despite the odds.

Thank you all very much.