troops home from iraq? >> let me first tell you that the best way for iraq to be safe and secure is for iraqi citizens to be trained to do the job. and that's what we're doing. we've got 100,000 trained now, 125,000 by the end of this year, 200,000 by the end of next year. that is the best way. we'll never succeed in iraq if the iraqi citizens do not want to take matters into their own hands to protect themselves. i believe they want to. prime minister allawi believes they want to. and so the best indication about when we can bring our troops home -- which i really want to do, but i don't want to do so for the sake of bringing them home, i want to do so because we've achieved an objective -- is to see the iraqis perform and to see the iraqis step up and take responsibility. and so, the answer to your question is, when our general is on the ground and ambassador negroponte tells me that iraq is ready to defend herself from these terrorists, that elections will have been held by then, that their stability and

for example, without any american forces, even a paltry force in iraq now, iraq's skies are wide open and so what they've become is basically a channel for the iranians to ship hundreds of tons of military aid to bash shard al assad's regime in syria, which goes against american policy and also with no air cover of any kind, no american planes there to assert air sovereignty it is also an open corridor for the israelis should they ever want to attack the nuclear installations in iran which is something the obama administration itself is trying to discourage. another factor is al qaeda in iraq is not a threat to the american homeland but it's become more active in iraq and it's become more of a factor in syria which is also something that runs counter to american policy. so i think given the considerable sacrifice the united states made in iraq it is uortunate the strategic outcome is not more consonant with american interest. >> the middle east is a safer place with sd saddam hussein off the table. do you think that's true? >> i think, people ask me all the time, it was worth it? the

cetera et cetera and if we can just put a giant footprint in the middle of iraq we've got it and you know arguably that was the the more reasonable rationalization for peace in that argument the other is mickey herskowitz the guy who was hired by george and barbara bush sr to write george bush's autobiography a charge to keep in one thousand nine hundred nine when he was making the decision to run for president and he wrote the first draft hundred hours of tapes of george w. bush and he's on the record as saying that in ninety nine george w. bush told him that when his father invaded iraq he failed because he didn't extend the war long enough if he'd extended it into the next election cycle he would have won and that if george w. bush became president he wasn't going to have a failed presidency like his father he was going to have a war in iraq against saddam hussein it was going to get enough political capital that not only would he get reelected but that he could privatized social security and that's actually the sequence of events that he followed four years after mickey herskowit

apparently not only didn't know that bin laden had in fact declared war on iraq in one thousand nine hundred i mean that's what got him expelled from saudi arabia what you had this he wasn't a sport it was some absurd theory and it was a theory that was brought to president bush with no support but they advanced it as you know this is the truth and so the cia is sitting there. is if i said you know your car is being towed away well actually what that has to do with is the fact that i haven't had you know i'm not being paid enough today you know it's two things that have nothing to do with the other not and i'm the guy who has to come in and stomp its feet with actual presidential daily brief saying no we are not being fooled no bin laden isn't pretending this is not a decision from ation campaign and when you have the top intelligence operatives in the united states telling that to the president of the united states two months before a major attack you've got a problem yeah and he clearly did more of our special edition of conversations of great minds where there was. magine assets t

mr really key when iraq was about to buy f six. fighter jet iraqi kurds along with some other neighboring states including the gulf countries voiced their concerns over the future deal are these concerns justified and can they be allayed they are totally unsubstantiated these people may still have old stereotypes of iraq the go back to the times of dictatorship there were kind of tries by reckless operations wars and invasions some regimes big and small still have expansionist ambitions but they have learned no lessons from saddam hussein's experience he had it all troops and offensive capabilities that the end of his career was a disaster these people still believe that just like in the past iraq is still capable of meeting its neighbors concocting conspiracy to attacking other countries like iran who wait and saudi arabia or slaughtering people in its southern northern regions but today iraq is a different country that does not wage war in its own people the kurds who believe that iraq is taking up arms to fight them or seriously

think twice before attacking iraq mr prime minister as commander in chief when do you expect iraq armed forces to reach combat very innocent terms of the size of personnel and materials you know we already have the number of troops that we need but we are still working on the list of weapons and hardware we are receiving weapons supplies from the us former soviet nations and possibly from russia too in line with the contracts that we signed earlier however we expect to ensure maximum defensive capabilities by twenty twenty according to the plans we have at the moment by the time we expect to reequip the armed forces with powerful weapons to protect iraq on land and in the air so currently we will still be able to defend the nation but our capabilities need to be maintained and further improved mental and thank you betty. line in motion would be soon which brightened if you knew about someone from files to oppression in so. many screens down totty dot com. overcoming a barrier like this seems possible. but then you crave something higher. and when you reach the people. who do whatever it

syria is next door to iraq. iraq is on the verge of a breakdown between the sunnis and the shiites into civil war. and syria also is on the brink, on the edge of the kurds, and their role in the region could be very, very destabilizing if the war started spreading. there is of course iran next door which could come in some fashion involved. in brief, i have the feeling that it is not exactly within the realm of our means or our resources or compatible with our recent experience to enter the fray without thinking very seriously about the likelihood that if we enter into it, particularly we enter into it, because we are not exactly very popular in the middle east these days, the result would be a much wider war, with really serious consequences that for turkey and perhaps for jordan and saudi arabia and because of economic consequences for europe, so i am afraid that the word i tend to emphasize in this context the prudence, rather than engagement. >> rose:. >> but i think i heard both candidates say they would no

soldiers from the iraq war. since then we have expanded to include any soldier or veteran who has served post 9/11 in the global war on terror. our organization has been prioritizing afghanistan veterans recently, not only because we have the most problems coming out of afghanistan, out of the six countries where currently bombing, but also because afghanistan veterans can speak to a larger concern. which is, it is easy for the american people -- and the world in some cases -- to lose sight and stop paying attention to these conflicts. as we sit here today, there are soldiers and there are civilians sitting in firefights and sitting in situations where their lives are at risk, and we don't take a lot of time to look at other than the numbers on the front page of the newspaper that say four dead or seven dead. so this week and we're having iraq veterans against the war first afghanistan retreat. we're bringing afghanistan members from across the country here to colorado, meeting in denver, and discussing what kin

troops should still be in iraq. but at a secretly taped fund-raer last may the video howsomney said this. >> this president's failures put in place an agreement allowing 10,000-20,000 troops to stay in iraq. unthinkable. >> warner: romney said that mr. obama also had wanted to keep troops in iraq. but could not get baghdad to guarantee them legal immunity. >> there was an effort on the part of the president to have a status of forces agreement. i concurred with that and said we should some number of troops stay on. that was something i concurred with. that was your posture and mine as well. you thought it should have been 5,000 troops. i thought it should have been more troops. the aner was we got no troops whatsoever. >> just a few weeks ago you indicated that we should still have troops in iraq. >> i'm sorry. i indicated... >> warner: last november, joint chiefs chairman martin dempsey told a senate committee the obama administration wanted to keep about 3,000 troops in iraq if there had been a status of forces ag

what we believe is, as part of our entire plan for iraq, and we have a plan for iraq. they have a plan for iraq, too. more of the same. we have a plan for success. and that plan includes speeding up the training of the military, we have less than half of the staff that we need there to complete that training. second, make sure that the reconstruction is sped up in the way that iraqis see tangible benefit to what's happening. and by the way, if we need to, we can take iraqis out of iraq to train them. if it's not secure enough, so dangerous on the ground they can't be trained there, we can take them out of iraq for purposes of training. we should do whatever has to be done to train the iraqis and to speed up that process. that works in conjunction with making sure the elections take place on time. right now, the united nations which is responsible for elections in january has about 35 people there. now, that's compared with a much smaller country like east timor where they had over 200 people on the ground. you need more than 35 people to hold an election in cleveland.

the lebanese civil war the iraq the iraq war the iraqi wars in the one nine hundred ninety s. then and now we have this so the arabs are continuously being undermined by these regional conflicts undermining their prospects for democracy for a forum for economic prosperity and until these regional war stop the arabs will continue to suffer not just the syrians but also the lebanese the iraqis now the turks and the arabs more generally mind you what's the next step in your mind where should we go because the should be it could only be a negotiated peace to go negotiate a new magic. i think one of the most important things first we have to really create some humanitarian corridors to have to create some bigger a few gee camps in the eleven hour or in jordan or in turkey just to a lot of the people who are fleeing syria they're fleeing the violence just to be able to have a shelter i think this is the first thing that we have. to do and then i think the here turkey can play important role in making good trying to convince their opposition groups unify the opposition groups to have

seen in iraq and afghanistan. there's been a confusions about what help jets objects of those rules you know initially the object is supposedly. to security objects of various kinds you know but then they get confused with various political and ideological projects of products to transform the societies in the american or in the west and self-image because that that that makes the whole scenario complicated but also it seems like if you compare the wars that were fought in the twentieth century would say the second world war since we started off with that. it was also an involvement of ideological clashes like communism liberalism fascism. what's important today ideology or nationalism or patriotism what what would drive people today to actually you know want to win a war i think there are already logical issues at stake in these various contemporary conflicts you know what various western governments and the elite eight western public opinion sees b. the state is no western liberal democracy and the values that i

we are out of iraq. and we have gotten bin laden. the fact is he did go into pakistan air space to back up what he said in a foreign policy debate back in 2008. the president has also accomplished a lot of things that don't get a lo lot of coverage. he's the first president that's made a commit m in cyber space and being aggressive to go after countries that are not honest players, e he has a four star and full unit dedicated to cyber space. we hear very little about it. the president has positioned us into the western pacific unlike any other president has done. by the end of this year, we'll have 60% of our naval resources in the western pacific and the posturing going on between china and japan now under those unclaimed islands, this is really forcing the president's hand. he's done it diplomatically. we have relations with vietnam. we've been talking about putting a port there. we have now submarines in guam. that's a very strategically strong move. we actually have a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier group in japan. think about t

i couldn't self-justify what i was doing in iraq anymore. what we as a nation were doing in iraq. i had to refigure out who i was as a human being and what i wanted out of life and what legacy i was going to leave for my children. i struggle every day, every day i struggle. >> this is a situation where we could and should have done a better job of protecting innocent life because this is not only a war of territory, of physical destruction, this is a war of hearts and minds. clearly, if you're killing civilians in the process of trying to secure a city, you're not really winning that battle. >>> coming up -- soldiers returning from war. some of the most memorable homecomings we've ever seen. in america today we're running out of a vital resource we need to compete on the global stage. what we need are people prepared for the careers of our new economy. by 2025 we could have 20 million jobs without enough college graduates to fill them. that's why at devry university, we're teaming up with companies like cisco to help make sure everyone's ready with the know how we need for a new t

difficult to prosecute and continued as was particularly problems on conflicts such as the one we saw in iraq and is still ongoing in afghanistan but why always the no one likes a war but it seems like an old days people were really driven to win at this point everyone's life fatigued with wars what it did depends what the was about what system if you're talking about second world will russians code the great patrols who will what was at stake was the whole future of european civilization today's was obviously the issues are quite potent in some cases there are divided opinions about you know whether or not the war is worth the candle of what's at stake and so on but are the issues maybe blurred because for example making images get other experts we spoke to there saying that war on terror is misleading because it doesn't really define the enemy you don't really know what you're fighting for do you think that might be the problem with the war on terror is is a vague concept i think the problem is more the. when the war on top terror has taken the forward actuals such as the ones you know you

we ended the war on iraq. yes focused our attention on those who -- refocused our attention on those who actually killed us. al-qaeda's core has been dismated. we're in a transition, making sure that afghans take responsibility for their own security. and that allows us also to rebuild alliances and make friends around the world to combat future threats. now, with respect to libya, as i indicated in the last debate, when we received that phone call, i immediately made sure that number one, we did everything we could to secure those americans who were still in harm's way. number two, that we would investigate exactly what hand. and number three, most importantly that we would go after those who killed americans and we would bring them to justice. and that's exactly what we're going to do but it's important to step back and think about what happened in libya. keep in mind that i and americans took leadership in organizing an international coalition that made sure that we were able to without putting troops on th

huckabee airtran/iraq war from the iraq side. iraq was like a vast prison yard under saddam hussein. it was so suffocating that i can compare it to no place in the arab world but i could compare it to romania which i knew intimately. to go from saddam hussein's iraq to syria was like coming up for liberal humanists bare. we tend to say all dictators are bad and all democrats are good. we eliminate -- we e. race distinctions and it is distinctions that give us the complexity we need to understand the world and assad ran a brutal dictatorship but nothing like saddam hussein. i had my passport taken by the iraqi authorities when i was in iraq -- i was very nervous obviously. i only got back to the airport before i left. i was a journalist who got too close to my story and i was intent on eliminating saddam hussein. i believed like the lot of people, different western countries in the world and on both sides of the aisle that there were wm ds and i believe a regime this suffocatingly brutal you couldn't trust. you had to assume that

, we solved the iraq war. is it solved? >> well, first of all, it's important to recognize that the goal was not to get out of iraq. actually, it conducted the -- the administration conducted a negotiation with the iraqis, with the aim of legitimizing the presence of some 5,000 american troops. >> with the iraqis refused to accept. >> they refused to accept but also the americans started very late, they opened the negotiation in june, just allowed several months for it. the president was not so directly involved in it, although the vice president was. vice president biden. the americans were hobbled by divisi division. the state wanted much more agreement than the white house did. >> with the war fatigue and challenges in syria, a continuing escalating level of violence in afghanistan, there is no appetite to try to fix whatever wasn't finished in iraq? >> well, certainly american forces are not going to go back into iraq. i don't know anyone who's really proposing that. but there -- there are people who think

what we believe is, as part of our entire plan for iraq, and we have a plan for iraq. they have a plan for iraq, too. more of the same. we have a plan for success. and that plan includes speeding up the training of the military, we have less than half of the staff that we need there to complete that training. second, make sure that the reconstruction is sped up in the way that iraqis see tangible benefit to what's happening. and by the way, if we need to, we can take iraqis out of iraq to train them. if it's not secure enough, so dangerous on the ground they can't be trained there, we can take them out of iraq for purposes of training. we should do whatever has to be done to train the iraqis and to speed up that process. that works in conjunction with making sure the elections take place on time. right now, the united nations which is responsible for elections in january has about 35 people there. now, that's compared with a much smaller country like east timor where they had over 200 people on the ground. you need more than 35 people to hold an election in cleveland.

, jihadists inside iraq attack pipelis and even potentially infrastructure of oil in southern iraq. so we have to be very attentive, the business community, particularly the financial sector there is war between jihadists of syria and iraq including that potential of o in iraq and iran may respon respond spond to that, guess what,ot in iris i can't. we're at prelude time of dangerous developments in the region. melissa: tell me more about that. that seems like the next logical conclusion, the iraq is embroiled in this, iran is embroiled as well. >> those attacks against iraqi pipeline into syria, are going to lead to attacks ends guess iraqi oil infrastructure inside iraq. iraq is s the ally potentially of iran. and iran is going to say, hey, the gull, you are funding those rebels in syria. i'm going to send my own terrorists, guess where? eastern arabe yaw where most of the saudi oil is, into kuwait. we're talking about dangerous situation for the world economy in the next few weeks or months. melissa: is there anything we can do at this point or is it too late for the u.s. to get

they invoke iraq in this example. they will tell you libya is completely out of control, though it does not approach with going on in the north caucasus despite the attack in been gauzy last month. they will also say if assad goes, islamist will take over. therefore that united states really does not know what it is doing and assad and opponents of the regime have to negotiate. the fact is they will never support and leaving and they don't want him to leave because the new government would be anti-russian. that marginalizes russia and the least and renders the pursuit of the geopolitical objectives quite questionable. it would certainly probably mean because they will not be particularly prone shiite in lebanon, the funneling of weapons to hezbollah which a large scale operation going back six or seven years. the israelis discovered these weapons in 2006 and finally force the russians to admit they might have gotten them somehow. the fact is they went through syria and the russians knew all well who the end users of t

you said we should have gone into iraq. despite the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction. you said that we should still have troops in iraq to this day. you indicated that we shouldn't be passing nuclear treaties with russia, despite the fact that 71 senators, democrats and republicans, voted for it. you've said that first we should not have a time line in afghanistan. then you said we should. now you say maybe. or it depends, which means not only were you wrong, but you were also confusing and sending mixed messages both to our troops and our allies. so what we need to do with respect to the middle east is strong, steady leadership, not wrong and reckless leadership that is all over the map. and unfortunately that's the kind of opinions that you've offered throughout this campaign, and it is not a recipe for american strength or keeping america safe over the long term. >> i'm going to add a couple of minutes here to give you a chance to respond. >> well, of course, i don't concur with what the president said