. >> the violence must stop, the killing must stop and the people of libya must be protected and have the opportunity to express themselves freely. gwen: will can do you havey he -- will qaddafi lose his grip? are we on the brink of all-out war? while on the other side of the world, japan copes with a disaster of biblical proportions. after the quake. after the flood. now nuclear fallout. >> there's no water in the spent fuel pool and we believe

gwen: the libya dilemma. we look at the military, diplomatic, and political complications of what no one wants to call a war. tonight on "washington week." >> no american lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of somebody else's civil war. gwen: that was candidate obama in 2007. >> because of the extraordinary capabilities and valor of our men and women in uniform, we have already saved lives. gwen: that was president obama this week as bombs were falling in libya. but the definition of victory remains unclear. >> i think there are any number of possible outcomes here and no one's in a position to predict them. we didn't set out to do regime change here. we set out, as i said, to do a very targeted mission. gwen: and now nato steps in. >> we have taken on responsibility for the no-fly zone, while the coalition continues its activities. gwen: but does gaddafi stay or does he go? will congress go along with the plan? and what dominoes are set to fall next? covering the story this we

gwen: libya, government shutdown showdown and the supreme court. with all of these big stories say about the test of democracy. tonight on "washington week." >> the violence must stop. muammar qaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead and he must leave. gwen: but what can the u.s. do to make it happen? sanctions, navy ships, no-fly zone, all being debated but the bloodshed continues. at home there's no blood but it's a standoff all the same. >> the best way to govern is quit spending more money than we take in. >> we need to cut spending. >> we also believe those cuts must be smart and targeted. gwen: congress gets a two-week reprieve to approve a budget but the underlying fight is far from over. and at the supreme court, a near-unanimous vote that flies in the face of public opinion. >> my first thought was eight justices don't have the common sense god gave a goat. gwen: testing the limits of free speech. covering the week, james kitfield of national journal, john harwood of cnbc and "the new york times," and joan biskupic of "usa today." >> award-

this whole arab spring idea, i know you've just gotten back from spending a lot of time in libya, nancy, is it stalled? we saw today that george mitchell is leaving after two years. does it feel like we're stuck? >> i think in egypt and tunisia , what we saw is the protesters got rid of the dictator but not the addict atorship. and the truth is it takes a long time to do the kinds of reforms to have a real revolution, if um. so far it's been a revolt, not a revolution. in my time in egypt it was astounding how much had changed and how difficult they were finding it to make real reforms. they made more aeau -- amendments to the already overamended constitution in an effort by mubarak to keep his sop in power. and then if gaddafi goes -- >> that's a big if and it's not a strategically vital place to the united states. but when you look back at january and february i think there was a how much amount of enthusiasm. a tremendous amount was about to change. that's not usually the way revolutions go. i ran into henry kissinger today, the grand sage of american foreign policy. he was making th

seen more recently -- the bin laden operation came down to instinct, i think, and, you know, maybe libya, too, to a large degree. and i think what i hear from folks who are around the president is that he's much more -- he relies more on his instincts now, and that seems like a significant change. gwen: george h.w. bush. i want to talk about the unfinished business part of his presidency. because in not getting saddam hussein, that kind of governed a lot what happened afterwards. >> when he liberates kuwait and six other nations helping him pay for it in 1991, he and his team make a very clear decision not to go past -- tossing his own army out of kuwait but not chase him all the way to baghdad. a very small resistance inside his administration. but among the group that was deciding, not even a close call. >> including dick cheney. >> exactly. but, of course, saddam doesn't go away. and i think the important incident, i think, may be not something that happened during george w. bush's presidency, but something that happened during bill clinton, which was not long after clinton comes into

libya and the nato assault in libya was a big part. but if you ask the white house, what do you most want to get out of the trip? the answer that i kept getting was, you know, this is an arab-israeli trip. the reason why is a little bit complicated. the vote for palestinian statehood that's coming up in the united nations in september. and president obama was trying to get european countries -- the u.s. will vote no, of course, but president obama is trying to get european countries to also agree not to vote for it because the israelis are terribly, terribly worried that they'll lose a lot of the european countries on that one. gwen: was that overshadowed by what appeared to be a dust-up between the prime minister and the president? >> when president obama, as you know, made his announcement last week, pledging that he thought that an arab-israeli peace plan should be based on israel's 1967 borders with mutually agreed land swaps. a white house official i was sitting with earlier this week told me in the view of the white house, this w

then today he came out and said the taliban is in libya. he said he doesn't need to know this stuff because it's the president's job to lead not read. >> that i think, is taking a very significant toll on herman cain the fascinating figure in the republican party nominating process. inge saturday's debate, and we worked hard on structuring the questions for all the candidates to avoid the temptation to recite their answers but to actually think about their answers. i'm not going to character rise what i thought cain did or didn't do. but as he almost always did, my advicors will tell me or i'll seek the best people. uconn vay to people that you don't have a world view. and that is usually, and customarily and appropriately so a basic qualification for someone to lead the people of this country. >> what about the answers on waterboard something >> rick perry said he would defend waterboarding till the day he died which was not only a return to the bush policy but with an enthusiasm that seems out of touch where the country is and certainly w

mission in benghazi, in libya, that resulted to the death of four americans including the u.s. ambassador. >> bottom line -- i'm more disturbed now than i was before that the 16 september explanation about how four americans died in benghazi, libya, by ambassador rice, i think does not do justice to the reality at the time, and in hindsight clearly was completely wrong. but here's the key -- in real time it was a statement disconnected from reality. gwen: back to our original question, gloria, which we asked about the fiscal cliff, which is, how much of this is about policy, how much of it is about politics? >> again, i'd have to give you the same answer. i think it's about policy partly, clearly on the part of lindsay graham and john mccain. but a lot of it is about politics. they didn't get the chance that i think that a lot of them wanted to during the campaign, because mitt romney actually did not lead the charge on benghazi. john mccain led the charge on benghazi. and they have a sense -- there's nothing you can do to a senator to keep them out of the loop. and there is a

consulate in benghazi, libya. >> there are more questions that came out of last night. because the vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of state department officialings. he's doubling down on denial. gwen: so karen, is this coming down to a game of who do you trust? >> i think it is. and it's also coming down to a game of how each one of them defines the other. and with mitt romney, i think we've seen something pretty extraordinary over the last week and a half. starting the day before the last debate. where he is once again sort of very visibly kind of trying to position himself at least in tone and in emphasis, much more toward the middle. gwen: jeff, is this part of the overall strategy for both sides to do this? not to position to the middle but to find some key way of driving in and making the point that they -- that the other guy is not working? >> it is. and it's -- everything that's happening right now is about leadership. i mean, we're talking about benghazi and we're talking about the foreign policy. but really, what governor romney and con

on the libya, benghazi dispute, peter, we saw them fighting about nuance, about active terror, whether the president says it was an act of terror, or terrorism. yet there was another argument to be made about whether the u.s. had done all it could to protect the citizens on the ground there. that's not the argument we saw. >> it wasn't. you're right. the voter who asked the question, and this was a town hall-style debate, asked why -- who made the decision not to provide more security when it was requested and why and the president didn't answer. he did say, i take ultimate responsibility. what happened there was my responsibility. but he didn't really answer that question. instead it became as you say a semantic debate. a terrorist act. it kind of got lost i think. governor romney's larger point is that the administration didn't really own up to what really happened in benghazi until a number of days and weeks had passed and attributed it too much to this idea of a pro test which now seems not to have happened over this antiislam video. and president obama was able to sort of like der

what happens in libya stays in libya. libya was a very unusual circumstance. small crinlt. incompetent army. incompetent rebels. that's one reason this took so long. >> and what started as a humanitarian crisis. gwen: which didn't happen. >> close to europe. britain and france got exorcised about it. arab league approved it. the security council approved it. none of this has happened but it does set up a future dilemma for the obama administration. having said we are willing to commit limited force in a multilateral way if a humanitarian disaster is going to happen, well, what happens if the syrian government says we're finally going to move on homs and -- >> and you have what appears to be a humanitarian -- >> exactly. >> and mrs. clinton said again, every place is different. we'll have to make an individual decision. >> but it does set a precedent. >> it does. a half precedent. >> does the success of this suggest to the administration that there may be some ways to deal with those other three that they haven't been prepared to do up to now? >> well, i think certainly they

the people of egypt, libya, yemen, and tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob. gwen: but the protests have spread as this google map shows. throughout the middle east and beyond. you can look and see -- it's pakistan, in london, it's everywhere all over the region and beyond. what happened in benghazi was tragic, but is this something that had been building for some time, david? or was this just the spark? >> gwen, i think it was the flip side of these revolutions that we all watched with sauch maysment and such enthusiasm in some cases in january and february of last year. you know, at the time of those uprising, president obama said what was remarkable about the arab spring was that it wasn't about us, it was about them. it was about throwing avenue old dictators. well, whenever you traveled through the region there wasals -- always -- was always still a little bit of an undercurrent of about us, whether we were supporting democracy or imposing our values. this week it really became about us because these awful videos that you've seen were really wha

look at the attacks in libya and benghazi. this story line is continuing. gwen: in part because the explanation is -- >> the white house has been all over the map on this. for several days the white house from the podium, jay carney and administration officials across the board were insistent that the attacks in libya were caused by this video that was on the internet. they finally acknowledged that it actually was an act of terrorism. if congress was in session right now, i think this would be a real potential problem for this administration and the president because there would be hearings and a concerted effort to find out what happened in benghazi. as of now, i'm not sure that that will sort of turn the election probably gause governor romney has been ham-handed how he has reacted to this. but that is one of the wild cards here in this race that the obama administration and the president cannot control. gwen: except that, the upside, he's the guy with the job and hard to unseat an incumbent and the downside, he's the guy with the job? >> you saw romney

but if you think back to the livey operation that -- libya operation. that did not begin with the goal of toppling toppling ghadafi. it was similar to the situation the president described last night. we think of benghazi now asa none must with the compound. the reason the president authorized intervention was to save innocents from the slaughter and that is why we were doing it. and then when happened? it evolved. we had a stake in the game. it turned into a long-running air campaign. there was a little bit of mission creep. it is not an air campaign now but we have a recent precedent for a humanitarian intervention turn nothing a longer running air campaign. can that achieve its goals? a cliche you hear a lot. you need a political solution in iraq. the warring parties have to make some sort of compromise. gwen: isn't what happened in libya and what is happening in iraq the same reason that barack obama stayed out of syria? >> yes. and the challenge with a limited air campaign or whenever you want to call it if the message to isis which is emboldened a

she was skeptical quietly about the intervention in libya and now opposes any intervention in syria. gwen: thank you all. we want to take note passing of two men. ed koch, the three-term mayor of new york who transformed the city and became a celebrity in his own right. and max campleman, a diplomat who negotiated cold war treaties -- treatries and during one stage act is as moderator for "washington week in review." we have to go for now but the conversation continues online on the "washington week" webcast extra. we'll be talking about the massachusetts senate race and other topics and on our home page peak into the "washington week" video vault to see what doyle said about the immigration story back in 2007. he looks the same. keep up with daily developments over the pbs news hour and we'll see you again next week on "washington week." good night. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. to connect your forces to what they need when they need it. >> to help troops see darningeful before it sees them. -- danger before it sees them. >>

hesitance to say this was a strike against libya. the u.s. saying we need a political solution to stabilize libya, not outside states intervening and the egyptians are saying we cannot just let it go. it's fascinating, the push-pull. on one hand we want a diplomatic solution and levers of democracy and at the same time, iraq and syria, using military means. gwen: is there a diplomatic solution for how the global community should be handling this? >> there's a political concept that the president articulated. he essentially said one of the key long-term solutions here is democracy, political freedom that when you have repression, radicalism festers. but -- and it's interesting because there's a school of thought that says actually what you need in the middle east is strong men and we may not like them but people are nostalgic for gaddafi and saddam. but the president really reinforced that message that that's not the answer because that can stabilize in the short term but in the long term creates more resentment and radicalism. gwen: thank you

intelligence agency's saying we expect more in libya.attacks conditions warrant safe haven in libya. these are detailed reports that they weren't specific saying it's going to happen on september 11, but they thoseerious reports and are the warnings that the state heed.ment did not gwen: let's take this back a minute. this is not first such report not the first investigation, probably won't be the last but we keep getting mixed signals on what the cause of this was and this report doesn't really clear that up. >> no. it doesn't. although, you know, this was a bipartisan report which means you had -- what does that mean? >> held out the promise. key points in two which democrats and republicans actually were able to find agreement. was al qaedahere involvement in the sense of toividuals who had ties al qaeda affiliates were definitely involved and the other one which is also did agree thatey there was no order from the white house or anywhere else to nond down, there was opportunity for the military to come in and rescue. and those, of course, were controversial points in the initial

libya an interest? at what point does it become an immediate concern for the united states? we talk about ukraine but frankly it's a bigger concern for europe than the united states. iraq, at what point does that become a threat to the u.s. national security? if these countries aren't posing an immediate threat? gwen: except that you just cannot look away especially as the leader of the free world. >> we're at that stage where you cannot -- cannot look away. and we're nals a period when the american public is still allergic to direct intervention. in all of this list of conflicts you talked about has anyone raised in a serious way military intervention? the united states isn't even sending weaponry to the government of ukraine at this point. wen: talking about nonlethal aid. >> so a that point it's an old and sort of grim principle in diplomacy which is called ripeness that sometimes these things, the two sides in a con flict, gaza as an example has to exhaust each other and get to the point where neither side still thinks it has no ground to gain and i'm afraid we're in tha

>> the problem -- the problem in the middle east in both syria and egypt, and even this was true in libya, is that once the u.s. puts its fingerprints on something, no matter now little it does, it creates unintended consequences. it's not just the powell rule, colin powell's rule that if you break it you bought it and engage a little and you own the own thing, that's part tch but it can -- part of it but it can interrupt what's going on the ground. and a certain outcome, this is because the u.s. backed it. and then we're not only engaged, but our engagement has fired up all sorts of people who would have otherwise perhaps not have been so fired up. gwen: the argument, does it have to be about national security? the n.s.a. arguments, security versus privacy, does anybody feel the need to engage? >> i don't think necessarily. but the n.s.a. is a prime example of how the u.s. is viewed. abroad now. it wasn't all that long ago when we were talking about and writing stories about how the world is viewing this new administration as a bright light. we've seen how much people like us in some res

it was never part of the said no bootshey on the ground in libya but it couldn't sendey opravatives in libya so a trainingwill serve role and working with vetted groups, again, to try to change balance not only against the government but also change the rebellion.hin the they're concerned about the rise of islamist groups so they want to support, with the c.i.a. the lead, the groups that are considered more secular. first term there were deep divisions on the president's national security team over this issue that we now have some new people in new positions. of how ther sense obama team -- are they all unified on this at this point? there divisions? >> there are still pretty deep divisions and the white house is pretty much remained consistent. they're reluctant to do this. they're skeptical of the it and they're concerned about another -- getting deep into another war in the middle east. the state department has been the most hawkish. the're concerned about collapse of syria, they're concerned about what it could do throughout the middle east. are elements through the the state depar

we snatched another militant in libya some months ago and actually had a raid in the works to grab him at the same time and the first snatch was -- went public on twitter, which alerted him -- which caused us to call off the raid, number one, and which alerted him in general that there was higher danger. by the way, you mentioned that we're interrogating him prior to his miranda rights. for viewers who might not be clear, this is a new practice where, to kind of split the baby, so to speak. a team comes in and will interrogate a terror suspect before they've been read their rights to get essentially actionable intelligence. do you know about any plots in the works? anything we need to act on immediately? they do stretch the definition of imminence a little bit. but then a fresh team comes in, reads him his rights and starts to question him and that's what you can introduce him into court. so the initial interrogation is for intelligence purposes, not for legal purposes, maybe a happy compromise. >> do they rough him up during that first round? >> there's no roughing up now. the preside

were alive, for statee, with secretary of hillary clinton, in the debate in the situation room about libya and go into they won that debate and the president did go in. they have not won it so far, for example, in syria, and you heard the president in the susancement talk about rice as somebody who has a huge who arefor those suffering and a feeling that american power can be used to thatthem, but balancing with the recognition that the u.s. these days can't go everywhere. gwen: she won the pulitzer prize genocide.g about >> samantha power. gwen: i'm sorry, you were talking about rice. but there's a clear point of view here. there very much is. gwen: it is that point of view policy?ministration >> especially when you have a issident who has shown he very reluctant to intervene. if there was anything that really marked the first term of obama period, it was not only getting out of iraq and not surge intong the afghanistan maybe wasn't working and speeding the way out of that to the afghan good enough committee inside the white house but also his incredible reluctance over the past two years

they were searching by top aides and using anything with beng azzi in it -- benghazi in it or libya. >> to be complear -- clear, you're saying she searched for beng hawesy and saved those -- benghazi and saved those? right? >> r50eu79 >> this has really taken on legs though. why? is it specific to the clintons? does it have long-term impact? >> part of it is her family of course, so many scandals of the 1990's and 2000's. everyone's been wonder ha kind of presidential candidate will she be? she took eight days to respond to this at all and i think that created a problem and a vacuum. do voters care about this specifically? no, probably not. the people who didn't like her scr a fresh reason not to, the people who like her will probably come to her defense. but it put a window into the idea that transparency does not necessarily apply to them and how she was reacting, as a lawyer up there, presents a problem the >> and i'm curious jeff. i thought so many questions weren't answered then and after by the state department about, you know, who reviewed this? who decided this? what key word

i received a call from the prime minister of libya. it was the saddest phone call i've ever had in my life. he told me that ambassador stevens had passed away. michele: emotional testimony about the attacks in libya that killed four americans. fact finding, finger pointing or both? >> the administration, however, has not been cooperative. >> what we've seen over the past two weeks is a full-scale media campaign of unfounded accusations to smear public officials. >> getting to the bottom of the benghazi attacks. >> we all know that the current path in syria is simply unsustainable. michele: shuttle diplomacy for the secretary of state on the continuing crisis in syria. and how israel has become a central figure. on capitol hill, the senate tackles immigration reform. >> there are many who will want to kill this bill. i would ask my colleagues, if you don't agree with everything, no one does, be constructive. we are open to changes. >> i just want to say this. the house is going to work its will on immigration reform. michele: hurnddlses

who saw the attacks in libya coming? did the administration try to shift blame with laundered talking points? the president says it's all politics. thing defies loig. and the fact that this keeps on getting churned out frankly has a lot to do with political motivations. if anybody out there wants to actually focus on how we make sure something like this does not happen again, i am happy to get their advice and information and counsel. gwen: hundreds of emails about the controversy were released this week. what did we learn from those, john? >> well, ok. where to begin? from john's point which is that the i.r.s. scandal has no connection to the white house. this is the controversy of the three we were talking about that sits right in the white house. there are also other groups involved. the main charge here, there are many. and several. charges here. but the main political charge is that once this terrible attack happened, and there were four deaths, the republican charge about the administration is that they concocted a

isis is now expanding in libya and elsewhere in africa. all of this presents a dilemma for the obama administration which insists the week was a tactical setback. >> we have seen a lot of success. but we've also seen significant periods of setback. that's part of what a military conflict is going to be won. gwen: the president's critics pounced. >> this takeover ramadi serves the latest example of a president whose policies are rudderless in the middle east even as that region is riled with grotesque violence. gwen: how tough a spot is this? yochi: the reality is that by any measure isis is spreading in iraq, syria libya. u.s. integenerals believes that there have been isis commanders physically sent from syria to libya to take command of an isis branch there. and the list goes on and on and on. the president if he were to admit any of that, the question uld be why aren't you doing more? why aren't you willing to go back there and they're continuing to expand? this week his answer was no i done think he's losing and he went through a long