and the prospect of stalemate in libya. tell me again why anyone wants to be president? we'll ask that question tootonight on "washington week." a glimmer of good news for the economy. >> the unemployment rate has now fallen a full point in the last four months. the last time that happened was during the recovery in 1984, where we saw such a significant drop in the unemployment rate. gwen: but no sign of budget movement on capitol hill. >> april fools' america. this is joke, america. our constituents did not send us to washington to shut down the government. they sent us here to make it more accountable. it's time to pick a fight. gwen: while, on libya, the president and members of congress struggle to define the end game. >> in my view, the removal of colonel gadhafi will likely be achieved over time through political and economic measures and by his own people. >> the united states must remain strongly engaged to force gaddafi to leave power. nothing less is desirable or sustainable. gwen: no wonder the 2012 campaign is off to such an uncertain start. who's really runn

the big difference is in libya, colonel gaddafi had no friends. the rest of the world felt it could intervene. the french and british wanted to come in syria, harder to do that but let's watch this picture six months from now. after all else has failed, this may look an awful lot like libya and the administration having gotten a little bit pregnant having said we want al-assad to step down, they may have to make that choice. gwen: thank you, everyone. that's it for here for now but the conversation continues online and the "washington week" webcast extra where we'll try to make sense of president obama's buffett rule. before we go we want to send our condolences to fox news sunday's chris wallace on the loss of his father mike, a man who truly changed journalism. see you next week on "washington week." good night. >> funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> one line helps communities turn plans into reality. helps shippers forge a path to prosperity. helps workers get back to work. one line is an engine for the economy and the future. no

gwen: will an open-ended war in libya and with gaddafi still in control? >> colonel gaddafi, the troops continue their vicious attacks including the siege of misrata. gwen: and will republicans come up with a nominee who can beat the incumbent? we explore these questions tonight with david wessel of "the wall street journal," coral davenport of "national journal." martha raddatz of abc news. and dan balz of "the washington post." >> award-winning reporting and analysis. covering history as it happens. from our nation's capital, this is "washington week with gwen ifill." produced in association with "national journal." corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. >> to connect our forces to what they need, when they need it. >> to help troops see danger before it sees them. >> to answer the call of the brave and bring them safely home. >> around the globe, the people of boeing are working together to support and protect all who serve. >> that's why we're here. >> corporate funding is also provided by prudential financ

you see it in yemen and so some extent in libya with the shadow wars going on there. certainly in pakistan. it is a move away from the bush administration where you saw large combat farces -- forces, big, messy battles. i think the obama administration has tried to bile -- dial it back and to see what can be done, you know, nor the shadows. gwen: and as we saw in syria today, more diplomatic prer be. thank you, mark. gwen: as the u.s. role in the world shifts from overt militarily to discreet diplomatically to covert, relying more and more on intelligence, one has only to look to the detention center at guantanamo to gauge the fallout. new documents released this week to npr and other news organizations showed how complicated it has become to take, hold, and classify detainees, or as they used to be called, prisoners of war. there is no longer anything conventional about any of this, is there, tom? >> that's right, gwen. these guantanamo detainees are prisoners of the war on terror, which is a very unconventional war, you're absolutely right. these guys constitute to

officials continue to believe he is in libya. right now the best guess is that he's either somewhere in tripoli or in cert, his hometown, one of the remaining gaddafi strongholds. he's an important part of this. even if the rebels are able to take control. as long as he's out, he remains a rallying point for those forces who continue to fight in parts of the country. remember, the rebels still don't have full control of the country, and there are key areas where the fighting continues. as long as he's able to go out and make ominous messages, sends out ominous messages to his supporters, he remains a threat to this very fragile period in libya. gwen: to, doyle, the u.s. policymakers are watching this and they don't know whether to celebrate or pull back. war they thinking? >> well, they've had to react, as you said, very carefully for all of the reasons that nancy mentioned. the only sort of high-profile statement was the one you showed of president obama back on monday at martha's vineyard, seven minutes in front of a camera. th

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

here is what ambassador rice said on several sunday morning tv shows about benghazi, the attack in libya that ended up costing the lives of four americans. but by the time that whole thing played out, it was pretty clear that she was reading talking points that were put together by the intelligence community. she had very little, if nothing to do with embassy security itself. she happened to be on those shows themselves because secretary clinton had just come back from a trip and said she was too tired to go on them. there was more under way here though. part of it was a little bit of her style, which was very confrontational one and that probably didn't serve her all that well when she went up to capitol hill a few weeks ago and tried to talk this out between senator john mccain, lindsey graham, others who had opposed her. little bit of it was the white house i think after president obama came out very strongly in her support. she was afterall one of the first people to sign on to his foreign policy team when he was a pretyim probable candidate. after that, the white house did not come

a week before he was against intervening in libya. gwen: the president poked back at mitt romney by saying, ask bin laden whether i've been too easy or not. and to take an issue that should be core to most americans, afghanistan. how long are we going to be in afghanistan? what's the strategy going to be? mitt romney has answers, newt has some answers but you haven't seen a fully rounded debate on that. >> you just got back from afghanistan. are they having that kind of rounded debate on the ground? >> the military is having that kind of rounded debate because president obama has given them a set of deadlines and set of numbers. they're at 94,000 troops now. they're going to be at 68,000 troops in september of 2012 in the middle of the election campaign. they'll be at a smaller number after that so they have to adjust. there is a robust debate on exactly what strategy you use and what number you get to. gwen: do we hear that debate happening here at state department or the white house or are they completely consumed with domestic re-e

there was a bigger picture and a bigger december lesson that we can draw, which is the fighting in libya that produced the attack on the american consulate is part of the very long aftermath of what we used to call the arab spring. john kerry said we shouldn't call it that. it's going to take longer than one spring. and the people who did it were not members of the old al-qaeda. they were an off-shoot. they were inspired by al-qaeda. osama isn't there anymore. and that it's -- and the old al-qaeda probably doesn't have the capability to do 9/11 anymore but the problem of extremism is still out there and we have a very long way to go. >> i was going to ask about one topic you didn't touch on -- iran. looking back on what the president has had. have you seen any change on that approach? has he gone from containment of let them have the bomb but we'll manage it to a more con frontational issue? >> we're told that, in fact, over time, the president went through a long period of laying all of the pieces on this thing and they studied and studied. there were two schools of thought. could you c

>> if chemical weapons are used, i think it looks a lot like the air strikes in libya. you have to destroy some of those major stockpiles of chemical weapons. if they start to lose control and there are fores that hezbollah might get ahold of them, you might see some special forces on the ground. the idea of chemical weapons, especially for close allies like israel getting into the hands of hezbollah is really frightening to them and us. short of military action, we're going to recognize the opposition next week, hillary clinton is we are sending patriot missiles, batteries for turkey for the border there. there's a lot going on behind the scenes just short of intervening. there was talk about armying the rebels. they've -- arming the rebels. they've overrun so many bases apparently they have enough weapons now to sort of turn the timed. >> isn't this the same thing we had in libya? you go in on the side of the rebels, but you don't know their own power structure. >> right, and we've held them in arm's way because we didn't feel comfortable. we didn't have enough confid

libya did and look what happened there. robert: and the democrats were pretty alarmed. senate minorities leader chucrg schumer them to hold an intervention for the president. he wte "youannot allow the president's ill-advised and unwarranted excellent to stand." speaker pelosi responded this way. >> the president just doesn't ve seem to he attention span or the desire to hear what the intelligence community has been telling him robert: bob was talking about how north korea ses its own deterrent with its own nucleart arsenal what about the rest of the world talking about the u.s.'s role in it? >> for instance in moscow, youa vladimir putin basically playing to president trump's own dust distrust of his agencies. this is bit on the fact of two years or more of a sophistication between president trump and these organizations, which started business -- his presidency by telling him it s not valid. that's the way they see it. he didn't trust the ones who came from them now, the obama appoint eyes and doesn't trust the ones now, even though they were appointed by him. his vie

gwen: they're cracking down. >> that's their response which may very well looks like -- gwen: libya, too. >> where are we in egypt right now? having just got back, what is the state of play and where does it go from there? >> a long way to go. the work is just beginning. you have more demonstrations now. those are strikes. it's a lot hard to answer those demands. they're talking about wages. they're talking about real issues. that's one reason why when i spoke to egyptian opposition leaders about whether they trusted the military to hand over power in a timely fashion, one reason they believe them is the military doesn't want to have to deal with postal workers' wages. they want to get back. they have done their job and kept the peace. so you have bread and butter issues. you have the real issues of changing, creating a whole new political system. they have to write a new constitution. gwen: there is a crackdown in bahrain, but we also have a lot of military, military there. there is a different impulse for our involvement there even though there seems to be something much more bruta

could this be something like libya? gwen: it does begin to sound familiar like we've been here before. >> it does. there was a similar meeting a year ago about plib -- libya. without the united nations vote i think it becomes dufment what we're seeing is the consideration of arming the rebels as one effort to get in but in terms of military intervention those also are bad options. the naval blockade would be off because russia has a port in syria. an air strike would be difficult because how do you strike a sovereign nation without that mandate. militarily, the lack of a u.n. vote sort of limits the united states having to intervene fully. could the united states be dragged in in terms of humanitarian and weapons support and find itself supporting groups it doesn't know about because of the international pressure? sure, and that presents its own complexity. gwen: another hot spot that presents difficulties for the united states is in afghanistan where this week's violent outbreak of protests came in apparent retaliation

plan a, is to live and died in libya. plan b is to live and die in libya. plan c is to live and die in libya. gwen: the state department suspended operations in tripoli today and the white house announced new sanctions against the libyan government. >> it's clear that colonel gaddafi has lost the confidence of his people. he is overseing the brutal treatment of his people, the -- the fatal violence against his own people and his legit massy has -- legit massy has been reduced to zero. gwen: ben reduced to zero. that's fairly strong language coming from an administration which has been sixes and sixes and sevens over the last upheavals in the last couple of weeks. >> but if you look at all these upheaval, libya is so terrifying because muammar qaddafi is firing on his people with heavy weapon. this is opening fire with huge military weapons, sending fighter jets up, sending helicopter jets up. and the reports out of there -- we don't really faux what's going on in libya. we especially don't know what's going on in tripoli. but the reports you are getting fro

when it comes to some of the other countries on that list, sudan, libya, others, it's not as troublesome. the refugee ban -- even our european partners have had a long time. that's a different duration. that's a four-month hold versus the three month on the seven countries. that not just from a humanitarian point of view is on that list. we really don't know what went into crafting this other than the folks with their fingerprints on it. susan: and pete, the president also learned this week that there are limits on executive power. this is being challenged in the courts. the immigration ban is being immediately challenged in the courts. what's the latest there? pete: there are at least 10 lawsuits now. there will be more next week. every civil rights lawyer in america is currently at the word processor trying to figure out a better way to attack this today a judge in boston said i'm not going to butt on a temporary restraining order but other judges said this is killing our economy, very bad for our states. ask the judge to put a hold on the executive ordinationwide and the judge said ye

gwen: that cost, for american troops and taxpayers, is playing out in libya and iraq and afghanistan. and polls show americans are losing patience. but is there any end in sight james? >> there's end in sight from secretary gates which is why he went out with guns blazing about nato's burden sharing imbalance but what we've learned, a conversation next month about the pace of troop withdrawals, secretary gates said basically they'll be modest. there was also a general in charge of standing up the afghan forces who is supposed to take the lead throughout the country by 2014. they think they're on a path to do that, but he's also admitting that they're still going to need until 2016, 2017, out into the future, a lot of training, continued support, logistics, intelligence, all the enablers that take a lot longer to build than a combat unit. gwen: so there's the problem he was speaking of today, which is, who's got our back in nato? and those who are able to don't. and the other question is, whether there's anything realistic about the promise made to the american people that we'll really

. >> likely so on egypt this week and libya. remember, libya is a sore point for the russians. >> peter, you mentioned russians have been helpful in getting supplies into afghanistan. that's all the more important now because pakistan is now allowing supplies to come in. is that -- does that explain this kind of weird disdense between the pentagon and state department this week in talking about whether russia was supplying helicopters or not? gwen: weird dissidents is a kind way of putting it. >> very kind. secretary clinton saying putin supplying attack helicopters to assad sounds tough, raises the pressure of the pentagon. well, yeah, there are three helicopters that have been sent back to russia for refurbishment and russia returned them under contract. gwen: why? >> she's trying to raise the pressure on them and there's a weird disdinse here and there's irony the biggest success of the reset is also the biggest problem. now we need them. we need russian air corps we put in place to supply our war against the tall began and a

involvement in libya, u.s. leadership of nato, and the military budget. >> here i would leave you with a word of caution. we must not repeat the mistakes of the past. where budget targets were met mostly by taking a percentage off of the top of everything. gwen: so what is the imprint, the impression that gates is trying to leave? >> what he's saying is even though there's a lot of talk about bunlt pressures and the -- budget pressures and the need to make cuts and even though osama bin laden is dead and drawing down in afghanistan, he's saying don't attack the defense budget. don't look at it as a place where you can make easy cuts and look for quick ways to cut the defense budget. so he -- he's cautioning against what's happened in the past. if you look at the defense budget in real dollars, it's generally looked like an e.k.g. line where it goes violently up during war and then drops precipitously afterward. and yet since 9-11, it's been steadily rising and we're now at record levels, defense spending. and d

was not in the oval office oowhere to be seen and it is, i'm told, precisely because he spoke of the libya model, which almost derailed this whole thing. so did mike pence and he was not in the room. pompeo has street yesterd with the president because he was the cis briefer befor h became the secretary of state. is e is a hard liner but he also very invested in this and i think he's correctly taken stock of the president's interests in legacy. he's going to do somethang no other president has been able to do and if they can verify it and if he now has a lowered expectation that it's going to take a whe. st not going to be one summit or three. he might stay longer in singapore. he might be able to do something that barack obama never acleaved oreallyttempted. that george w. bush fried ask failedan athat bill clinton, most importantly tried to achieve but didn't. robert: a what are the signals, know, that kim kim is send something he's sending his top guy to talk to the president. what has he donean to sho kind of commitment to these talks? shawna h sending top guy is one way. the fact it s

for more on libya, politics and the debt ceiling dance, oh, yes, you thought we forgot about that. for daily developments on these sthorse and more all week, tune in to the pbs newshour on air and "washington week" online. you can find us all at pbs.org. hope you have a lovely summer weerkend. -- summer weekend. good night. every thursday get a previe of our topics and panel with our "washington week" email alert. available at washingtonweekonline@pbs.org. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- "washington week" was produced by weta which is solely responsible for its content. funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. >> to connect our forces to what they need when they need it. >> to help troops see danger. before it sees them. >> to answer the call of the brave and bring them safely home. >> around the globe, the people of boeing are working together. to support and protect all who serve. >> that's why we're here. >> corporate funding is also provided by prudential financial. additional funding for "washington week" is p

when there's just a global good, when he's worried about libya or syria or something, he is much more reticent, and says to the countries who have a direct interest, your direct interest is greater than mine, we're not going to be the policemen of the world. >> is that a barack obama we didn't meet in the last election cycle or has he evolved as a president into who he is today, the way he is leading now? >> that's a great question. and requires crawling more into the president's head than i'm certainly capable of doing. but i certainly do believe he evolved because as he faced the decisions in afghanistan and that first year when he had to go do the search, i tell the story of how he does the surge but basically feels cornered by his generals and regrets putting in that surge almost as soon as he does it and then pulls out very quickly. i think he realized, that was the big commitment of troops he could do. he needed an alternative. gwen: the attorney general has decided to investigate the source of the leaks that he says led to some of the things in your book. what's your reaction t

in libya, where muammar qaddafi clings to power. in wisconsin where a collective bargaining confrontation finally comes to a head. everything lands on the president's plate. >> we can't keep on running the government based on two-week extensions. that's irresponsible. gwen: plus, we remember the wisdom of david broder. >> if you're willing to try to lead that government or achieve the leadership position in that government, you have to try to build some trust for yourself. gwen: covering the week, san balls and karen tumulty of "the washington post," and doyle mcmahon us in of "the l.a. times." >> live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill. produced in association with "national journal." corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. to connect our forces to what they need when they need it. >> to help treat sea danger before it sees them. >> to answer the call of the brave and bring them safely home. >> around the globe, the people of boeing or working together t

libya, europe could be in debt situation and now this. i think this generalized anxiety could be a real problem for the world economy. it could exceed some shortage of this or that plan. >> i've got a question for both of you. do we know yet how bad the disaster will be and how bad the economic consequences of those disasters scenarios are? i was wondering, for example, if there is a worst case scenario in the area around the nuclear power plant becomes uninhabitable, how important is that and what would that do to the japanese economy and what's the chances of that happening? >> officials are very reluctant certainly to say how exactly this might unfold. clearly, we're seeing soldiers and the japanese working -- the workers working as hard as they can on the ground to prevent the absolute worst case scenario. the worst case scenario probably wouldn't be as bad as a chernobyl in part because this plant is constructed much better. the damage isn't as bad. but it does seem that we could certainly -- we could see a large number of deaths and

. >> 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