actions that last sentence really let out at me your response to that is what. you think very tough act to follow. when we stumbled on the saudi arms. deal we really started to stumble on a central feature of british politics over the last 30 years highness prince found time has been at the heart of many of the great will depend of the past 30 years i was always pleased to see him when i was prime minister because he brought me and sure my insight and bold proposal was. she informed us she considers saudi arabia as a strong friend and would be willing to support taking them with whatever the

kingdom needs and of discussion from there on everything else was taken to get he explained to mr thatcher that this was a deal with saudi arabia and therefore things were done differently. they wanted $43000000000.00 worth of weaponry that was $6000000000.00 pounds in commission. the false majority of most people understand this bribes. we'll continue to work together against the terrorists who threaten the way of life pacifist. one day i started crying and it was a man to be coming to my actually he said i've been working for a travel company and we had a kind of slush fund we used to distribute to saudis and other arabs when they came to britain for be all to help the path of alms deals.

i did tell the sexual trysts or is that when the saudi military officers would come along he would present them with canteens of cut 3 that was something that they light and other thing they liked was girls so he would take about the town and get them girls. to be honest it seemed like quite small beer payments made some of them from rather on as nomic activities and chips to be talked about cooldowns that sort of thing there's only 2 things that count in business my friend money and sex the rest you can write as much as you like is absolute garbage you can measure weapon beautiful the president's secretary. because the more describe the look you the secretary the you want to have your talking about. and that is sometimes old as you need.

to use an escort agency cold war kids because of the specialties of the chief of staff of the army life long but so because. you think. we had their secretary of the embassy come and review the photos she said i want to swim with this when i win this one i win this one i had the girls i ride one day before and i said girls i know you will be paid handsomely for this but do me a favor if you get any people thought that is relevant please bring your cross because i could use it and for its interesting information i will get another 2000 euro bonus so with 60 grand i signed the contract with 3000000 so it wasn't bad deal. m m i phone rang again. it was another whistle and he said you have no idea what it is that you're getting into here. and he said this slush fund is much much bigger than you realize our job was to look after the really high level people those who used to come to england who were being bribed essentially by

be a people of the level of the head of the saudi air force who was a royal prince. we would fly the 2 of us angelica and they would buy cars and dresses and it wasn't shopping like you would i would think in the end when they gather together all the shopping we would charter an entire jumbo jet to fly it all back to saudi arabia it was in the attempt to try and trace through the bank accounts who the ultimate beneficiary saw that the case became really very serious as the trail appeared to lead towards senior members of society royal family. the most outrageous example was that maybe 80 i don't order to go the way with prince bandar at one point i made him a present of a huge commercial airliner all of his various which he promptly have painted in the gray and silver colors of the dallas cowboys and various favorites a very good team i used to fly around in that quite cheerfully.

the case centered on establishing the ultimate beneficiary of exceptionally large amounts of money paid by the sharing space for consultancy services and health where there's evidence that mark fashion of this is that your son got 12000000 in cash for his work as a fixer. this is part of the don't. go this route don't worry it's a really beautiful weapon it's also made if you want to sell on the market and you're looking probably about 3500 euros and why do you keep it in the house because it was all her. and you can do that legally. you know but

no more words you care as long as it's in the house. and the social because of the neighbor. i've got nothing as money i don't mind paying bribes to politicians it's part of the deal the thing about politicians is that they're very much like prostitutes but only more expensive. polities is it day that by the whims of the arms industry politicians are nothing more than sales reps by their friends that have as much power as a middle ranking executive and want to martin ident of the day they do with the tolls. when an executive goes to bribe a foreign official he says to himself look i've taken a lot of risk to take this $5000000.00 that i'm paying to the prime minister of x.y.z. who makes an arrangement with prime minister of x.y.z. . i'll hand over the 5000000 could you take half of that 5000000 and you send it to

the following bank account in churchill and we'll share in the floor. the 1st time an executive does that and he collects $2500000.00 he says wow this is a good business to be and within moments of that realisation he is no no longer in the business of selling airplanes he's in the business of selling bribes and he is now scouring the world for somebody to find to bribe. its. head to feel. they can. chew through it. i. had to. see what it's from. these out examples. i play.

each child. each careful city. formed by. more. needs. with. a megaphone running again. this was somebody who said you have no idea what you're getting into he said this whole be a thing is much much bigger it goes right to the very top what he had was something that you never see as a journalist swiss bank records of international cover payments going all over the world he showed me how be a set of a whole system with lloyds bank under which they channeled secret payments into a british virgin islands offshore company called red diamond from red diamond the money went into this guy swiss bank account and he then used it to distribute to the local politicians taking

a big chunk of himself of course we know i can assure you we don't we and i believe most companies all to the business of labor's policy as you suggest a lot of sums up what they do employees of government it is just the way the business is done. we were actually able to publish what was the most dangerous story the prince bandar had been given not just the plane but over the years a total of 1000000000 pounds we did not invent. corruption i mean i doubt many would have been and they had hanky panky and they had to go down to ed so i mean this is this is what made sure i salute you prince of state run and a friend. how do you agree. of course none of us are greedy it's only the other fellow whose grief. this the world runs on individuals pursuing their self-interest. all those people who believe that greed violence etc these

primal so-called primal instincts other religions things and everything else is a social construction they've lost their mind and for the last 50 years at least policy has been made based on the assumption of greed and it's ruined the world. patch writes believe there is no nature of society so you have to nurture individual is i don't accept that at all i think there are very many good public policy initiatives for creating societies. and the beirut there saying hello to you . is a comment isn't a k 47 kalashnikov. a society that decides that the bulk of its budget is going to go to arms manufacturing building of a military eccentric the have made a moral decision that militarism is more important then the creation of wellbeing

for the population. this is not the world i want to live in i want to live in the real world and the real world is peopled by real emotions including love and generosity. my god if you want is freedom the freedom of human beings of individuals to pursue their own say is i think what they term freedom means is economic license and economic license and those who control property and those who control capital has in fact been a threat not only to equality but a threat to the freedom of peoples all over the world and not only in europe and in the united states but nafta in asia and in latin america i want you to name me any society in which you have any large measure of that freedom where capitalism and free enterprise has not been the predominant mechanism of the free enterprise system has spread through the force of arms and those on through wielded by governments that was government intervention under the name of the free enterprise

system but a government intervention which destroyed the freedoms of many people not least of which are the people of chile. from the 1950 s. all the way through the 1970 s. the cia and the u.s. military were engaged in covert actions throughout central mad america throughout africa really throughout the world where they were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up right wing military juntas funding and arming death squads like the contras in nicaragua or battalion $316.00 and under us and i and there were these spate of assassinations across the globe. in countries like mine people have been killed to be quiet to know that any day any time you're going to

be killed you don't know how but it's coming. we were fighting in the league and still we are fighting you know body guards minds that don't want to work going inclusiveness they just pick. action is not only about taking from india but taking from the people. even to dreams take on the next. the last half of what is called the cold war i don't know it to be a very hard war for many parts of the world. from the standpoint of want it by them and cause the victims or what i would think of really as of people trying to make their own futures. there was an attempt in the global south to create an alternative imagination for people. but in the early 1970 s. this attempt was destroyed and it was stopped through

a real genuine attempt by the global lot to take over the institutions of the world including the world bank the i.m.f. . souls not simply that the bible of the south was incapable of carrying forward their dreams. it was a very strong with their dreams were assassinated. it's not just the one off killings the corrie other cool there. it's the entire dream that had to be killed. to be sure to do this and to me a book on our own are encouraging for myself. to live by a similar and man merely or the sure loser will be because i'm the

only indian. look see your suit was he not one dust got a person on you most have a me by his. when i said kind of guy is here. the whole you know men team you julio to what are the salmon. you know be your command. isn't fit you have them and eat. each other then go to micio.

the joint hearings of the house select committee to investigate covert arms transaction with iran. and the select committee on secret military assistance to iran in the nicaraguan opposition will come to order. for americans are struggling to pay their rent the problem isn't just limited to they just that he's. a former governor of the indian social bank has cost jobs for the country good stuff. we bring you the stories to the shaping the economic world we live in. counting the cost on al-jazeera. the latest news as it breaks local communities here employee are very frustrated because the lack of host for services with detailed coverage this hour while the

fag local fox and it is struggling to make ransom notes and just want a better life from around the world and agnes she has been offered it to those who rebelled against the government of any except those involved in human rights abuses a war crime. more than 10 years after the global financial crisis you've taken home more than 480000000 dollars your company is now bankrupt our economy is in the state of crisis i have a very basic question is this where millions lost their homes in the u.s. alone who's held responsible i will be fabulously wealthy and i will pay in christ for thank the lord the man who stole the world on al-jazeera. until now the coverage of latin america most of the world was a cloud cover included todd's tragedies quakes and that was it but not for how

people feel how they look how they think and that's what we do we go anyway 5 and a half months of demanding a good education system that was introduced. in latin america up to 0 has come to fill a void that needed to be spilled. imo i maryam namazie in london the headlines this hour a u.s. military drone has been shot down by iran's revolutionary guard president trunk called it a very big mistake the pentagon released this video showing the moment it was downed the 2 countries are disputing exactly where it happened with the u.s. saying is an international airspace and iran saying it was its territory.

iranian t.v. channel press t.v. is bold calls a video from the revolutionary guard showing the missile which shot it down to one says the drone took off from the u.a.e. in stealth mode it was targeted with it when it violated its airspace our white house correspondent kimberly hulk it has more. it appears the white house is conducting a briefing with top congressional leaders to include the members of the house armed services committee and this of many are viewing is a very ominous sign now having said all of this expect that the president could get some pit pushback particularly from now to pull o.c. the house speaker of the top democrat in the house of representatives who has said earlier that she doesn't believe the president wants to go to war also saying that the u.s. response needs to be strategic but that is not what a top republican in the u.s. senate is saying senator lindsey graham seemed to go much further than the president suggesting that some potential conflict or u.s.

response cannot be ruled out meanwhile saudi arabia says it shot down a drone launched by yemen's who's the rebels who said they were targeting airports in the south of the kingdom riyadh has confirmed that its defenses intercepted the drone strike it comes a day off to who see rocket hit desalination plant also and. meanwhile judges in britain have ruled that the government croaks them by allowing weapons sales to saudi arabia activists and argued there was a clear risk that weapons fired in the war in yemen violated human rights. it comes as the u.s. senate has voted to block the sale of billions of dollars worth of weapons to saudi arabia and other arab allies backers of the resolution said they wanted to send a bipartisan message to riyadh that washington is not happy about human rights abuses. continues that is the program now but i'll have.

the news hour at 2100 g.m.t. . i'll see then.

the joint hearings of the house committee to investigate covert arms transaction with iran. and the select committee on secret military assistance to iran in the nicaraguan opposition will come to order congress began to address what they perceive to be an insanely out of control series of covert actions with little to no congressional oversight we have been supplying lethal weapons to terrorist nation involving the us government in military activities in direct contravention of the law and lying to the congress now i believe that democracy cannot survive that kind of abuse. and people like dick cheney and donald rumsfeld who are relatively new to

government at the time did not like when congress said we need to step in and confront the national security state and what's become a very out of control kill program cheney then went on during the reagan years in the eighty's to serve in congress and when the iran contra scandal broke out into the open. cheney did not like congress being involved with anything that the executive branch was doing. and you had to see other scandal that emanated from the highest echelons of power and the reagan administration was acting as though it had nothing to do with it i've told you all that i know and you know the truth of the matter is for quite some long time all that you knew was when i told you. to let me. are witnesses morning is mr robert mcfarlane the former national security adviser to the president. mr mcfarlane will you welcome you to the committee and we look forward to your

testimony. mr mcfarlane. did you have any discussion about the possibility. of in effect farming out the whole contra support operations in nicaragua to another country which will call country run yes that's correct and did you in fact succeed in obtaining money from another country. which will call country toe. that's correct. i had the practice meeting periodic lee who was the official from country to about assistance we could provide some cases arms sales. and he intended to provide a contribution of a $1000000.00 per months to the contras through the end of the year. you have no

problems working with the cia we have no problem working with the united states government and unless the cia does not work for the government then i think we have a bigger problem there are many cases or some americans are question that you know well thank heavens those occasion was not in connection with saudi arabia. i think that there was a substantial shadow government trying to run fine if they actually managed a. these events have been characterized by some pretty strong statements we've heard talk of a grave constitutional crisis and even been treated to talk about a coup in the white house not only does cheney sort of defend iran contra but he argues that iran contra is actually a model for how the u.s. should be conducting its national security policy he is

a radical subscriber to this notion of the unitary executive effectively what you're doing is saying on certain parts of american policy we don't have a democracy we have a dictatorship as a matter of fact i was. very definitely involved in the decisions about support to the freedom fighters my idea to begin with. in my opinion there is no justification for further restrictions on the power and flexibility a future president. of the national security lead today is mostly composed of people who hit the revolving door multiple times during their lot and nomination of richard b. cheney to be secretary of the friends is going to. make a name for themselves in the private industry and then they come into the get. this revolving door keeps the national security really very small and very wealthy. and increasing its wealth as it goes up the journey to the extent that then when you

get to the top as cheney did then you can become a member of the plutocracy that runs the country to this is an impressive crowd the haves. and the have more than any commissioned a study by halliburton to find out how much more of the defense department could be privatized. to serve our troops' palaver and was he laid to get this $1000000.00 contract and of course returned a verdict that oh mr secretary lots more of it can be privatized. dick cheney leaves the defense department and goes and heads halliburton himself and he spends the entire 1990 s. building up the war empire well if we're going to talk about star wars we might as well invite darth vader i. am.

happy to accept. when he comes back into power as vice president and then they start hiring halliburton to you know in advance even if u.s. troops going into iraq how a burden personnel and equipment was being deployed to the gulf it's hard to look at this and not say these guys had a very long term plan for how they were going to increase the powerful infrastructure of private companies. what we've essentially done is to create a network of corporations that have the fire power of small nation states that could you know overthrow some small governments around the world. in essence we in the united states have privatized the ultimate public function war. when you know right now you know bombs of the time with the like food. you know

munitions it's got. so bad that it's. just. you can see. in iraq the f. 16 s and f. 18 s we're firing 6000000 dollars within seconds coming back really army and going up again. there's no hope of any more because there's always a small cobble of people for more of the really really good business. it doesn't matter that we're losing the war in afghanistan albertan could care less it's good

for them good for profit. margins you know the mentally ill. they don't want this have always been to the but . bad law how i spoke out about it for you again did not and i don't know your last year alone. it is the bit. where we've undergone a corporate coup d'etat in slow motion. 35000 lobbyists in washington

they write the legislation they write the bills. all it takes is one phone call from somebody on the hill to someone in the pentagon saying hey turn on the dogs the hills out to get our program the guys in the senate are on board we need you to turn on the gucci shoes guys to straighten this thing out the guy's been the lobbyist. and what this does is just lock the system up and that's the whole name of the game it's it's called political engineering and i'm like political science political engineering is real. one of the most important things dunder stand is essentially creates what we call a self like an ice cream cone. and it's like a perpetual motion machine for getting ever increasing defense budgets the way we do it is by downplaying the future consequences to start a new weapon we over promised as performance under promise it's cost we then systematically spread dollars jobs and profits to as many congressional districts

as quickly as possible so that everybody has skin in the game. the people who are invested in this day or people like the largest defense contractor in the world lucky more than they will die before they see it. what's. going to change the world. we're probably already working. what did martin basically just similar to your last 2 posts. the goals you know in all branches of the government. of the whole. and this is the group that make them if you look like a bunch of schoolboys. fiscal year 19092.3 trillion missing fiscal year 2001 point one trillion missing the pentagon has claimed year after year that the reason it can't account for the money is because its computers don't communicate with each other one trillion $1.00 bills stacked high would reach

nearly 68000 miles into space one 3rd of the way to the moon. i got a phone call from the f.b.i. saying that i was a target of a death threat. and that's what happens when you go against the big boys who has the contracts today to make those systems communicate with each other and how much have the taxpayers paid for them there are times that corporations do things they should not do in which case they tend to be suspended for some period there are times then that corporations can get out of the penalty box it is you know any was never in the penalty box if you could proceed to my 2nd question please the 2nd question. i forgot what the 2nd question was.

individuals operating in the shadows and never having their names called are able to leverage the power of the military and the foreign policy apparatus for their own personal pick uni ery in. what's now who's the enemy how do we justify. what better our new other me. or.

invented them out of salerno mutinies us our unity back home by the i don't assist those for me. that i have on but i don't know but he deck years he married a man to be dorian out of the many guys who were no further than you or that the analysis. which you see mean this is tony then says and similarly i'm going to see mean you know better you don't know either our foot on the left. but i want to maintain any doubt. yes it will be very dark even they let our money our end to that extent i am in a fabulous fandom others do share my see what i want us in a service and i live in assist those for me.

is a see in move from the mental demand your room on a c.c. your. get to the we and i nak tendency on the get a 2nd bit earlier that. i think of the most basic level when we realize how we've entered into. a permanent state of war like what often proponents of. counter terrorism on a global scale think of as a long war but a war without end something like that. and i think that what we've accepted is a political regime that is stained by fear is a very old very old political tactic i mean machiavelli asin the prince is

it better for the prince to be feared or loved and his conclusion is because the locus of fear the the source of fear resides in him in the prince it can be constant for his rule whereas the locus of love resides in the people it's in their power and so for them could be constant long lasting i mean so much already opens a question that he probably doesn't provide us the answer with what would it mean to have our social arrangement like the basis of our social choices. be founded on love. i don't think one has to justify the cost and nature of the national security state one just has to keep the people fearful of najaf to support it but what i want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between iraq and the 0 kind of terrorist network. every word in that speech was gone over by the director of central intelligence and his deputy

director after so it was nothing that i made up it was nothing that i stuck in there and in fact some people tried to stick extra things in there that the intelligence community wouldn't verify with multi-sourcing and i said no powell grabbed me physically which was unlike him and drug me into a space at the cia at langley and said throw all the material in my presentation about terrorism out cut it out out this amount this is just within an hour george tenet the director of central intelligence made a spectacular bombshell presentation we have just learned from a high level al qaida operative under interrogation about significant contacts between baghdad smoove our ot and al qaeda. this was devastating. here's the director of central intelligence telling the secretary of

state that he has interrogated evidence well the secretary turned to me and said put it back in. al qaeda continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction as with the story as the kawi in his network i can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how iraq provided training in these weapons to al qaeda later i learned that that was shake out libby that had to happen just instantly happened it happened months before they'd been water boarded in egypt 20 did this no u.s. personnel were present and he had recanted within a couple of weeks and we never were told about that every statement i make today is backed up by sources solid sources these are not assertions we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence we were indisputable we were lied to. and this our american and coalition forces are in the early stages of

military operations to disarm iraq to free and some people and to defend the world from grave danger as karl rove famously said to this reporter you know you guys are reality based communities we make reality by the time you figured out you know what's wrong with our reality we've moved on the creation of another reality did you sell or cause to come into the possession of saddam hussein weapons of mass destruction did the united states sell to him absolutely not. iran iraq was on such a scale and i was on the iranian side and i went down to the battlefield i was actually given a gasket and so let me take the train back right away up to town and the carriages with crimes with iranian soldiers would be gassed some would just cuff aggression and one man who was reading. it was so he put a handkerchief where to blow his lips. gradually to cargo's became permeated with

this sort of 36 mile and i realized it was the smell of the gas they were coughing up from the lungs i was going round the car has opened the windows on the night air is trying to clean the train out of the smell of obviously chemical warfare. after 2003 i was being attacked on radio shows especially from america you know complaining about the american invasion or you proceed and i said excuse me i was on the train of iranians gassed by the iraqis and the chemical components came from the united states at the very time that you all rumsfeld was meeting saddam you were meeting with saddam hussein i think we have some video of that. of that meeting tell me what was going on during this is what did you get this video from the iraqi television is on the iraqi television when did they give it to you recently are we back then we dug this out of the c.n.n. library i see. isn't that interesting. there i am.

all more on terra. begins with al qaida. but it does not in. this very phrase war on terror is irrational it's like saying. a war on war. when the serious fraud office launched its investigation into the crimes that we were covering it turned out that many of these arms deals have been forced through by tony blair personally piece of dirty case you don't sell. and once you start a war. you open a kind of pandora's box you don't control it it controls you. was

being set up my goodness it was. my children. today there are good terrorists and bad the bad terrorists those in yemen who the united states deems to be a threat the good terrorists those who are in syria the joint here is we've been there before. i mean if you consider the of the honest on story they have learned nothing. today if i say that the saudis are giving money to groups that are insane here that are not only a muslim one also the. people who say you are

a conspiracy theorist. americans already put $1000000000.00 each to give them training equipment we are the was so clear to all those people to go we had. peace that's what we want freedom and peace but no doubt. the doctrine that has endured from bush to obama is that the world is a battlefield and that the united states has the right to go into any country around the world to conduct what they call kinetic operations lethal operations regardless of what international law says if you're a small state like we were for 150 years in in essence these of these spain france england even russia you've got to be exquisitely good at diplomacy you got to be able to talk yourself out of lots of things and make deals and compromises and so

forth but if you're the world's head human you don't deal with anybody you smack him you your military and you smack him. well off the coldest night in least 8 years of frost in every state you won't be surprised to hear that it is cold everywhere despite the sunshine we are after all at mid winter temperature wise by day it's not that surprising for adelaide

melbourne the top 40 no need to hobart but let your eyes follow it through sydney to brisbane to townsville we're talking about only used about 20 here way below average by 5 or 6 degrees in places whereas perth is enjoying a bit of sometimes cloudy or less i think on saturday 20 all the same time tills got colder as has sit in the despite the fact is rather rather more sunny in city it was the case on friday and the rain is gone offshore circuit in the tasman sea and this existing circulation is drawing a dive from the north not tends to be relatively mild even in midwinter go 14 or 15 in the 2 cities we shown you here there's rather more cloud around the west coast lichens are right in the far south on the i think but not much around and not much on saturday either it is rather more of a story directly northwards along wind or has admitted a bit mid summer and i'm sees an increase in the amount of crowds particularly on friday by saturday that brings running with it including in tokyo.

sri lanka's easter sunday bombings reverberated around the world with religious and ethnic tension rising one o one east investigates it is the new front line in sri lanka on al jazeera. this is a really fabulous news for one of the best i've ever worked in there is a unique sense of bonding where everybody teams in but something i feel every time i get on the chat every time i interview someone we're often working around the clock to make sure that we bring events as i currently as possible to the viewer that's what people expect of us and that's what i think we really do well. i've always been fascinated by space but the story of the space race isn't just

about the men who risked their lives to travel into the unknown but the ones who held those lives in their how. grandfather and his colleagues worked on the space suits they design the space suits apollo 11 was his triumph. and the perfectly designed space suits but his legacy putting man on the moon on al-jazeera . 0. 000 i maryam namazie this is the news hour live from london coming up. iran and the u.s. release videos showing the revolutionary guard shooting down an american drone but

the 2 sides dispute way it happened. as campaign a celebrated cooling that britain broke the law by selling weapons to saudi arabia the u.s. senate votes to block arms sales to riyadh. and protesters try to storm georgia's parliament angry at a visit by a russian delegation. and obviously in doha with including a big overhaul of african football as the continent's biggest stalls we look for the africa cup of nations it's announced that fifo will take control of its governing body of the subaru corruption scandals. u.s. congressional leaders have been at the white house discussing a response to iran shooting down a u.s. spy drone off the strait of hormuz president donald trump has called it

a very big mistake while attack iran is accusing the u.s. of a very dangerous and provocative act the u.s. says the drone was flying at high altitude in international airspace 34 kilometers off the coast of iran when it was hit by a surface to air missile but to iran says it intercepted the surveillance drone when it violated iranian as space and harm has gone province tensions have been steadily rising in the region with the u.s. accusing iran of attacking tankas in the gulf yemen's who's the rebels who are backed by iran of also stepped up missile and drone attacks on app orts and other infrastructure in saudi arabia mike hanna has this report now from washington. grainy footage released by the u.s. department of defense shows the moment when the drone was shot down. earlier to release these pictures of a similar class drone we argue for global hawk which costs over $100000000000.00. rainy and chris t.v. released the sportage of the attack saying it had been obtained from the iran

revolutionary guard corps tehran contended the drone penetrated the iranian airspace not sir insists the u.s. military iranian reports that this aircraft was shot down over iran are categorically false the aircraft was over the strait of hormuz and fell into international waters senior members of the u.s. congress have been briefed on the situation and i don't think the president wants to go to war there's no at the change from going to war in a country where told the iranians before they shut the drawing down that if you gauge against american personnel or s.s. you do search your own peril the president does not want a war with iran or anybody else and that he is the commander in chief national security figures gathered at the white house and the president sent out what appeared to be an ominous tweet iran made a very big mistake he said but then during

a meeting with the canadian prime minister the president indicated that the tweet was not a warning but a literal observation i think probably iran. i made a mistake i would imagine it was a general or somebody that made a mistake in shooting that drone down i find it hard to believe it was intentional if you want to know the truth i think that it could have been somebody who was loose and stupid at the same time the president did not rule out a us response which is really how i know you'll find out and. you'll find out you'll find me i believe you obviously obviously you know we're not going to be talking too much about it president trump has made clear in the past he favors some form of negotiation to resolve the crisis rather than armed action this despite the urging to forceful action from some in cabinet in particular the national security adviser john bolton the question is whether this latest incident will tip the

balance in the favor of the administration's hawks at the expense of those who advocate dialogue mike hanna al-jazeera washington let's get more now from castro in washington and heidi we know that congressional leaders were meeting at the white house to get more information about the drone shooting what happened at that meeting. well we saw the top democrats leaving the white house but they didn't stop to speak with reporters this was an emergency and classified briefing on the situation and it involved members of both parties in as well as leaders of the house and senate armed services and intelligence committees and at this meeting which was with donald trump the president there must have been 2 major questions that these congressional leaders wanted answered 1st off exactly where is the u.s.

saying that this drone was shot yes the pentagon has said that it was shot 34 kilometers off the coast of iran but has yet to provide at least publicly the chord notes of exactly where this happened so congress will be looking for absolute evidence that this indeed happened over international airspace and secondly exactly what is president trump intending to do in response given those mixed signaling that we've seen him say publicly and response to this drone shooting we do know trump has a tendency to punch back hard when he feels that he has been attacked but we also know that he was elected to the white house on promises to try to disengage or avoid more foreign conflicts involving the united states and it may be notable that in his statements to reporters earlier that day he made it a point to emphasize that this drone was unmanned that there was no u.s. pilot who was endangered because of this drone takedown in his words that it made

a big big difference so reading into that perhaps an off ramp to deescalate the situation but again it is up to him the president to decide whether or not the u.s. goes to war marry him thank you from washington castro that. well iran's foreign minister gave to her version of events on twitter saying the u.s. drone took off from the u.a.e. in stealth mode and violated iranian airspace he says it was targeted near. giving specific coordinates then he says quote we have retrieved sections of the u.s. military drone in our territorial waters where it was shot down and iran's ambassador to the u.n. has called for the international community to demand that the u.s. and what he called its unlawful and destabilizing measures in the gulf let's get more from james bays at the u.n. so the iranians have said that the shooting down of this drone was intentional because they claim it was an iranian as face what else have we heard from the

ambassador to the u.n. . well i think the real point of contention is the point where it was shot down also the exact flight path of this drone the foreign minister zarif has on his twitter released a drawing of looks like a military drawing on a map of what the iranians believe was the flight path in the letter that's now being sent from iran's ambassador to the united nations measured tike provided she to the secretary general antonio terrace and to the current president of the security council they give more details they suggest in this that the drone went up just after midnight local time and was on the air in the air for about almost 4 hours before it was shot down it says as the foreign minister said it was in full stealth mode as it turned off its identification equipment and engaged in a clear spying operation the letter goes on when the aircraft was returning towards

the western parts near the straits of hormuz despite repeated radio warnings it entered into iranian airspace where the air defense system of the islamic republic of iran acting under article 51 of the u.n. charter targeted the intruding aircraft for over 5 hours so they're saying this is entirely legal under the u.n. charter this is an act of self-defense they say that what the americans did was a blatant violation of international law and of the u.n. charter it adds then that the islamic republic of iran does not seek war but it reserves its right under article 51 to take all appropriate measures in other words they will do this again if necessary it also reveals that iran has made a protest not just in this letter to the united nations to the secretary general on the security council but also to the u.s. now remember iran and the u.s. don't have diplomatic relations so it is done that through the interest section of

the embassy. of switzerland into rom which looks after u.s. interests in iraq and the letter that the international community is called upon to do the us to put a name to its continued unlawful and destabilizing measures in the already volatile region of the persian gulf diplomatic editor james baker in item nations i'm joined now in the studio by a visiting fellow at nottingham university center for conflict security and terrorism so both iran in the pentagon have released footage of the drone shooting and they seem to have both agreed on the type of surveillance act craft that was. shot down here but crucially it does not reveal the location of the drug no it doesn't the track of the drone is is the important thing it isn't necessarily where it was shot down it is where it was before it was shot down at the point of big agent so we don't have that evidence from either side to corroborate the very

divergent positions. iran's foreign minister mohammad javad zarif has provided what he says precise coordinates of the triune itself now how does that work is it possible to verify information like that it will it could be if you can provide the source data where it comes from so if they for example provide a radar track that gives coordinates that show that it was over radiated space and that could be verified through international independent means on the other hand if all that they're providing is a location of it's point to being shot down that may not be sufficient or not be sufficiently verifiable because if it is shot down debris could fall into the iranian territory because the drift is by very high altitude debris can

fall into areas. very far from the point at which it is short what does it reveal about iran's missile capabilities well it shows that they have a capability to shoot down aircraft which is something that. one would expect them to her. the only significant thing here of course is that the aircraft was in stealth mode and so they must have some very sophisticated capability to actually detect its radar track because vison stealth mode its radar signature is very low and to be able to intercept with a missile which then requires a different grade our system which is sensitive to stealth aircraft and we're just getting some information on that iran's ambassador to the united nations has written about this claiming that the aircraft well it was in stealth mode as you say and that it had engaged in a clear spying operation.