is very dangerous, than there been a third party republican candidate. because they are defending seats, you're looking at a midterm where the average is you lose 16 seats. right now, i think republicans are more vulnerable. >> i don't see this as equal measure. i think bill hintsed at this. . . other issues. en you have more blue collar independent and more male and angrier anti-elitists, those are different kinds of independents. and there are anti-incumbent in their -- in their -- i think the republicans would be gravely endangered by having a second independent party and split the

anti-incumbent vote. they're more dangerous and the democrats face dingers in primaries. they face challenges if primaries. if you talk to people who are democrats, the view of their party is very positive. you ask republicans their view of their party, it is very nexted -- mixed. very skeptical and making it in a general election more open, i think, to a third party challenge. in the spirit of love and bipartisan here, i am i think a lot of what my democratic brethren have said is right but the good news is half of it is amazingly remarkably wrong. that is that the -- you va never seen the republican party more united than it is right now. and it is united on one issue, really, it is deficits and spending. so all of this division, that we're seeing, is -- is i think wishful thinking. wishful thinking. i hope you continue it. because, this is what we used to do.

our failures -- you know, the otherifies' failures would be our success. that's not must have to build a party on but if that's the hope and dream for the democrats the next election and the republicans will march off the cliff again. >> you tell carrly crist that the party is unified? >> absolutely. because he's the one guy, really who stepped out of the republican mainstream, when every other republican was united against spending and deficits, one, just when republicans are coming together, he steps out of the mainstream. it is not rubio in florida who is dividing the party, it is this other guy who basically, imagine if barack obama got up in the morning today and said, i got a great idea, george bush's tax cuts are terrific, we need more of those. what would happen to the democratic party. that's what a crist did, but -- that's the big story, that's by the way, what just won the middle, in tuesday's elections. and there's been a road test. and -- and i think if an -- in

addition to that republicans can actually demonstrate a little more positive vision it'll work real well. but i think the biggest danger, we're -- republicans aren't split right now at all. >> quev had this bizarre conversation and haven't mentioned afghanistan. the -- let me tell you a sad story. a sad story. we did a small american outpost and that outpostwas out gunned and we lost eight soldiers in one encounter. i was doing tracking after the health care speech and we this that enormously sad video of dead american soldiers being dragged through the streets and the president's approval rating dropped 12 point the in one night. the president, what i like and admire, he didn't release the photos, he's not pressed prosecution on the torture. those are things that are are unpopular. and he's a president of the

united states being told by the military, mr. president, we can't defend those outposts and we need more people to do a countersurge insurgency. and i guess it these are correct and they puts 43,000 troops in, imagine the progressiveness, with the troops, if you don't advance health care. i think he'll find 10,000 and train the army because he's politically unsustainable with his base, if he puts in 43,000 troops and prosecutes afghanistan during a water with afghanistan as president, i think he'll have a democrat primary and that we'll have a substantial split mountain democrat party, if that's what he does. and i would argue this -- for our party, and the tensions between our kind of economic votes and our religious conservatives, the fact that the energy in republican party is about spending and deficit, if we're so inept we can't take

these people and make them part of a new coalition, they we oughting to nothinged. the -- this are 24% of the people in this country who say they would likely vote for a third party and they're not strong republicans or democrats. we have 13% of the country who dislike both political parties and guess what they share in common? 90% said hes government. if we can't take a radicalized section of our country and say, by the way, there's a difference between us and the democrats, and who just bought general motors and chrysler and spent trls to bail out big companies and vote republican, that would be a colossal failure. will will lose an incumbent now and then, but guess what in a two person race, the strongest candidate usually wins. and in 2010 we'll be stronger as a function of the intensity out there and yes, we'll lose perhaps one or two people we

don't expect today but in general we'll be stronger in the ballot box because of the movement that is taking place around here. >> and let me have a quick add on. foreign polls usually doesn't matter too much to american voters. and i think that -- that the administration is likely to experience a string of conspicuous foreign policy failures on the arab -- on a palestinian israeli peace, which is a conversation that won't happen with iran, which by 2012, will either conspicuously have a nuclear weapon or an israeli attack on them. either, one, a mess for the administration. and -- on ukranian and georgia and the whole front with russia, russia is going to blatantly and ugly prove they have a atmosphere of -- sphere of influence which we have given up, which is the path the administration is going on or it confronts which will be at real challenge. if everywhere you look the foreign policy is going to be a

failure, enough is conspicuous, afghanistan, where he loses either way. he'll alienate either the proprogressives or the center of the country. and so, i think that -- that could collectively reduce the admiration for his masterfulness. and as katrina did for the previous president. that could have an effect, it would be negative for the party. >> all right. i think we have gone into overtime. so, i did want to thank the bipartisan policy center and -- tule lane university for hosting this. and this has been the spirit of friendship and civility on the panel. we hope it'll be pervasive through the rest of the political process. thank you so much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

>> over the weekend, the senate voted to move toward the health- care legislation. for more about the health care bill and the house's version, go to the cspan health care hub. that is that c-span.org /healthcare. here is a recent ad being run by the republican national committee.

>> one member sold her vote to the highest bidder. one member sold out his principles. two more lost what little credibility they had on fiscal responsibility. another with the interests to the left of his party before his own state. another voted one way after saying she was for another. it is no wonder why democrats voted in the dead of night. >> yesterday, the state department boss richard holbrooke spoke to reporters about the situation in afghanistan. that is next on c-span. the topics on this morning's "washington journal"include

flop -- include fraud and waste in medicare. there'll be a joint news conference with india and a state dinner for the prime minister of india. live coverage of the news conference begins at 11:35, eastern. >> thanksgiving day on c-span, at 10:00 eastern, bill clinton is on hand to present steven spielberg with this year's liberty medal. also a panel assessing the obama presidency and the discussion on terrorism and nuclear weapons. also the economy and capitalism. that is by giving day on c-span.

>> special representative to afghanistan richard holbrooke briefed reporters on hillary clinton's recent trip to that country. he also talked about the president's deliberation on u.s. troop levels in a afghanistan. this is 45 minutes. >> good afternoon and welcome. last week, secretary clinton, on the tail end of her trip to asia was in kabul to observe the inauguration of president karzai for a second term of office. some of you were on that leg of the trip. with her was her special

representative for afghanistan and pakistan, richard holbrooke. we think it is important there is a government in place in afghanistan. we want to put her trip in context and chart the way forward on the civilian side of ther strategy as we await the decision by the president'. richard? >> thank you. i'm here to report and secretary clinton's trip to a afghanistan. before i go into any of the trip, i want to explain these members of our team from our office. this is not our whole team. these are some of the people. i would like each one of them to stand and identify who they are and what they do because we are here today to talk about the civilian effort.

most people focus on the troop issue but that is not here -- that is not what we are here to talk about. some of these people you know and some of the new don't. i would like to start with direct. let the people stand and say who they are and which agency there with and we will get into the discussion. some of you know this is a very important issue and we have a task force on demands.

there has been an enormous increase in our civilian personnel.

[unintelligible] [unintelligible] inrtoductions] i want to emphasize that this is the whole of the government process which secretary clinton and president obama committed themselves to when they announced this office two days after the inauguration. i have never brought his team down there before.

we did when joint appearance at the capitol during the summer but that was a smaller group than. zour purpose here today is to make clear that there is a major civilian component in our efforts. this is jane marriott's last two or three days here perry she was on loan from the british government. >> it is not official yet. >> unofficially -- [laughter] unofficially, her majesty's government is sending her to tehran as the deputy chief of the mission. she will be replaced. she will be succeeded but she cannot be replaced she has done an unbelievable job. i work with many people on loan to the department and i have never seen anyone do the job that she has. we will sorely miss her.

we are also reorganizing our international outrage. there are about 25-26 counterparts to my job now, established since this job was set up. the germans have been coordinating that effort. with the elections behind us, we will be intensifying our efforts on coordination, coordinating the international effort. the germans are appointing a new counterpart as part of the agreement between the cdu and the ftp. we don't know who that will be unless that was announced today they will remain the coordinator but we have agreed to set up an international cell here in the building that will do much of

the work. we will accelerate our international process. net report in the secretary's trip -- some of you were on the trip and some or not. let me start the beginning -- this was the first trip to a afghanistan by the secretary of state, the fourth trip in her life. it was a very important trip. she time did to coincide with the inauguration precisely because we felt the inauguration marked the end of a long, complicated process, the president used the word "messy" and we have waited a long time to work with a government that was a result of the elections and whatever one thinks of the elections, they were not perfect. we said from the beginning that

would not be perfect. we said this publicly before the elections. they produced a winner. it is a legitimate government with which we intend to work as closely as possible. as the secretary said, we are encouraged by what we saw during this trip. secretary clinton described the moment that we saw a few days ago as a window of opportunity. on the night we arrived, she and died an ambassador eikenberry and general mcchrystal, had dinner at the palace. it was a very cordial meeting, substantially different in tone during the election. the election was behind us. l>÷he brought with him his senir ministers in key areas and the first part of the evening was devoted to very detailed

discussions with the minister of agriculture, the minister of finance, the minister of education, and the chief of intelligence, the minister of the interior was supposed to be here but he was out in the city make sure that there would be no attacks during the ceremonies the next day. we missed him. the conversation was detailed and engaged. those of you who knew hillary clinton as a senator, may or may not know this, but she had been all over the agriculture issue as a senatorial she had worked with the state university of new york, i think it was stoneybrook but i am not positive, to get a tree-planting program. she followed it very closely. she was fascinated to hear details which normally do not interest all of you but interested her greatly about 12 tons of apples that were airlifted to india a few days before we arrive. this was a very big story in the afghan press.

it opened up a new opportunity for afghan agriculture. as i think you'll know, after the security issue, we believe that agriculture is our highest immediate priority in the civilian area for the simplest reason -- 80% of the people are farmers and have big export markets until 1978. they exported pomegranates and raisins that dominated the world market. almonds and pistachios, saffron, wheat and they want to get back to that but they need help. we inherited a situation where the united states was putting less money into afghanistan agriculture than poppy destruction. we face that -- we phased out supporting poppy destruction.

the military is focusing on interdiction. they are working closely with the dea and the fbi and other parts of the u.s. government and they have a very substantial success in interdiction. meanwhile, we are putting a lot of money into agriculture. mr. gonzalez is our liaison with the agriculture department. secretary tom vilsack will be going to afghanistan soon. the date is not yet clear pride we have had to reschedule it because he is involved in high domestic priorities. he will be going early next year and that will be an important trip for us. she engaged in detailed discussion with you about agriculture. the finance minister discussed economic issues, the ongoing negotiations on the transit

agreement, which president obama had mentioned specifically in the may 6 and 7 trilateral summit. mary m. goodman is our point person here and in an islamabad. we talked about anti-corruption efforts in the general financial state of afghanistan. the minister of education give a very encouraging report on the extraordinary progress that has been made. this was an impressive performance in these fields. the intelligence chief talked about the taliban a. she talked about that in her public comments in afghanistan which have been issued by the department. on the personal side, -- on the personnel side, we are dramatically increasing our

personnel. when we came into office, there were about 300 american civilians in all of afghanistan. most of them were on six-month tours. they had very substantial leverage is to go to dubai or abu dhabi or somewhere else or regularly. there was no real continuity. there are no more a six-month tours. spouses are allowed to come and are encouraged to come if they take jobs. the school age children issue is a big problem but there are plenty of spouse is there now. that has multiple pay off. leaves have been changed and more and more people are signing up for light beer tours. some of the people here have had gore's in afghanistan and will rotate back. we will be at about 900 people,

jackie gave you the figures in his lengthy press conference the other day -- jack gave you the figures in his lengthy press conference the other day and jack liu was very thorough. the civilian effort is going quite well. while we eliminate six-month tours, a tripling in terms of people days in the field is extraordinary. if you consider that each one of the americans as the footprint of nine or 10 support people, afghans, a third country nationals, ngo's, it is a significant increase. we will have about 900 --

>> by the end of the year. >> 974 by the end of the year is the target. to be even more precise, 974 by the early weeks of next year. we will run a couple of weeks behind the original build up schedule, not because we don't have the people but simply because of the abetting impersonal process. it is as simple as that. you have already heard from jack on this so i will not go into the figures. more american civilians will be on their way next year. we are in advanced talks with ambassador eikenberyy and jack liu. the dinner was wednesday night. on thursday of last week, after the inauguration ceremonies, a

secretary clinton and i, general mcchrystal and ambassador eiken berry met with an extraordinary group of civilians and military who had come in from the field. all the seniors except the secretary of state sat off the table. the table was only the people from the provinces run by ambassador tony waned. -- wayne. she drilled down on ruled law, agriculture, a civilian military integration. she has already described this to our colleagues in the principles committee and i'm sure she will do so again in the

beatings that are coming up. it was a terrific meeting and she was enormously proud of this integrated civilian-military process. we'll talk about integration. -- we all talked about integration. the closer you get to the battlefield, the closer you get to integration is really remarkable. on pakistan -- we have not met on this -- in this room and packets -- pakistan sent to return for it i've watched many secretaries of state. i have never seen a secretary of state have a trip in which the public diplomacy part of it was more extraordinary than this trip. everywhere she went, she was greeted as an iconic person but

then it very aggressively on the issues. she just kept taking the questions and making an extraordinary impact on the pakistani people. everything she did was cover a lot. her visit to the shrine was a particularly successful trip and got a huge approval.-mshe met', hundreds of women, students in lahore, parliamentarians, tribal leaders from fata and elsewhere. she gave interviews to the radio journalists of pakistan. as it evolves, it was a conversation. she seemed to be saying, and

this is in my words, not hers, she seemed to be saying we are friends with the disagreement and this is the way friends talk about things per you could see the impact. she had private meetings with the leaders of pakistan. she had one of those trips that those of you who accompanied know how intense it was. i was proud to be part of that trip. i think it marked the beginning of a turn in our relations with pakistan you will not see it shall immediately in public opinion polls but the goal here was to lay the foundations for a partnership, a deeper, more productive, a genuine partnership among two sovereign

nations. she also agreed to renew the strategic dialogue. this was conducted by the dairy -- the deputy secretary of state in the previous administration. she led this. there's talk about bilateral and not couple in pakistan and afghanistan for the truth is, we have bilateral relations with the country. they are interrelated. this address it directly. she has elevated the strategic dialogue with pakistan to the ministerial level and will personally lead it. we will tee that up for early next year. not too early, meanwhile, we will continue the tri-lateral process.

we are completing a new civilian assistance program which will broaden our school but relations with pakistan and help pakistan addresses long- term development needs. we were meeting with the pakistani ambassador. we were working out the operation of the generalized agreement and talk about improving our economic assistance and to help the overall people of pakistan in their major needs like energy and water. water came up more than on the other issue on the trip. that was even more than energy. we took that very seriously. our ngo officer was working on the water issue because expertise on water is much

greater in the private sector. all of this has gone to complement our new diplomacy effort. we hope that the pakistan people will recognize our deep respect (8for their sovereignty and our deep commitment to help them deal with the pressing problems they face. that is a brief report on the two trips. with that, i will be happy to take your questions. if it is too technical, i will defer to one of my colleagues. >> there has been talk about whether the afghan military force is a reliable partner. in terms of the civilians, from what you have seen on the ground, as you ramp up your civilian presence, do you think you have enough of a well- drained afghan civilian reliable

partner to do what you want to do or do you think there'll be a need for training of the afghans? on pakistan, there is uncertainty about the future stability of the sadari government given some rulings that will come up. how much of a concern is that? could there be a vacuum? >> i will not comment on the internal affairs of pakistan. i want to make that clear. we are well aware of that and we are following it carefully. if it is an internal political issue, it needs to be dealt with by the pakistani people. that is all i should say on that for it on your first question, like any government, there are ministers that are better than others. there are some ministers who put up extraordinary records. i am afraid if i single out it

will not help. i will not single and a out. we want to work with the strong ministries. we also recognize that the leadership in afghanistan is thin because of the high illiteracy rate, the horrific consequences 30 years of continuous war, the enormous set of refugees who left the country and very few of whom have returned, and the conditions in afghanistan. this is one of the main reasons we are increasing our civilian role. it is extremely delicate to get the mix right. we want to help the afghans help themselves. we do not want to replace the sovereign government with internationals. many other countries are increasing, too. if you go into a ministry now, you may run into people from the u. n, the eu countries, japan,

it is quite complicated one of our major goals is to coordinate this better. that is what i alluded to earlier, our new members to coordinate international. -- our new efforts to court international. what is our belief in the capacity here? it is hard to answer this question. we know how important it is. building the afghans government capacity to run their own affairs is one of the three or four priorities, a process by which eventually, the international combat troops, including the u.s., can be replaced by local security and the international civilian advisers will be phased down over time.

the international diplomacy will continue for a long time as secretary clinton said and i want to stress that point. >> there will say statement about the indian prime minister who said that he believes that pakistanis do not necessarily share the american view of the region and have their own views. he said he is not sure who is running the government there pethere was a real. the pakistani government had a meeting with the taliban. >> the first two questions i will not answer because i have not heard the statement?

what was your third? >> the meeting between the u.s. and the pakistan government and the taliban? >> to my knowledge, and i believe this is true, there has been no direct meetings between american officials and tell about officials. there was one accidental engagement about one year ago, before the inauguration of president barack obama. it was inadvertent and it was not real taliban and that became public and we cleared that up. we are not have direct contact with the taliban. secretary clinton, in her speech to the foreign relations committee, july 15, she made a speech in which only a few of you noticed that a paragraph on afghanistan one or two of you reported this. that was important.

she laid out the conditions by which the u.s. believes people fighting with the taliban can reintegrate into afghan society. the first point she mentioned was to denounce al qaeda. we are in afghanistan because of 9/11. the other thing was to renounce violence and to lay down their arms and participate in life peacefully. many taliban have done this since 2002. people who were senior oil officials -- some people who were senior officials have done this. there is regular contact between them and internationals, including americans. what you're talking but, no sir.

yes, sir? >> i am from the bbc. hell encouraged were you about the fight against corruption. -- how encouraged or you about the fight against corruption? >> corruption is an enormously complicated issue. it is easy to put the word in the headline but when you get down to it, what does it mean and what is the difference between traditional corruption? these are complicated issues let me be very, very clear on this. we are deeply concerned about corruption. secretary clinton did not hesitate to discuss this.

the international community has such a large footprint in afghanistan and a lot of the targets of opportunity for corruption come from the international community. we have a legitimate concern from that score. that is what the gao and the social inspector general of the afghanistan reconstruction focus on. because we have american troops and our allies on the line, risking their lives, we have a legitimate reason to ask for better performance on corruption. president carter site in his inaugural speech addressed this problem -- president karzai said he would strengthen the existing commission on corruption and he would hold some special conferences on it.

we discussed the subject at considerable length with him. yes, sir? >> i am from al-jazeera english television. india wants more influence in afghanistan and has pumped $2.2 billion into the country. pakistan remains suspicious of indian hegemony. how in the u.s. balance the interests of these two key partners, one of which is the key ally in the war on terror? >> first of all, all americans and certainly everyone in this administration is delighted in the first visit of this

administration. this is very appropriate. no one in pakistan and india other country should read this in any way as a definition of india. it is entirely appropriate that someone has to make the first move. it usually involves the european allies but they come over in informal trips. there is a different level of intensity. president obama thought this was the right way to go. we are thrilled. it in no way should be read as a definition. we seek to improve our relations with pakistan we seek to improve our relations with china. we seek to improve our relations with india. this is not a zero-sum game. every country will benefit from improvement in the area. i will not go into the specifics.

it is not part of my formal responsibilities. i look forward to participating in some of the meetings. i want to see some of my old friends from new delhi. i read the press and i understand what the cities in india say about each other. it is not justified by the facts. the two countries live side by side and have to live together. our role is to assist both of them in different ways, according to their own desires and their own view of their own sovereignty. >> you had been in moscow. could you tell us what you accomplished in russia?

did you get specific commitments? >> i was in berlin, paris, and moscow and met with the british along the way. in kabul, we had foreign ministers from france, the netherlands, the deputy prime minister of japan and the japanese quadrupled their aid last week and went up to $5 billion in commitments. that is tremendously important by their new government. the foreign minister of canada the was there, the indian prime minister was there, and the senior officials from many other countries. as you know, i have tried to go to all the concerned countries. i have not been able to get to all of them up until now part i still love not got into all of them simply because of two things -- in the early part of

my job, i have to go to afghanistan/pakistan a lot further so many issues to straighten out. we were in a time of transition we had to put a whole new team in place and we had to rethink our pakistan policy in conjunction with m paterson. -- ann patterson, our ambassador there who has been kept on because we have high confidence in her. i was unable to get to moscow earlier for logistical reasons. that was a scheduling thing. in that talk, we outlined to the russians our strategic view and put forward the simple proposition that russia and the united states, like all the countries in the neighborhood, have a common strategic asymmetry.

stability is something that is important to all the neighbors and near-makers. the russians pointed out that they have legitimate strategic concerns in the area, which we agree with. they have one overriding issue which is mentioned prominently in the joint communique of president obama and president medvedev and that is narcotics. that is a big issue for the russians. we talked a lot about how we could work together on that issue and we explain our policies. i met with the deputy national- security adviser. that was saturday labrov

and i reassured them that they -- that wassergei labirov. i met with the russian equivalent of fema. we agreed we will continue the dialogue. i took an interagency team with me. from various agencies. we will continue the dialogue in the future. we also had a team in china before the president's trip. we have had consultations with turkey which we will continue per there is a lot of activity going on. >> it did the russians make a pledge or promise? >> i leave to general petraeus the logistical issues.

they want to do more to help repair the damage that has been done over the last few years. it is a complicated issue. but we were very pleased with these initial talks. >>cbs -- given that the president has announced a meeting tonight the white house, where does parnis and decision making stop and -- where does bironas and i--

bironas -- thoroughness and decision stop? >> idyllic this in the lyndon johnson administration. -- i dealt with this in the lyndon johnson administration. i have seen the most sustained, thoughtful process i have ever seen now. over the long course of it, we have all learned a great deal from each other in a way which i think is exactly the way decisions should be made i will not get into public debate. of will not go in that direction. you have seen a very serious debate. that is all i want to say about

it. i am honored to have been a small part of it. >> you talked about your concern about corruption. you have the minister accused of 30 -- you have the minister accused of taking over $30 million in bribes. does this government -- does is undermine your efforts? >> we are not picking the ministers in the government but we certainly hope that the minister's are the best possible ministers. who they are and how affective they are and the issue you mentioned it will all the factors in determining our interaction with them. to be quite honest with you, i

want to learn a little more about what the government has in mind before i opine on it. it is not 100% clear how it will work or what its purpose will they. it is part of another process where there is international conferences. the president of the afghanistan talked about a conference in kabul next year and that is also part of the process. one more question? >i said that good relations between the u.s. and india and good relations with the u.s. and pakistan are not incompatible. we will not get involved in negotiating these kinds of

things. when we get misquoted or twisted by some of the press in these countries, we have to spend a lot of time cleaning it up. let's stick to the precise words i used here. >> would you support the resumption of talks between the two countries? >> if the two countries decide to resume talks, of course we will support them. we are not there midwife. we are not their intermediaries. we are not trying to play a role it goes beyond our legitimate area of involvement. >> on the talks with the taliban -- the saudis and the british are involved in those talks with

the taliban, along with the pakistanis. can you talk about that? >> i can speak about the british. as far as the saudis, presidents karzai mentioned to them by name. he asked king of dulles to play a role here. -- he asked king abdallah to play a role here we would be supportive of any thing that the kingdom chose to do in this regard. >> i was talking about pakistan. the talks between pakistan and the taliban. >> i don't know anything about that. i read a news account but i do not know. >> you mentioned the trade- transit agreement. what is the status of those negotiations? it seems they are stalled and that will not meet the end of the year deadline. >> i don't think that is a

foregone conclusion. have you ever seen a negotiation that did not go down to the wire? i think we have a good shot of making the deadline. if you want more details on that, call our office. we are hopeful it will be done. let's be clear for those of you not involved in this negotiation -- this negotiation began before half of you in this room were born. it is 44-years old. it is older than you are. [laughter] not older than me, unfortunately. this is 44 years. president obama asked the two leaders of the country to try to finish it by the end of the year. it is a very ambitious goal. did not easy to do. -- it is not easy to do.

we have got it down to three or four issues. my hat is off to mary beth goodman for the role she has played. last question, i guess. >> as the obama administration conduct the review on afghanistan, how much are you consulting with the pakistanis? the foreign minister said on september 1 that pakistan could offer more. there it was implied -- that they did not offer anything. >> i don't think he said that. scthe prime minister has been here twice in five or six weeks. we are in constant contact with them.

i do not believe that anyone seriously thinks that we are not having detailed consultations with pakistan. if that was said, i think it has to be put into context. there is no country we are consulting more closely with them pakistan nor is there any country that is more integrally related to the issue. admiral mullen is in constant contact with the pakistani military. i'm in contact with the government constantly. i do not see that as a real issue. thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> coming this thanksgiving,

american icons, three nights of cspan original documentaries on the icon mccombs of the three batches of american government. beginning thursday night, the supreme court, home to america's highest court, reveals the building in exquisite detail through the eyes of supreme court justices. friday, the white house, inside america's most famous home, be on the velvet ropes. our visit shows the grand public places as well as the rarely seen in saturday, the capital, the history, art and architecture of one of america's most symbolic structures. american icons, remember one night, thursday, friday, saturday, at 8:00 p.m., on c- span. get a three-disc dvd set for $24.95.

>> "washington journal" is next on c-span. president obama and the indian prime minister will hold a joint news conference on relations between the two countries. that begins at 11:45 eastern. this afternoon, a conversation on global food shortages. the president of the world bank is scheduled to speak. we will also hear from the executive director of the u.n. world folk program. -- food program. that begins at 9:00, eastern. coming up this hour, the federal government's relation with rural america. after that, the health and human services department talks about medicare and medicaid and later,