>> michael: coming up tonight, what do you call a situation that seems so bad on so many different levels that it couldn't possibly get worse? and then somehow does? you call it syria. i'm michael shure. great to have you inside "the war room." [♪ theme music ♪] >> michael: the un is now calling the conflict in syria the worst humanitarian crisis it has ever seen. this weekend prime minister's

bashar al assad's army slaughtered almost a hundred people. this comes after he reportedly used chemical weapons against his own people. and now there are reports that the rebels fighting against assad may have also used chemical whe pons. the obama administration denies the reports, and here is spokesman jay carney today. >> we are highly skeptical that the opposition could have or did use chemical weapons. we find it highly likely that any chemical weapon use was done by the assad regime. >> michael: the prospect of the chemical weapons in the hands of

terrorists has drawn israel into the conflict. israeli officials confirmed they struck two targets inside of syria. a stock mile of missiles and a major military center. israel said the air strikes were intended to prevent weapons from reaching the ter rest organization hezbollah in lebanon. but sunday's strikes as quote opened the door wide for all possibilities. and a stray mortar shell landed in israel's golan heights. they say it was just accidental spillover. israel says it doesn't plan to retaliate but does show how quickly and easily the situation could escalate. jordan is also getting drawn into the fray.

there are now over 175,000 sirrian refugees in a jordanian camp. it makes it jordan's fastest growing city. the number of refugees is expected to rise to a million by the end of the year. and there are an additional hundred thousand in turkey as well. the obama administration is forced with the choice to act or not act. he had pledged to intervene if syria crossed the red line of using chemical weapons. today jay carney again stood by the red line comment but said the president is still not compelled to take action. >> what he never did, and it is simplistic to do so is to say if x happens y will happen. he has never said what reaction he take. >> that didn't stop john mccain from criticizing the president

on sunday. >> the whole situation is becoming more and more expansive and unfortunately the red line that the president of the united states wrote was apparently written in disappearing ink. >> michael: syria is not the only highly sensitive issue that mccain and the republicans are politicizing. republicans have maid for months that the ht and secretary hillary clinton covered up what happened last year when christopher stevens and others were killed. and you gregory hicks, deputy chief of mission for the u.s. in benghazi has issued a bomb shell of a report. he told the house oversight committee that he thought the incident was quote, a terrorist attack from the get-go. everybody in the mission thought so. the gop could not be more thrilled to hear those words

just it just adds fuel to their fire. john mccain again said what he has been saying for months. >> do you believe that either president obama or secretary clinton or any of the other top officials did something wrong? >> i think they are guilty of crimes of omission rather than commission. this is in the height of the presidential campaign. and the whole narrative of the obama campaign was that the obama is over, and the tide of war is reseeding. there are so many unanswered questions because the familiar list of those four brave americans deserve to know. >> michael: some tough questioning by fox news once again. mu darrell issa went even further, calling at it coordinated cover up. >> clearly there was plait call

decision to say something different than what was reasonable to say. >> michael: we are joined now by p.j. crowley. he served as a senior director of public affairs for the national security counsel during the clinton administration and is a retired air force colonel. >> hello, michael. >> michael: p.j. on benghazi do you think there is anything to the criticism of the administration, or is this just a way to start attacking hilary and to continue attacking the president in one fail swoop? >> those are not mutually exclusive. four americans died and -- and those are legitimate questions. security can never be 100% but we should try to find out, you know, what can we do better and that was the purpose of the accountability review board run by am bahs der tom pinkering,

and mike mullen. if a congress has more questions about that terrific but we should not politicize this. these people were put in a dangerous situation and they were doing the national interest and -- and we should try as much as possible to keep the politics out of this. >> michael: i appreciate that. but of course the politics were in its since the beginning. they see the secretary of state at that time as sort of the presumptive nominee should she decide to run in 2016. as much as they say the democrats are trying to politicize this, aren't they carrying the political baton now? >> well, look, eight days after the tragedy in benghazi the head of the national counter terrorism center after looking at all of the intelligence that was available at that time

called it an act of terrorism. i have never -- i do think that it was perhaps a -- kind of an odd edit of the talking points, but the obama administration came through with a definitive judgment after reviewing the evidence, and i don't think there's any sign of a cover up here. >> michael: and hicks is set to testify this week p.j. do you expect more to come out at those hearings? >> we'll see. we have no way of knowing. the committee is suggesting that there were people that were presented from testifying. tom pickering is one of the most distinguished diplomats in our history. mike mullen an incredible officer of absolute integrity. i can't imagine if they needed to talk to somebody to get to the bottom of the questions,

they talk to whoever they need to talk to present the facts to the secretary and president and congress as appropriate. >> michael: let's go back to syria. the red line remark was off the cuff and not intended to set policy. is that true or is just the narrative the administration is now pushing? >> i think the red line has been crossed. somebody has unleashed a dangerous chemical inside syria. we don't know who did it, so i think the administration deserves some time to sort through exactly what we know verify the intelligence assessment that has been put forward, and then study the implications and possible courses of action. we're at a point in syria, where there are no good options. this is a horrible tragedy and it is going to get worse before

it gets better. but before we leap into a complex situation like syria, we -- we need to understand not only what is happening there, but also whatever course of action we take one of the perspective benefits but also everything you can possibly think of that we could do now carries very substantial risk. >> michael: yeah, it would seem such a tough place for someone like the president right now. bob menendez is calling for the united states to provide weapons to vetted sirrian opposition groups. can we actually do that to make sure those weapons end up in the right hands? >> i think we can hand weapons over to the right guys to start, but there are so many different groups, so many different elements, mixing matching crossing paths, i don't know how we could ensure that a weapon

handed to someone that we consider a good guy stays with that good guy and doesn't go somewhere else. weapons as we saw in the contexts of libya a couple of years ago they don't even have to stay in syria. it may well be something that the administration reluctantly goes to, because we do see that the longer this goes on the more tragic it is the more loss of life, and the harder it will be to put syria back together again if and when the conflict stops. this is not a great option, but we have to have -- as much as we can, as much control as possible over where those weapons go. >> michael: before i let you go because you know so much about this, who is the president listening to? everybody is in the oval office who is the listening to in a

situation like this? >> in this case there's a deputy's process. you have a lot of the smartest people in government that are working through the intelligence, trying to get an assessment of what is going on on the ground and teeing up policy options for the president. but he is also trusting his gut that we went into iraq for all of the right reasons with all of the right capabilities but what we went there to try to do was not necessarily what we confronted once we got there. i think that's the challenge for syria. part of what we need to do in terms of the debate going on, we're all focused on tactics. let's form a no-fly zone and if we militarily intervene in syria, what is the end game? the end game is the deposition of bashar al assad. but that's a tough decision that only the president can make.

>> michael: the old loneliest job in the world. p.j. crowley thanks so much for being with us here tonight. we turn now to a congressional slugfest here at home. tomorrow south carolina voters will decide who goes to capitol hill, mark sanford, or elizabeth colbert-busch. it's closer than ever. co better busch was ahead by a topping ten points but now a new poll actually has sanford up by a point. it was explained as this . . . wow, even he can't come up with a better explanation than that, then his lead is strange in that race. mark sanford is way out there.

so could he pull out a win? for more on that i'm joined by chris moody who was on the road with mark sanford this weekend. chris welcome back inside "the war room." >> great to be here. thanks for having me. >> michael: where did mark sanford get this new-found momentum? >> it's really difficult to say? i think he hit the nail right on the head. this is a strange race indeed. south carolina is a conservative district. a democrat has not served here in more than 30 years, so if elizabeth colbert-busch wins we're looking at an historic outlook to this race. even though it is a red district, as probably you and a lot of the viewers know mark sanford has a lot of baggage that has given colbert-busch an

edge. she is putting on a brave face and still working hard but if their internal polls are showing what the public polls are showing, they could be in real trouble. >> michael: part of the baggage mark sanford has is you. you road around in the campaign car. what it was like? >> well, it was my car actually. there are no rallies, events or speeches. he just walks into stores and talks to people. anybody he says he'll walks up to them and say hi i'm mark sanford. i hope you vote for me. between stops he asked if he could ride in the car and i said of course. he is an open book. he's a person i think who has

through quite a lot. it is his own fault, of course but he feels like he is out there and is willing to put himself out there and tell you what he thinks about things and the race and himself. >> michael: and just showing up places, he is not worried about trespassing at all? [ laughter ] >> yeah, a sensitive topic for him, of course. but he does walk up right to strangers and says hello. we were in whole foods for about 20 minutes today, and walks up to people. he ran into a woman who was buying food for colbert-busch volunteers food. they need each other and gave each other a little ribbing.

but i think most people recognize him and it's got to be a story they are telling at dinner tonight at home. >> michael: is he getting any cat calls or anything like that? >> i have heard people walk by and they will shout go back to the appalachian trail or back to argentina, but nobody is really confronting him head-on. people here are very polite and they will just nod and say yes, i'm voting on tuesday. >> michael: there are some people who say it would be the worst thing for the republicans to have him win. this is a placeholder. they can run a real candidate as opposed to sanford. do you get any sense the republicans are not going to vote for him because of that. >> i think there's a sense that people are going to stay home. but there are a lot of people i have met in this district that have colbert-busch signs out in

their front yard. you have some people in the party that are going to wait until 2014. they have looked at the numbers. they know this could be a district that will probably go red in 2014, and it will be very difficult for colbert-busch to defend it in just a couple of months. so i think they are looking at a win-win situation. if he loses they can fight for it in 2014 if he wins hopefully he will behave himself. >> stephanie: chris moody thank you for joining us. coming up what is really happening at guantanamo bay and why the urgency for change. we'll talk to morris davis after the break right here. plus it's a big week for immigration, the senate is set to begin dealing the landmark bill and all of the speed marks

that come with it. and later, the first finning -- printable gun emerges. it's a monday. it's a crazy world and it's "the war room," and we will be right back. break the ice with breath-freshening cooling crystals. ice breakers.

>> michael: 100 out of 166 detainees at the guantanamo bay prison are on a hunger strike. most are accepting bottles of ensure, but 23 of them are being force fed through tubess inserted in their noses. according to an afghan captive, copies of the koran were mishandled by american soldier in a shakedown. he said this . . .

the prison spokesman said the raid occurred after a change in guard staff but denied prisoners or qurans were mishandled. whether these holy books were mishandled or not is just the tip of the iceberg. what the prisoners want is an end to prisoners and what it has come to represent, that is indefinite detention. joining us now is an assistant professor at howard school of law, colonel davis, president obama signed an executive order

to close guantanamo back in 2009. do you think this time will be different? >> it has been out and sight and out of mind for everybody. but it was encouraging the last week that is the most i have heard him say about guantanamo since 2009. last week he was in texas for the bush library dedication and i don't think he wants eight years of guantanamo to be on his ledger for his legacy. >> michael: yeah, that's interesting. you wonder how a person would reflect on something like that and how their legacy could be on their mind. it could be one of the best things george w. bush ever did for this country indirectly. why does guantanamo matter so

much? >> because of who we're supposed to be. for 200 years we had this reputation of being the champion of the rule of law. if you look back to the first iraq war it was because of our reputation of being the good guys. and since then we have become the constrained and cowardly rather than the brave. i think it's important to stand up and be americans again and quit being cowards. we have not taken a single detainee into the u.s. yet we got bermuda to do it. >> yeah bermuda took in the ugers from there. >> right. >> michael: you were once a vocal advocate of the guantanamo military commissions, but in

recent years you have changed your mind. why happened there? >> one of the things is it was intended to be a temporary facility. it was said they needed over $200 million to rehab the facilities because gitmo was intended to be temporary not permanent. and second when i came into the job, i thought we were committed to doing this right and making this a credible process and something we look back on. my generation looks back with nostalgia onner in -- on nuremberg. >> michael: how much have conditions changed since 2005. >> not a lot. the physical facilities are

pretty much the same. i used to be a bail bondsman, so i have seen a lot of jails and prisons, but it's not about the physical conditions it's about the what happens. they sit there year after year because of their citizenship, and i would hope if that was an american we would object that that kind of thing was happening. so it's the legal basis to begin with, where we created this place that we thought was outside the reach of the law and we keep perpetuateing it year after year after year. >> michael: what should we do with these detainees? >> right now we have three categories of detainees, the ones cleared for transfer which is the majority that we need to

get out of there. that's the way to break the hunger strike. given the choices of let people die or force feed them with a tube down their nose. but you have another group that the administration wants to prosecute, and a third group of about 50 where we think they are bad people but we're not sure we have the evidence to prosecute them. i think we need to make the tough call and take those people and put them into one of those other two categories, either pony up the evidence or put them in the group that goes back home. we'll never reduce the risk to zero. >> michael: yeah, i want to talk to you about a petition that you have started, urging president obama to put guantanamo detainees on trial or

free them. what are the president's options here? is he kind of in a box because of congress? these congressmen are saying these things like i don't want them in my super max prison what -- how does the president get out of that box, and then tell me a little bit about this petition. >> there really is no good reason to keep guantanamo open other than the right-wing talking points. i was listening to your earlier segments about benghazi and the one coming up on guns which reminds me of the ron white bit on nothing but stupid. >> michael: all we try to do here every day is fix stupid. >> i think ron white is right. it can't be fixed. these four stories you are doing all prove the point. but these right-wing talking points there is no good reason. fiscally it costs a unfortunate,

our adversaries and allies have used guantanamo against us. it encourages folks to join the cause. the law that has come out of guantanamo. every case that has become out of guantanamo has been adverse to the government. we have prisons that can house -- lindsey graham referred to them as crazy bastards. we have lots of crazy bastards in the prisons. they can handle it. so there is no good reason so it's just stupid that we keep pouring money down this black whole. it harms our reputation and does no good for us. >> michael: yeah, and your petition is going to stop that. you are close to 150,000 signatures. where can people find that petition colonel.

we'll put that on our website. thank you so much. up next, we will head out to the political front where immigration will enter the hollowed halls of the u.s. senate. we'll talk about what kind of reception can be expected. stick around. may be more likely to misuse lyrica. ask your doctor about lyrica today. it's specific treatment for diabetic nerve pain.

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