gwen: three big stories tonight, the death of gaddafi. the coming end of the war in iraq. and the year of the debates. tonight on "washington week." finally. libyan strongman muammar gaddafi meets his end. >> finally, we can close this long dark chapter in its history and turn over a new page. gwen: the arab spring uprising claims another dictator. and the president today announces the end of the war in iraq. >> today i can say that our troops in iraq will definitely be home for the holidays. gwen: we examine the fallout. at home, republicans battle each other for the upper hand. >> rick, i don't think i've ever hired an illegal in my life.

and so i'm looking forward to finding your facts on that. because that -- >> i'll tell you what the facts are. >> rick, again -- i'm speaking. you get -- gwen: bad blood at the -- as the stakes get higher. covering the week, martha raddatz of avens news. -- of abc news. doyle mcmanus of the "los angeles times." dan balz of "the washington post." and gloria borger of cnn. >> award winning reporting and analysis, covering history as it happens. live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week with gwen ifill." produced in association with "national journal." corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. >> to give our war fighters every advantage. >> to deliver technologies that anticipate the future today. >> and help protect america

everywhere. from the battle space to cyber space. >> around the globe, the people of boeing are working together. to give our best for america's best. >> that's why we're here. >> additional funding for "washington week" is provided by prudential financial, norfolk southern, the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. within the last 48 hours, two ji -- two gigantic shoes have dropped on the foreign policy front and both events mean the u.s. role abroad is about to shrink. today, the news was about iraq. >> after nearly nine years,

america's war in iraq will be over. over the next two months, our troops in iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. gwen: and in libya, where muammar gaddafi's killing may not stop the government from unraveling. secretary of state hillary clinton noted as much on tuesday, even before gaddafi was killed. >> getting a national army and a police force under civilian command is essential. and the united nations, the united states, and other partners stand ready to do that. but we are still at the point where liberation has not yet been claimed because of the ongoing conflicts that persist. and of course the continuing freedom of action of gaddafi and those around him.

gwen: the upheaval in the middle east and northern africa began in earnest just months ago. since then, there have been three major crackdowns. in bahrain, yemen, and syria. and three toppled strong men in tunisia, egypt, and now libya. martha was in libya with secretary clinton this week where is all of this going? >> well, certainly, liberation is almost complete now in libya except for the announcement. and i think you will also see nato standing down and the military mission by the end of this month. where this goes, i think you have the three key places. you have bahrain, syria and yemen. and what happens there and knows leaders have to be saying, oh oh. at this point. but as secretary clinton also pointed out on this trip, every place is different. and how everyone responds in those places will be very different. gwen: the manner in which muammar gaddafi was killed has caused a lot of unease. we've seen this footage over and over. bloody footage. and pretty shocking and grotesque.

does that cloud the victory? >> well, i have to say when i look at that video, and i think wait a minute, are these the people that you want to turn this over to zph i'm sure americans are -- to? i'm sure americans are saying the same thing. there will be an investigation launched into how exactly that occurred. because the video we've all seen and some people saying, hey, i'm the guy who shot him, i did this, i did that and very joyful about this, a horrible man. he was a horrible, horrible man who did terrible things. but is that who you want to leave your government in the hands of? that was a point that mrs. clinton made over and over and over again. these militias have to get under control. these militias, these rebels, there has to be some unifying factor. someone in charge. and to figure out who exactly they are. gwen: so doyle, does that mean that the u.s. is part of that? or is the jurks just wash its hands and nato -- or is the u.s. just wash its hands and nato? >> what the part of the it is

the question. there are proposals for mill tar advisors, trainers, for somebody to get on the ground and help the national transitional council which is supposed to become a government and move to tripoli and never quite does that. get its arms around this problem of 100 different militias holding 100 different neighborhoods in libya. the libyans have even said they'll pay for it if we send trainers. i don't detect an awful lot of appetite in the sbome administration to put -- in the obama administration to put boots on the ground in libya even as military advisors after spending so much time saying we're not going to have boots on the ground. my guess is there will be british or french boots on the ground. >> you also have some americans on the ground and they said they will get more looking for the shoulder-fired missiles that have gone missing. tens of thousands of missiles. but i don't think there's much appetite, either, on the ground, for exactly what you say. although i have to say it's a little strange when you're in a convoy with secretary clinton in there, and guys with ak-47's

following the convoy and the technicals, the pickup trucks. gwen: a little different than most. >> what interested me here was the political reaction. and you had republicans pointedly coming out and saying i would like to thank the british and the french for leading in this. and then you had the administration talk about it as a vindication of sorts for its policy of not going it alone. so which is it? is this the template for military involvement in the future? >> well, the british and french certainly helped a lot. but the united states, even though they wanted to say we're taking a back seat, provided most of the surveillance, and they continued to do the surveillance, certainly the air strikes in the beginning were all the u.s. the united states played a huge role in this. but they preferred to not have it not seem like they were leading it. which they technically weren't. after a month or so. >> as to whether this is a template or a precedent for what may happen in syria or

yemen or anyplace else, the best headline i saw over the week was actually a in "national journal" and read this way. what happens in libya stays in libya. libya was a very unusual circumstance. small crinlt. incompetent army. incompetent rebels. that's one reason this took so long. >> and what started as a humanitarian crisis. gwen: which didn't happen. >> close to europe. britain and france got exorcised about it. arab league approved it. the security council approved it. none of this has happened but it does set up a future dilemma for the obama administration. having said we are willing to commit limited force in a multilateral way if a humanitarian disaster is going to happen, well, what happens if the syrian government says we're finally going to move on homs and -- >> and you have what appears to be a humanitarian -- >> exactly. >> and mrs. clinton said again, every place is different. we'll have to make an

individual decision. >> but it does set a precedent. >> it does. a half precedent. >> does the success of this suggest to the administration that there may be some ways to deal with those other three that they haven't been prepared to do up to now? >> well, i think certainly they will look at it on a case by case basis. one of the things that happened with libya is it was air strikes. and you think about how much the united states and particularly joe biden has talked about, you can do it through air strikes. tkouk it through drones. -- you can do it through drones. look at how much we're doing unmanned aerial vehicles to carry out wars. a convoy where originally they said we don't know whether gaddafi is in it or not but air strikes and drone strikes. so this may be a different future. gwen: president assad still cracking down in syria. and the u.n. coming out today with a resolution once again asking president saleh in yemen to get out of the way and none of that seems to be exactly happening. and on the same day that the president walked out and said,

we're through in iraq, now, we know that we expect at the end of this year for troops to withdraw. but this announcement seemed awfully final and awfully real. wasn't -- >> i think it is real. i think they may try to find ways to train the military through civilian contractors. but the number of troops that the military thought would remain there at one point, it was 20,000, then it dropped down to 10,000, and in the end, they wanted about 3,000 to 5,000 troops to remain there, military trainers to help out the iraqis. gwen: the u.s. wanted to. but iraq didn't. >> iraq didn't want it in the end. and iraq, there were some negotiation but what they couldn't promise is immunity. they couldn't promise u.s. troops immunity. and that means if u.s. troops are over there, and the iraqis say this soldier committed a crime, so we're going to prosecute him, they would prosecute him, we couldn't. and we couldn't intervene there. and they would be in charge. and that's the final straw. and the u.s. said we can't do it. >> the white house tried very hard to spin this as a

tremendous victory. and ok. it was. president obama keeping his promise. gwen: it was. >> to get troops out. but this didn't happen the way they wanted it to. >> it was the wink and nod promise anyway originally. they all thought there would be troops there. >> the republicans attacked the administration, the republican presidential candidates today, attacked the administration for the way this played out. gwen: they said it was politically expedient. >> for it being so disorderly. i'm -- as far as failing to bring about -- >> you take care of the politics on that side of the table. and we'll -- >> here's the thing. mitt romney said that it was either sheer ineptitude or naked political calculation. in truth, let me ask, you -- is there anything the president of the united states could do to convince the iraqi parliament that he should have gotten the immunity for american troops? >> apparently not. as i -- because i think they really did try. and in the end, it's also politics in iraq.

i mean -- >> right. >> maliki, whether he wanted u.s. troops to stay or not, he's got muktada al-sadr, if troops come in more violence. he has his own politics to take care of. gwen: but the politics here, doyle, revolves around the philosophy of u.s. involvement abroad. and right now, we see both with libya and all of these other kind of turbulent places, we see the u.s. stepping back and stepping back more behind the curtain. is that a correct read? >> well, it certainly looks that way this week. i would argue that the administration's principles have been fairly consistent but it's very hard to track them because all of the cases are so different. the principles have been, and this goes all the way back to obama's campaign for president, draw down those big footprint wars in iraq and afghanistan, ok, he confused the picture by escalating in afghanistan before drawing down. gwen: right. >> but be ready to use force in small footprint ways. and we're seeing that in

drones, in pakistan. we're seeing that in the interesting role in libya, we're seeing that in africa. gwen: uganda. >> exactly. where the administration has actually sent 100 advisors. >> because we're drawing down. because they finally have the special forces to do it. they specifically said that. >> but does this add up when you try to put it all together to an obama doctrine that can be enunciated by the president of the united states? >> the administration says it's allergic to that. all administrations are allergic to doctrines. gwen: because they are held to it. >> and figure out what rules we're going to go by. but it is a kind of obama doctrine. >> can we remember -- and strike by it again today with the president talking about the drawdown in afghanistan, we're going to be in afghanistan for a long time. we're going to be in afghanistan for three more years with probably about 60,000 troops and after that you probably will have -- >> it was striking the president tried to make this a big day by saying the tide of war is reseeding. -- receding.

>> not really. >> a long time to go out. gwen: and quite interesting how much this is being talked about in one part of washington but the other part, which is to say the campaign part, very little talk about foreign policy. six weeks. five republican debates and more yet to come. oh, joy. these debates tell us a lot about the candidates, what they believe, who they consider a threat, and whether they have the skills to survive an eight-way contest. they also tell us quite a bit about strategy. texas governor rick perry betrayed his in response to this question from moderator anderson cooper. >> then let me ask a question of governor perry. the 14th amendment allows anybody, a child of illegal immigrants who is born here, is automatically american citizen. should that change? >> let me address herman's issue. >> i rather you ask -- you ans that question. >> i understand that. you get to ask the questions and i get to answer like i want to. gwen: where have i heard that before? in providing platform for the candidates to say whatever they came to say, are these debate stages changing the nature of

the traditional primary campaign? dan? what do you think? >> they have this year. i can't remember a series of debates, first that have come in such a compressed period of time. or a series of debates that have had such an effect on presidential nominating process. they helped launch michelle bachmann. they helped knock out tim paw lnty. -- pawlenty. former minnesota. gwen: who is wondering why they got out. >> they have clearly hurt rick perry and helped herman cain clearly. and yet when we get through all this period the race is very similar to what we thought it was going into them. mitt romney is the person everyone else feel they have to beat. and the party is looking for a -- a good part of the party is still looking for somebody they can fall in love with who will be the alternative to romney. gwen: assuming that the horse race itself doesn't really change that much from the debate to debate, what is this kind of campaigning, this campaigning from a stage instead of door to door, how is that changing what we learn about these individuals? >> first of all, it's a very

wholesale campaign rather than being retail right now. and i think it will turn to retail politics when we get to iowa and new hampshire. but these are candidates who are essentially on a job interview here. and what i think it tells us, it's so interesting, is that the tea party extentcy which -- constituency which was very powerful in the mid-term election ss very if he canal -- elections is very fickle and doesn't know where it wants to be. the pew research did a poll of republicans and 51% of republicans who identify with the tea party said that these debates caused them to reassess the candidates. gwen: on a weekly basis. >> on a weekly basis. and you do learn a lot about the candidates. in that clip you just showed, we learned a lot about what was at stake for rick perry in that debate. because he wasn't going to answer that question. he wanted to talk about what he wanted to talk about. and you learned something when you're sitting in your living room, you learn something about

a candidate and how he goes toe-to-toe against his opponents. >> what did we learn about mitt romney in that great moment where he put his hand on rick perry? >> he was hoping -- >> we learned -- >> did that quiet you down, doyle? >> we learned you can get under mitt romney's skin. he has been a pretty skillful debater and has managed through these debates and often been a target to stay above it. and to glide through them. and in this case, rick perry came with a strategy designed to rattle gotch romney. -- rattle governor romney. and it appeared it did for a bit. both sides can argue they got the better of these exchanges, but nonetheless we saw a different romney this time. we saw somebody who was more energetic and more aggressive, a little more defensive than we've seen him in the past. >> did he go in that way or was he just rattled? >> he was attacked more directly and frontly particularly by perry but also

by rick santorum and everybody else. i mean, and so i think perry really got under his skin. particularly when he raised the immigration issue and the question of whether he hired lawn workers who were illegal knowingly. and that was an issue that went back to the 2008 campaign. romney has made a point saying that's old news. 2008, i'm moving on. this is a new campaign. and what rick perry said to him was you know what? that's not off-limits. i'm going to raise 2008. all over again. >> what did we learn about perry? clearly he felt he had to go on the offensive and get back on his feet somehow. after bad performances earlier. did he succeed? >> well, i think he may have stopped the bleeding. he had had some bad debates. he was heading down in the polls. he had to go on the attack. and he did all of that. >> i think he was trying to make up for a lot of lost time. the perry campaign seized the -- sees the next phase of the

campaign that's more helpful than the current phase. gwen: how does herman cain see the next phase of the campaign? after this debate, at this debate, just prior to it and after it, he offered kind of differing opinions about what his 9-9-9 plan would do and who it would tax and abortion and whether families have the right to decide abortion or whether the federal government should but 100% pro-life he said. and on something else, too, it felt like all week long he was trying to figure out where he ought to be. >> he's had a difficult week. and there's something about herman cain and there's a little bit of teflon so far around herman cain. and he's been able to slide through some of these. but the three things you mentioned this week, i think are all very problematic for him. he did not handle them well. gwen: gament.detainees was the third one. -- guantanamo detainees was the third and negotiating with terrorists. >> and more to come. once a candidate makes it clear that they've got -- they don't have all the facts, they don't quite know what they think about some of these issues, people are going to -- >> here's the thing about herman cain.

he was in the third tier and now catapulted up to the first tier. the first tier, you're going to get a different kind of scrutiny. the reason people, one of the reasons republicans like him is because he's likable. on that stage, he's the guy, even when he was attacked, he responded in an amiable way to all the attacks. and people still like -- gwen: and the attacks were kind of like, i'm sorry. my brother, i disagree with you. but it wasn't -- friendly -- >> i congratulate you for being bold even though your plan is silly. >> he can't continue on the 9-9-9 plan when presented with a lot of evidence about problems with it. he can't simply say, well, i'm right, and you're wrong. he's going to have to -- he's going to have to answer these criticisms. and he's begun to make some modifications. >> and his modifications but what do romney and perry do next? what kind of modifications given what you guys have said

about this? gwen: become retail instead of -- >> i think they are going to continue attacking each other. because i think when we see the polls coming out, we'll see that it didn't make that much of a difference. i would assume that people are now going to give -- republicans are now going to give perry another look because they saw him be bold, if inarful at times in his attacks. -- if inartful at times in his attacks. and these men both have a lot of money to spend. and what we saw this week was these web ads that came out. and they're going to attack each other over the airwaves and do it in person as well. gwen: don't the debates kind of disguise that you have to have a structure, you still have to have -- maybe you don't. you have a 99 -- >> i think you're absolutely right about that. and it's what this debate period has masked. that ultimately, this campaign is going to come down to a series of state by state

battles. in some states, romney is better positioned than he is in other states. his iowa problem has long existed. he didn't do well there as he had hoped four years ago. he's been reluctant to make a real commitment to iowa. and he now actually has an opportunity in iowa. but there's a risk. >> some say he has a stealth operation in iowa. >> hard to be stealth in iowa, though. after a while. >> he's not put the investment in that he did last time. governor perry, obviously, needs iowa more than ever now. and he still has a lot of ground to make up. because herman cain has risen. so -- but between the -- on the ground campaigning and the television ads that are coming we're going to see a different campaign. >> what we're seeing, with these debates, and what's so interesting to me is we're searing the public vetting of candidates -- we're seeing the public vetting of candidates. herman cain is a perfect example. he doesn't have much of a policy team. i would argue he needs a policy team. you point out all the problems with 9-9-9, etc., and we're

seeing michelle bachmann one day be up in the polls and the next day come out and say something about the h.p.v. virus causing mental retardation which she had nothing to back it up with. it caused her -- gwen: and today reports that she lost her entire new hampshire staff. but she didn't -- but she didn't seem to know about it. >> these debates are getting terrific ratings for debates. they're getting a big audience. they're exposing all of these republicans' ideas to a broader audience. but as you just mentioned, not a lot of them are looking very elevated out of this. and is this good for the eventual republican nominee or is it good for barack obama? >> well, the obama team would argue it's great for them. because the more the republicans are arguing among themselves, the less people are going to like them in the long run that's good for the president. i think this is a phase that we go through in every nomination battle. these -- some debates get more heated than others. and parties usually get through that. so i think unless this becomes a total food fight through all these, it's not necessarily

that helpful for president obama. the republicans have to have a fight before they can figure out who they want as their nominee. >> remember hillary clinton fighting against barack obama. and it didn't seem to hurt barack obama too much in the general election. gwen: but it made for a long and expensive struggle in the primaries. which is -- >> it did. gwen: that's what this white house is hoping happens on the republican side as well. >> absolutely. gwen: ok. glad you guys made it back from vegas. did you lose any money? anything we need to know about? >> no. what happens in vegas stays in vegas. gwen: thank you, everybody. we're out of time. but the conversation will continue online on our "washington week" webcast extra. it will post by 11:00 p.m. eastern and while you're online, check out my weekly blog, this week, on whether foreign policy drama helps a struggling president. keep up with daily developments with the pbs newshour and we'll see you next week on "washington week." good night. download our weekly podcast and

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