from washington, the mclaughlin group, the american original. for over three decades, the sharpest minds, best sources, hardest talk. issue one, iraq 911. >> american combat troops are not going to be fighting in iraq again. we do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has

already been extended in iraq. >> commander in chief obama announce thursday week he will send 300 300 advisors to iraq. since launching an offensive in late may, isis has taken control of iraq's largest city. its goal is to create an independent sunni dominated country spanning parts of syria and iraq governed by strict islamic law. obama also called on nouri al- maliki -- as well as iraq shiite majority as a prelude to retaking control of western iraq. the alternative?

iraq could descend into civil war hitting its rival and religious groups against each other. mr. obama might have asked joe biden. in 2006, biden o -- one for the sunni dominated west, one for the kurdish north and one for the shiite dominated south and east but all within the same nation state. given the latest flair in violence, achieving that political resolution may be difficult. but if maliki can create a government that promises more autonomy to iraq's minorities, the iraqi army may be motivated to retake mosul.

al-qaeda and iraq dominated. with american military assistance -- isis might then be driven out of iraq. question, how realistic is this scenario and is nouri al- maliki apt to make it happening? >> i don't think we can put humpty-dumpty together again, to be honest. i don't think the government has the confidence or ability to unite the people or get folks behind them. the sunni triangle and kurgistan again. the united states of america is not going to put in what would

be required scores of thousands of american troops to bring this country together militarily. should the country -- do you think they'll decide to come together diplomatically? i doubt it. there's too much blood been shed. i think the reality is it has been broken apart and nobody's going to put it back together. >> is the goal to establish an independent sunni state? >> i think the goal of the sunni's, all of them including isil is to be out of the regime and they are supported in that by the saudis. >> if it is the goal, it won't work. eleanor. >> anyone who grew up with the vietnam generation, when you hear you're sending advisors in, you get nervous. i think it's clear the president is doing the least he can do to try to assist in repelling isis from baghdad. and the truth is that the

shiite military is probably going to be able to repel isis on its own from baghdad. if you look at the areas isis has taken in iraq, they're basically the sunni heart land. it began when president bush was in office. remember all the ethnic cleansing that went on then? baghdad used to be an integrated city. it's now 80 percent shiite. maliki doesn't care about the area. and the kurds are perfectly happy in their part of the country. maliki won the most seats in the election. he still stands a good chance of emerging on top and they don't have to love each other. they just have to quit actively killing each other. if they don't decide to do that, american military power is not going to be able to

prevent their civil war. >> maliki has been in power already since 2006. he's had 12 years to form a unity government. it hasn't happened. pump more weapons into the hands of his dictator style government. the idea of a mortician that was thrown around by joe biden and leslie gelb a decade ago, may be a good idea then. at this point we would have to look at what that partition would mean. the other potential oil wealth area is in the north. what the sunnies control at this point is a stretch of disorder without massive oil potential, without any oil potential. how are you going to break that wealth up evenly in a partitioned state that only

inflames the divisions more than they are. democrats in the senate tried to embrace this plan. the reason there was never momentum for it is because polls at the time found the iraqis didn't want it. >> i think we're in a very serious situation here. there are strategic interests of the united states at risk here. one of them is the issue of oil and that is something that could affect that region and all the western economies. we just can't stand by and let this whole thing unravel. there are no easy answers to this thing. i don't think it's going to be possible to reform all these governments. it's just the -- the conflict is so deep and so long, it's hard for me to imagine how the shiites and the sunnies get together. it's not going to be an easy solution. chinese history gloss. a broad side from former vice

president cheney and his daughter appeared in wednesday's wall street journal. in 1983, ronald reagan said if history teaches us anything, it teaches that simple minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. president obama is on track to securing his legacy as the man who betrayed our past and squandered our freedom, unquote. question is is it unprecedented for a former vice president to criticize a sitting president like this? is it below the belt? >> i don't think he should be critiqued on that level. i think we should ask why somebody who was so wrong in 2003 expected to have any

credibility today. his major beef is they didn't keep a residual force in iraq after the war ended in 2011. why didn't they? iran was so empowered by the invasion of iraq, iran told maliki i don't want americans in there. over a period of years. so i think cheney is just off on some other planet and he's going to get his come upance from his own party. listen to rand paul. quote, the tragedy unfolding in iraq today is only part of the story. al-qaeda is its affiliates are resurgent across the globe. according to a recent study, between 2012 and 20 thirty

three, there was an increase in jihadist groups around the world. obama is busy rushing american adversaries in the middle east. president obama seems determined to leave office taking america down a notch. >> the truth is if the war -- dick cheney and george w bush and the neocons brought to this country -- i don't think obama's responsible for it. i do think the country agrees we ought to get out of afghanistan. we ought to stay out of ukraine. there's no doubt this is all coming down on his watch. but i think it's odd that they would try to blame obama for something he didn't start.

>> it's not odd. it's opportunistic. he sees an opportunity to vindicate the biggest blunder the american administration has made in memory with the invasion of iraq. u.s. invading a muslim country -- >> it's going to be a cake walk with flours. it's going to be a great model for the world. >> it might be offensive that this came from dick cheney, somebody who basically profited immensely off of the military adventurism in iraq. there are points in the wall street journal. one of them was this idea of spreading black flag waving al- qaeda kill in the name of god jihadism that is in the middle of iraq right now.

this administration has rhetorically soft posture, a difficult time explaining this. what they have did is they've done an aggressive drone campaign over the last 5 years, remote controlled missiles to kill suspected terrorists. it's a good question. this is the way the wall street journal played tup. this is the top of the page and it's devoted to dick cheney and his daughter liz. wednesday, it couldn't have been bigger and it's probably an endorsement from the journal. would you agree with that? >> dick cheney, i like the guy, he's a friend. but from the beginning, i thought it was wrong. exit question. in an interview on cnn with larry king 4 years ago, joe biden said iraq should be one of the greatest achievements of the obama administration. is that the case?

>> the president campaigned saying he was going to end wars. he ended the war. we're not going to start it up again. i wouldn't call it a great achievement. >> campaigning and saying you're going to end the war and actually ending the war are two different things. there are big responsibilities that come with pulling troops out of a region. we shouldn't be responding by -- we got our troops out, let's pump more weaponry into iraq and arm the iraqi government. i think the american people want us to stay out, but i think the american people want the government to look at what is the interest of being here? what can we do to help? i credit the administration for having the discipline for pushing back against let's immediately mill tarrize this. >> it's not going to help our

economy. >> i'm worried about that as well. >> are you worried about that? >> i am worried about that. i would go back to the question you raised before. frankly the role of the president is to deal with the national interests of the country. whatever the campaign was, it's not the issue. he's the president of the united states. he has to protect the long term issue interests of the united states. that involves the world of oil. so this is something you just can't walk away from because you had a campaign or because the american public doesn't want it. this is the role of the president. >> he's not walking away from it. >> suggested the role of the president of the united states was far bigger than the way you've explained it. >> yes. >> he did. >> yes. >> a far bigger role. >> yes. we all know what happens during campaigns. this is now becoming a big

political fight. we blame dick cheney, we blame the republicans. right now we're in where we are. that whole part of the world is a huge player in the world of energy and energy supplies. we cannot walk away from it. >> suggests there is a disaster. if there is a blame game going on between the parties, it suggests this is a gathering disaster and that is exactly right. i don't have a cure and i don't know who's got a cure for how we get -- >> it's going to become a pocketbook issue. >> when cheney's open ed was followed up by another one by paul -- paul is making an argument against cheney -- >> interventionist -- >> okay. issue 2. the fog of war. we want to know who was behind it, what the motivation of the leaders and the

attackers happen to be. there are still some unanswered questions. it was after all the fog of war. >> u.s. special forces captured one of the most wanted this week, a leading suspect in the 2012 benghazi murders of navy seals fiown woods and glen doherty. he is now being questioned on board the uss new york enroute to the u.s. where the attorney general says he will be tried in a civilian court. last year, katala was charged with 3 federal crimes in connection with the benghazi attack: murder, aiding terrorists, and a weapons offense. is this a high stakes trial for the obama administration? >> yeah. at this point, who knows what's going to come out of this

thing? this does not look good. the whole way this thing was handled did not inspire the confidence of the country. >> the way the arrest was hired does not inspire the rest of the country? i think it was a daring raid where they captured him. after two years of the right grousing about, they're saying the capture was timed to coincide with hillary's book tour and they want him to go to guantanamo. we have several high profile terrorists in american jails for life. it's appropriate that he gets tried here. >> great. but it's only a massive circus trial if the administration wants to make it into one. there are far higher profile people in custody including moham ed, the master mind of

another 9/11 attack that still has not been tried. he's being held and is maybe going to be tried -- why not focus on that trial right now. >> why not focus on the guy we just caught? >> how is it katala was walking the streets as an ordinary civilian for several weeks before he was apprehended? >> more than that, he was being interviewed by reporters and things. they wanted to find a time when he was isolated and alone. they wanted to grab him without alerting the libyan government -- all the rest of it. what they're going to get out of him is a lot of information. there's a possibility this guy could say we plotted this, we did that, is there any video around there. and it can only be bad news or nothing news for hillary clinton's ambitions. >> i don't think it affects hillary one bit and if it

answers questions, puts things to rest, that's all to the good for her. >> is katala in control of the narrative? >> not any more. >> you don't think so? you mean they're going to -- >> i think they've been talking to him for a long time and he's probably pretty tired right now, john. exit question, considering all the possible outcomes of open trial, is the [ indiscernible ] a net positive, neutral, or net negative for hillary clinton's ambitions? >> it cannot be beneficial. it's neutral to negative depending what he has to say. if he has something of relevance to say about people coming to aid and the rest of it -- the only possibility is it's negative. >> what would he have to say

about that? >> you listen -- i mean, the point is he might have said we planned the attack and did this -- and says all these things we should have known about. >> and everybody sat on their rifles and let us go in. i think hillary is going to persevere through this just fine. we have the shoe bomber, the times square bomber. most americans don't even remember these trials, so this is an appropriate use of american justice. the latest wall street journal says most -- is that serious? >> you only need 50 plus one. she's doing fine. >> she's sinking in the polls. >> she looks like she has a pretty clear field for the democratic nomination. who were the republicans going to put up?

that is going to be a much more interesting primary race. >> is she a deeply polarizing candidate? >> she is a deeply credible candidate. i think the democrat is a shoe in -- >> it will be nice to see the benghazi subject go into a trial in a court and hopefully not be politicized to the level it has been under investigation in the house of representatives. >> dream on. >> i think hillary clinton is about as slam dunk a candidate for the democratic party -- >> you mean she's going to win the election? >> she's going to win the nomination. she will attract millions of people into her tent to vote for her because she will be the first woman to be nominated by either major party and that's going to have enormous appeal.

issue 3. jay walks. >> white house press secretary jay carny was greeted by music from his favorite band. >> that was good rock and roll, as if you didn't know. >> mr. canny's last day at that podium was wednesday. the announcement of his leaving came as a surprise last month, made by president obama himself who suddenly entered the white house press briefing room to proclaim that carny was at last moving on. >> in april, jay came to me in the oval office and said he was thinking of moving on and i was not thrilled to say the least. but jay's had to wrestle with this decision for quite some time. he's been on my team since day

one. >> and there was a hug between barack and jay. he thanked the white house correspondents with whom he often riddled. >> finally i want to say thank you to all of you here. this has been an extraordinary experience and i have loved every minute of every day, even the many minutes of many days i spent in this room. as i think most of you now understand and believe, it's always a pleasure, no matter how hard it can get in here, how hot it can sometimes be and contentious it sometimes is. as jay canny slips back into oblivion, will he take his

chair in the mclaughlin group in order to restore his ego? >> i think jay carny did a tough job. he did a workman like job. it's not like the days of jim agarty. in the old days -- it's a rough situation. it's been that since ron ziglar was in the nixon white house. it's tough on these guys. some of the best -- jody powell is one of the best. he's no longer with us. it's a very tough job. i admire the guys that can go out there and take it. i was offered a position like that and i lasted about 24 hours. >> do you know a press secretary who did a biography of his -- >> ron nelson. did he write a book on ford?

>> he probably did. but who could say anything negative about jerry ford? even though he was not elected president. i think he had the widespread -- >> i think larry speaks wrote a book. >> and to say something about jay, i can't remember a single gas that he made and that is really something. when he's up on that tight rope every day in front of television cameras. he kept his cool most of the time. >> he went from here at the request of the vice president. >> 4 years for biden. >> 4 years for biden. that was a great -- >> preparation. >> he had the right temperament. he had a wonderful temperament. it was hard for him to get involved with a frakus with the

press. >> i don't know that he slips into oblivion. he's been rumored that he might be named as ambassador to russia. i don't think that's going to happen. >> he brought that up at a christian science monitor breakfast and said that he turn today down. >> he was offer today? >> he was offered it. >> that's impressive he turned it down. >> it's a major loss for this administration. he's one of the few people in the communications team in this white house who knew what he was doing. how you replace that and where it goes from here for the next two years -- >> josh ernest is a fine replacement. let's give him a chance. >> richard nixon built that briefing room. the old thing was in the west wing of the white house and had

those old guys sleeping in there and playing cards. mixon built that and the old white house swimming pool. >> predictions: will the redskins change their names? >> no, they will not. >> yes, double yes. >> yes. >> double yes? >> yes, they're going to change the name. at a future date, bye-bye.

>> next on kqed newsroom, the port commission is called into question for too much political influence and too little public input. the world cup kicks off soccer mania in the bay area. [ cheers ] >> plus, the provocative photographty of anthony captures the dawn of gay caulture in california. >> they express themselves in a freeway with love and affection and humor. i wanted to try to record that. ♪ ♪