zines the drone war is expanding a new report details u.s. military plans for another you a base in africa its mission is to keep tabs on extremist groups what does this say about a shifting u.s. military strategy. and the u.s. isn't the only country eyeing the region french in mali and troops are locked in a bitter battle with islamic extremists while u.s. officials say this conflict could take years to resolve a report from mali coming up. in the black mark on u.s. credibility abroad but it looks like the guantanamo bay detention facility isn't going to shut its doors anytime soon in fact the obama administration is actually

reassigning the special envoy tasked with closing the facility i had a look at the change of heart. it's tuesday january twenty ninth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. we begin today taking a look at plans the u.s. has for establishing a spy drone base in north west africa the goal is to keep a close eye on al qaeda affiliates and other islamic extremists in the region this as french forces continue to invade northeastern mali and an effort to fight islamist extremists that were gaining traction in the rejet if the base is approved it would likely be here and niger a west african country about borders mali niger's ambassador to the u.s. today told c.n.n. that his government has agreed to allow the u.s. to place to do. romans near niger right now the only other permanent base the u.s.

has is three thousand miles south in the country of djibouti so what does this mean for u.s. foreign policy goals to discuss i'm joined now by steven miles coalition court nader for win without war stephen great to have you here great to be here now north africa seems to be this new hot spot for the u.s. military does it come to as a surprise to you that there are plans in the works for a new drone base there when it comes to drones not much comes this is a prize to many more i mean the only thing that's still out there is a surprise is what we don't know and that's once again what we're finding out with these reports is that there's a lot more out there that we don't know and tragically we keep finding out about it through the press rather than hearing about it from our own government so i think what we've what we're all wondering after we're hearing our news today is just what's going on what's the policy what's the procedures and what are we hoping to accomplish with these steps right i mean it looks like this is kind of the the new

tactic that the government is using but there is a lot that we don't know about it but it looks like presence in africa is expanding after the announcement of possibly building this fire drone base there but what keep pace would you say i mean how much of a presence will we have there how much will that presence continue to grow how fast will it grow leave the thing we know is that these are ongoing conversations within the administration there's those that seek within the administration have more military footprint there is those that seek a more diplomatic role and these are these are debates that are going on by all accounts that various levels and all the way up to the top within the administration right now it's pretty clear from our perspective that there needs to be a more robust effort placed on the political side and on the diplomatic side you know we've been trying for the last couple years with just these military efforts in fact we were heavily involved in mali for the last several years through military assistance programs and that clearly hasn't worked out so well and now we see that the u.s. is are directing resources to this region of the world helping. france with their

invasion over there how much about the threat do you think al qaeda in this region and north eastern africa are northwestern rather how much of a threat are they there to the u.s. you know it's really unclear and so we we do know is that there's some groups in northeastern in northwestern africa that consider themselves affiliated with al qaeda now it's very unclear to what level these groups are actually in any way tied to the al qaeda branch kind of al qaeda mean if you will that actually attacked the united states on september eleventh or if they're if they're just sort of franchises that took on the name and some of the underlying ideology but are much more focused on domestic threats in their own country focused on mali for example than any sort of actual threat to america there's a lot of unknown questions and we know that this is only one faction in this fight the militants in the north or at least four or five different factions and probably a whole lot more and frankly the short answer is we're just not sure right a lot of questions and it's a very complex situation over there as you have mentioned

a lot of different dynamics and factions going on with this new possible new drone base over there in africa does this signal a shift and strategy you know where rather than having this focus on the ground that it's now being you know in the air this is kind of this drone no warfare is this new strategy was think it's think it's not just the shift in focus kind of from the ground to the air but really it's a recognition that after we put a lot of time and energy into places like iraq at the expense of a number of other places in the world then we need to refocus on those places and we need to be looking at kind of she's going on in sub-saharan africa there's obviously the very prominent pivot to asia that the administration has talked about so there's a there's a large need need to shift to other places and look at other places and one of the problems one the reasons they keep talking about the need for doing it with drones is that they don't have much human intelligence on the ground we don't have the kind of spy networks that we have on the ground in places like afghanistan and packets. down on the ground in sub-saharan africa and so the reports we're hearing

is the military hoping to supplement that with some of these aerial drones of course that's an insufficient picture painting and we'll need to do a little bit more work if we actually want to have a good understanding of what's going on you know we have seen the way that the drug drone war has played out in places like pakistan we've seen even somewhat of a backlash there with the drone strikes kind of breeding this anti-american sentiment with the civilian casualties that have occurred in these regions and we've seen the anxiety that it causes to civilians on the ground where these drones hover in the sky is so can this make government officials weary of using the same tactic now in africa absolutely and i think as we've seen out of the press reports today is the officials from within within the development in the diplomatic side of the government expressing some concerns about that exact phenomenon you know these technologies are now associated with kind of raining down from above as they do in

the tribal regions of pakistan in places like yemen and somalia and they have very real identities throughout the world you know the this type of warfare and so there's very real concerns about this being the face of america in these regions and that type of concern the type of relationship that that would send in the message that would send to places on the ground right i want to defense secretary leon panetta has spoken out recently kind of touting. the effective tactic of using drones i want to pull up a quote from him he says use what operational scales we have to go after those that want attack our country we've done that in pakistan we're doing it in yemen and elsewhere and i think the reality is it's going to be a continuing tool national defense in the future so what do you make what you make of his statement that you know oddly enough not someone i would quote very often but mitt romney who was the republican presidential candidate said it best when he said we're not going to. kill our way out of this problem when these challenges

that we're facing whether it's in mali sub-saharan africa region or frankly some of the challenges we're going to face in southeast asia they're not going to be solved simply by killing trying to kill our way out of the problem so it's going to require a more holistic view point it's going to require taking ourselves off this war footing and really starting to look at how the u.s. engages in the world how we deal with the circuity threats to america how we make ourselves stronger how we don't weaken ourselves by sending these negative images around the world really interesting steven great to have you on that was even miles coalition coordinator for win without war we turn now to west africa french forces have intervened in mali in order to loosen the grip islamic militants had on the country the u.s. has also increased involvement in the french led intervention by providing resources like intelligence and refusing missions mali and french forces have had some success in the last week they have gained control of galloway and timbuktu cities in the northeastern region of mali where militants seized and impose shari'a

law back in april for the most part the war in mali have been invisible with access to most journalists nearly impossible photographs and statistics are rare but our next guest is an independent reporter and mali demba boonie joins us now to shed a light on what is going on on the ground there down but it's really great to have you on today west africa seems to be allusive to many americans can you sum up briefly what's happening there what you're seeing and what you're hearing. well thanks for having me on the contrary marty has been experiencing a very deep crisis actually it didn't even start with the cool which happened here but it's recall which happened here on march twenty second. last year when well the crisis actually began with a huge drought which molly and other sub-saharan african countries have undergone

as a result of the or rain drops in the years and situation has created a massive food insecurity problem which unfortunately doesn't get talked about march and as a result a lot of populations were displaced moving from. the endangered area to the bigger cities and the political instability miley has been going through i mean started with that crisis actually and of course there are other factors such as the. crisis in the internet and in libya which directly affected mali because as a result of qaddafi. being killed a lot of fighters home or not the fighters were actually mahdi and or if they returned home with their weapons and added on to anger and hunger and different

thracian and the police because of instability which was already going on so here we are we are today with a question with a complex. i mean the conflict is the issue and the war the french intervention. and i guess we will have some time to talk about that but basically this is a question mark. yeah absolutely it's been a little situation there for quite some time you just mentioned. french invasion and that is what's making the news here it's only just recently that the french decided to intervene can you explain demba why now what is the significance of the intervention french intervention today. well it's. a response to most importantly by both the mother the interim government

which was established after the cool and the original organization known as the economic community of west african states as well as the african union so different to intervention actually followed many attempts by the original organization and they are incapacity actually to handle discussion on the ground here in mali because we were having. bigger numbers of these. really displaced people and bigger numbers of refugio and we had. part of the country being occupied some of the go in to and with no resistance. and with no administration at all and we know him aquatic institution such as. president in place and it could do this jury system so you had all these events

happening and i think the french decided then to intervene because had they not been the day they did the extremist islamic jihad the forces and groups who would have been in bamako by now i wouldn't probably be talking to you the way i'm doing now so why it took so long i guess we can find the nation in the diplomatic were but i guess. my sources and from intelligence had been that the french or i mean the third is. the african nations to take the leadership on this very complex issue but then obviously. in the last minute decided to jump in the water and the responsibility and take you need a ship to kind of give the ok so that they could intervene all right the spent so far and now that the french have intervened can you describe the way that people over there in mali have reacted to this french intervention and how do people over

there on the ground view the french and their decision to invade the country. i'm sure your viewers are going to certainly know that a friend will be caught and izing nation i mean they call tonight smiley and then we get an independent from them for twenty seconds. but we have or we have. had some very good relationships some ups and downs obviously but i get the money and population for the most part what have i have a weakness in the street when the intervention began was a huge supporter from the fifty's and. boys and girls and all levels of the civic society for the first time in my forty years of life and money i have seen more french flag being. made cookies

so i think it really speaks to the desperation and to the excitement of the population who see the french troops coming in to buy mccool and then making their way out to the river muddy maybrick corner and generally and consequently on the other in the region so huge the core system i have so far not. been publicly expressed by any model. civil society or in political parties or in the really just group or any n.g.o.s. interesting now could you describe what the day to day life and over there in mali weeks after the french invaded. well i guess we can about some success or do i very carefully we need to be very careful about proclaiming victory mission is not accomplished yet.

in the hands of the rebel groups i guess the strategy on the ground and the air bomb being that has been happening simultaneously in some first of march. in some parts of the ramadi are both. securing the bin laden men and making sure that you know the troops can events can move forward without any threats or my mind blowing up and i think the french strategy is on prevent the strategy. in the sense that underground is the personnel that need the underground there is. needed and there is the intelligence needed and i think for the french government to convince the british to provide some assistance with the. air the air carbonation who have

the other i mean some other nations may canada and recently the u.s. joining in the air for i think a lot and then we have also some african forces who have been and now and unfortunately i don't know exactly how many people were talking about or what the figures are but i guess what's happening on the ground is that the very strategic war securing one. and moving forward and making sure that they have in mind the base or an african coalition or base in the areas that have just been liberated but are they could move forward against my neck i mean might my guess is that the next step would be up there or the region or liberated to provide more training so that we could have. them civilian at the borders because money is bordered by seven countries including. here and more

and these aren't broken apart so these are these four countries that i just mentioned are or very fragile borders and i think we need to be very careful as to the board moving in or out of these areas so i think they know what they are doing so and we know that it is in the northeastern region of mali where islamic militants had gained a foothold can you describe what it's like what do you know about what it's like living under shari'a law. well i mean fortunately i've never i've never been forced to. live under sharia law even though i. am a muslim who pray five times a day i'm so thankful for my parents and or different that i was i was brought up with but. from the comments i've heard from witnesses who were able to

use. the sharia rule or even victims actually i spoke to people who were. in previous reports this sorrow and pain and the anger they were expressing and the fear i mean they all sounded so depressed and so shocked to see this new sharia law being proclaimed all of the sudden just one morning even though the mine and constitution. clearly in one of the arctic or money is a country which accepts any. and i think this is clearly written in french in the money and constitution but living under sharia law is not compatible with our democratic principles. it's not in conformity with the the status of the. country and i think putting an end to the sharia

rule you probably saw some of the pictures on t.v. we got with that has been celebrating smoking again there are cigarettes people wearing shorts and women walking out of their homes without having their heads the rest and i think this speaks to how deep suffering was among these population. we don't have that much time left unfortunately but there's a couple of things that i do want to get to. you know there is for the most part this war has been invisible not a lot of photographs there's not a lot of media access and it's hard to get some real clear statistics accuracy test x. have you heard anything about mortality rates during this conflict interesting. you know the intervention began i got to speak with the the information officer who was in charge at the ministry of defense minister of defense and one of

the requests that i made was. what are the figures how are you going to communicate to the money in population so we know exactly what's happening on the ground in terms of big themes in films or the military or civilian casualties but i was i was the response i got was a very weird laughter and. the guy was trying to tell me well we're not going to share that with you i mean i understand it's very confident strategic and confidential but the figures we are getting are coming out of humanitarian organizations such as china which reported recently that there are over two hundred fifty thousand internally displaced people are and to be the figures in terms of casualties are still unknown to us because there is no. official to speak in we watch the mahdi and evening news every day i mean he's talking about the war

being implemented or which if he has been liberated or not but we don't have a clear figure in terms of casualties and the conflict. that can be explained by the fact that for better or for a long time journalists were denied access to the combat zones night when jeopardy was under fire nobody was allowed to go past you know which is the major money in before jeopardy so i guess. access to be the bad sort of area has been a huge problem for doing this and which is why we don't have many figures are only on lot that we don't know story that is developing by the day and really appreciate you helping to shed some light on what's going on over there in mali that was independent journalist blending. and how do a promise president obama made a little more than four years ago a promise the now looks farther from being fulfilled i'm talking about his pledge

to close guantanamo bay well there was an office dedicated to closing the prison and overseeing the transfer of detainees but now the state department is announcing that the man that led the office danny freed is being reassigned and his office being closed so what does this say about that promise the president made to close the base in cuba josh gerstein white house reporter for politico joins us now well great to see you there josh so is this is this is. is this a side in that the administration is not planning on closing guantanamo bay any time soon. well there's no question about that but i'd have to say it's just the latest sign of that i mean. i think they still want to close it but when you say are they planning to close it suggests that they have a plan as in some series of steps in mind that would lead them to get to that end result and at the moment it doesn't appear that they have any plan in fact whenever

congress keeps proposing things that would prevent the closure of guantanamo the president grumbles about them and signed on the dotted line so i would say this is just another indication that the obama administration has for all intents and purposes given up on their efforts to close guantanamo right i mean it definitely seems like that's what it's hinting at at least but you know even before news of the office that's working to close guantanamo bay before there was news of the shutting down that there wasn't a clear sign that the base was shutting down but what kinds of restrictions that congress put in place to block detainees from being transferred out of the base well for several years now i think back to basically the summer of two thousand and ten congress has been passing measures that have gotten more and more onerous and more and more restrictive the latest ones basically say that the secretary of defense has to certify that any time a prisoner is transferred out of guantanamo that the country's going to can

basically guarantee that he won't become involved in any wrongdoing or any militant activity and that guarantees a very strong word i don't know how anyone being released unless they're going to be permanently jailed for the rest of their life how officials could really guarantee that they won't become involved in any wrongdoing and so it's been hard for the administration to make those kinds of certifications and also they've also put blocks on transfers to an entire country namely yemen which accounts accounts for many maybe a majority of the prisoners who are still there now this news comes as pretrial hearings resume for a clean sheet mohammed and four other defendants guantanamo detainees facing the death penalty for charges over the september eleventh attacks there was a hearing on monday where the closed circuit feed was cut off in silence what do we know about what could be behind this. well we know that it was cut off for about

three minutes and there's supposed to be a procedure in the courtroom where a sort of a like goes on to indicate that the feeds been cut and someone in the courtroom the judge as the judge understood it was the one who is supposed to control that well it turns out that person didn't shut off the feed someone else in the chain of command apparently turned it off there was no good reason to do it one of the defense lawyers was just reading the classified title of one of the motions that had been filed and the judge seemed pretty angry about this but there's been very great deal of difficulty figuring out who did it it appears that it's probably someone connected with the cia but at least in public the government is still i'm willing to say precisely to cut the feed or why. you had mentioned that the judge was angry and would to do yet raise any suspicions as to who could be responsible or what the motive was behind it well it's not clear who the motive was what the motive was but it sounds like it was someone who's in charge of classification here the cia is the agency that oversaw the interrogation of

a lot of these terror suspects using the techniques like waterboarding and they're the ones at least within the u.s. government considered responsible for safeguarding any classified information that might come out of the trial but really no one's supposed to mention their name in the courtroom which makes exploring precisely to cut this feed a very difficult thing to do at least in public of course to have a secret hearing about who unnecessarily made a public hearing in the court secret just gets so confusing it's almost hard to follow the law and you know guantanamo bay has been criticized before time and time again for a kind of being shrouded in secrecy of course something like this doesn't help we are at a time gosh pleasure as always for having you on that was josh gerstein white house reporter for politico. thanks and that is going to do it for now but coming up at five pm why taking pictures of your food is a no no in some new york restaurants but in the meantime for more on the stories we covered you can always check out our you tube channel that's youtube dot com slash

artsy america we post all of our interviews there online and fall our website r t v dot com slash usa and you can follow me on twitter at liz wahl back here and a half hour or. so. stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television. with your mobile device you can watch your t.v. any time anyway.