this sunday, a new year and new fears about terrorism. questions mount after this man slips by u.s. intelligence and airport security, nearly blowing up a u.s. airliner christmas day. what more is known about the plot? how did u.s. intelligence miss so many red flags? and is yemen a new front in the battle against terrorists? the president orders a review.

>> i directed my counterterrorism and homeland security adviser at the white house, john brenan, to lead these reviews going forward and to present the final recommendations and results to me in the days to come. >> with us live this morning, john brennan. then the politics of fighting terror. republicans accuse the obama administration of letting the country's guard down by failing to treat the fight against terror as an all-out war. what more should be done to keep americans safe? are extra security measures at the airports the answer? with us, two members of the bush administration's national security team, former director of the cia, michael hayden, and former secretary of homeland security, michael chertoff. finally, in this new year, a crowded inbox for the president -- terrorism, unemployment, and the final mile on health care reform. insights on what's ahead for the obama agenda with our round table. nbc news special correspondent

tom brokaw, "new york times" columnist david brooks, "washington post" columnist e.j. dionne, and historian doris kearns goodwin. but first some news this morning. the u.s. has closed its embassy in the capital of yemen because of what officials are calling an active security threat posed by al qaeda there. the announcement one day after the president specifically implicated the yemen based branch of al qaeda for being behind the christmas day terror attempt. >> it appears that he joined an affiliate of al qaeda, and that this group, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, trained him, equipped him with those explosives, and directed him to attack that plane headed for america. >> we are joined now live by the president's top counterterrorism adviser john brennan. welcome to "meet the press." >> thank you, david. >> this president's directive to close the embassies because of specific intelligence that an attack is coming?

>> yes, there are indication that's al qaeda is planning to carry out an attack in the capital of yemen. i spoke to our ambassador down there. both the british and u.s. embassies have closed to give the yemeni government a chance to thwart that threat and the plans that are afoot right now. >> a threat against our embassy? >> we know they've been targeting our embassy or embassy personnel, and we want to do everything possible to safeguard our diplomats and others that are down there. that was the prudent step to take. >> the president talking about al qaeda in yemen. is yemen a new front in this battle against al qaeda? >> no, it's not a new front. we've known about it for quite some time. from the very first day of this administration, and even the last administration, there's been tremendous focus on yemen. i traveled to yemen twice over the past several months. spoke to president sala. we have been focused on this issue. we need to make sure we continue to provide the training and support that yemen needs to counter this very serious threat. there are several hundred al qaeda members right now inside of yemen. the fight is being taken to them. events during the last month

demonstrated the yemeni government resolve, and there are a number of leaders of al qaeda in yemen that are no longer with us today because of those actions. >> is the u.s. providing fire power to the yemen government? >> the u.s. is providing a range of support that includes security, intelligence, and military support. to the yemeni government. we're doing this in close cooperation with the yemenis, we're doing the right way, and we've made some progress. >> the president said those behind the christmas day plot will be held accountable. will be held accountable. should the american public expect military attack on yemen? >> i think the american people should expect its government is going to do everything, in fact, to hold those individuals accountable, whether they are in yemen or other places. al qaeda pose a serious threat. they have attacked our embassy before. they carried out attacks against saudi arabia against saudi targets, and now it's very clear they're trying to bring these attacks to the homeland. we're not going to do that. we're going to take strong action against them. >> military action is possible in yemen? >> everything is possible.

as far as our cooperation with the yemeni government, we want to make sure the yemenis have what they need to thwart these threats. >> let's talk about the christmas day threat. last week homeland security secretary janet napolitano said the system worked. >> clearly, the system had a crack because abdulmutallab shouldn't have gotten on that plane with those explosives. so far the system has worked. we've been able to thwart attempts by mr. zazi and others. we want to make sure we strengthen the system. it's not the system is broken. clearly there are ways to strengthen the system and put together various pieces of fox in a way that allows us to stop every single terrorist out there. >> let me get to that. this seems to be a big issue in terms of how could these things have happened? a lot of people remember the way the unibomber was brought to justice was his brother turned him in. when a family member says i'm worried, that should be a big red flag. in fact, abdulmutallab's father, a nigerian businessman, a

prominent figure in nigeria, goes to the british embassy and says my son went to yemen. he's a radical. i'm worried. yet somehow that doesn't shoot to the top of warning signs for u.s. intelligence. why not? >> every day there are people who bring to our attention concerns they have about either family members or others who have joined the ranks of extremists. the five guys from northern virginia, those that actually went out to pakistan, was because their families brought it to the attention of authorities. we took very strong action, and the pakistanis were able to put them into custody. in the case of abdulmutallab, his father did express concerns to us about he was con sorting with extremists in yemen. the failure within the system was that we didn't take that information and connect it to the other bits and pieces of information that came through the intelligence collection systems. it's a requirement that we are able to bring to bear all those disparate bits and piece ins a way that allows us to identify the individuals. we had some information in intelligence channel that's didn't give us the clarity we needed to know who the individual was that al qaeda and the arabian peninsula was using.

what we need to do is make sure this never happens again. >> you're an experienced intelligence official here. were these knowable red flags? should they have been caught and put together? >> yes, they should have been. that's what we need to do is make sure this never happens again. >> where's the accountability? does somebody need to lose their job? >> as the president said, there's going to be accountability at all levels. he needs to take a look at this. first of all, janet napolitano has done a tremendous job over the past year. i've worked very closely with her, and i know there were a number of criticisms about her comments about the system worked. what she was referring to, when she clarified her remarks, the system worked after the incident. what the president wants to do is to make sure that we're able to take the corrective steps necessary to prevent this from happening again. he needs to hold everybody accountable, including me. >> ""newsweek"" magazine has a cover story about the children of bin laden. that's the cover story. in it, there's reporting about specific information that you received before the christmas day plot, in terror warnings about the use of explosives being hidden in underwear to get

through airport security and other specific information prior to the act about the potential for a plot that would be based out of yemen on a u.s. airliner. what did you know prior to this incident? >> i think what you're referring to is the attempted assassination against the prince in saudi arabia by, in fact, an individual who had concealed on his person, petn, the same explosive used by mr. abdulmutallab. right after that attack, i went out and met with the prince. i, in fact, saw the room where the attempted assassination took place. that information was provided to us by the saudi government. we disseminated information broadly. there was no indication, though, that al qaeda was trying to use that type of attack and ma modus op randi against aircraft. we're very concerned about it from an assassination standpoint. we continue to look at all the evidence that is out there so we can take the steps necessary to prevent any types of attacks from taking place. >> are we safer than we were in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? >> i think the u.s. government has done tremendous work over the last eight years, nine years, to strengthen our system,

strengthen our security perimeters. we have now a system in place that the fbi and cia, nsa, department of homeland security, and others are working very collaboratively together in. what we need to do is to be sure we're able to leverage that system every day, making sure that it's 1,000% perfect so that we don't have another person like abdulmutallab come in. yes, i think the american people can take comfort in knowing the government has worked hard since 9/11 and has made steady progress, not just in terms of helping to secure the country, but also degrading, disrupting, and we're ultimately going to defeat al qaeda. >> i guess what a lot of people should be concerned about is that sense of, you know, how does this kind of thing happen? where you have multiple end points into the system -- inputs into the system, where there's information that looks a lot clearer in hindsight obviously. nevertheless, for trained professionals to look at and say, oh, this has to be blinking bright red. has to go to the top of the system. how do we get from where we apparently are to that place? >> as i said, i think that we

have been to that place many times with the disruption of plots that are taking place sort of every day. whether it's overseas or here, mr. zazi, mr. headley, others, those dots did come to the surface. what we need to do is do that every day. the system is work be. it's just not working as well as it needs to constantly. >> the question of airline travel. what needs to be done to make airline travel safer? >> one of the reviews that president obama has asked for is for secretary napolitano to lead that review as far as looking at the technologies that are in place at airports, screening practices, the procedures, the criteria that are used right now for the different watch lists, the no fly and selectee. there's no single silver bullet that's going to be able to allow us to have that type of assurance that we're going to be able to stop individuals who are trying to blow up planes. it has to be a package of things. it has to be technology. it has to be expertise. it has to be intelligence. it has to be cooperation with our international partners. all of this has to come together seamlessly and has to be done on

a daily basis. >> do we have to compromise some additional privacy with full body scanners at the airports in order to keep up with the terrorists? >> i think there's a way to make sure we maintain the type of privacy that is expected by the american public but also provide the security that is needed? what we're trying to do now is strike that balance. looking at the technology available. looking at the practices we use. but there has to be this very healthy balance. we maintain that privacy standard, but at the same time, do everything possible to prevent attacks. >> body scanners, do you think they should be deployed more widely at the airports? >> we're looking at it thoroughly. at the amsterdam airport, there were full body scanners in place. they weren't used, in fact, for the airline coming here to the united states. i think those full body scanners as well as other things needs to be part of this package. >> would those scanners have detected the level of petn that abdulmutallab was carrying? >> i think it's unknown. but i think it would have enhanced our potential for actually identifying it. >> why isn't he being treated as

an enemy combatant instead of aa criminal? >> first of all, we're a country of laws. what we're going to do is to make sure we treat each individual case appropriately. in the past, richard reid, the former shoe bomber, zacarias moussaoui, jose padilla, all of them chanch echarged in crimina court and sentenced to life imprisonment. we have these tools available, whether it's an enemy combatant avenue or charge them criminally. we looked at the cases and decided it was best, in fact, to charge him criminally. >> would there be additional intelligence that could be gleaned by making him an enemy combatant? do you believe that whatever you're learning from him, was the christmas day plot.thing la and the arain bran peninsula? >> we have different ways of obtaining information. a lot of people as they understand what they are facing and their lawyers recognize that there is advantage to talking to us, in terms of plea agreements

we're going to pursue that. so, we are continuing to look at ways that we can extract information from him. as far as a broader plot that's one of the things that the intelligence community is working to see if we can uncover. was he a singleton. we're doing everything possible to identify somebody. >> what does your intelligence tell you now? >> i think we have to assume there are others but what we're doing is making sure we are working with our partners, with others to stop that person before they actually are able to get aboard an aircraft. >> what about guantanamo bay. so many of the prisoners come from yemen, have been returned to yemen in the previous and this administration as well. the democrat who runs the intelligence committee says we should stop, stop sending them back there. what's the president's position? >> first of all we have undertaken a methodical process as far as looking at all of the individuals at guantanamo bay. the last administration transferred over 530 guantanamo detainees abroad. in this administration we have transferred about 42. what we tried to do is look at

each individual case, make decisions about whether they should be prosecuted under article 3 or military court or transfer them abroad. repatriate them to their countries of origin or another country. in the case of yemen we have sent back seven individuals, previous administration sent back 13 to yemen. of the recent batch we sent back about six, many are in custody within the yemenese system now. we are looking at it every day. we're not going to make decisions that are going to put people at risk. we will determine when we should send people back. we're going to do it in the right way. guantanamo should be closed. it was used as a propaganda tool of al qaeda. >> a lot of things are. is this the way to keep america safe sending back prisoners to yemen who might turn around and become part of an organization becoming more robust there? >> we're going to make sure we don't put american security at risk whether in yemen or here in the united states but we need to make sure that we are a country of laws and maintain that

standard so that we are able to treat these individuals the way they should be treated, prosecute them if we have the information available, transfer them back, but make sure if transferred back the countries take the appropriate steps to safeguard us and them. >> republicans have been critical of this president. and accuse him of returning to a pre-9/11 mentality, lax in the face of terror, of essentially letting america's guard down. former vice president dick cheney said this past week.

how do you respond? >> i'm disappointed in the vice president's comments. i'm neither a republican or a democrat. i worked for the past five administration. either the vice president is willfully miss characterizing this president's position both in terms of language he uses and the actions he's taken or he's -- it doesn't speak well what if the vice president is doing. clear evidence is that this president has been very, very strong in his inaugural address he said we're at war with this international network of terrorists. we continue to say we're at war with al qaeda, we're trying to give it clarity and we have taken the fight to them. we continued in fact many of the activities of the previous administration. i would not have come back into this government if i felt that this president was not committed to prosecuting this war against al qaeda and every day i see it in the president's face, i see it in the actions he's taken so i'm confident that this country is in fact protected by this president's position on al qaeda and against terrorist activities. we're going to continue to do

this, do it hard, we're going to do it constantly. >> is it anything less than a failure eight years after 9/11 osama bin laden is not captured? >> this has bedeviled this government. we're going to continue to hunt him down, we'll get bin laden, the others, there has been a strong track record over this past year and in fact over the past number of years of finding these operatives, these commanders and either capturing or killing them. it's going to happen with bin laden. every day we get one day closer. >> when is the last time he was pinned down by the u.s. or its allies or close to being killed? >> i think you know, the evidence is that tora bora we came close to finding him, getting him and capturing him. intelligence is working every day on this. i'm not going to go into that. but there are some dedicated men and women, and i think just the events of this past week, the tragic death of the seven cia

officers underscores the bravery and the risk that these courageous men and women who put their lives on the line every day on behalf of their fellow americans, and we have that throughout the intelligence community. i think we have to remember who the enemy here is. the enemy is al qaeda. as this is going on in washington, the partisan politics and agendas, frankly i find it very disappointing that people would use this issue, issue of tremendous import of national security and forget that it's al qaeda that is killing our citizens. >> we'll leave it there. mr. brennen, thank you. we are joined by two members of the bush administration's national security team. former secretary of homeland security michael chertoff and former director of the cia, michael hayden. welcome to both of you. general hayden be, let me begin with you. reaction to what you heard here from mr. brennen, specifically on new threats being posed by yemen and al qaeda in yemen. >> i agree totally with what john pointed out. we've been watching yemen. as pressure increased in

pakistan we always look to yemen and somalia as a place where the senior leadership could slip to. the senior leadership has not gone there but we've seen a steady growth in al qaeda since 2006, there was a massive jail break in yemen, about two dozen al qaeda members incarcerated escaped, from that point on we've seen the steady growth of al qaeda and their use of yemen as a safe haven. >> should there be accountability on the part of bush national security officials like yourself at a time when there were detainees from guantanamo released back to yemen at a time when yemen and al qaeda there was becoming more robust, that the administration did not do more to specifically target the al qaeda threat? >> no. we worked very hard on this. john pointed throughout is a continuum of action between president bush''s administration and president obama's administration with regard to these threats. we did release some folks from guantanamo despite our best efforts making this threat

assessment that actually returned to the battlefield to return to terrorism. we bear responsibility for that. >> is this a new front in the war on terror, yemen? >> it is a growing front. john pointed out it's not that new. we've seen it coming for some time. it's been unsettled. and again, since about 2006 we've seen it take a more prominent role in al qaeda's safe haven, in ungoverned areas of the world. >> are you concerned if the administration decides to release additional prisoners to yemen. >> this is a difficult question. each has to be decided individually. the only counsel i would offer as we recognize how difficult this is, we made some mistakes, and i would not be governed by an artificial timeline. take my time with this. >> mistakes being the release of the prisoners? >> exactly. some of the people we decided to release have returned to the fight. that should give cautionary tale for president obama. >> don't close guantanamo.

>> i would not be in a rush to close guantanamo. to be fair we were trying to reduce the population at guantanamo as quickly and carefully as we could, in the bush administration. >> secretary chertoff, so much has been made of failures on the part of this administration. is the other way to look at this that it's become enormously difficult to pull off an attack against the united states, that what we're seeing are low level, incompetent people who can't quite pull it off? is that not a positive sign for u.s. intelligence, for u.s. security? >> i think that's exactly right. i think as john points out, first put it in perspective. as troubling as this incident is, we have seen occasion after occasion where we have disrupted plots, and we've batted almost 100%. i think this plot also demonstrates, because of the complexity and the fact they had to use a new operative that they are actually being forced to work under great deal of pressure and are handicapped in

carrying out these plots because we made it difficult though not impossible to smuggle explosives on airplanes. >> what went wrong here? >> i think the review that john's going to undertake is going to be specific about that. it strikes me what we're going to look at are two possible areas. one is was there a failure, not to connect the dots in a sense of bringing them together but to understand the significance of what those dots were. i think that's an important part of the inquiry. the second piece as john pointed out, there were scanners in the airport in amsterdam not used. whirp they not used. the european union has banned the use of these devices because of privacy issues, i think that's going to cause another debate about where we strike the balance between privacy on the one hand and the right to life that every air traveler has when they get on an airplane. >> i want to come back to this body scanner issue. but i want to press you on this point about the gathering of intelligence, the sharing of intelligence, again the accountability question for the bush administration officials like yourself.

the bush administration created these extra layers of intelligence gathering and dissemination. and yet left office before they were proven effective, clearly, we have so many ways to gather intelligence and look at this and yet the government is not talking to each other. >> i have to say it was obviously effective during the seven years after 2001. we did not have an attack or anything approaching successful attack. frankly it was successful, including the five jihadis that went over to pakistan have been apprehended. actually, the story is the amount of success but it's not perfect. this is an occasion to look and see what do we need to do to improve the system though i think the architecture is basically sound and has served us well over the years. >> let me return to the body scanner issue. as you pointed out numerous times you are a consultant for a company that makes the type of body scanners that you advocate though it's something you

advocated as homeland security secretary. would they have done the job, detected the amount of petn he had? >> i believe the answer is yes. of course no technology is perfect. but this would dramatically increase the ability to detect things that are concealed under these people's clothing on their bodies. we've known about this problem for years. in 2005 i testified about this before congress. i said we have got to deploy these kinds of capabilities or people are going to smuggle in explosives or weapons hidden on parts of their body. have i been through the machine myself. i have looked at the image. i think we have taken steps in the deployment that we have undertaken to protect privacy. at the end of the day, no one has come up with a better solution and keeping your fingers crossed that the enemy won't figure out this vulnerability is a very foolish way to manage security. >> general hayden, the same question which is are we safer as a country since the immediate aftermath of 9/11?

>> absolutely. as john pointed out it's not the question of the system broke down. it's a question that the system needs to be improved. we are facing a learning enemy. this is an enemy that adapts and we have to adapt with that enemy. one case in point. one of the -- some of the early stories that came out was the information was not shared, which was the belief that what happened prior to the attacks in september 11, 2001. that's not the case in this incident. this information was shared, it was available. what it was not, it was not highlighted, not connected. that's a human activity. that's a difficult task. as you pointed out this is easier only in retrospect. in prospect these are difficult things to do. >> it's interesting, secretary chertoff, you were on this program in 2006, and you touted the government's ability at that time to look for vulnerabilities, to come together as a group and try to outthink the terrorists. yet, this is what the former

inspector general of homeland security had to say in "the new york times" this past week. he said perhaps the biggest lesson for airline security from the recent incident is that we must overcome our tendency to be reactive. we always seem to be at least one step behind the terrorists. is that the case? >> i don't think that's true. this was a problem we anticipated, the notion of someone concealing explosives. i have to point out the screening failure was overseas and that does reflect some issues with sharing of information with the europeans are reluctant due to privacy. i think the problem has been not so much the recognition but the implementation. there is an enormous amount of resistance, not just on the issue of technology but on secure documentation and other things that we've done by groups that simply don't believe that we ought to have the security measures. it took years to get the western hemisphere documents requirement in place because we had a tremendous amount of political resistance. i think this is an opportunity to reinvigorate the will power. >> are we profiling potential

suspects who want to hurt the united states? >> not sure in the context in which you're asking. but with regard to intelligence -- >> isn't there a profile who we think the terrorists are? >> of course. but it's more on behavior. for example, the individual in question here, abdulmutallab, he would not have automatically fit a profile if you were next to him in the line at dulles, for example. so it's a behavior. and it's the behavior is bits and pieces of information that were in the data bases that we didn't quite stitch together at this point in time. it wasn't a question of ethnicity or religion. those are contributing factors, but it's what people do that we should pay attention to. >> i want to press secretary chertoff. industry spoken to officials that say it's more than a contributing factor. we know who 90% of these terrorists are. there may be other examples of women used and what not but islamic males between 20 and 30 make up roughly 90% of that

profile. is is that an inappropriate or appropriate way for law enforcement to target individuals? >> i think we're relying on preconceptions or stereotypes is actually misleading and arguably dangerous. >> so that profile is wrong? >> correct. what i would say is you want to look at thing likes wheres that person traveled to, where have they spent time, what has their behavior been. recognize one of the things that al qaeda has done is deliberately try to recruit people who don't fit stereotype, western in background or appearance, a guy like adam who grew up in california who is one of the senior level al qaeda operatives but does not fit the normal prejudice about what an extremist looks like. >> let me ask you about politics. i read the comments by the former vice president, general hayden. do you think that it is responsible for the vice president to criticize president obama as letting america's guard down by failing to treat this fight as a war on terror? >> i'm not going to comment on

the current president or the former vice president, david. i do know that this is an important national issue, it does become part of the political debate but i will offer a professional's view on the current atmosphere, the highly charged atmosphere in washington. i would ask on behalf of the community of which i used to be a part for everyone to kind of calm down a little bit, stop hyperventilating, let john take this study, look at this in detail, to learn what we can learn from it without a sense of attribution or accusation. these -- >> that would apply to the bush administration officials -- i seem to remember covering the white house when officials thought it was counterproductive and hurtful to the country to have democrats questioning whether it was the patriotism or the the overall wisdom of some of these national security activities. >> david, there are broad policy issues that deserve intense political debate. we should let the american

system handle that. but the secretary brought up an interesting one. what is the balance the american people want between their privacy and their security. you can't just keep coming back to the intel guys after bad things happen and expect them to perform miracles 100% of the time, if we don't address these more serious fundamental questions as a nation. that's part of the political process and the intel community needs to be a customer of those decisions. >> your message is, left or right, republican, democrat, don't politicize this battle. >> there are policy questions that need to be resolved through our political process. >> do you believe the president is adequately confronting this sflet. >> i am heartened by the fact that the president consistently says we are at war with al qaeda and its affiliates. >> do i believe he is adequately prosecuting this war? >> are honest differences, clearly this past sum wer regard to cia interrogation memos from the office of legal counsel, the question of a special

prosecutor, i actually think that harmed our overall effort but that's a personal view, that's a decision the president has to make. we should not overly politicize things that are essentially a security in nature but we do need political guidance that will be the product of our political process. >> secretary chertoff, you told nbc's pete williams this past week you were concerned that there was a return in this government to a pre-9/11 mentality. explain that. >> well, i'm concerned that we don't use all of the tools on the table. here i have to say i agree with mike and john, i think the president has articulated his belief we're at war. nevertheless there are elements of the strategy we have to ask questions about. is it chanceable to bring shake mohammed out of a foreign area to try him. i think that's a fateful decision and one i hope that the attorney general has carefully thought through. are there other elements in some of which were mentioned might

send a conflicting message. this is a great opportunity for the administration to make sure that they are not leaving anything on the table that could be used to defend the american people. >> do you have confidence in your successor? >> i do. i've known her for a long time. she's got a good skill set, great experience, her heart's in the right place. and i endorse her. >> thank you both for being here. up next, terror, unemployment, health care, all challenges facing president obama in the new year. our round table weighs in on what's ahead. tom borrow cause, david brooks, e.j. dionne and doris kearns goodwin here on "meet the press."

our political round table weighs in on the year ahead for the obama agenda.

we're back joined by

presidential historian doris kearns goodwin, nbc news tom brokaw and david brooks of "the new york times." welcome to all of you. happy new year. tom brokaw, this christmas day plot, this this was the 3:00 a.m. wake-up call that hillary clinton talked about in the campaign. >> i think they have been more responsive. it dmen straights the vulnerability of great powers like the united states against an enemy that really is very nimble, cunning, and suicidal. and for all of the technology that we have in the world, all of the coordination that goes on with security apparatus in europe and the rest of the world one piece is not in place, somebody can slip through and have a devastating effect as that bomber might have had on that northwest flight that day. the administration certainly has now been responding in a much more robust fashion since then. >> we don't do a lot, david brooks, to celebrate successes in our security wall but the

breaches get huge attention. how does the administration do? >> not so well but the country didn't do so well. we have people after the fact they are brilliant at diagnosing. we seem to be in a position where like teenagers we expect perfection of our parents but then throw a tantrum when they don't achieve it. i think they do probably a pretty fantastic job. i thought john brennan was impressive and saw great agreement between the bush officials and the obama officials. this is one area of the government that generally works but it's a human institutions. they gather huge nets of information. they are not always going to connect the dots. if we throw a tantrum or point fingers every time we're not going to be a resilient country. >> e.j. dionne, how much damage did we do as a country with this blame game? how much comfort do al qaeda operatives around the world take from the fact that bush blames clinton, obama blames bush,

cheney seems to blame a lot of people. but princeably president obama. you heard john brennan lash out against the former vice president for his criticism and he's worked for both administrations. >> i think you pointed that out in the question that there is a sort of lack of fit between what republicans said when they were in power and what they said when they are out of power. but we are a free country. politics is always going to be a factor and that's something that i wouldn't want to get rid of even though some can be damaging and some is dishonest. i think the initial administration response was an effort to be calm and reassuring. some people viewed that as complacency. as tom pointed out they quickly corrected that and then turned it into urgency. i think the biggest favor that was done to president obama was dick cheney coming out and politicizing this the way he did. he is the gift that keeps on giving to democrats. you saw democrats critical of president obama on health care or afghanistan, suddenly they

rallied to him. by the end of the week they overplayed their hand and the profession professionals showed that those folks in the fight don't want to the be politicized. >> doris, you're familiar with writing long volumes of history and if the war on terror, chapter 1 was written by president bush it's chapter 2 and beyond and it's complicated, an entire decade defined by terrorist acts on the front end and at the back end. and on the back end, so much different than the wars we have fought in our past. >> true. but i think there are certain lessons even though the war on terror is a war about individuals, loose organizations, it's not countries, there aren't going to be treaties. we learned things from other wars that i still think are valid. one, you have to have allies on your side. i think that's what the obama administration has begun to do. after we made the announcement about the afghan escalation nato put in 7,000 troops. that shows some work had been done at that point. i also keep thinking that somehow what we really missed in

the beginning of this decade on the war on terror, what would have happened right after september 11th if president bush had called for independents, a manhattan project for middle eastern oil. what if he called for more people to join the army, we wouldn't have had the same soldiers going back three and four times. what if we had a tax increase as we have done in every other war, we wouldn't be facing the deficits now. so i think even though it's a different war, the need to mobilize the spirit and the energy of the american people so it's not just our soldiers fighting those wars alone over there is still relevant in history's ferms. >> what is the leadership's test now in president obama. you talked about the test that faced president bush. this is a young presidency with a new chapter in the threat matrix from terror. >> i think there has to be a new paradigm. i think what we learned is you can't win the war against islamic rage wherever it exists just militarily or even with all of the technical capacity that we have around the world. we still have not gotten at the root of this islamic rage and

how we're going to deal with that. there is that phrase that i'm not keen about called soft power but we have to have some new way of dealing with these units that can move as they do from pakistan to afghanistan to the arabian peninsula and visit great, great harm or the possibility of great harm on western nations. i think doris is right, i do think we need more help from our allies in the western world. we also should expect more from the islamic world, from the established states in the islamic world. we have to work harder to get at these people who have a crazed idea about how the world should exist. >> we do have an opportunity now, incredible historic moment in time, this islamic extremism really got started in 1979, the iranian revolution which is a world historical event. obviously iran is not closely connected but it's part of the same movement of the islamic extremism. we're 18 moment where that regime which is the birthplace

of this is tottering. the day netter was shot the day it lost its legitimacy. a lot of us thought the people were going to be pushed back in the homes by the terror crackdown. this week they are out again. that shows that regime is incredibly fragile and dying, so the question becomes what do we do? how do we push back against them? do we try to restrict gasoline am ports into iran. >> your paper is reporting a new set of sanctions are contemplated at a time when the government appears to be distracted in iran. >> right. the question should be, and it's a tough question, i don't know the answer, some say you are in impose tough sanctions, that rallies, others say they can't get gas they rebel. to my mind the obama administration has not been tough enough especially on a moral level in supporting the people in the region. >> what's interesting, report is that the administration wants to impose the sanction against the revolutionary guard. and that's a very interesting

strategy because it send as message to the people of iran we're not against you, we are against the guy who is are cracking your heads, the guys putting the opposition in jail. and that could send both a political signal to the iranians, and also have the effect of undermining the folks who are oppressing the people of iran. >> it shows that the engagement of the administration has made with china and russia may be paying off, that they are more willing to think about sanctions now than they would have been. >> tom, the president does not have the luxury of focusing on one issue at a time. he comes back from vacation to a crowded in box as i said at the top of the program. health care reform is within sight now. which we should point out would be a huge legislative accomplishment for this president. how does he get it through the final mile? >> i talked to a very senior member of the democratic leadership in the house getting ready for this weekend and there is a real determination to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible so that the president can have it in time for the state of the union because the democrats for the next nine

months want to have a new two-stroke engine. jobs and fiscal responsibility. they believe that they really have to shift the attention of the country to that on their terms or they are not going to do well come the fall. when it comes to health care i do think that they have some serious issues before they get this finally resolved. i don't think that there is a person in america who completely understands what exists in both of these bills. there's a lot of fear out there that is going to have an adverse impact on the health care plans that people already have. so i think they have a lot of work to make it less complex and much more transparent between now and the state of the union. >> you can hear republicans getting ready in this the election year, the midterm election year, run against obama care quote unquote and ask the job, is your job more secure. that's how the republicans are going to come at the white house and democrats. >> and i think that look, if unemployment is 10%, still in november, the democrats are going to have a very tough time

in this election. that's why they want to turn to this jobs agenda. but i think the republicans are going to make a mistake if they say we want you to vote for us because we are going to repeal this health plan because when you look at what comes into effect right away, as opposed to the stuff that takes effect four years from now, it's things that are very popular with people. you can put your kid on your family plan until the kid is 26. no more rules against, you know, the insurance companies can't cut you off if you're sick. the plan got discredited in the minds of some people because the legislative process looks really awful. and the more the focus was on the process, more people said what's going on here? once they pass a plan, you can actually talk about a plan. and then we can have a real debate about what's in the plan. >> i agree. >> the majority don't want it to succeed. nbc "wall street journal" poll asked is it a good or bad idea. 32% said it's a good idea. >> you know what, david. when they asked you about the

specific parts of it, this is why i agree, is it a good idea to be able to have pre-existing conditions and still have n, is it good to have your kids protected, is it good to make sure the insurance companies can't cap you. they agree. but i think the failure has been in not making it clear what's in the plan and my sense is that once it passes, it's an historic thing. all of these presidents ever since the guy i'm living with now, teddy roosevelt tried in 1912, haven't been able to get it through. it's what people go to congress for to do something. you know when lbj was asked why are you going to do civil rights he said what's the presidency for. obama decided to get this done and i think once it's achieved then the messiness of the process is behind us and then they have to put out a campaign to tell everybody what's in this bill just as you would say. they don't know what's in the bill. they are afraid of it. but there are so many good things if they can run a campaign like they did to get the election, it's going to be hugely popular. that's my prediction going

backwards. >> if if it's a new deal it will lead to democratic reign. if it's a great society it will lead to republican reign. the people like the good things in the bill. well, if you say that you want health care to take up 20% of gdp, 25% of gdp, strangle education, infrastructure, those are the parts they don't like. >> i was going to say in the health care delivery systems in a lot of positions in the country have been writing think there is not enough reform in it and they begin with medicare. trying to pay for a lot of this by cutting medicare is not the solution. you've got to rearrange medicare, there was a story in the new york times this past week what happens at ucla where they extend life no matter what the cost is, and it becomes well beyond what is reasonable medically. >> as we get older. >> get older. but for example, at ucla medical center, they spend $92,000 i think is the number on the last two years of a life at portland,

oregon north of there they spend $52,000 because they have better controls on medicare. so until you begin to pay for value and performance, then health care reform is not going to work despite all of the pieces. >> here we are at the dawn of a new decade. a lot of talk about the old decade. there was a cartoon that caught my eye that shows uncle sam trying to return the first decade of this century to the returns and exchanges bureau and the lady says i'm sorry, sir, we have rules against returning entire decades. but doris, a lot made about the notion of this being a lost decade, lost opportunities, lost wealth, not just for the rich but americans all over the country with the stock market going down so far. >> you know, if you ask people the question are you better off now than at the beginning of the decade on so many levels the answer is no. there are fewer jobs, we feel less safe, there is a series of markers. on the other hand, the potential

for renewal is in this decade. we looked about the global warming thing, taking that seriously, we have the first african-american president who has been elected, there is a sense of knowing we've got to capture leadership and green revolution, get our country manufacturing base back so we can lead the world in the green, there's a lot of good stuff just as bad stuff comes from the previous decade. one of the interesting things jfk said, i thought that all of the world's problems were eisenhower's fault until i got in there and realized my god some of them are mine and i'm going to leave some for my people behind us so there is always a continuum. >> that first year of john kennedy, for example, he has his head handed to him by crews chov. we have the bay of pigs going on. the freedom riders in the south beginning the rise to the civil rights movement. and then that decade is the introduction of the assassination of the president, of martin luther king, of robert kennedy, the turmoil in the streets of chicago, the war that cost us almost 60,000 lives

before the end of it. so that is not in the distant past. that's in my own lifetime. maybe not yours, david. >> i wasn't going to say it. but david brooks, what then becomes narrative of this decade? >> who are the passionate outsiders who are going to come in. the people with passion can control the decade, the feminists in the 1970s. the evangelicals in the 1980s. who are the real passionate outsiders, the protesters in iran but two, i have to say i'm not a huge fan but the tea party people. they have real passion, now on the outside. if they can merge with responsible leadership and become a real movement there is real disgust at government, about fiscal issues, they could become maybe a destructive force in the republican party, maybe a positive force. those are people with real passion who may play a much larger role. >> e.j., you talk about the squandered decade and how

politically the fight in this first year of the obama presidency were carryovers from the previous decade and bush administration. how do we get government to work better? >> i think that is a core question. tom mentioned the 60s and there were certain decades that loomed for decades after where how you come to terms with what happened in that decade affects politic for years to come. i think that there is a whole swath of the country that decided, majority of the country, decided in 2008 that what had come bore had failed. we were very unhappy with the economy, we did not like in the end the course that president bush took in iraq that didn't look like an effective way to fight terror. so now the fight over obama is really a fight among those who said we need to turn away from this strategy of that decade, versus those who are defending it and have an interest in seeing president obama fail. i agree with david about passionate movements but i think the question raised about can

government work, obama's got to show that it can because that is what will turn this kind of amity anti-government feeling. it's a general i hate government, it's not about peculiar programs. you have the same kind of opposition to fdr and it went away. >> i really -- i think the rules of this decade really began on 9/11 when all of the old rules and all of the old expectations were shattered that day and ever since then we have been living with the consequences of everything that we grew up believing going away. we thought general motors would be there forever, for example. the american car industry would do well. we thought owning a home was the american dream. and it is for a lot of people but there are a lot of people turns out couldn't own an american home. we thought that the lessening of financial regulations would make wall street more effective. guess what we ended up with. so i think the going forward there will be much more attention to the government

being flexible and being -- addressing the real issues there, and also there is going to be a lot more emphasis on proportion and authenticity. >> i got to make that the last word. tom has spent the past year traveling across america along the famed highway 50 talking with americans all along the way and his program on all of that premiers monday, january 18 at 8:00 p.m. on the usa network. we'll preview some of the stories about the american characters that tom spoke to in our take two web extra with tom up on our website this afternoon. we'll be right back.

that's all for today. we'll be back next week if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."