>> what you think a tree n be? can it be stronger than steel? can the treatby a degradable plastic? can it be fuel for our cs? or clothing? oredicine that fights canr? with our tree cell technology we think it can. weyerhuser, growing ideas. >> this week on "inse washington," the bombshell leak

of a general's blunt assessment of top u. options in ghanistan. >> the te hasome up for the world move in eight new direction. >> president obama goes tthe un genal assembly. >> i am not delayg, i am king an extremely important point. >> it is a very important pnt, but you e also delaying. >> and massachusetts gov. dal patrick fls ted kennedy's senate seat. >> am pleased to announce paul kirk is the ierim united states senator from massachusetts. captioned by the national captionininstitute --w.ncicap.org-- >> wcome to "inside washington." i am markshields, siing in

for gordon terson, who will be back next week. "theashington post" sred a scoop the week with bob woodrd's ory that general stanleycchrystal thinks the u.s. needs more troo in afghanisn to keep the mission from failing. >> if w don't ce to a cision, the president does n come to a decision soon, what will happen is we will mi the window of getting me troops into the theater as the spring thaw occurs when addition troops are gng to be neceary. >> the leak of the report was seen as a rponse to the president's perceived rectance to comt additional troopto afghanistan will is pressure the president to send more ited states troops to afghanistan, arles krauthmer? >> i think it prably wl. i think the reasoit got leak is the report was delivered to the secretary of defense anthe presiden on august 30and the military iextremely upset because it was an urgent

request and i has been sittin around r almost a month with only a single meeting at the white house over it, and they want an answer, yes or no, all all out? >> na totberg, your own sense? will the president bow to this? >> i thi it could he the opposi effect. ere is no doubt why this was leaked -- it was toressure him. the sense one gets listing to him the days is that he is having second tughts about this policand he is not going to be rushedinto it. he will not make a cmitment ke iraq if he thinks the are re doubts. e report, after all, can be read more than one way col king, this wasthe good war, thepplause linduring the campaign of 2008. iraq was a disaster, a mistake, but afghanistanas the good war. what has happened? ithink it is like a prospt

of hanging, it tends to concentre the mind woerfully. the prospect oputting mo troops io afghanistan means more u.s. casualties, unavoidabl more u.s. casualties, me u.s. easury ing spent. obama will really have to confront that. this is hi war. it became his or en he committed 70,00more troops shortly aftetaking office. -- committed 17,00more troops ortly after takg office. heaid it was a war of necessity. he laid down the gauntlet on thisnd now he faces the consuence of a great deal of loss. even if you succeed in the miion, it will cost a great deal in lives and treasury, and i'm not sure hes willing to ke that step. >> jeanne cummings, it is complicated by theact that we ve a stolen electio -- at least a very sulli and staine

ection, allegedly reelecting rzai, and corruption issue wife in the system. does this make it tougher for the president? >> it doesake a lot tougher for the president. chrystal's position is t the only position in the administtion, and congress is certainly becong more concned about afghanistan, d the tainte ection added more to theirkepticism, and they are worried about u.s. involvement over the. the present has a lot of opinions to weigh. the vice president is a skeptical voice on whether mo trips are necessary, terms of the timing of the troop the size of it, whetherthe 17,000 alady added over their needs more timeo see if they can act change before we send more in. it is a very cplex debate. mcchrtal this week came out after the report was leaked an he tried to make point that wasiving his pition, bluntl clearly, but it was a pure military position

thepresident has a lot of other things to consider. >> the other thing about this report when i said you could read it two ways, he say in the report thatilitarily, if you do not put significant number of more troops in, you will fail. bu he does nosay that if you do, we will been win. no forgn per has ever succeeded in thisre i am not saying we cannot, but it is very dicey, very costly, ande may have aeady missedhe winw three orour years ago. the president has to figu out whether th is worth wagering a good deal his presidency on deposi. >> he has also got to consir the position he put hselfn. mcchrystal i his person out there. heeplaced the comnder, most likely on the recommendation of this occurred a defee, but he

replaced the command out there. he is givi a stregy they saidhey need, a counteriurgency strategy, a mcchrystal as lling him the truth. its going to cost. now obama has got to face the challenge of meeti the cost and i am not surhe has it in him to do . >> col's right. the war is being run by obama's on a general could othe 27th of mch, obama mada speech, flanked by the secretariesf dense and state, where he began byaying, "today i announced a comprehensivnew strategy on afghanistan. its his strate. for e last sixmonths it has been his strategy. and yet he gs on all six of the networks says, "we don't have a sttegy. until we have a strategy, i am not going to commit ourroops." he told us sixonths a "my ne strategy," which waat the

conclusion of for review. it is histrategy and his policy and his general, d that iswhye is stuck. his aides are worried that he will become the lbj, a domestic for former that wi becomeost in the swamps of counterinsurgenc it is not about the discovy of corrtion infghanistan. at is like discoverin mbling in rick's cafe in the films. he knows thait is corrupt. the election complicates it. but it i an o story,ot a new fa. >> but you would be a fl to simply refuseto change your strategy once yo get yo generaln the who tells you it would cost more than you perhaps thought, on you he an election that everybody thought might be all right, o and it's not ok. >> but not when you have declared it is a w of necessity and your genel says

i have a strategyhat i think will and can sceed. >> bob odward's story about general mcchrtal raised an interesting political int beyond ghanistan -- this has been an incredibly disciplined administration, and is the first jor leak or something got out on e fro page of the papers that they did notant to read what does that mean for the town and the oba administrati? >> inrevious adnistrations, partularly republican administrations, they went ballistic and launched investigations and go out the polley crafton times pr i do noknow if ty're having an internal investigation. if they are they are being requiredbout it. i amure rahm emanuel went right through the ro. and the prident's -- you kn the expreson he gets wn he is notlease? i am sur that is whate is doing. but this happens. just happens.

sometimes, ile the administtion needs it,is bettern the long run. you investigate if it is low level leak somebody at the bottom othe poll trying to influence policy. this carly -- i do't have side information but its import is so great that you have to image that the generals themselves their top aides were concernedabout the action on this recoendation d make sure it got out. i cannot imagine that this w unknown tanybody in the high command. in a sense,t is not so much a leak, it is a challenge by the litary ainst the civilian commander, who, ironically, as we said, appointed the command and you did establish this strategy declaringt a war of th -- and who did establish a strategy decring it a war of necessity theilitary is sayi if that is true, what are y going to dide? >> i view it a little bit differently than that.

i think that clearly, the pentagon d the people within wanted to focus the min of the white house. i do not know if eyre necessily in opposition to one another. but mcchrysl said is you giv me the orders and i will follow them out, but i will tell you bluntly what i think, and he d n that memo. somebody wanted send a wake- up call and get this conversationoving in a more urgent matr, andhis is a pret spectacar way to get that point across. >> and it worked. if that is the objective, worked. >> in another incnation, when was in the govnment, i inveigated leaks, and you' be surprisedo bu-- surprise to the leakeran be sometimes. the person acting in horror at the whole ing can be the person who allowed it to get ou it serves thr interests to have this discussed.

t us be a little reluctant t say -- i don't believe in the three- shion shot. >>he two-cushion shot is a distinct possibili. let me think somebody else -- pinker sebody else --it did take healthcare righ off the front page that is whethe administration wants to concerate all its energy right n. >> but if you are looking for a w out of this, and you are going to back off, what better way of doing it than t put this o there as a challge, to start this discuion in this debate the way it is going right noover whether we ould do i or not? i'm just not sure i'm ready to conclude -- im not sure it i bado take hped off the front page. it imessy, is sausage makg up the. don't forget that all the lls show t american people deeply waring. this inot something where republicans canake hay.

>> wavering o that andn healthare. ohealth care, the numbers are tight. a slight plurality against but really quite tig. both of e policies are real insoble and the president ha to decide. >> we have sought in word and deed andew era of engagement with the world, and now is the time for all of us to tak our share of responsibility for a global resnse to global challenges. >> the president says it is a new day, b he spent his ti in new york talkg about old oblems -- clate change, clear proliferation, ace in the mile east. this was his first speech to the general aembly is heetting tracti on his international to-o list, colby king? >> obama shod distance in

substance and tone from his predecessor,nd that is t new day we're talking about. he was well-received, unlike e way present bush was received. that sd, he is still dealing with governments, and t governments e taking the same positions. personality cannot change the united nations, rhetoric cannot change the united nations. the united nations represents governments, not individuals. there obama will run into the same problems that his edecessor encountered when i comes to this like the ddle east or dealing with clima change. >> i think there we a coupl of things going o there was the public theater, with everybody from obama to ahmadinejad,ho spe to a lf-and the chamber, t gaddafi -- godknows what he was doing -- but behind the sces there was fair amoungoing on. it is notlear whether we reallyid get a ccession from e russians that they would

help on sanctions if nessary, but it is the first incation that w might have actuall gotten that. >> progress, jeanne cummings >> i think it is just e beginning. we are only startin out, we d't know how oma's retionship with the rest of t world lders will evolve. ceainly they were not pitching at his head, which they used to do with bush, so that is the change. but when you look at the specics he was trying to push, there might have been a little bit of progress othe non- priferation. i ink that maybe it was helped by the announcement that iran has secretly had another pla in the works that ds not appearo have been for energy purposes. that may hp it more than anything that happened at the u.n. t if you look at the middle east, real attraction there. the guys cannotven agree on an agenda for a eting. if y look at clima change, he is not getting much traction

in the u. congress, muchess on t world sta. obama has a long way to go beforewe see whether he can really make progre on the international prioriti. >> in fairness, he did get traction in the u.s. house, the u.s. senate -- >> the climatehangeulprbill. >> it will surpse you, but fnd his aearance at the unitedations embarraing. apart from the repetition of the ologies for the wickedns of america a until hisscendancy anredemption of the country was the naivete of the speech to hsaid that no nation can domine another, no groupf nationought to be above another, aif he did not sit on theecurity council. but when he did siton the security council, he presided over it, and the was a

resolution abt the abolition of nuclear weapons. e president of france, did after, and i transle roughly ani exaggerate -- what the hell are we doing here? we're t living in an alternate reity, we are living in reality. it was not a word aboutorth korea there could allhis announcent about the abolition of nuclear weapons is nonsense. -- all these pronounments about e abolition of nuclear weapons is nonsense. there was more reali my model u.n. at my high school en i heard from oba's speech at that general assembly. >> people are sti talking out charles' model u.n. gh school. >> charles whehe was courting anybodyaid, "i plato dominateou." >> colby king, d you agr with charl' assessmen

>> surprisingly, ion't agree with charles on this. the president made a ver imrtant point to sayo the gathering, look, your days of saying is thi a u.s.roblem, those days are over. is a mutual problem mutual challenges we have, and yave responbilities alsoo step up and not just wait for the united states to take the lead. it was a very important change, not just a lite nuance, and s not apologetic. >> i also thi that-- the obama administrationants to resethe way the u.s. interts wit the wor, and that has to start somewhere, and if started with that resolution, that is by. but we have had prious resolutionand speeches and statements that he point fingers at north korea a ira and they did not get as anywhere ither, so tough talk hasbeen tried for a long time and is is an attet at a different approach. >> it is more talk, just soft talk. >> what doou want, middle

talk? >> the u.n. is a fiction and a farce and the idea that oba is going to redmit and develop a new relationship andake it a force in the world is itself farcical. thats what made it so embarrassg, the waye took it seriousl and the way he took these tyras who applauded him seriously. >> the epitaph is get the u.s. out of the u.nand the un out of the u.s., and it is a hell o a bumper stier. >> i want to do my job, andur job is to t he and do it as long as it tak. >>he effect of this amenent will be is - after we have mpleted action on the bill here, we have to it another two to threweeks before we can vote on it. >> senator max baucus and democrats in the finance coittee defeated an amendment that would hav added literally weeks to the time needed to ve that bilout of committee.

the debate onhat and then took more than two hours. there are more than five mendments waiting to be possibly bated. whats it going to take to get a health careill out ofhis commite, jeanne cummings? >> stop fding the locked the doors, make them work the weekend, make them stay until midnight. >> and take away the tv cameras. >> if he keeps working em until te into the night, republicans will figure they have madeheir point and they may srt dropping some of those endments. as its right now, they do have seriouareas they have to continue to debate. and even those reay important points of contention wi take themnto next week. imax baucus can ju keep their feet tthe fire, he could mae get this thing out sooner than it mightf in -- then itight have been. >> colby, senato rkefeller and nator schumer say there is going to be a public option.

that has to be a point of contention. >> they are going to aress it, problyn friday, spent some time on it, and they should. they should put all thesissues on the table. think something important is taking place now. we have been cricizing them cause nobody talks abt the deils, nobody costs -- nobody knowsbout the costs of these measures. now they are dealing with e nit-gritty of our fo pre- debate, th few exceions, like sator grassley, i find it a etty much informed discussion. it i long torturous, but i think theres subance there. i find the senators are reasonably well inrmed. > look, i would agree. i understand why obama and the democrats ha a politic necessityfor speed. you want to get itone before a possible setbackin t november elections, you want to get it

done thi year, wle the president still strong. but this ia tllion-dollar proposal, 1/6 of our econy, the mostadical reform of our social system, probably in 20 or 30 yea, at least as large as medice. and the idea that it ought to be done in a day or week or two or three is nonsense. lmost all of these discussio in committee are serious, substante, they are abo numbers. one of tse numbers are sti unknown. cbo has not scored tt. in thebsence of that, how can you pass a bill? >> first of all, you are not paing it, u are getting it out of commite, and the is nother bill. ey happen at this foronths and mohs and it is about time -- wait -- got to the end of the ro in this committee and got something to the floor it is noing to be what passesn the last alysis no matt wt, and i have got news for you -- it' something passes, it will t be and the

day, either. it will chan, beuse there wi be mistake but to actlike this is more ney than we spent on iraq -- this bill would not be more moy than we spend every year on iraq. >> some of the senats are just getting their first ack at th bill could only six of them have been woing weeks and months on this. w you have peopleike rockefeller getting an opportunity to offer his own amendments, d that is happening on the otride, to it is part othe process. >> but its true that this has been a debate that is bn on for 10 years. this is not a debate that started last week. >> this is something we have been over before. >> but the detai and regulatis in the rm of this are all new and real and counting numbers. >> that is why i want you to pay attention. ted kennedy's senate seat does not stay vacant long >> this appointment is a

profoun honor, and i acpt it since u humility did -- i accept it with since humility. >> thats paul kirk, poind to represent massachetts in the nate until juary when the will be a special alexian. t process was not exactly pretty. >> but at least w've see the govement do it pretty well prepared -- e a govern do it prettyell. if youook at the other appointments, the governor of new yorkill himself in the ocess, the governor of delaware has bee critized for appoting a place holder fo the vice president' son, and of course theris illino, and in aska, you had sarah palin overlooked tfill the spot, and ok where she came back. at least this governor didt right. it is a popul selection, he is a place holder, it is shorterm so that the voters can expre themselves in pret quick

order. finally we hava process that seemed to work. >> the messiness you were referring -- to wathe referrin >> flip-flop in the law. >> theact that it allod a democratic governor to point, prohibited a rublican. tnk that instead of cnging the law every few years, what the mets two ts -- wh the massachusetts legislature add to his sime, that when that seat becomespen, the kenne family willhoose its ccessor, and that whe will be sime and direct and clean, as it was in thisime. >> that would please the voters of massachusts by and large. >> absolutely. >> it wouldake it very sple, but jeanne isight, compared to what we've seen elsewhere this year, so what? it is politics hat is wh politicss. it happened pretty efficient. >> i am surpris looking at it from a distance.

i remember the initi reaction from the democts was lukarm to cool, and of course the republicans wererousing about it because they don't matter in th equation. but the democrats d not really em to be warm to this idea, and the fact that we med to where a froborrower says something about the politica reality of msachusetts. >> wonder if we have a law that can wittand a democratic or republican gornor. even if it is a republican governo there can be an appointment for thr months but then there woulde the election, andf the democrats think theyan win i they can win it three months later. >>as a native of massachusett but it is a mocratic gornor, it is the point upon, and whe it is publican, it is a special election. tune in next wk f "inside washington" >> for transcript of this broadcast, log on to insidewashingtonv.

>>on the wold stage: nuclear threats in iran terror threats at home turning points in afghanistan and the health care stdoff on capitol hill