tonight, on washington week. >>those who used to chastise america for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for america to solve the world's problems alone. >>and what problems they are world leaders reveal irans new iranian nuclear ambitions >>america, the united kingdom, and france are at one.â iran's nuclear program is the most urgent proliferation challenge that the world faces today. >>generals and bureaucrats search for common ground in the afghanistan war debate >>the most important thing i wanted was us to refocus on why we're there. >>and a new domestic terror plot reveals al qaedas continuing influence meanwhile, lawmakers on capitol hill duel to a standoff on health care reform... >>mr. chairman let me just complete my thought here. >>in about one minute you'll

complete your thought. we gotta... >>i'll complete my thought and then make another point... >>this is your delaying senator and we just have to... mr. chairman i am not delaying. >>i am making an extremely important point. >>bad blood everywhere we look at why with the reporters covering the week doyle mccmanus of the los angeles times nancy yousef of mcclatchy newspapers... pete williams of nbc news and karen tumulty of time magazine. >>celebrating 40 years of journalistic excellence, live from our nations capital, this is "washington week with gwen ifill" produced in association in national journal. corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here, to stand by all who serve. >> to deliver the technologies

vital to freedom. >> to help carry hope to those in need. >> around the globe, the people of boeing are working together for what matters most. >> that's why we're here. >> major funding for "washington week" is provided by the annenburg foundation, the publication of public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington moderator gwen ifill. >>good evening a friday morning surprise in pittsburgh today, as the leaders of the united states, britain and france gathered to denounce iran for secret plans to build a nuclear plant >> this site deepens a growing concern that iran is refusing to live up to those international

responsibilities including specifically revealing all nuclear-related activities. >> confronted by the serial deception of many years, the international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand. >>tough words at a tough timeas president obama took his first major turn on the world stagefirst at the u.n. general assembly, then the g20 global economic summit in pittsburgh but if theyve known about this nuclear plant for some time, why this announcement now, doyle? >> the announcement came now, gwen. the immediate reason was the iranians found out that the united states knew about it and they snuck into the ieae, a bland little letter, there is something we need you to know about. we're building something else. the back story behind that is more interesting because what is coming up next week on october

1, on thursday, is a renewal of those face-to-face negotiations with iran about its nukes and the first ones under the obama administration. and what the obama administration had planned to do was to mousetrap the iranians with this revelation at the talks. as i understand it, what they planned to do in the first session was say to the iranians, anything else you ought to be coming clean on? anything you want to tell the rest of the world about and figure the iranians probably weren't going to say anything and then once the iranians had said no, we have come clean, the united states was going to say, well, how about this? and that would both mousetrap the iranians and it would impress the other countries there, the russians, the chinese, the french, the british, and so on with the continuing of the iran. that disrupted what the iranians tried to do and that's why you suddenly had this announcement. >> there was a fair amount of

drama in this disclosure today. what does it mean? does it mean they can actually force iran to do something and do we know that it's true what the u.s., france, and britain are charging? >> it appears to be true in the sense that iran has now admitted that it's true, has admitted that it is a nuclear installation. the argument here was it for military means. there is a long technical discussion about that, but it does appear, one of the significant things that came out of this was a very strong statement from the russians saying they believe it's true, they think it's unacceptable and they think iran has to fess up here. the russians, one of the interesting things that has been happening over the last few weeks and this pushed that a little further down the road is the russians who had been dead set against sanctions are now moving closer and closer to that. what this is is a prelude to those negotiations where the iranians will be asked to freeze what they're doing, that's the western -- that's the western

proposal. the expectations is the iranians won't freeze it and then we do go back to pursuing sanctions. but in the view of the administration, more of the ground rule has been laid because of the announcement. >> what is it and what is the violation? is it a violation to have it or to have it and not say anything about it? >> ah, here is the problem. in the case of iran is different from most other countries, it's not a violation to start building a peaceful nuclear plant. any country can do that even iran. at some point, you have to report it to the u.n., but in iran's case, iran has been out of compliance for so long, they hid their initial plan for so long that the u.n. has passed a series of resolutions imposing new requirements on them. so they're not supposed to do anything without reporting it right away. so the fact that this wasn't reported before in the eyes of the security council, is a violation. >> doyle, the reason everyone was in pittsburgh was because there was a meeting of the world's industrial powers, the

g-20. this seems to have stepped news of anything coming out of that. did anything happen out of that? gwen: it stopped the u.n. general assembly as well. >> karen, for those of who get excited about multilateral diplomatic meetings, there was some news there. the g-20 is the expansion of the old g 8 -- >> which was an expansion of the g-7. >> we go backwards on that they have broadened out in effect the economic's board of directors to include developing growing countries like brazil and india and china and they made that permanent. that's pretty interesting. they tried to come up with a plan that doesn't seem to have very many teeth for continuing economic cooperation and decision-making to keep the recovery going. my favorite part, though, is that they issued a communique, all of these leaders saying earlier this year we met and talked about launching a recovery for the economy and one of the lines reads simply it worked.

so they patted themselves on the back. >> doyle, you mention the russians and how they changed their position in light of this news. are there any other countries you're waiting to hear from? gwen: china? >> of course, china. actually, though, the first question is, what will russia really do? russia has said some things. dmitry medvedev, the president of russia says we don't like sanctions but we have to go do them. no one has actually seen russia support sanctions, financial sanctions, the real tough ones would be cutting off oil and gas for iran. it produces oil but not gas. we'll have to see if that happens. gwen: so october 1, the next set of meetings we'll see. another set of hard choices await the president back in washingtonas military leaders press for a shift in afghanistan strategy that could mean adding 40,000 troops to the forces on the ground. but at the root of it all is a debate about how, exactly, the u.s. should proceed. by focusing on counterterrorismor on counterinsurgency and whats the difference between the two,

nancy? >> gwen, there are lots of phrases we throw around a lot. they are two ends of the spectrum. counterinsurgency some call it nation building. it's a manpower heavy type of assignment. you send a lot of forces in. they secure the area and they help build local governments. the idea being that they leave a viable system in place so that when forces leave, that country can survive, in this case, afghanistan on its own and not bring the taliban back in. so it's security, it's governance and in the case of afghanistan, it also means the training of its army and police. gwen: that's what the 40,000 troops would be for. >> that's right, they would be part of that. that's one end of the spectrum. the other is counterterrorism. that's a much more limited approach. that calls for using drones and other intelligent-gathering apparatus to monitor the situation. the idea being there that the united states can only do so much, that maybe we shouldn't be in the business of nation building. it's considered a more limited approach, but it also demands far less troops and is less

costly. both important factors given the poll numbers showing the american public is not eager about this war and the economic realities that the nation is facing. and so what is happening in washington now is the debate about where the administration wants to fall in that spectrum. six months ago, they indicated they were moving closer to counterinsurgency. the general, the commander there went to afghanistan with that expectation. i think you're starting to see a shift towards counterterrorism. the joe biden camp, if you will, who is sort of leaning in the white house and the general petraeus camp over here who is pushing for more forces. >> so, though, if it's a counterinsurgency, that suggests that there are democratic institutions that can be built there. how does the fact that we still have a disputed election factor into all of this? >> it's a big factor. the administration says that that's been one of the reasons that they're having to relook at this strategy. on august 20, they held a presidential election in afghanistan. hamid karzai has claimed to be the winner.

that is largely in dispute. there are thousands and thousands of disputed ballots. the stalemate could go on until next spring. in that case, i think it comes to the fundamental question of if you're doing a counterinsurgency, is the united states prepared to train 134,000 soldiers to ultimately serve a government that the united states considers corrupt and incompetent. i think that's one of the reasons this debate is flourished. >> when should we expect a decision from the president? has he imposed a deadline on himself or from congress? >> he suggested he will take weeks and weeks. part of the reason they think they have the time is they don't have the troops right now, especially with the troops in iraq right now. the feeling is the united states can't pull any troops out until after the presidential elections in iraq in january. so that's a factor. but practically speaking from the military perspective, the army needs six months' notice to notify, to deploy, and to train its forces. the marines need three months.

so if by november 1, he gives them a decision, the army can be there by may, the start of fighting season. but this administration has indicated it could be until the end of the year before they make a decision. >> nancy, as you look at the spectrum of options you described, is anybody in the administration here talking about one that would amount to a withdrawal of american forces from afghanistan, because it's costing a lot of money, it's unpopular if counterterrorism with no troops on the ground would work, it would sound like a lot of people would think it's a no-brainer? >> well, i don't think -- there would have to be some troops there. there would be troops in kandahar and cap you will and a minimal presence. the question is how much can you department on so few forces. i don't think anyone is talking about that extreme. to be honest, i don't think the administration has the option. the president campaigned on this being a war of necessity. he committed 17,700 troops earlier this year and 4,000 trainers. so i think to make that dramatic

of a shift would be a problem, not only strategically, but politically. gwen: i was going to say if al qaeda is still now widely considered to be based in pakistan, what is the argument and is there any argument made any more for pursuing al qaeda or is the taliban linked to al qaeda in afghanistan proper. >> that is the question. what is the relationship between the taliban and al qaeda. in 2001 before the attacks that al qaeda subsidized the taliban financially. they don't need that any more. it's the taliban subsidizing al qaeda. those who support sending more troops in say, yes, they're in pakistan, but if you give them the opportunity to come back to afghanistan, that becomes a safe haven, it gives them more opportunity so the plan and practice attacks and it makes it harder for the united states to monitor with those drone attacks. but they haven't answered publicly that fundamental question. gwen: thank you, nancy and welcome to "washington week." >> thank you. gwen:so where is al qaeda, and

how much of a threat do they pose? we may have gotten one indication this week with the exposure and arrest of an afghan-american terror suspect who authorities say was planning bomb attacks it may seem that weve hear about a lot of plots like this before. why is this one different? pete? >> if you think about the plots we have seen since 9/11, most of them are people trying to learn to become terrorists by going to correspondence school. they go on to the internet, download material to build bombs and find other people through the internet. if we believe what the government says, here is someone who went to school to become a terrorist. the government says this man, najibullah zazi who lives in suburban denver actually went to pakistan with the purpose of attendinging an al qaeda training camp. they said he has admitted doing this in his conversations with the f.b.i. other people have done that, too, have come to the united states after going to pakistan but then have lost nerve or lost their way. they say, no, he went beyond that, too, and began to immediately put into effect what he learned there, tried to

gather the chemicals necessary to build a very potent kind of explosive that's sort of a favorite of terrorists around the world that can be made of ordinary chemicals that he got at least three other people in the denver area to help him go around to all of all things beauty supply stores because they sell the kinds of chemicals that are the precursors. having gotten them all together, he was trying to figure out how to make the formula work. he got a hotel room with a stove in it. he was heating the chemicals to concentrate them. he is urgently, just before he went to new york two weeks ago, e-mailing, apparently, his professor to try to figure out why isn't this working, what am i doing wrong. and then after that, for a reason that i don't think they don't understand, he rented a car, drove to new york, and of course, that's when it all came apart. gwen: is he it? is he the center of the cell they think they have found or are there other people still out there? >> the feeling out there he is it. everything seems to revolve around him. he is the one that they say went to al qaeda although they subjected in government papers

this week that perhaps others went with him. but in terms of being in contact with people, buying the stuff trying to make it, you know, he seems to be the top of it. if there is someone else pulling his string, we don't know in a yet. >> they found the guy and the stuff. how much do they know about what he planned to do with this? >> well, what we have been able to learn from what they say is still not much. he hasn't said much. he apparently has told some wild stories about, he said for example, i was told by one official that during his interrogation, you know, i really didn't intend to target manhattan, i was going to hit a big discount store, something outside of manhattan. then i changed my mind. he was trying to throw them off. he also said, you know, i was entirely on my own in this. the simple answer to the question is, as far as we know, they don't know yet what the plot was, what the target was, the means of attack or the timing. >> pete, do we know how early the government picked up this guy's trail, how much

intelligence went into connecting the dots. because after 9/11, one of the great fears was that the countryside may be full of secret al qaeda sleeper cells. do we get a sense outs of this whether we are safe against that? >> one of the surprising things about this case is the government has not come out and publicly patted itself on the back very much. we have heard very little from the attorney general, the director of the f.b.i., the secretary of homeland security or the president, though we're told they're all deeply involved in this case. they haven't come out to say, we can't connect the dots. they're still not sure precisely that they have put the thing out of business. it does say that. and there are suggestions that they have been -- they're keeping their eye on him for many months, perhaps as long as a year. they were aware that he went to pakistan. he was said to have gone last august and come back in january of this year. they were aware he went there, aware he came back, following his movements, watching him buy these chemicals. so it does appear that they had him very carefully under observation. >> pete, it's extraordinary detail.

what tipped the government off? what started this a year ago? >> i don't think we know the answer to that question. my own suspicion is i don't think you can be a young person of his anest ri, his family came from afghanistan and go to pakistan from the u.s. without being on the hit parade. that's thing one. then i think we get into areas like the foreign intelligence surveillance act which allows the government to keep and eye and an ear on people once they leave the country. they clearly played a role. we know that. the government filed in court saying we intend to use evidence that we obtained under this law. gwen: wasn't there a dust-up with a imam that they tried to recruit to be an informant that didn't work out? >> we know for a fact he drove to new york and got there just before the september 11th anniversary. the government was very eager to find out what he was doing there. while the f.b.i. was looking at this, a new york policeman went to an imam who was a source before, what do you know.

he made some phone calls. those phone calls got back to zazi himself and he realized the feds were all over him. gwen: thank you, pete. >> remember health care, the administration's number one priority? well, the debate continued this week along these lines. >> no one should die because they cannot afford health care. this bill would fix that. no one should go bankrupt because they get sick. this bill would fix that. this bill increases costs. it doesn't lower them. the increased spending requires more offsets which requires more taxes which are passed on to the very people we're trying to help. >> this shouldn't be about imposing punitive measures on individuals and particularly in these very difficult economic times. it is about our responsibility to accomplish the goal of affordability. gwen: translate for us, karen, was that gridlock we just saw or is there sthg something else

going on we can't see? >> as ugly as it was to watch and it was ugly, i think a lot of progress was made this week because what happened was we have been waiting for this committee, the senate finance committee for months. four other committees in congress, the other four have all acted, but this is the one most closely divided. this is the one where the chairman max baucus was trying to work with this bipartisan group to come up with a deal that didn't happen. so finally belatedly they start slogging through their bill, 500 amendments, more than 500 have been filed against it. what was important, i think, about this week was that max baucus prevailed on every single one of those amendments that came up. at one particular key vote which would have blown up the deal the white house had made with the drug industry, he sided with the republicans against the democrats. i think what this suggests, and there is one more big test

coming on the so-called public option next week -- is that this bill is going to come out of this committee and it's going to come out of this committee with the basic architecture that the chairman wants. >> so what does that mean for the timing of when we'll start to see a final bill? gwen: we have been asking that question for a year now. it's an important question. >> at the beginning of the week, max baucus was saying he would have the bill out of his committee by now. now they're coming back on tuesday. there is talk that the house may try to get its bill to the floor as soon as mid-october. that may well be the case with the senate, too, if max baucus can get the bill out next week. and then, of course, we get into the main event which is when the house -- if it gets out of both houses, when the two of them try to reconcile. >> karen, you mentioned the public option, the government-run health plan, and we have heard all of these different very yants,co opens and this's and that's. where do things stand on the public option and is that still the critical issue in this pro

seeding? >> on the senate side, i don't think so. all the signs are that the public option -- this mind you, is a separate medicare-like program that would be set up for the uninsured to buy into if they wanted to. i don't think it's going to survive in the senate. the white house is flirting with senator olympia sthnch owe who may vote on this bill. it's a fallback and not in the initial bill. that's the big flash point between the house and the senate. >> this is supposed to be about improving health care. why is the main committee about it, the senate finance committee, is congress more worried about paying for and then fill in the blank, or do they -- it seems backwards. >> i think it's because the committee previously acted, we're all pretty heavily liberal. people are looking at the finance committee as sort of a

proxy for what the fight is going to look like on the senate floor. and essentially, if you can get something through this committee, the chances of getting something through the entire senate are pretty decent. gwen: ok, so bipartisanship which seems like a fantasy on some levels has come to be represented by one person and that's olympia snowe, the senator from maine who has left her hand print on this bill. >> she sure has. the other republicans sort of negotiating but really never did put anything on the table, olympia snowe has been going in and essentially whatever she wants, they are trying to accommodate. she has gotten additional tax breaks for small business, additional purchasing mechanisms for them. she has gotten annual physicals for medicare recipients. but it's still unclear, even though they are trying to give her everything she wants, whether she is going to vote for the bill in the end. her big concern right now is this idea of requiring everyone in the country who doesn't get

insurance from their employer or from a government program to go out and buy it. and she is worried that this is simply going to be unaffordable for too many people and that the economy is so fragile that the middle class is just not going to be able to handle the government telling them they have to go out and spend money on something else. gwen: how much for normal partisan divide, this is the republican and she is talking about the people to afford. we'll see what happens and what the white house role is. they'll get whatever they can get. thank you everyone around the table. before we go, tonight a point of personal privilege. 10 years ago i showed up in this studio in this chair and you invited me into your homes. well, now, i know what they mean when they say time flies when you're having fun because it's been nothing less than gratifying for me to play host to our weekly half hour to smart and civil conversation for the past decade. like a dinner party, you just want to keep on going. we couldn't do it without you, so thanks. keep track of daily developments over at the news hour with jim

layer. we'll be turning over this time slot to my pal ken burns for his amazing series, the national parks, america's best idea. so we won't see you next week, but we'll be back in two weeks on "washington week." good night. >> the conversation continues online. see more from our panel about the week's top stories and we answer your questions. it's the webcast extra found only on "washington week" online at pbs.org. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here, to design the future of flight inside and out. >> to build tomorrow's technologies in amazing ways.

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