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tv   Face the Nation  CBS  February 8, 2015 10:30am-11:31am EST

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>> schieffer: i'm bob schieffer, today on "face the nation," overseas, what to do about isis. here at home what to do about measles. the fate of 26-year-old american aide worker kayla mueller remains unknown but isis still says she was killed in the u.s.-led coalition last week. but how is the war against isis going? we'll have reports from the region and we'll turn to the chairman of the house homeland security committee michael mccaul. former cia official michael he morell and former obama national security advisor tom donilon. then he'll turn to the sudden rise in measles in america. we'll talk about that with anthony fauci of the national institutes of health and our own dr. jon lapook. plus analysis on all of this and
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more because this is "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs good morning, we're going first to cbs news correspondent charlie d'agata who joins us from amman, jordan. >> good morning bob. today is he jordanian officials says their fighter jets have carried out dozens of airstrikes against suspected isis targets over the past few days, this is bombardment retaliation for the gruesome execution of their pilot. the thought there would be relentless war against isis most of the week, we've seen it in combat directing this new offensive. also spoke to jordan's foreign minister who told us this is going to go way beyond airstrikes. >> divulge our plans but not just about increase air campaigns or combat, with everything that we have. this is our fight. and if there was any sled of doubt that these people are
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evil i think this horrific event was evidence. >> in that message this is our fight is one that we continue to hear throughout the week, taking ownership and taking the fight to isis, capping in to that anger and cause for revenge. jordan's queen led procession after friday's prayers where thousands people to demonstrate hold mass prayer in memory of their pilot. but the situation has raised security concerns here this battle is being waged in iraq and syria we put that to the foreign minister he said we have to knock on their door before they knock on ours. bob. >> schieffer: charlie thank you. for latest on jordan's powerful response to the isis execution of its pilot jordan's minister of media affairs muhammad also joins us now from amman. mr. minister, your country has
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conducted 56 airstrikes now in three days. can you tell yet what the impact they have had? >> our military officials bob just held a press conference saying that they believe there has been significant damage done to isis target, we believe that 20% of the known targets of isis has been destroyed over the last three days, airstrikes. we said right from the beginning that our response would be swift and strong and this is what they showed today in the press conference with pictures and evidence. >> schieffer: do you have any further information on the fate of the american aide worker, kayla mueller of course isis said she was killed in one of those airstrikes. >> they tend to lie about these things all the time. they negotiated a swap with our pilot that they have killed
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weeks ago. what we know about them is that they are liars they don't have any respect for human life, that is why it's very difficult to actually make any accurate assessments or conclusions regarding the fate of the american lady. >> schieffer: your forces reacted strangly from the air do you think there's any possibility or are you considering actually sending ground troops against isis? >> at this point coalition members are not speaking about boots on the ground. having said that this is a war. his majesty at some point disquieted a third world war. if circumstances change then we will discuss it at that point. but at this point in time i think no one is talking about boots on the ground. the talk is about helping iraqi
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military that kurdish armed forces and syrian forces opposition forces to help fight terrorism. >> schieffer: mr. minister, describe for me how you think the death of your pilot, what impact did that have on jordanian people? >> i think it was a very significant impact. the created a wave of anger not only in jordan but in the arab world and in the muslim world. interferer national community as well. i think people are convinced more than ever that she would be looking seriously in to this phenomenal of terrorism and this terrorist organization and we should do whatever it takes in order to fight terrorism and extremism. >> schieffer: mr. minister thank you so much. >> thank you bob. >> schieffer: cbs news correspondent holly williams has
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been covering this story since isis first started march of terror in syria she filed this report from doha in northern iraq. >> this is my fifth visit to iraq since isis swept across the country last year. i came here wanted to find out what are the extremists are any closer iraqi national army is still in disarray, as it has been since many of its soldiers found their weapons and ran away from isis in june. tried to beat back isis, relying on shiite muslim militias, we encountered them where they just won decisive victory over isis. the problem is that the brigade is in the murder and torture of thousands of sunni muslims. just a few days before our visit they were accused of killing more than 70 un-armed sunni men in that same area.
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that means that one of america's best allies in the fight against isis here in iraq is a notorious levi lent militia group. this week we also crossed in to syria where they have very different. isis gained ground there during the airstrike. where kurdish are holding out against extremists. one of those young fighters is a 2-year-old elementary schoolteacher who quit her job to become a sniper. >> you want freedom. don't want to be afraid. if you didn't do it. the whole place would be full of isis. >> the kurdish fighters told us they have not seen a single airstrike and they desperately want some. but so far the vast majority of
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strikes in syria have targeted just one key city, kobani. they sing battle songs to pass the time, but extremely tense. if isis launches full scale offensive on their area, they have would be quickly over run. they urgently want international help, but in syria they are unlikely to get it because the u.s. is reluctant to get more deeply involved in the country's complex civil war. in particular if it could end up helping the syrian regime. >> schieffer: in trip i can holly williams reporting from northern iraq. turn to the house homeland security committee republican mike mccaul. he joins us from austin. mr. chairman, after hearing from spokesman for the jordanian government this morning, do you believe this administration, the obama administration is taking
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this threat seriously enough? >> not enough, they never have. they won't even define the enemy for what it is, radical islamist extremisms. the airstrikes have limited success, not policy to degrade. destroy the enemy. if anything the jordanian pilot will now galvanize i hope the arab nations to fight isis including on the ground, we heard in your segment piece earlier they say it's our fight also the united states fight because we don't want them to attack us here on the homeland security. i think that under u.s. leadership if we can galvanize these arab nation, sunni arabs against sunni extremist, isis in syria that would be the ideal. i think there's no ground force in syria, as you heard in your reporting the airstrikes are not sufficient to date to take care of and take out isis right now. >> schieffer: let me just ask
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you this, mr. chairman, as horrible as it is, this hoar riff he can as thee things are that we are seeing do these people pose a threat to the american homeland? >> i believe they do, the reason why we have 50,000 isis strong and growing. i believe this pop began da film almost like hollywood horror film will get more recruits and galvanize i hope the arab nations, let's face it, they're about 15 to 20,000 gone up to 20,000 foreign fighters, 5,000 with western passports. had hundreds of americans that have traveled to fight in the region some have returned. talking about barbarians at the gate. we need to keep them out of the gate we need to monitor those who got through the gate. this is sear use homeland security issue as well we don't want to see what happened in paris happen here in the united states. >> schieffer: general john allen who is the head of the
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u.s. military effort against isis told abc this morning that isis is at -- these are his words, entirely different level than al qaeda. better organized better command. do you agree with his assessment? >> absolutely. al qaeda denounced because they're so brutal in their tactics. but they are governing functioning, they own territory they have lot of money. so they are far more dangerous i think than al qaeda has ever been. lot better organized. if you look at social media propaganda like the film of the jordanian pilot so sophisticated, they send that out over the world to sort of inflame the potential radicalized islam world, we worried about foreign fighters also home grown violent extremist, is that can get radicalized over the internet here in the united states.
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>> schieffer: thank you so much for joining us now. we appreciate it. we want to turn now for more on what the u.s. can do to defeat isis and we're going to talk about that with mike morell the former deputy director of the cia now senior security contributor for cbs news, tom donilon, former national security advisor for president obama. let me just ask both of you the same question, tom i'll start with you you see administration taking this seriously enough? >> i think so. because it's a serious threat. as congressman said, we are in entirely new and complicated phase in the effort against terrorism. multiple vectors isis as you were discussing is a large organization, controls large swath of territory. hey be 20,000 foreign fighters there. may be several thousand who hold western passports that precents ongoing threat to the united states. isis presents threat to our
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important allies and partner in iraq and jordan and lebanon and elsewhere. >> >> schieffer: i ask you this question, in the midst of all of this, the president's national security advisor susan rice, said this. >> too often what's missing here in washington is a sense of perspective. yes, there is a lot going on. still, while the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied they are not of the ex existential nature we had in world war ii or during the cold war. we cannot afford to be buffet the by alarmism and nearly instantaneous news cycle. >> schieffer: tom explain that to me. >> it is important to have perspective and it is important for decision makers while you're dealing with the crisis of the moment to keep your eye on the long haul and strategic challenge antients that the
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country has. that said, as we sit here today we have a serious new set of developments. by the way not just isis, but it's isis in iraq and michael can comment on this more, isis in iraq and syria but it's in yemen with aqap the group that inspired the attacks in paris we have collapsing situation in yemen. other al qaeda groups in syria and ip north african we have this social media dynamic that is radicalizing individuals around the world and individuals in small groups. and we have first class crisis in europe right now. >> perspective is really important here. isis pose a threat to the united states, absolutely. does it pose a threat to the order in middle east and borders and the whole system ip the middle east, absolutely. but is it the biggest threat to the only hand right now? no. aqap in yemen is a bigger threat al qaeda in pakistan is
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a bigger threat, the group which is part of the group in syria which is separate from isis is bigger threat right now. perspective is really important here. >> schieffer: when you put all that together no, i don't think so this has anything close to the evil that the nazis represented, obviously this is not the cold war with the soviet union. but it seems to me, this is something that -- i'm still not sure this administration is galvanized to fight this fight and do what is necessary to do it. >> let me just give you a sense of sort of where we are after six months in this fight. months now of airstrikes, we're getting a large number of executions now most recent was absolutely the most brutal. where are we, right? we have had a big victory in this fight so far which is we have stopped the isis blitzkrieg across iraq.
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stopped it in its tracks, right? gained no more territory since we started the airstrikes. if we had not done this they would be in baghdad today that's our significant victory here. we have to push them back, that's going to take some time and training of iraqi troops going to be figuring out a strategy in syria but they have also had a victory bob it has been the spread of their message that's been faster than anything we've ever seen from al qaeda. now you have terrorist groups in algeria, in libya and in egypt increasingly in afghanistan who are taking on the isis brand. we have one of those groups just ten days ago attack a hotel in tripoli and kill an american. we have self radicalization in western europe and australia and canada, that's all isis related. that's been their big victory here. that's where we are today. >> i do think this the u.s. and coalition responses have been substantial. i checked in with the coalition authority on friday afternoon
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with respect to the numbers there have been 2300 airstrikes. about 6,000 isis fighters killed, have leadership taken off the battlefield this is just the beginning. this is a long term effort that will go well beyond president obama's administering. we've done this stopping momentum that michael mentioned, begun to push back, taking back territory requires an effective on the ground effort. we don't have that yet we're building that, that is months away. i think it can be done, by the way, through training the iraqi security forces and providing with the support that they need. and shrinking isis, by the way pushing back on their success which is absolutely critical here. another key thing we're going to have to do in addition to the ground effort in iraq is getting the politics right. reporter holly williams excellent piece underscored a real challenge which is getting political reconciliation and power sharing in iraq going forward are otherwise we'll have big. >> schieffer: we'll take a break come back talk some more
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about this. we'll be back. daughter: do you and mom still have money with that broker? dad: yeah, 20 something years now. thinking about what you want to do with your money? daughter: looking at options. what do you guys pay in fees? dad: i don't know exactly. daughter: if you're not happy do they have to pay you back? dad: it doesn't really work that way. daughter: you sure? vo: are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed? wealth management at charles schwab. i've been called a control freak... i like to think of myself as more of a control... enthusiast. mmm, a perfect 177-degrees. and that's why this road warrior rents from national. i can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. and i don't have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. and i don't. and national lets me choose any car in the aisle. control.
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it's so, what's the word?... sexy. go national. go like a pro. >> schieffer: back now with mike morell and tom donilon. you're both talking about the threat here and both of you agree that there has to be some kind of force on the ground. but who is it going to be? >> in iraq it will need to be iraqi security forces. and there is a lot of push back against isis by the shia militias which is complicated organization. can be quite sectarian and violent that's a real challenge going forward. there's the core it is building up the iraqi security forces to retake territory. >> on the serious side, i don't think we've quite figured that out yet. training 5,000 moderate opposition a year which we haven't even started to do yet is not a large number in my view. the number is going to have to
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be larger in syria, you have to get syria right, if we don't isis will simply come across that border as we have success in iraq we wouldn't want that. >> schieffer: let me shift quickly to the german leader andrea merkel coming here this week. obviously there's a big split now between germany and the united states, we have people in the administration talking about, not committed to, but talking about maybe it's time to arm the ukrainians over there she says flatly we shouldn't do that. if there divide between germany and united states on this, tom? >> the president will talk about this tomorrow. one is that president putin and russians continue to press unimpeded way their goals in ukraine. russians are responsible for the violence, we have a war 5,000 people have been killed from the outset of this thing. putin has led russia in a direction that's essentially
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adversarial to the united states and the west, that's a big change. and third, we need to put more pressure on this situation that's what they will talk about. oil prices have put a lot of pressure on russia, next decision here is decision around defensive arms for ukraine, that will be discussed tomorrow. merkel came out strongly against that in the security conference over the weekend. i would be much more in favor of moving forward with that, the secret here may be important. one of the reasons you have this latest effort to go to moscow to get a political solution because of the prospect of arming the ukrainians. my view, engage in the politic engage in the diplomacy hold back as next step we'd take increasing the costs. >> only thing i would do, i would talk about who the real loser is in this whole ukraine story. real loser is russia. it's the russian economy, it's the russian middle class because of what putin has done here, any hope of integrating russia with the west is gone.
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russia is the big loser, should talk to the russians, should talk to the russian people publicly about that. >> schieffer: do you think we're anywhere close to getting -- >> it's not clear at this point. to date putin since the september agreement has violated all of the provisions, hasn't tried to implement any way effectively implement any of the provisions. there is pressure on russia, but to date as we sit here today there's no seib that russia has in any stopped or reduced the forces, just the opposite. maybe latest round of politics, maybe the threat of having us bring we'll see tomorrow, very important meeting tomorrow. >> schieffer: i want to thank both of you. bringing some perspective to this. i'll be back with some personal thoughts.
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>> schieffer: thoughts on the other big story of the week. measles, after 1998 report on prestigious british medical journal, who could blame a parent for questioning whether to have a child vaccinated, not me. but here is the hook. scientists question the conclusions from the start the study was debunked in 2004 and in 2010 we backed it called utterly false by the journal's editor. the doctor who wrote the study was barred from practicing medicine and it was learned he had taken $670,000 from a lawyer who hoped to sue vaccine makers, but as mark twain once remarked, a lie can travel around the world while the truth is putting its boots on. underline that in the age of the internet as vaccination rates dropped in some places and measles came back. with an elect coming, no surprise that the right not to
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vaccinate became an issue one sid, some of these candidates were afraid of losing the anti-science group. there is more than science lesson here, it's a reminder that the internet is the first medium to deliver news on worldwide scale that has no editor. the worst newspaper has someone who knows where the stuff comes from but not the internet. information, true, false and in between just appears from who knows where and once out it's as hard to kill as crab grass. sometimes, more dangerous. we'll have more on this story from dr. anthony fauci of the national institutes of health and our own dr. jon lapook come up next on "face the nation."
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>> schieffer: welcome back to fakes the nation. now on to the other big story we're covering this week, rising number of measles cases in the united states. according to state and local health agencies, there are now more than 150 cases reported in 16 states in this latest outbreak. dr. anthony fauci is the head of the infectious diseases at the national institutes of health. -own cbs news chief medical correspondent of course is dr. jon lapook. dr. fauci, are we the verge of a major epidemic here? >> not a major epidemic in the sense of globally around the united states, more than 90% of the people in the united states are vaccinated. we're talking about outbreaks among vulnerable people. i think what people don't really appreciate is that children, even normal children without any issues of health from birth to one year old are not vaccinated
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because you don't vaccinate children until they're 12 months old. when you have outbreaks children for example, in daycare centers like we saw in chicago, become vulnerable if there is enough infection in the country to allow for these outbreaks that we saw in california and disneyland. >> schieffer: it was california, the group in disleyland, outbreak in chicago. any other pockets? >> as you said, several states, in south dakota, for example there's a cluster. and vulnerability is always since this is such a highly contagious infection that someone can get exposed in a place where there's an outbreak then travel any part of the country then get involved in getting. not knowing and infecting other vulnerable people. not only infants and children less than one people who can't get vaccinated like children with leukemia, immunosuppressed states that they can't get
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vaccinated which makes them more susceptible. >> schieffer: what do you say to patients when they come to you say should my child get a vaccination, i've heard all this stuff, we all know that this study that started all this turns out to be totally fraudulent. what do you say? >> of course, i advise that they get vaccinations. if there is pushback very first thing i do try to be sort of gentle, not make them defensive. i say i understand that if you have you're trying to protect your kids can that's your job to keep your kids safe. but i point out logically that this all started with an article in 1998 that turned out to be completely inaccurate. was retracted 12 years later. the problem is you pointed out the mischief was already done. for 12 years this was out there in the either the sense that vaccination was unsafe. i can try to be as logical point out why the benefits of
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vaccination far outweigh the risk. when something is out there there's some sort of almost pavlovian condition response, they hear, dangerous. >> schieffer: were you surprised that somehow it popped up as kind of an issue here, an early issue, my guess is it's going to go away as political issue with some of the blowback to some of the politician, is that raised this. i was a little surprised at that. >> you know, i'm never surprised that any of thesish us use become politicized, we saw that with ebola. states like mississippi and west virginia where they have mandatory, there's no exemption except for medical. they haven't had case of measles in mississippi since 1992. you understand why on the one people want to have sense of personal control and freedom but on the other hand we have issue of protecting society. there are things like drunk driving, for example, we don't allow people to go out there look, i want to get loaded, get drunk, drive my car.
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we don't allow that. >> schieffer: dr. fauci how can the government do a better job on educating people on this? >> by getting the message out as much as we can. our centers for disease control and prevention, the cdc has put out health alert networks. they're constantly trying to get the message across. they are doing very good job. but sometimes as much as you talk you don't turn people around. but you shouldn't give up. also it isn't just people who have deep philosophical problems with vaccinations. there are some people for reasons that are not as deeply fill cough call that you can get to and turn them around. that is what i think the cdc is doing and doing a very good job but they also work very closely with the local and state health authorities. it's that synergy and collaboration between the federal government in the form of the cdc and fda and nih and local and state authorities. >> schieffer: shoeshine who have not been vaccinated be
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allowed to go to public schools? >> that's not for us to decide. what we can do is just what jon said. is that get the information about, you have a very good vaccine, you have a highly contagious disease, you have the disease that is entirely preventable. when you look at that data with the safe vaccine, the conclusion is really almost obvious. >> schieffer: dr. fauci, dr. lapook, we'll be back with our panel to do some analysis on all of this in a minute. huh, fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. everybody knows that. well, did you know words really can hurt you? what...? jesse don't go! jesse...no! i'm sorry daisy, but i'm a loner. and a loner gotta be alone. heee yawww! geico.
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>> schieffer: we're back with some washington's best. ruth marcus column northern iowa for the "washington post," david sanger national security correspondent for the "new york times." nancy youssef with the daily beast and john harris, the cofounder and editor in chief of politico. nancy, i want to start with you. you were out in the middle east for so long working, you've been to all of these places, i want to ask you about this idea that isis recruiting jihadis at nearly the same rate that we were killing them. do you believe that's right and where does that go? how do we counter that? >> well, the u.s. military said that they killed 6,000 roughly since the air campaign began in august. in that time independent said 4,000 have come in even since
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october. it seems that they're able to keep up at the rate that they are being killed. now the interesting thing is, military doesn't have a means to really accurately count those numbers because they don't have troops on the ground. yet do the groups giving these numbers. the results are the same, which is that they're able to recruit. one of the reasons is as we see these barbaric videos, but for so many in the region this idea of oppression and the suffering that they endure at homemade it such that the isis message somehow resonates with them that there should be a call. that they would take care of the poverty, would take care of their interpretation of religion there is such frustration with the state that so much live under that islamic state is an alternative. iraq, for example, the appeal is in part because they reject their shias dominated government. >> schieffer: david, you've been dealing with this for a long time, do you think the killing of this jordanian pilot
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could somehow backfire here, obviously it is inflailing the people of jordan, a wholely different story in the streets so to speak at least in jordan. >> you have seen a big pendulum swing in jordan and the government of jordan try to sort of fan those flames with this very big protests that they had a memorial. the problem is jordan is tiny state that doesn't have a whole lot of resources to go contribute to this fight. and you have seen great reluctance on the part of other arab states to really stick with it. and the united arab emirates just recently came back in starting up after they suspended them after the shoot down. i think many of them are waiting for a greater sign from washington about how much back up they're going to get. and that's why that clip that you showed before of susan rice, national security advisor is so interesting. one world view critique of president obama is that he's not
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paying attention as lines are being redrawn in ukraine as isis gets more powerful that there's a collapse of old world order here. then you have the view that you heard from miss rice the other day where she basically said, these are discrete problems that we can handle. we're the unchallenged super power. the problem is they haven't sent clear signals about how much commitment the u.s. is willing to make. >> schieffer: john, you are the pastor of politics covered it probably as much as anybody, this whole idea of -- there is kind of a notion and you heard mike mccaul, administration just not taking this seriously enough. >> that the world is on fire, enough fires going on to make that legitimate perception to go with. the administration is trying to not be buffeted by these series of individual crises and basically claiming that they're
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not linked. the the administration came out with national security strategy, about a year ago there was this big storm president obama was criticizing about hillary clinton saying his strategy, don't do stupid stuff. or maybe different word than stuff. was how he said it privately. this is actually articulation of that, call for strategic patience basically look, we can't be everywhere, we've got to just have detachment on this. the problem with that not just our enemies but our allies, detachment as indifference, and lack of will power obama h clearly gets drawn in, every instance of late to the conclusion that force is what matters not just diplomacy and engagement. hillary clinton will have big problem reconciling this, she's much more on force and intervention side. >> john is exactly right. the president's instincts are patience, whether may be strategic or not sometimes too
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much patience can be a very dangerous thing. so i would very struck by the panel you had on, two people who worked with this president very closely, mike morell and tom donilon who yes there are threats to the united states as we had during the cold war but the serious outbreak of problems not just islamic states but the others that they rattled off and potential dangers not just to their region and mid east but to the homeland that that could pose, and state of play in the mid east. we have started maybe we had some progress in iraq, i was very struck by the degree to which tom donilon did not mention any progress in s because that's really pretty late to the game i'm not sure patience is warranted right now. >> schieffer: nancy after all those years you spent out in the region how is president obama and american leadership viewed in that part of the world? >> well anything view has the
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iraq war how the war started and also how it ended. on top of that you have now arab where there is feeling, i can say in egypt that the president spoke out on behalf of protesters a little late when it was inevitable that former president mubarak would fall. then when they said that elected president must say that the u.s. is endorsing the muslim brotherhood wrath e.r. than the process of the democratic election, and so feeling is that the united states is sort of taking a limited view, one that looks at their interests isn't really engaged any to take on these very attractive problems. think one of the differences that came out of arab was that much more local issues rather than constructs of the united states, where as before, the leadership of mubarak was seen as propped up by the united states is now the current president is seen as organic product of the circumstances on the ground. it's been a shift.
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>> schieffer: what would you add to that? >> i thought the best part of the national security strategy was that in the couple of pages it prioritized when the united states would have to get involved. it started with the national one. when there's a threat directly to the united states, homeland, threats to americans, so forth. where i think it ran in to trouble is not acknowledging how quickly we've gotten in situation where what seemed to be regional threats can turn in to threats. just as afghanistan became the breeding ground for al qaeda the big fear about syria now is that if it slits up it becomes the next afghanistan then we ask the question, were we in enough and early enough. that's the big debate about whether or not we are secretly trying to keep assad in for fear that the country will implode. you see it again in ukraine where the issue is to what degree do we arm the rebels and there is a big split out here.
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not only between the europeans and the u.s. but even in the administration, you heard the nominee for secretary of defense say he was inclined to -- >> schieffer: but i want to get back to this, what are we trying to do in syria? i'm not sure i understand it. >> the official position is that the airstrikes, frankly serving as sort of air force, if you will for the kurdish forces and territories that they're trying to protect and iraqi army and the territories they are trying to protect because they don't have the air power and it's an area where you can dominate over the islamic state. now the u.s. position is that it cannot send ground forces has to be local forces, will go months and months of training before they can reach that point. many argue that it's a strategy of containment and frankly it's hard to see how far the u.s. could go to really change the dynamics on the ground because they're so fluid, and the groups that we would of a aligned with
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are out aligned withal kate da, picking allies is very complicated. i think there's a fair argument to be made that it's a containment strategy. just want to go back to one point that david bakes makes one of the case studies is libya the u.s. said we wouldn't get involved and repercussion is a threat not only to the region but the united states as so many isis. >> president said he had some regrets. >> nancy makes an interesting point there's a lot of would have, could have, what might have happened in the potential much more flexibility to make had if we had intervened earlier that brings me to john's point about hillary clinton and you posted a little bit john, as potential problem for secretary clinton in terms of separating herself from president obama's policies, i think it would could be benefit to her because unlike when she ran eight years ago she
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is not facing challenges from the left of the party with people worrying that she's too interventionist, but really sets her apart in a way that i think could set her up very nicely for general election campaign differentiating herself from president obama and there's interesting parallel debate on republican side, the strains between the more isolationist rand paul parts of the party and more interventionists part. he i think this is going to be really interesting and vibrant part of the presidential debate coming as well. >> unlike sometimes where these are kind of manufactured debates or matters of manipulation, i think this flows very general quinnl what hillary clinton much more interventionist backed by force. >> one thing we know this is for sure going to be the next president's problem no matter who he or she is. >> schieffer: you know, one thing that kind of struck me this week when the president -- all knew he was going to do this, he said last year he was
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going to do it. he was going to ask the new congress to give him authority to fight this war against isis and al qaeda. we have been hearing the republicans say he's got to be stronger, he's got to go after them then response from john boehner was, well, this is going to be a heavy lift. what is going on here? is the congress, are they going to deny him the right to carry out this fight? >> it's a mother may i set of -- nobody wants to be the first one to initiate the authorization of force because they have had a few cases where authorizations to use force have blown up on them in the past. including in iraq. the republicans are playing a game here i think in which they want to say the president's been too weak but don't necessarily want to go on record with a vote that indicates that they're giving this president or this
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president's successor this kind of blank check that george bush had at some point. a lot of constituencies, there's a sense that united states just got out of two wars, don't want the get back in. >> both parties i would say had division ranks, the national security strategists tend to think on truth serum versus where the country at both ends of the ideological spectrum is weary of war, skeptical of our ability to make a difference even if we want to. president obama president closer to the mood of the country than the people who are saying, we got to do something, the world is on fire, we need a more aggressive response. >> everybody pretty much thinks that we need to update the authorization that the much less agreement. but especially as we wind down the war in afghanistan, one important thing to start thinking about is, what would be our authority legally to hold people who were caught on the battlefield in afghanistan at
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guantanamo or elsewhere if that war ended what are the justification. it could be very important. >> schieffer: i want to go back to what david brought up about ukraine the german leader on merkel, i think coming tomorrow. she already said no we shouldn't be arming the ukrainian folks. united states actively considering that, is this a breach between germany and the night states, if so is that something to be concerned about? >> one that is certainly developing not just germany the german chancellor, french president both went to see president putin at the end of last week, they presented a program, we don't fully understand but is essentially extension of the cease fire with a little bit more of could carved out region for the russian oriented areas of the
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country. but the problem is that they have said that even if putin doesn't accept this they're not going to favor arming ukrainian government. pout is in looking at this saying what's the downside of just dragging for time here which is what he has done very successfully as this has gotten in to a bigger and bigger conflict. the president's instinct not necessarily to go in i think many in his party agree that as i mentioned carter, i think probably have to hear from hillary clinton on this issue pretty soon at some point. and it's going to be a very big division because in the end you heard vice president biden say yesterday that reset was over. and we're in to a period of resistance to the russians, that's different than saying confrontation. >> seems to me the central question, give more weapons would that prolong this conflict or would it push the russians to
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back away, making it maybe too costly for them, politically or economically. if the answer is no, the russians continue to get involved wecond or third order. get more involved, is it ready to get more involved. something that the president had called regional issue. >> schieffer: all right. we'll stop there. i want to thank all of you for being with us. we'll be back with a look at the whacky weather of the weekend. a remote that lives on your phone. more wi-fi in more places. a movie library you can take wherever you go.
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>> schieffer: finally today is it just me or is it cabin fever, whatever. add on to all the other stuff that's gone haywire he cannot remember when weather has been so different from one place to another. first off whoever heard of something called a pineapple express? well, the people on west coast and nevada know more about it than they care to. it is the name the weather bureau gave to the recent atmospheric river of rain, almost ten inches that brought floods cancelled airline
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flights and knocked out power for thousands. and there's more on the way. in the northeast it was rain but snow, enough to delay the super bowl parade in boston nearly three feet of the white stuff. it was the snowiest seven-day period in the city's history and there could be two feet more coming because winter storm marcus intends to hang around awhile, serves us right for trusting storm named marcus, sounds genital anything but. but you wouldn't know about that if you were in the middle of america record breaking warm weather, every place you look. 70 degrees in provo utah, even hotter in denver, friday. 71. and if you're heading to new orleans for mardi gras parades they're calling for a chance of sunburn in february. go figure. back in a minute.
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>> schieffer: that's all all the time we have for today. thank you for watching "face the nation." we'll see you right here next sunday.
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