from politics and propose bookstore in -- prose, thomas ricks talks about his book "the gamble" which looks at the change in military strategy in iraq since 2006 and the people who were responsible for it. the event is 50 minutes. >> good evening. i am barbara meade, one of this owners here at policy licks and prose and this evening i want to welcome tom rick, who was last here three years ago to talk about his then best-seller, "fiasco" which at that time was praised as an interim report on the war in iraq. tom is currently a special military correspondent for the "washington post," having accepted one of those "washington post" bailouts that keep going on until there will be no people left there to work, but, when he was at the post, he was there for nine years, as their senior pentagon correspondent and before that 17 years at the "wall street journal" on the same beat. he has been in this business for a long time. tim ridden, reviewing this in -- reviewing "the gamble" in "the l.a. times" excuse me -- described it as gripping, and brilliantly reported. a book of critical importanc

recommend for people who wanted to understand what went wrong in iraq is a book called fiasco by thomas ricks. he has written a sequel called the gamble but i haven't read that the fiasco is really what a great book in terms of peeling away what happened and iraq. and essentially the united states made some very critical mistakes before it even now. the first was the inadequacy of the troops that went into iraq which meant that while we could topple the regime we could not restore the line order and so when that occurred american troops all too often found themselves frankly standing on the sidelines having to watch it because it was of their mission and we didn't have enough troops to do much about it here, it's significantly eroded iraqi public confidence in who we were in what we were about to. then secondly paul brummer who was then that sort of the guy in charge, put in charge overturn some decisions the american military have been trying to make in order to restore law and order and to essentially try to rebuild some kind of structure. the first was his decision to this man and the iraq

rick: that was the sheriff of cook county, thomas dart, right outside of chicago, actually. this story just seems to be getting bigger and bigger and worse and worse the more we think about it. what is the latest? >> i just got off the phone with the fbi, could tell me that they are in uncharted waters and their goal right now is collecting and preserving evidence and building a case against the people. some remains were dug up and reburied again. they say they do not know the exact scope of what they are believing in. many notable folks in the african community were buried there, including famous musicians and athletes. his grave has not been disturbed. it was found. one of the suspects arrested for the crime set up a memorial crime several weeks ago and people are investigating what happens to the money donated since then. rick: you mentioned as the ringleader. there are three others, including two brothers. what kind of punishment could these people be facing? >> they're also looking into federal federal charges against them including wire fraud and mail fraud and there c

rick: when gm called you and said they were changing their minds, how did they frame it? what did they say? thomas. he is with gateway motors in broken bow, neb.. this business was around 80 years, and the folks in the surrounding communities did not really want this dealership to be shut down. so luckily, it will not happen. jane: a barbecue, and maybe some good old-fashioned lobbying, as well. speaking of that, on capitol hill, we're watching islamic -- a house hearing, where they are trying to get a deal within the democratic party on health care reform. with all this work on reform, will this bear any fruit wood becomes time for the full house to vote? ultimately, what will we end up with us taxpayers? and as a progressive customer, you get to use any of our concierge claim centers. so i can just drop off my car and you'll take care of everything? yep, even the rental. what if i'm stuck at the office? if you can't come to us, we'll come to you in one of our immediate response vehicles! what if mother won't let me drive? then you probably wouldn't have had an accident in the first place. and we