we have william cohen, the former u.s.joining us as well and fa reed za car i can't and ken robinson and 30-year veteran of military intelligence. secretary cohen, let me go to you first here. is this what nato envisioned do you think when it launched the mission to protect the civilians in libya. >> there was always something of a mismatch between what nato declared its mission to be and the public statements by the leadership of both france and britain. also president obama, namely that gadhafi had to go. so i think that that was more of a fig leaf to cover the naked truth that this had to be a mission to remove gadhafi under the rubric of a mission to protect the rebels from being assaulted by gadhafi himself. so i think nato had this in mind. it was not able to express it because it would have contravened the u.n. security council resolution, the arab league resolution to support a no fly zone. >> wolf? >> the whole notion of that no-fly zone, mr. secretary, obviously was very significant. but i suspect the aerial bomb

we also have former defense secretary william cohen, who is with us. when you see this picture unfold, what are we watching? what do you make of where we are in this warfare? >> well, it's reaching its final stages, it appears to be, at least. the only caution i would have here as the rebels move into that compound, given what michael had said about the size of it, they be very careful about parts of it being booby-trapped. to celebrate at this point before they have secured all the premises i think would be -- would not be wise. i think they have to be careful as they're moving through. if this is going to be quote, the equivalent of custer's last stand, i would assume gadhafi forces would have something in store, in surprise, for the rebels. hopefully they will take great care and caution as they're moving through. ultimately, if this is the major compound, they will be looking for tunnels you talked about earlier in the program, as to whether or not gadhafi has underground exit strategy to get out of town, so to speak. whether there are weapons stor

at 10 joining us now from washington, former secretary of defense and ceo of the cohen group, william cohento contend with the gadhafi regime as secretary of defense, what are your thoughts this morning? >> well, i think we can all share in the joy of seeing this man go. he hasn't quite gone yet, but i think it's inevitable that he will. he has been a pariah to virtually every leader throughout the region and i think that's one of the reasons why he has no friends to turn to as such, other than the militias that he was able to pay for through the trend to security the apparatus. but i think most are going to be happy to see him go and then the question will become what happens now? and you've been discussing that in terms of, number one, maintaining stability. number two, hopefully the libyan rebels, now the government, will not seek to purge all of the people who have been associated with gadhafi on a wholesale basis. obviously, there are some who will be charged with human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. but i think it will be a mistake for them to simply go to a purging campai

and nato with william cohen and house intelligence chair mike rogers.an and civil rights pioneer john lewis reflects on the new multimillion dollar tribute to martin luther king's dream. "andrea mitchell reports" next on msnbc. in a business like ours, personal connections are so important. we use our american express open gold card to further those connections. last year we took dozens of trips using membership rewards points to meet with farmers that grow our sweet potatoes and merchants that sell our product. vo: get the card built for business spending. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business. over a million people have discovered how easy it is to use legalzoom for important legal documents. so start your business, protect your family, launch your dreams. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. toi switched to a complete0, multivitamin with more. only one a day women's 50+ advantage has ginkgo for memory and concentration, plus support for bone and breast health. a great addition to my routine. [ female annou

for that we're joined by former defense secretary william cohen. thanks so much. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> let's talk about nato there was a lot of criticism we were quote, leading from behind. letting nato take the lead on this only using air power. do you think that this vindicates the president's strategy? >> i think the president was criticized unreasonably in terms of what the role of the united states should have been in this particular case. secretary gates came out very early and said libya was not in an our vital national security interest. that was met with some questions until the british and french said it's in their interest to do something and they took the lead. once that happened and once the arab league signed on the a no fly zone, then i think the president had little option at that point but to join many the effort. i think he was correct to take a subordinant role rather than a lead role which meant we were taking the lead role in afghanistan, iraq and libya. that would have been counterproductive for us. i had a question initiall

we have william cohen. and we have representative of contractors and others. the u.s.hind, taking a supporting role in the end, did it work? >> well, the question is, is it working? while success may be a delayed, i don't think it's going to be defeated. i think that over the next several days and weeks we'll see more intensification of the pressure being brought by the rebels. i don't think gadhafi will survive this. if he does it would be a major blow of play to united states and others. i don't see that as a viable outcome that he stays or remains with his son or others in power. >> not having a front role for the united states was obviously, a very big difference for u.s. foreign policy. the president received criticism early on. looking at it now how do you see it? >> i think president obama is very sincere in his belief that there's been a decline in american power. that's one. he's also very sincere in his belief that the arabs cannot be an american production. it can't be an american show. so basically from the beginning, from the time tunisia erupted and egypt

william cohen was president bill clinton's secretary of defense, now the ceo of the cohen group. secretary, good to see you today. >> hello. >> whether he's leading the fight or not, gadhafi's reign in libya appears to be over. if he survives, is there anywhere for him to go? >> i doubt it very much. i think he has sort of made his case that he's going to live and die in libya, and that appears to be the case. i think the ravings we're seeing and calling on his supporters to come forth, they're approaching the mad statements of king lear at this point. i don't know that anyone is going to take him seriously. i think his supporters are seeing the handwriting on the wall, and they're not going to be coming out en masse to support him. i think it's pretty clear the tide has turned substantially and overwhelmingly against him. >> we're getting news now that there's a group of international entities that agree it's time to unfreeze libyan assets. but there's nobody to step into the power vacuum at this point. is it too soon to free up all this libyan money? >> they're going to need mo

. >> among the people you credit, leon panetta, william cohen. >> one of my best friends. >> if you were to read the list before you read the book, you would think you were very well checked, shall we say, and might even have, you know, -- >> some people think i can fix a parking ticket at least. [laughter] : >> it was remarkable because i was going about my business, i was with interviewing ted for a book on presidential politics and the gun lobby, and he was, i mean, he became a dear friend, and he's a wonderful, warm, generous man. he had people working to help me, we had a two hour meeting. he took his time with me. and it was really quite wonderful. and, um, i always so enjoyed being with him whether we were doing something like this or just in a social situation. but in any event, i'm perfectly content with this, you know, day's work. i'm really feeling great. and i go home, and the next morning i'm sitting in front of, i'm sitting on my bed dictating my notes from the conversation with ted, and the tv's sort of in the background. and i look up, and there's a plane hitting the worl

williams, and meryl haggard. and then there were the beatles, leonard cohen.emember, it's killing me i can't remember but it will come back. all of this eclectic kind of music, i said if beef heart could be on the list. and he said sure, absolutely everybody. so that's the kind of pool we were fishing in when we were looking for songs all kinds of genres that wasn't so narrow-minded. i think that's one of bone's specialties is he doesn't get locked into one job. >> charlie: the combination of them with you take your own musicality up a notch. >> yes. >> charlie: you couldn't have done this without having done that as a stepping stone to get even more deep. >> i think so. t-bone's doing a bunch of stuff at the time when he woul engage in the movie so he assigned steven to be on the set every day. and steven was just, you know, instrumental in the success of that movie applying the songs that's his. so he was my guitar teacher of course, helped me that way. but just as far as making sure that we were all keeping it real how it really is. >> charlie: he was livin

up here with malia cohen, who is going to create many, many new stories to come along with all of san francisco and the other supervisors up here and the oop leaders and al williams and the historical society who are doing very important work to document the contributions so that we can justify why we need to make a special effort to make sure that there is no outmigration, to make sure that there are jobs. to make sure we protect the family structure. because from my heart and where i come from and what my family is all about, i know what it is to be helped by the african-american community. i know that that's been a strong tring and -- thing and we wouldn't have survived without that kind of kep -- help. so i leave you here today to let you know what's in my heart and mind and let's kick off this celebration to unite everybody in this city and be broud -- proud of who we are, and thank you very much. >> thank you, mayor lee. we are about to bring up our keynote speaker. but i did want to mention we also have with us david campos who's joined us. let's welcome supervisor camp ovements and dr. veronica hunnicutt is here also the so with that we're at the point wh