for decades, qaddafi held libya and his grip. when he fell, there was hope that something better could be achieved. in benghazi, a promise of health. -- of help. but this was an opportunity missed. libya collapsed. two rival government and haostless -- c filled the gap. >> for a year it went by with the libyans able to set up a democratically elected parliament to start a constitution drafting process and a national dialogue process. a borderset up monitoring mission to strengthen control of libya's land borders. british government set up specific programs of assistance, but we were taking our turn from the libyans who did not want a military occupation force. wanted to be masters in their own house. reporter: the arrival of islamic state has added a new dimension to libya's problems. it was in qaddafi's hometown that i.s. took hold. here last year we watched as the militants motored fighters -- so drivingo them out and expanding the control running rampantn. could not be contained. in tunisia, it was i.s. attackers trained in li

i wrote a piece after we intervened in libya that said we should cut a deal with qaddafi now because we are flooding them with small arms and we know it is going to be bad for whatever happens. we do not want to intervene for regime change but we want to stop the atrocities, stop the genocide in the crimes against humanity, we typically think of doing that by defeating or otherwise attacking the perpetrators. what if we simply focused on attacking the means of perpetration? here in example the example of a bombing assad's air force or the rotary wing to stop him from dropping the barrel bombs on his people. is that a way that we can craft a doctrine to say look, you can win. if. if it's a civil war, certainly is one now, we are knocking to say who should win but we are going to tell you you can only fight in certain ways. we are going to stop you from fighting in manifestly illegal ways. in rwanda that would've been harder, you cannot have bombed people with machetes, then a very limited use of force could have made a difference. let me conclude talking about what i like, what i disl

you just killed saddam hussein, you just killed moammar qaddafi, now what?t are you going to do to make sure this doesn't become a location for al qaeda to fill the vacuum. it's easy to get all worked up, but it's not easy. whatever else you say about qaddafi, he maintained order in libya and we now have no such order in libya. deirdre: senator bob kerrey with me there. five state closing in just a few hours. we have the fir exit polls for you. we'll give you the details. we were born 100 years ago into a new american century. born with a hunger to fly and a passion to build something better. and what an amazing time it's been, decade after decade of innovation, inspiration and wonder. so, we say thank you america for a century of trust, for the privilege of flying higher and higher, together. ♪ when a moment turns romantic why pause to take a pill? or stop to find a bathroom? cialis for daily use is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your doctor about all your medica

i teach a class on this, and one of my students in the class was qaddafi 's son. >> wow. >> basicallyhey wanted to quote/unquote rebrand libya into a country that paid attention to well-being because they were aware of this data. >> was it one of the sons, by the way who is on trial? >> he died three weeks after he left my class. it was very sad because you could see there was this absolute huge anxiety that some disaster was going to occur. >> libya is just one of many places in the midst of crisis right now. >> yes. >> talk about how you view the world at this point. is it at a tenuous time. >> if you have 50% of the world living on less than $2 a day, that's a catastrophe, we have that right now. >> you think its rooted in poverty. >> it's rooted in poverty and lack of education. those two things. >> it has nothing to do with power struggles, religion, or fights-- >> no, i don't think so. i think its mostly poverty. but mostly what happens is when you have radical poverty and lack of education, then unscrupulous leaders arrive to take advantage of that and become demagogues and tyr

her answer about the military action against qaddafi what i just said. if people want to twist that. talk about benghazi they can. david: harlan, the fact you know what has happened as a result of these things. i think she is getting tired personally. and frankly this -- >> come on. david: this campaign has been exhausting for everybody. no come on, about it. ohio by the way has a lot in common with michigan. nobody expected her to miss michigan. she was expected by all polls to win michigan. she didn't in the end. bernie sanders carried it off. is ohio, because it is also manufacturing state and midwest, is that going to be like michigan was, harlan? >> let me go back to that real quick. you know, hillary clinton has shown a pattern of lying. about benghazi, about libya, about a whole host of issues. sidney blumenthal. we're just supposed to believe this is gaffe, she made a mistake this, is taken out of conn text. i don't buy it. i'm tired of getting this line from the hillary campaign and hillary apologists. you know -- we move past that. >> that was

then the director of defense and intelligence agency, michael flynn commented that qaddafi was a thug in a dangerous neighborhood, but he was keeping order. how has the ks in chaos in libya, specifically the weapons from qaddafi's stockpiles in the infiltration of isis and al qaeda affiliates led to the destabilization of the middle east and threaten our security interest? >> thank you senator, the first affects of that destabilization was in molly when many of the fighters and arms ammunition explosives had that way which created challenges north africa and mali. the militias who have grown up in and around and used many of the animation stocks for their power and influence, not only only internal to libya, but external to its neighbors, and then the challenges have continued to grow because of isis and its brand of terrorism to threaten places like tunisia and then of course destabilize and total chaos in the area there has contributed to the problem. >> thank you. in a long report last week from the new york times, it was made clear that then secretary of state clinton in the white

qaddafi of libya is certainly one of them. it's not enough to say he is a tyrant and dictator.m, you have to think about what happens the day after he is gone. regime change does not always work out quite as smoothly as some people think it does. [applause] a series of articles in the new york times recently made a point that the president was not sure what to do about libya. secretary clinton was one of the more aggressive people to say we've got to go in and overthrow qaddafi. there is massive instability in libya and isis has a foothold in that country today. the point being that regime change is more complicated and often has unintended consequences. we've got to be careful about that. [applause] on foreign policy, there is another issue and i wish i could come before you and tell you that i have a magical solution, i don't. that is for decades now, there has been hatred and warfare in the middle east. everybody knows we have had some presidents like carter and clinton and others who have tried to do their best to resolve it. all i can tell you is i will make every single e

qaddafi quit holding bonds, he was building houses. apartment complexes, is what they were using the money for. and that was stopped. a humanitarian disaster. it is going to fall in a few months, said the president, and we created help. in honesty, you could say this refugee crisis and the humanitarian losses, the deaths in the war, assad and his brutality would not have been nearly as bad if we had not shown more restraint. i don't think this is a trigger-happy guy. i will be talking to mr. trump today to try to make sure i am sharing with him honestly. a lot of these private conversations the candidates are having, i don't think anyone knows who kasich's advisory team is, or cruz's for that matter. mark: thank you very much, we appreciate it. [applause] mark: well, thank you again senator sessions. this is the kickoff of something all my colleagues at the accf are all excited about. we have six former democratic members, and six former republican numbers. this is just the beginning. what i thought i would do when i found out yesterda

the assad family labarre, qaddafi, saddam hussein, it was established and it was locked in place. like these old rowhouses it was a lot of appearances and on the inside it was tremendous rot. the rot was ignorance, nepotism, corruption, religious tensions that were kept at bay by strongman activities that was carried out by saddam hussein. like in these old houses, you contain the rot to but if you do not open the windows or doors, if you don't spend money on it, you also make it worse. that was the situation, a very fragile paradigm. you can put your finger through the wall and instead the united states put its shoulder through the wall of iraq and started the sequence of events that we are still really living and experiencing to the state. eight years of direct military action started to destroy the status quo. it started to unleash all of the rot in the demons that have been pent-up within it. then the very soon-to-be eight years of the obama administration, we saw inconsistent politics. they're supporting the of revolution in egypt and then days later's not supporting bahrain,

seriously, the bush administration wants us to go meet with gadhafi because there are indications that qaddafi -- we've had sanctions against him, republicans and democrats. republicans and democrats consistently, for 25 years, had had a strategy to contain, confront, and ultimately deceit --ultimately defeat gaddafi. the executive branch and congress had a strategy. they said, this guy is evil, he for some of the to shoot down -- he facilitated to shoot down a pan-am. we are going to ostracize him until he changes his behavior. we are going to confront him and contain him. we will also defeat him. it appeared to be working. he wants to come in from the cold. a group of us go and meet with gadhafi. 2003-2009, i had the opportunity to meet with him on two more occasions. i am one of the few that had the opportunity to go to libya and meet with the madman of libya on three different occasions. what we find when we meet with him is that yes, he is interested in changing his behavior. , through theths work of the state permit -- state department, gadhafi flips sides. he does not immediately become

there was some brief sort of political shock in the country in absence of having muammar qaddafi at the rife for infiltration by terrorist organizations since 2011 since the absence of political leadership and stability. sandra: can you explain what is going on with the oil situation there? this report we're talking about says isis has expanded significantly. they don't currently, the report says, direct revenue from exploitation of oil in libya but the attacks against oil installations seriously compromises the country's economic stability. what is the latest. >> absolutely. it is really kind of same old story which is oil and natural resource, a blessing and curse for libyans, much like it is for people all across africa and the middle east, the united states is now recognized that what isis is trying to do in libya is take hold of all the oil infrastructure, much like they have managed to do inside of iraq and syria. the problem with libya that makes it extra dangerous, their proximity to the coastline and to europe and so, there is a lot more opportunity for them to kind of get away

because of the decision to topple qaddafi.real policy vulnerability there. i actually think the incompetent tag, i see what he's trying to do there. >> i don't know if it will stand. >> who she was just talking to and mentioning, voters always seem to, she's talking to suburban women. pure and simple. when you look at it by the numbers, that's who she's talking to. they are the ones who are going to make a decision less on party and ideology and more on that intangible that she's trying to make sure she wins. >> we have to leave it there. chris cillizza, chuck todd. glad you're back from spring break. and just in time. >> just in time. >> if it's easter sunday, it's "meet the press". >> tune in to "meet the press" on easter sunday. and we'll be here. >> you will be there. >> voters. why trump? you'll be surprised by some of the answers from his focus group. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ♪ choir and h this place, it's the best-kept secret in football since... hey, how did he get in here?! and with toe nail

leadership as she explains it in her book, "hard choices," decide to push for ousting of muammar qaddafich create ad giant vacuum for isis to metastasize what we're seeing now. that led to the administration having to do damage control around a storyline which they said was jv group no one needed to worry about. what we see, harris, an administration, actively according to intelligence experts scrubbing intel reports. harris: right. andrea: pressuring intelligence officers to write a different storyline what's happening. that is all because of the failed leadership. if hillary doesn't want to talk about benghazi? fine. you have to talk about broader picture of war on terror she exacerbated. harris: one second. i want to ask you about the scrubbing. president obama says he will have that looked into to see how reports were changed if they were in any way? >> it's a big deal. an investigation the house intelligence committee has been doing. an investigation the inspector general has been doing. and there is evidence from 60 plus intelligence experts that say their stuff was changed, to mak

. >> the world would be better off with saddam hussein and qaddafi in power?> 100%. >> maybe his the better than the people we should be backing. i digress it can be a positive force and ally. whether you like saddam hussein or not, he's to kill terrorists. amy: that was an ad from the emergency committee for israel. zaid jilani, what is the emergency committee for israel? committee forcy israel was formed under the first term of the obama administration. basically from neoconservatives, bill kristol is on their board. they're finding a secret, dark many group, a 501(c)4 group. we're some knowledge a number of pro-israel folks are behind it. basically, the group was formed to punish people debut with insufficiently pro-israel. they went very aggressively after a representative walter jones who famously coined the fries" andedom turned against the war. i think they're going after trump are the same reason. they do not trust trump. hey, everything israel does is perfect. maybe he will threaten war with iran, intervene in syria. they do not trust them to do any o

. >> hillary clinton worked aggressively toq0 depose muammar qaddafi. doing it. >> we should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding. >> if they wage jihad against the united states of america they are signing their death warrant. >> do they have what it takes to go after hillary clinton in the arena. >> vice president of the and palm springs ric grenell who worked for four u.s. ambassador to the u.n. he is also a fox news contributor. rick, you were there at the ranell. so rick, you were there at the u.n. which of the candidates sold you the hardest, the best last night? >> look, i think kasich is doing a really good job on foreign policy. i think he's got some basic facts down. i think his critique of hillary on libya was fantastic. marco rubio always is solid. he really sees this vision. i'm still troubled by donald trump. look, when chris wallace tried to get him about facts on defense spending or marco rubio pushes him saying what do you mean you want to do more than water boarding? trump falls back to talking about polls a

was a great example of that, it went against all of his instincts, his instincts are that as bad as qaddafimight have been a u.s. intervention is not the solution, because what do you do when you -- >> rose: and play a role in nation building -- that is not necessarily -- >> that's right, you could but then you are stuck and how long before the parties start going after each other. and so he let himself be persuaded i think to do libya. >> rose: by the secretary of state. >> not just by the secretary of state. the europeans, the arabs were pushing, the media. >> rose: the secretary of state and as u.s. ambassador bought in on it. >> i don't think he would have done it over their objections but my point is on that and on chemical weapons in syria and on everything that goes wrong in the middle east, it comes to the president. and you are watching cnn and people are dying, and there is an awful situation, and i think that, you know, the president then has to -- and he it is recalls the pressure to act there but it is support for that action disspace very quickly when costs start rides -- rise

. -- qaddafi. there is massive instability in libya and isis has a foothold in that country today.mplicated and often has unintended consequences. we've got to be careful about that. [applause] on foreign policy, there is another issue and i wish i could come before you and tell you that i have a magical solution, i don't. that is for decades now, there has been hatred and warfare in the middle east. everybody knows we have had some presidents like carter and clinton and others who have tried to do their best to resolve it. all i can tell you is i will make every single effort to bring rational people on both that together so hopefully, we can have, through a level playing field, the united states treating everybody in that region equally, hopefully. [applause] i know that there are people of goodwill in israel and the arab communities, this is not an easy task. but it is a task that we must pursue. to have, fortinue another 60 years, the kind of hatred and conflict that exist in the middle east. [applause] this campaign is doing as well as it is winning caucus after we are listeni

qaddafi quit holding bonds, he was building houses. apartment complexes, is what they were using the money for. and that was stopped. a humanitarian disaster. it is going to fall in a few president, ande we created help. in honesty, you could say this refugee crisis and the humanitarian losses, the deaths -- assad and sawed his brutality would not have been nearly as bad if we had not shown more restraint. i don't think this is a trigger-happy guy. i will be talking to mr. trump to try to make sure i am sharing with him honestly. a lot of these private conversations the candidates are having, i don't think anyone kasich's caller: -- is, orry take -- team cruz's for that matter. thank you very much, we appreciate it. [applause] well, thank you again senator sessions. this is the kickoff of something all my colleagues at the accf are all excited about. we have six former democratic members, and six former republican numbers. is just the beginning. what i thought i would do when i found out yesterday about the secretary of defense having

qaddafi quit building bombs, he was building housing, you could see it for miles. apartment complexes and all that they were using that oil money for and that was stopped and now it's a humanitarian disaster. syria, assad has to go, he's going to fall in a few months said the president and we created help prolong -- i think in honesty you could say this refugee crisis, humanitarian losses the deaths in the war that assad and his brutality has caused may not have been nearly so bad if we'd shown more restraint. so anyway, i think -- i don't think this is a trigger happy guy and i'm talking to a lot of good people and i'll be talking to mr. trump today to report on those calls and just to try to make sure that i'm sharing with him honestly. a lot of these are private conversations as other and kates are having. does anybody who kasich's advisory team is? or ted cruz's for that matter? i don't know but -- so i would just -- maybe that answers you. >> well, senator, godspeed, make sure we get our money's worth from the department. >> it's a lot of money. thank you, mar

you what happened with libyaened a i pointed out in the last debate, hillary to depose mom muammar qaddafig with us he denuclearized. they pushed him out and now we havev-a fertile ground for isis. few cities on the coast. most of libya is desert. the fact of the matter is we absolutely have to be and not just with special forces, i mean, that's not going to work. come on, you have got to go back to the invasion when we pushed saddam hussein out of kuwait. we have to be there on the ground in significant numbers. we do have to include our muslim-arab friends to work with us on that. and we have to be in the air. it should be a broad coalition made up of the kinds of people that were involved when we defeated is saddam. you have to be on the air and on the ground iraq. some point we have to deal with libya. i'm very concerned with isis getting their hands on the oil fields and libya being able to fund their operation. [bell] >> the fact is cool, calm, deliberate, effective, take care of the job and then come home. that's what we need to do with our military foreign policy. [cheers and appla