of baghdad. the chief enemy group that was insighting the greatest degree of violence was the of course al qaeda in iraq. which was affiliated with other former insurgent groups and provided them with some expertise, some funding, and some leadership that they wouldn't otherwise have had. al qaeda in iraq was responsible for the major car bombs and suicide bombs and the attacks. what they were trying to do was establish control of the suburbs, and protect from those into the city in order to make sure that they had control of the sunni population in baghdad. baghdad being a mixed city where they had lived together. now fighting al qaeda was a group of shiite militiases, including the army that was originally commanded by -- over the source in 2005, 2006, 2007 that was influenced by iranians that would force. their special forces and agencies. which was training, equipping, and leading the shiite militiases in act of violence both against the government, against the u.s. forces, and against the po

we put more money into baghdad. it makes me sick we cannot put an equal amount of money into this country more quickly. guest: i agree with you about

investigators were questioning him about last sunday's bombing in baghdad that killed at least 160 people. that was iraq's deadliest bombing since 2007. >>> iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad compares the power of his country's enemies to that of a mosquito. ahmadinejad's comment come as iran negotiates with the west over its nuclear program. a u.n. plan now would require iran to send more than a ton of uranium, about 70% of its stockpile, to russia. it would be processed there then sent back to iran for use in a research reactor but not in nuclear weapons. >>> roman polanski's attorney says he's ready to file a new bail offer, one that includes what he says is a very significant cash amount. he wouldn't say how much. swiss authorities rejected a bail offer friday because they considered the 76-year-old filmmaker a flight risk. the earlier offer was not in cash. polanski was arrested in late september. he is wanted in the u.s. for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in los angeles back in 1977. polanski fled the u.s. before sentencing. >>> the first instant replay call in world series h

the investigators were questioning him in last sunday's bombing in baghdad that killed at least 160 peopleat was iraq's deadliest bombing since 2007. >>> the bids are really stacking up for a motorized recliner a man drove while drunk. >> then about five minutes later, they call me, 20,000! i'm, like, are you kidding me? >> with just a couple of days left in the auction, the price is going up.

investigators were questioning him last sunday in the bombing in baghdad. that was iraq's deadliest bombing since 2007. >>> the bids are really stacking up for a motorized recliner a man drove while drunk. >> they call me -- are you kidding? >> and with just a couple of days left in the auction, the price is going up. nnnnnnn >>> ever since i can remember i've been fascinated with money, making it, saving it studying it. by the time i was 31, i'd earned enough to retire. so i embarked on a new mission, helping you take care of your money, so you can save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off. >>> now your money expert, clark howard. >> why am i smiling? when you hear what i'm going to talk about, you'll think -- have i lost my mind? foreclosure rates are likely to rise according to experts the rest of the year and into 2010. why would that make me smile? because i don't believe it. in spite of the fact that increasing numbers of americans are delinquent on their home loans as and you move up the price point in house, you have an increasing nu

i was not arguing for going to baghdad. i was arguing let's stop them from flying armed helicopters and massacring kurds and shias. in a press conference, president bush was asked about this and said something to the effect of saddam agreed not to fly helicopters and he has to stop. more or less, as soon as he left the podium, it was explained that he did not agree. general schwarzkopf led him fly on the grounds of the bridges were down. our response should have been we let him fly helicopters under false pretenses. instead, we did nothing about it. it is a false issue in my view to say we did not want to go to baghdad. i agree with that, but there are many issues in front of us. we did not have to give the territory back we were sitting on. schwarzkopf told baker when he said let's try the demilitarized zone, he said there is no military value, which is nonsense. here was a triumph in general and i think he did not want -- a triumphant general, and i think the military said let's not get into mission creep. the mission was

investigators were questioning him in last sunday's bombing in baghdad that killed at least 160 people. that was iraq''s deadliest since 2007. >>> the bids are really stacking up for a motorized recliner a man drove while drunk. >> and then about five minutes later, they call me. 20,000. i'm like are you kidding me? >> and with a couple days left in the auction, the price is going up. though work is going on around the clock now. it was closed indefinitely last week when a steel beam and two wires fell off onto the roadway. >>> secretary of state hillary clinton trying to jump start the israeli palestinian peace process. clinton met with palestinian authorities mahmoud abbas and set to meet with benjamin netanyahu. the chief palestinian negotiator describes the peace process as stuck. >>> another typhoon has roared in the philippines. at least 14 people are dead and four feared missing. the typhoon is the fourth to hit the country in a month. >>> those are some of the stories making headline this is first sunday in november. i'm natasha curry. welcome back to hln. a bit of controversy

some of the troops have gotten that are dogs home through operation baghdad pups. it's a program designed to help our troops arrange for safe travel for the dogs they befriend in the war zone and then take back to the united states. joining me now, terry crisp, operation baghdad pups program manager. terry, thank you so much. this is so heartwarming. war is so tough and these animals and these humans can come together and help each other. how did this organization happen? >> it all came about from one soldier asking for the help of spca international to get his best friend charlie home. and since then, operation baghdad pups has been successful in getting 180 animals back to the u.s. >> this has got to be a lifesaver for these troops. they see so much death and destruction and dogs, all animals, offer unconditional love. >> definitely so. and we see that not only during the time that they're in iraq with these dogs and cats, but after they come home. these animals have provided a tremendous amount of comfort and have really helped these men and women get back in tr

. >> i've been in the army for about three years now, 3 1/2 years and i've had one deployment to baghdadiraq for 15 months during the surge in 2007-2008. >> we're trying to buy a house in the near future. maybe a year or two, two years. >> and are going to be deployed where in america? >> maybe stationed in fort bragg in about the next six months after i get done here at benning. >> what questions do you have about buying a house? >> should we wait maybe a year, rent for a while and put a decent-sized savings away that we can put a down payment on the home? >> there is no right answer to that. if you buy a home pretty quickly under a va loan, the advantage to that side of it is that the housing market won't have recovered by six months from now. let's say you waited 18 months, 24 months to have substantial downpayment. there may have started to be a meaningful recovery to the housing market. even though i love people to pay substantial down payment, in your circumstance, when you get to bragg, i would like at buying a home there before the market recovers. but especially if you find one

marine died from noncombat injuries west of baghdad. >>> now it falls on the united states senate to take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the american people. and i'm absolutely confident that they will. >> that was president obama yesterday, congratulating the house after it narrowoly passed aed 1.2 billion health care reform bill. it calls for a public option, which may not get enough support to survive in the senate version. the senate vote has not been scheduled yet. >>> all right. christmas came early at the box office. you watched, apparently. the new animated version of "a christmas carol," featuring jim carrey as scrooge was number one at the box office, took in $31 million over the weekend. michael jackson's "this is it" fell to second place. >>> quick check of some of our top stories. let me check in on you there. are you going to wake up? it's 31 minutes past the hour already. don't be late. i'm robin meade. >>> accused ft. hood gunman major nidal hasan is in critical, but stable condition and is breathing on his own. there are sign that is

first i want to tell you about, it happened near baghdad. this was the case where a soldier had rolled some grenades into a tent and ended up killing two soldiers and injuring 14 others. that happened just two days after the war started in 2003. last year work the other soldiers were killed by a fellow comrade at a joint security station near iraq. the most recent one happened in may of this year. that's when five u.s. soldiers were shot to death at a stress clinic at camp liberty, a base just outside of baghdad. as you say, horrible to realize when you put this all together, this is not the first time it has happened. you can look at some of these other incidents by going to our time line on the website. >> we'll do it. you thank you so much. i want to let you know we know more about the man who carried out the deadly shooting rampage. he was a psychiatrist who counseled soldiers coming back from the war zones. what else the army is saying about him and new pictures in just a moment. >>> i want to show you these pictures. that's the suspect

feel her husband betrayed anyone when he shot one of the iraqis in the back of the head next to a baghdad canal. >> i knew he was on trial for murdering the iraqi detainees that they had captured. >> it was hard for you to say the word murder. >> yeah. that's not the word i want to use. i just can't think of -- >> you don't look at your husband like a murderer? >> no. not at all. >> she says her husband is a good soldier. he was awarded the purple heart after an ied exploded resulting in a brain injury. his doctor told her he still suffers from post traumatic stress disorder and memory loss. it was his third combat deployment. >> i think that he's given a sacrifice a lot. i think he's -- he's a war hero. he's not a criminal. >> the mayos have been married for nine years, they have three children. the oldest is 11 years old. >> who's that? >> da. >> da da? >> their youngest is 15 months. then there's 6-year-old joseph. from watching him play you can't tell there is anything wrong. but he suffers from congenital scoliosis and johana, legally blind, cannot drive. she can barely make out her

tank into baghdad. so they had a tremendous conflict of interest. so the second question asked mr. tennant was, who did we have on the ground that was responsible directly to the united states of america to verify this information? if we knew the street addresses and have pictures and prices somebody ought to be able to go and look in the window are not on the door and see what is on the other side. how many people did the united states have been a country of about 30 million people to verify these 550 places, the answer was zero. so we were totally reliant on this group of highly conflicted exiles. that was all i needed to hear to have serious doubts at the validity of this information upon which we ultimately went to war with, i think, disaster consequence. .. >> if people are trying to get involved and they see that this government seems broken and does not work they get cynical said on top of that asking about "the new york times" max wrangle said he is not read about the existence of that but the newspapers in the country and of those go down they will learn of local problems

tank into baghdad. they had a tremendous conflict of interest. the second question was who did be have on the ground that was responsible directly to the united states of america to verify this information? if we remove street addresses and have pictures, somebody should look in the window are not on the door to see what is on the other side. the answer was how many people did united states have been a country of 30 million people to verify the 550 identified places? o. we were on this group of higher the conflicted exiles. that is all i needed to hear to have serious doubts or validity of this information on which we ultimately went to war with disastrous consequences. one of which is we still today are having a hard time convincing much of the rest of the world when we say something, that it is to be believed. >> thank you for your service. a lot of people seem very disturbed that our government does not work much or work well whether because of the massive fund-raising required to turn on the television to see the house vote on health care and

i can tell that you afghanistan in 2009 is nowhere near as bad or as dangerous as baghdad in 2006 wasd over the last two years difficult does not mean impossible. and hard does not mean irredeemable. if we can pull back from the brink in iraq, we can certainly do so in afghanistan over the coming two to three years with the proper number of troops and proper strategy. >> larry: matthew, are you pessimistic about all this? >> i am to a certain degree, larry. you know, i'm very hopeful that what the president has done the last few months is that they've gone through a review of the strategy as general clark is referencing and that we're going to see -- i know we're going to get a troop increase which i'm disappointed about. however, if we can get a withdraw date or exit strategy, the important thing with that is we get a political solution to the conflict in afghanistan. right now our forces are fighting and they're fighting guys that are fighting us only because we're there. if it keeps happening until we withdraw. what we need to do is find a political solution that brings the two sid

i can say, though, afghanistan in 2009 is nowhere near as bad or dangerous as baghdad in 2006 was when as we learned over the last two years, difficult does not mean impossible. and hard does not mean irredeemable. if we can pull back from the brink in iraq, we can certainly do so in afghanistan over the coming two to three years with the proper number of troops and strategy. >> larry: matthew, are you pessimistic about all of this? >> i am, to a certain degree, larry. you know, i'm very hopeful that what the president has done these last few months, they've gone through a review of the strategy as general clark was referencing. and that we're going to see -- i know we'll get a troop increase, which i'm disappointed about. however, if we can get a withdrawal date or exit strategy, we get a solution to afghanistan. the guys are fighting us only because we're there. it will keep happening until we withdraw. what we need to do is find a political st. louis that brings peace and stability. >> larry: general clark, the great general james, the late chappy james told me once no one hates mor

marine died from noncombat injuries west of baghdad. >>> the families of three u.s.ers jailed for entering iran illegally marked the hikers' 100th day in custody. they organized vigils around the word like this one at uc berkeley. one higher's mom talked about how they're doing. >> they're feeling very, very lonely at this point. they're feeling lack of information. you know, they really don't know what the rest of the world is thinking or doing. >> the hikers' families released the video of them goofing around in hopes of proving to iran that they're innocent and only crossed the country's unmarked border by mistake. >>> about 500 people turned out to remember the 11 women found dead at a house in cleveland. they marched with candles after a memorial service to the house where the women were found. anthony sowell lives there. he's accused of murder and rape. one of the seven bodies identified so far is talisha fordson. her mom was there. >> as we stand here in front of this home, where they found your daughter, what is that like for you? >> it's hard. because i want

it is stopping of the first gulf war with the liberation offense can you wait rather going back to baghdadnd getting rid of saddam. and a new national defense policy called the defense plan and guidance. and other critics have joined that as well. and the only narrative way that has found its way into the public ge debate is that it destroy it is drafting and for much greater influence are the authors of that document than is warrantied. so what explains that in the first instance? well, first, the dpg was -- and it's now possible, by the way, i think to have a more dispassionate discussion of this. because many documents have been declassified and are available on the national security archive website. the dpg was leaked in the first instance in march. in march of 1992. and it was, i think, arguably from the context of the leak, not leaked by someone who was sympathetic to the document, because it was given to pat tyler of "the new york times." and he wrote about it in a way that suggested for ways to by our other allies and that the pentagon document is a quotation from the new york time

i've had one deployment to baghdaded, iraq, for 15 months during the surge in 2007 to 2008. >> we areing to buy a house in the near future, maybe a year or two. >> and you are going to be deployed where in america? >> i'll be stationed at ft. bragg six months after i get done here at benning. >> a permanent duty station. >> yes. >> what kind of questions do you have? >> we koent won't have a significant down payment, just use va loan. or should we wait, maybe a yeefr, rent for a while and put a decent sized savings away we can put a down payment on the home? >> there is no right answer to that. if you buy a home pretty quickly, under a va loan, the advantage to that side of it is that the housing market won't have recovered by six months from now. let's say you waited 18 months, 24 hours to have substantial down payment. there may have started to be a meaningful recovery of the housing market. even though i love people to pay substantial down payment, in your circumstance, when you get to bragg, i would with look at buying a home there before the market recovers. but especially if you

if you lived in baghdad you would hear a lot of explosions and gunfire. here in kabul it is very quiet. there is the occasional bomb. it is very different if you were out in the rural areas where the fighting is happening against the taliban. there are two very different worlds year depending on whether you are in the city which is relatively safe, or you are out in a rural area. host: thank you for spending some time with us. happy thanksgiving to you. we will go to davenport, iowa where robert joins us. good morning. caller: good morning. i am thankful for many things. more than anything else i am thankful to see really important things happen in our country. even this year i helped with the program here where there were not allowing [inaudible] to vote in iowa. they now can vote in iowa. it is one of the major reasons obama one in iowa. i'm thankful that we would get some kind of health care, if not the best kind, that we can have in this country. our local radio station, a man said he was thankful to get a liver and pancreas replacement. as a result h

we put more money into baghdad. it makes me sick we cannot put an equal amount of money into this country more quickly. guest: i agree with you about quite a bit of that. the unemployment rate in the michigan is horrendous. detroit is a place with severe long-term problems because of the auto industry. there is a lot of money being allocated to this issue. the jobs program is almost $800 billion. it does take time for that money to be spent. this system has a certain amount of capacity to spend the money very quickly. there is always a trade-off to make sure that the money does not get wasted you need accountability, oversight from the federal government. it takes time to line the contractors up, so there is that trade off between doing it quickly and doing it well. i am sure there are delays that should not happen, but at the same time the trade-off is making sure there is the capacity in the system to handle the money and make sure is going to the right places. we hope those delays will not continue indefinitely.

host: ok from stephen lee myers out of baghdad the iraqis seek election deal to avoid more delays. even with the agreement, this is now the national elections. it's now likely to not to occur by the decline. nouri kamal al maliki warned on thursday that any further delay in holding the vote would put the country at great risk. the country looks to celebrate the festival of sacrifice which lasts until tuesday. one of iraq's vice presidents released several statements saying he was open to comp mize but he raised the specter of political and constitutional crisis. gulf shore, alabama. robert on our republican line. caller: good morning. as an american citizen, i think it's the right and obligation of every american to support the president in a democratic society, regardless of who he is. now my question se i am a small business owner and i've been in business for 20 years. i have capital and i have as credits. and i'm in the business to and i have as sets. and i repair homes. and with the large supply there's a large demand for my services to provide. to provide upgrade to buyers an

theory and stopping the first group -- cold war with the liberation of kuwait, rather than going to baghdad and getting rid of saddam. she said they responded by producing from the bowels of the pentagon a new national defense policy document called the defense planning guidance. other critics have joined as well, and i think the only problem with the narrative, which has now found its way not only from scholarly work but into the nation's public debate, is that it, i think, distorts the draft in history and the content of the original and confers much greater influence on the opposite of that document -- the authors of that document that is warranted. what explains that in the first instance? first, the dpg -- and is now possible to have a more dispassionate discussion of this because many of the draft of the document have now been declassified. there were declassified in december 2007 and are available on the national security archive website -- they were declassified in december 2007. it was leaked in the first instance in march of 1992. and it was, i think, arguably from the context of

it would not allow the army in baghdad with heavy equipment for zero be used against him. she tried to get nuclear weapons, some argument with iran now. what would happen would be there would be a coalition including probably in israel as low as zero states, united states, and russia to contain him. i think he was eminently containable and did terrible overall. nonetheless, because of this fear of nuclear weapons, sanctions were slapped on them during the 1990's which were the necessary cause more deaths in iraq than were killed in hiroshima and nagasaki combined. terrorism was beginning to be a problem both of these are put in two high order, of course, by 9/11, which said it was also massively exaggerated. i call a massive extrapolation. osama bin laden and al qaeda represented a fringe group of a fringe group in 2001. fairly desperately trying to keep their names on the map. they were rejected by most violent jihadists because they were crazy. they thought they were stupid and immoral. the texted 9/11 basically suggest that was the case and then a massive crackdown on a

in 2003 he was one of the first to enter baghdad with the organization of reconstruction and humanitariantance. since his retirement, it's he's a distinguished professor of the international affairs. he's authored two other books, iran, war with history, and sha rod in the age. i should note that he is here today, speaking not in his capacity as the das, but in the capacity as the author of "negotiating with iran" that needs to be made clear for all of the question who wants to ask him questions in the role as the das. please join me in welcoming jim limbert. >> well, thank you all for coming out today. [applause] >> let me say first of all at my publishers request, i am not going to read from the book. the publisher said if you do that, who will buy it? so i'm not quite sure how to take that last comment. but i spare you reading from the book. but i will rake references to it. the story of this book and of this whole subject for me personally begins with a personal failure. that happened almost exactly 30 years ago. on the 4th of november, 1979. when a group of very unhappy young iranian

in 2003 he was one of the first civilian officials to enter baghdad for humanitarian assistance. mr. limbert has been a distinguished professor of international affairs at the u.s. naval academy, he's authored two other books, "iran: war with history" among one of them. i should note he is here today speaking not in his capacity as the deputy but in capacity as author of negotiating with iran. if we want to ask him questions in his role. anyway, please, join me in welcoming mr. john limbert. [applause] >> thank you very much. well, thank you all for coming, for coming out today. let me say, first of all, at my publisher's request i am not going to read from the book. [laughter] the publisher said, if you codo that, who will buy it? so i'm not quite sure how to take that last comment. but i will spare you reading from the book. but i will make references to it. the story of this, of this book and of this whole subject for me personally begins with a personal failure. it happened almost exactly 30 years ago. on the 4th of november, 1979. when a group of very unhappy young iranians