cofer black who ran the rendition program in which blackwater was implicated joined it in 2005.ter's involvement ended years ago after cia officials questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program. with us once again on this story tonight, "the nation" magazine contribute jeremy skahill. >> nice to be here. >> explain why even the bush administration would think it was a bad idea to pay a private company for something so sensitive that congress couldn't be told? >> i don't think it's necessarily the case the bush administration thought it was a bad idea. the epicenter is dick cheney is alleged to have ordered the cia to conceal from the congress which has oversight authority the existence of an assassination plan. blackwater was on from day one of the war on terror as part of the war that bush labeled the crusade and worked overtly for the administration. we as of may of 2002 there were boots on the ground in afghanistan. i'm not so sure the program has even ended to this day. blackwater continues to be paid by the united states government for work in both

in nairi at a coference of afrin leaders, secretary of state hillary clton told reporters, she was exced by the news. nonetheless, she reiterated america's hard line regding north korea's nuclear program. >> they have a choice. they can continue to follow a path that is filled with provocative actio, or they can decide toenew thr discussions. >>n south korea, reactn to thnews of the releasef lee and ling was noticeably subdued. north korea currently detained several hundd south koreans. so of whom accidentally styed into north koran teitory. others thought to prisoners from the war of the1950s. >> caller:ar from being encouraged by the fact that these americans were let go, i think th south korea's posion might be, whyo they let these americans go? ying nothing about us? leaving usut in theold as usual. resing to talk to us. refusing to let ou people -- refusing to let our people go. and so i thi that this might actually be a soce of concern, if not angerongst people in south koa. >> for mo on this, we turn oncegain toharles armstrong, professor of korea studies and directorf the story f

i thin dan's rigt, i think by talking a lile bit off the cuff at that wedesday night press coference, he probably didn't worit the way he wished he had. he acually cted a lttle tupidly. >> boy, you'll g in trouble for that. gwen: you're going tget letts. ere's room for conversaon, i'm not sure the convertion happened but here we e on the lip of august when eeryone -- congress is oing to leave town, the president willleave town presumably, do august give us a chance to tke a deep breath or o people get hardened and concret >> chuck is gog to be covering a president wh is gointo be talking for a month until he oes o vacation, righ and taking, alking,talking, selling health care a everytng else. and mbers of congress are going to fan out and eep talking and spendingenormous amounts of mey on advertising and tryingto kep their busiss alive, i tnk. gwen: you seean opportunity there fo the president or fo congress? >> there's anopportunity for the president to get ack on the offensive on this. but it's a isk. i mean, that's one o the reons they did try to seta deadline is ecause they wanted

i think if you were to talk to fran townsend or dick clark or talk even to cofer black, you would find out there were oftentimes when these discussions took place and there were principals even and certainly deputies who didn't know that the discussions were even taking place because generally they took around -- took place around one man and that man was vice president of the united states. >> colonel lawrence wilkerson, former chief of staff to secretary of state colin powell, it's always great to have you on the show see thanks or your time tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> coming up on "countdown," keith revisits his nexus of politics and terror in light of these new revelations from tom ridge and next on this show, karl rove has demanded an apology from we the media. we spent the day looking into it. try not to let the suspense kill you on the commercial break as to what we found. show and tell you weren't always my favorite day. with all the pet hair in the air, i'd spend cls preoccupied, bothered by itchy eyes. but now i have new zyrtec® itchy eye drops. it works fast, with j