and that must not stand. >> my boss, colin powell, was chairman of the joint chiefs at the time an hadroblems with h.w., president bush going out and talking about hitler and things like that because he knew it was such a camouflage. you know, this is a mask to get the american people's support. the first gulf war was all about oil. >> the horror of 9/11. ten years after the gulf war impels the first president bush's son to go to war. he first launches a retaliatory war in afghanistan. but then quickly puts three other nations on notice. north korea, iran, and iraq. >> states like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world by seeking weapons of mass destruction. these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. >> all three nations have been on america's national security radar for decades. but now, after 9/11, the bush administration makes the case for action to disarm them. it is not just the threat of rogue states using weapons of mass destruction, themselves, the president argues, but the prospect of a rogue state providing c

the most remarkable comments and quotes on some of the efforts at these voter id laws was from colin powellgeneral powell agonized with the north carolina effort asked the following question. how can this phenomenon of voter fraud be so widespread and at the same time so and detected? -- undetected. when we get our case in texas the record demonstrate over a ten-year period i needed one hand to count the documented incidents of alleged voter fraud. and when it went to the one hand, actually it ended up being at most once, that i needed to document the so-called voter fraud for which this was the solution. voting is a most sacred right and we should be working to expand the right of eligible voters to vote. you been working on that. that's never been a partisan issue, and it shouldn't be a partisan issue and that's why people like colin powell and john lewis speak up about these issues. and so we continue to move to make progress that we have a lot of unfinished business. we have a lot of unfinished business in the area of economic justice as well, it starts with minimum wage. nobody who wor

there would never be a syria. >> host: on colin powell's assessment of iraq?olin powell has a long record of serving his country honorably both as a man of the military and later as a civilian secretary of state. any president would be foolish not to listen to former secretary of state, secretary of defense, etc.. i take a caller's point but putting aside the point, the fact that there are real threats, growing threats, metastasizing threats in syria, in iraq, islamic state which again some of our most senior national security leaders called a homeland security threat even though it is thousands of miles away we see threats also in iran, not only state that is trying to get nuclear weapons capability, state-sponsored terror, it itself is an outline to rogue regimes like assad, a proliferation of missile technology, it worked with north koreans on missiles, in ukraine, russia, we see a return of great power rivalry. talk about bipartisanship, i brought a copy of the national defense panel's report. this is a congressional mandated report chaired by clinton and

where are the colin powells in this administration? talk about a strategy dealing with weapons, the president needs to step up and show strength. >> i think colin powell said on a report before that the nation is in a vacuum and we saw who fills the vacuum with what happened at the u.s. embassy compound in tripoli. >> that compound has been abandoned for more than a month now, and the way the u.s. secures its embassies in countries, we actually lease that from the local governments, which in libya there isn't one and it's controlled and guarded by a local guard force which are locals there no matter where it is, whether it's tripoli, benghazi, cairo, they're all local guard sources. they have a civil war there now, and they let the compound go to militias earlier. >> where did the civil war come from? >> it's the vacuum that occurred after the overthrow of the regime there, and they have been in strife ever since then. they've never been really peaceful since then. i think we've been pulling staff in and out of that embassy since 2010.

one of the most remarkable comments on the efforts at these voter id laws was from: powell -- colin powellhe asked how the phenomenon of voter fraud to be widespread and undetected. case in texas, i needed one hand to count the documented incidence of voter frauds. when i went to the hands, it ended up being a thumb that i needed to document the voter fraud for which this is the solution. voting is a sacred right and we should be working to expand it to eligible voters. you have been working on that and that was never a partisan issue. it should not be a partisan issue. reason why howl and lewis speak up on these issues. and lewis speak up on these issues. we have unfinished business. it starts with the minimum wage. nobody working a full-time job should live in poverty. we see, all too frequently, people working hard and falling further behind. people have to make choices between having to pay the mortgage, the rents, or medicine . those are choices we should never have to make in america and i applaud san diego and other local councils who are tackling this will stop 13 states in the las

." >> if it makes you feel good, there is a great story that colin powell tells, being at a church with the national security advisor, and an aide comes during the service, this ceremony, and says, "there is an urgent phone call for you," and, boy, everybody's eyes follow the national security council director as he leaves the church, and he comes back 10 minutes later, and alma powel says, "what is going on?" and he says, "there has been a coup in x country," and she says, "oh, i heard that on cnn already." [laughter] >> what makes the presidency what it is is that every single day is filled with -- i guarantee you, when we were running for president, we didn't talk a lot about pirates. that was something that came up later. all of the sudden, you know, the president has 10 minutes to decide whether or not he should give the order to try to take out captain phillips' captors, and he had snipers bobbing on a boat, and thought pretty sure they could get them, but they could have gotten captain phillips, or like when you're dealing with a financial crisis or a war, and they tell you we mi

your boss, colin powell said at the time, he told the president, you break it, you own it. we at that point? is this a mop up of what maybe we shouldn't have done? >> we've been at that point since the statue came down in baghdad in 2003. in for a penny, in for a pound. the latest is a couple of f-18 strike fighters and drones. one wonders what the pound is going to be. >> do you agree with the president's course of action at this point? is this something we had to do at this moment? >> i think we have neglected the political situation in iraq to the sense that yes, you're right, the political situation being essentially that it isn't so much the islamic state and that's there new name, they no longer want to be associated with syria or iraq but islamic state. their effectiveness because they have sunnis on their side, the same sunnis that david petraeus you'll recall awakened, because of maliki's inept rule from baghdad. the real power in iraq right now is not so much the islamic state as it is the sunnis backing them and souddy saudis funding them. this isn't going to cha

generally looked very favorably on what had happened and looked very favorably on him as well as colin powell, who worked with him in desert storm. he looked at running for president and the decided for a couple of reasons it just was not going to happen. he just did not relish the fundraising he knew he would have to do. he did a kind of road trip, going around speaking for republican candidates for congress and office generally, and it was kind of his way of taking the temperature of the country and finding out what kind of response he got. there are some who would say that the poles did not show that he got that greater response on a personal level, but his reasoning was needed not want to raise money. he was a little concerned about his health issues because he had had some heart attacks, that they might come to bear in the public's mind and make it difficult to run. dick cheney would say that at that point in the early 1990's, he had decided not to run for national office again. he had decided it was time to try something completely new. what that was going to be was a career in the priv

producing damaging winds in excess of sixty miles per hour severe thunderstorms will be near mostly colin powell's boat around six thirty five pm gloucester city and west deptford around six forty pm bellman would be very high through around six forty five pm turner's violent magnolia around six fifty five pm this is a dangerous storm if you are in its path moving towards to a sturdy building and stay away from windows when it is safe to do so reports severe weather to local law enforcement or to the national weather service severe thunderstorms produce winds of more than fifty seven miles per hour one ensure a larger repeating a severe thunderstorm warning has been issued until seven pm for the following counties in new jersey captain and laughter in the following counties in pennsylvania delaware and philadelphia. you know being the syrians to bring about their democracy i think is a sense of you know bringing the truth home when the truth gets only its own thing fact and that's exactly my point is that when we've got young men and women from this part of the world from from you know what one wo

colin powell when he is head of the joint chiefs commented i'm running out of enemies, i'm down to the dell has to and kim il-sung, both of who are nasty characters and neither of them came close to joseph stalin or mao tse tung in terms of the worst they could impose. we're looking at a world in future of a lot of chronic conflict as a post-acute once. that is in terms of islamic threats that will be there, to raise him, they will be with us and they will threaten is not extensively but they will be with us any number of other ways. if you look around the world we have a world full of a lot of messes. we have missiles falling in israel, bombings in the gaza strip, we see the israeli-palestinian peace process one of which every time they make a go at the bit i wrote my eyes, the 300 or 400th time they been trying. you look at egypt which basically has a regression of the mubarak dictatorship so get to choose between a vicious muslim brotherhood. we look at syria which is riven by a civil war where we have a government that i think none of us like on the other hand, the of cyclists such

. >> is this the policy that colin powell talked about.he said if you break it, you buy it does president barack obama own iraq. >> i think the hopes and dreams of 25,000 iraqis, now that president obama engaged, he'll own a part of this. he'll go slowly. i think he set up to succeed if he lays everything right. >> always a pleasure to have you in the studio, maim jobbing mike lyons. >>> there's a tropical tifon pounding japan. typhoon halong is making its way to japan, closing in on china and russia, bringing in rain. it has left a fair bit of damage. i have video out of japan. we dealt with heavy rainfall causing flight concerns, and will deal with more rain to come. a lot of moisture over the island. it packed a wind gust of 85 miles per hour. it set record totals. some areas pecking up a foot and a half of rain fall. a lot of rain and cloep up taking place as the system pulls away. it will weaken. we are not expecting to see reipt grace with the system. it's not the only entity we are tracking. you may remember genevieve. once it cross

joining me now is colin powell's former chief of staff, retired colonel lawrence wilkerson. u spoke to secretary powell about that famous quote and his recollection of that conversation with president bush. give us your interpretation of that conversation as it happened back then. >> i think the expression "if you break it, you own it" characterizes at least one major part of secretary powell's advice to george w. bush at that time. he never mentioned pottery barn. that was tom friedman i think in an op ed in "the new york times." it isn't, as you pointed out, pottery barn's rule. it's actually against the law to be a rule for any retailer in america, if you check it closely. what powell meant by that was, of course, if you invade, you're going to have to stay and you're going to have to at least for a time look after these 25, 26 million people. that's what we did obviously. we didn't do it very well. that's why we are where we are today. >> colonel, how much of what's playing out right now in iraq will be blamed on president obama and how much will be blamed on the bush adm

miller served as deputy press secretary at the department of state for both secretaries of state, colin powell and condoleezza rice. she also served as communications director to the majority with tom delay. she graduated laude at georgetown university school of foreign service. please welcome emily miller. [applause] >> always hard to follow a big act. >> you can do it. >> i can do it. i'm talking about guns. thank you for having me. and so honored to be here and be with all of you guys and i wish mr. schlafly was here, but he's yours. any assess such a good example for conservative women that those of us out here fighting for. as i said, i talk about guns. it is covered in my book. three years ago, this meant three years ago i'd never shot a gun in my life. i have never even thought about shooting a gun. but what changed me and what changed my perspective on this issue, which has become such a big issue in our nation's politics these days is personal. i was the vic them of a crime. i was dog sitting for friends in washington and those of you i of you out about her visiting or here here for i

miller served as deputy press secretary at the department of state for both secretaries of state colin powell and condoleezza rice. she also served as communications director to the majority whip, tom delay. she graduated cum laude at georgetown university school of foreign service. please welcome emily miller. [applause] >> always hard to follow a big act but i know you can do it. >> i'm talking about guns, you know? thank you for having. i'm honored to be here. and so on are to be present with all of you guys, and wish she was here but she's here in spirit. as i said i'm going to talk about guns. into the cover of my book. i've got myself holding a gun which is my own gun. that three years ago this month, three years ago i'd never shot a gun in my life. i never even thought about shooting again. i never -- definitely had not thought of owning a gun. but what changed me and my perspective on this issue which has become such a big issue in our nation's politics these days is personal. i was the victim of a crime. i was dog sitting for friends in washington. those of you visiting for stay here

producing damaging winds in excess of sixty miles per hour severe thunderstorms will be near mollica colin powell's boat around six thirty five.

the difference is colin powell wasn't running for president, hillary clinton well may be. martha: the advice she gave the president on foreign policy will be under great scrutiny. does she do herself good politically in terms of how she is delineating her own perspective? >> at the end of the day she is -- has to show strength, has to show consistency in her policy. there has been nothing but inconsistency in the foreign policy of this administration. don't lead from behind and don't do stupid stuff is not a policy. we are engaged in two wars. the president didn't stop them but he finished them and sent out messages we are not going to continue to fight. we eliminated captains and majors from the military. he gave a speech at west point saying the future of the military is diplomats not soldiers. he's projecting nothing but weakness. there is no reason for the terrorists which is what this group is to be afraid of us. march where hillary clinton says when you are down on yourself and hungering down and pulling back, you are not going to make any better decisions than when

one of the most remarkable comments on the efforts at these voter id laws was from: powell -- colin powell. he asked how the phenomenon of voter fraud to be widespread and undetected. case in texas, i needed one hand to count the documented incidence of voter frauds. when i went to the hands, it ended up being a thumb that i needed to document the voter fraud for which this is the solution. voting is a sacred right and we should be working to expand it to eligible voters. you have been working on that and that was never a partisan issue. it should not be a partisan issue. reason why howl and lewis speak up on these issues. and lewis speak up on these issues. we have unfinished business. it starts with the minimum wage. nobody working a full-time job should live in poverty. we see, all too frequently, people working hard and falling further behind. people have to make choices between having to pay the mortgage, the rents, or medicine . those are choices we should never have to make in america and i applaud san diego and other local councils who are tackling this will stop 13 states in the l

miller served as deputy press secretary at the department of state for both secretaries of state colin powell and condoleezza rice. she also served as communication director to the majority whip, tom delaware lay. she graduated cum laude at georgetown university school of foreign service. please welcome emily miller. [applause] thank you for coming. >> thanks for having me. >> always hard to follow a big act. but i know you can do it. >> i think i can do it. i'm talking about guns, that always brings out the interest. thank you for having me, i'm so honored to be here and so honored to be present with all of you guys and wish mrs. schlafly was here, but she's here in spirit and has set such an example for conservative women that those of us who are still out there fighting for. so here, as i said, i'm talking about guns, and it's the cover of my book. i've got myself holding a gun, which is my own gun. but three years ago, this month, i had never shot a gun in my life. i had never even thought about shooting a gun. i definitely hadn't thought about owning a gun. but what changed me and my per

. >> do you go back to what colin powell says, you know, it's like, we broke it so we bought it in a sense that whatever the expression is because we did go in there, there were no weapons of mass destruction but none the less we went in there. >> i believe that. when i went there, i thought i was against the work. when i got there i said we broke it we have got to fix it. we came back and all my progression friends are crazy crazy. the last american boot levies the ground there it was going to fall apart it was going to happen today or 10 years from now. >> i agree with you you, joe, i was if there kurd tan that area in december. they want to do well and they everywhere ellie doing well. most stablist in iraq. and i was in irril. if it falls that's unmitigated disaster. >> joe, nice to see you. >> nice to be with you. >> joining us our legal panel, nina easton, betsy woodruff and stephan -- >> let me go back to hillary clinton problem. what did she say about president obama's foreign policy in that atlantic interview. was that an accident? a misstatement? something she regrets? misg

colin powell commented, running out of enemies, down to fidel castro and kim il-sung, but not compared to others with the horrors they impose. looking at a future with chronic conflicts as opposed to acute ones. islamic threats terrorism, they will be with us threaten us not existentially but with us, travelers in other ways. when you look around the world, we've got a world full of a lot of messes out there. we have missiles falling in israel, bombings in the gaza strip. we see the israeli-palestinian peace process, one which every time they make a go at it, i roll my eyes for the 300th, 400th time they have been trying. egypt, mubarak dictatorship, get to choose between a military dictatorship, russian brotherhood, not a choice any of us in this room would like. we look at syria, driven by a civil war where we have a government i think none of us like. on the other hand, the other side includes such wonderful folks that run people they don't like and shooting school children if they're thought to blaspheme. those are our allies in the syrian civil war. iraq, of course, we all see fal

. >> there was an old line from colin powell that said no one wants america to be the world's policemenop in town. at some point, republicans seem to be criticizing the president on every move. is there a right answer here in the middle east or is he going to get hit from either side? >> the only place where he's done a lot is being patern paternalistic to the israelis. our one friend other than the kurds in the middle east who he's effectively been ignoring. "the new york times" had a good headline that the obama administration was worried about this turning into another benghazi, so the action also is not really about what's right to do on the ground. whether it's a little or a lot. it was about the impact and political blowback here at home, so when there is that kind of basis, kind of a moral basis where you even heard josh earnest the other day not being able to answer a question about whether genocide mattered to this administration. you're looking at republicans, obama's giving them a place to hang their hat. this is a president who's overseeing a collapse in some ways, the world

. >>> and later today, former secretary of state colin powell will give a lecture at george washington university. if you want to go, you can still go. tickets are available. the event will start at 7:00. >>> and we send a happy birthday to president obama. he is turning 53 today. he will return to the white house after a weekend trip to camp david. the white house condition say whether the president had anything spec plaed today or whether the the first lady would join him. i bet you there is something, right? this is a really busy week for him, but maybe another time they can celebrate. >> they know how to do it big at the white house. >>> there are some closures around the white house because the summit. >> and let's check in with melissa mollet. >> best bet is metro for sure. right now we have a full list of closures at nbc4.com. f street between 14th and 15th, that will be completely shut down until friday. of course they have detours out for you, but just easier to avoid if you can. and 22nd between c and constitution closed until 6:00 tonight. otherwise looking fairly typical. p

you have to get colin powell here -- all these guys have expertise but powell has experience. will obama talk to him about what he meant? it would never be a syria. host: mr. zarate, on colin powell's assessment of iraq. guest: colin powell has a long record of serving his country honorably, as a man of the military and secretary of state, and any president would be foolish not to listen to former secretary of state, secretary of defense, etc. i take the caller's point. but putting aside this whole discussion of powell, there are threats,ats, growing metastasizing threats in syria, in iraq, islamic state -- again, some of our most senior national security leaders have called home and security threat, even though it is thousands of miles away. we see threats in iran. it is an ally to rogue regimes like bush are also -- bashar al-assad. it has worked with the north koreans on missiles. in ukraine, russia, we see the return of great power rivalry. you talk about bipartisanship, i brought a copy of the national defense panel's report here. this is a congressionally mandated report

colin powell when he was head of the joint chiefs commented at the time i'm running out of enemies. both of them were nasty curiou curious -- characters in terms of the more they can impose. i think we are looking at a future of chronic conflicts as well as a cute ones in terms of islamic threats that are going to be their terrorism. it will be with us and they will threaten us not existential weight but they will be with us travelers and another ways. we have a world full of a lot of misses out there. we have missiles falling in israel, bombings in the gaza strip and israeli-palestinian peace process every time they make a go at it i roll my eyes and say this is the 300th or for hundreds time they have been trying. we look at egypt has new retracement of mubarak dictatorship so we get to choose between a vicious dictatorship or the muslim brotherhood. it's not much of a choice that i think any of us in this room would like. we look at syria that is written by the civil war were ever a government that none of us likes in on the other hand the other side includes such wonderful folks

from this administration just because she was its secretary of state doesn't mean, as we saw with colin powell and other secretaries of state they are lining up with the president's policy or foreign policy. that's one. number two -- >> as a republican the position she's doing here, separating herself from the obama administration but also putting herself to the right of the obama administration but to the left of somebody like -- of the neo cons. politically is she putting ners a place that makes you nervous as a republican? >> no. i don't know how far left she would be necessarily to some of the neo cons. i think there is a consistency. she's supportive of the iraq war in the beginning. she was supportive of intervention in syria. i think to your point, your question is, you know, is there a linkage that certain conservatives can latch onto? i'm sure it will be played out in foreign policy which will play a prominent role in the 2016 election than anyone thought up to this point. i think she's staking out that ground as much as she can without in your face to the president but clearly creati

with the end of the carter administration, negroponte served for a relatively short time as colin powell'seputy of the national security council which meant that powell as well as hague became one of the patrons in his later career and then at the start of the reagan administration, he and barked on the most controversial portion as the ambassador to honduras and there's been a good deal of misunderstanding about honduras. the government had as the chief of staff of the army at the time, i'm sorry the head of intelligence at the time that negroponte arrived, the kernel who became a favorite of the americans because unlike most of the military who fundamentally couldn't have cared less about the communism or anti-communism, the general had religion on the subject. he had been trained and he had to be ideology can he also was an evangelical and a disciple of the third mirror in the end very militant. in the last several months of the carter administration, there was a rather dramatic shift in policy all over the world because it began to appear the soviet union was taking a much more aggress

. >> was it cute how colin powell let president bush slap him? >> very cute, very cute. >> did president obama look angry tearing apart that vladimir putin pinata? >> he really did. i know just how he feels. >> do your best impression from what you saw of president obama just hitting that pinata, destroying it. >> like that, like just a mean look. >> was it right for president obama to send that unmanned drone to just kill a couple of goats, very old goats, in azerbaijan today. >> really, that's what he did today? okay. so he made that decision to use a drone for that type of purpose? loving the gop side of everything, but hey. this issue is that we have to test our products on goats. rather than on people. and say, oh, we shot a couple of people today. come on. >> were you scared when you saw that viral clip of congresswoman nancy pelosi falling off the pony for obama's birthday pony ride? >> yes, i was. >> where were you when you saw that? >> actually, my daughter showed me in the car. >> oh my god. was she freaked out? >> yeah. she's like, is

is it sort of like what colin powell said, we broke it? >> i have always believed that syria was a strategic side show. the issue in syria was never the fight there. it was always iran and the support of iran for the assad government. iraq, if it breaks apart, gives isis the possibility of setting up a separate terror state. it threatens natural allies of the united states and the kurds, and that's why we need to intervene. you can't say that we're going to go back and forget we withdrew three years ago. that was the biggest mistake right there. you've got to -- >> but if we would intervened in iraq like senator john mccain wanted to, we might have -- i mean in syria, we might not have isis now in iraq. >> it's possible or isis might have captured the weapons from the free syrian army before they captured them from the iraqi army. they're very different circumstances in my view. >> president obama -- do you think that now he sort of has a greater sense that it's not the jv? because it's really a shocking statement. when he made that statem

ask, don't tell, president clinton came in and one of the objectives of the administration -- colin powell was against. charlie from northwestern. very well respected. he had done the demographic data and research to show why this policy was appropriate and why america had not yet evolved on open service by homosexuals. i think public opinion reflects on part the change of that perspective. this young regeneration has grown up with the idea that this is not a matter of choice. this is not about any of that. this is about allowing people to be who they are. what we have seen is public opinion both drives that shift and follows the shift to provide greater evidence that we can change the policy. we have not had any change in the legal regime, frankly. if you look at the civil rights act, it still does not provide sexual orientation. it is the pace of change that struck me as significant. >> yes? >> [indiscernible] on how the [indiscernible] insight on how [indiscernible] movie such as "zero dark thirty" [indiscernible] what i am wondering is how the military [indiscernible] >> ok, so the iss

washington institute and a form special assistant to see secretaries of state condoleezza rice and colin powella great way out for israel but doesn't accomplish goals. >> well, shep, i think for israel there's a dilemma here. if you go with a unilateral cease fire, just withdraw the troops and only respond when hamas attacks, there's a rocket attack or something like that. israel can say we degrade hamas' capabilities, perhaps we destroyed quite a bit of the tunnel infrastructure, which was the primary goal of the ground separation, but haven't done much to change the conditions or georgia and might be buying time until the next round of fighting. >> there are concerns among analysts they created a lot more enemies also they hit school after school and killed civilian after civilian, that they've got a whole new set of people to worry about. >> well, i think, shep, only time will tell. certainly there's a lot of international outrage at israel right now, and that benefits hamas in a sense. gives hamas claim to some sort of political victory. on the other hand the question is, over the medium to

we left iraq prematurely swungs i was against the invasion, you break it, you own it, to quote colin powell. the goverance was going to be able to sustain a democracy. we left prematurely. i think president obama is kind of a double wham mcmorries being criticized. i don't think a lot of folks believe he has acted quick enough regarding the itsis threat and lastly, there has been a lot of talk about the possibility of airstrikes against is in syria. nothing from the u.s. on this. but what authority does president obama have to act on this? >> well,'s got the war powers act. he has technically activated that for iraq. he said i am putting in forces to do certain things in iraq. you have seen the astrikes in northern iraq supporting kurds. wh he has to get permission to go in to syria to start conducting military proveficiencies. it requires he report to congress how he intends to use money. >> he has already been given which would be going in to sir 8 i will be on capitol hill meeting with members of congress and staffs. this is going to be something that's going to be debated probably withi

and that's why people like colin powell and john lewis speak up about these issues. and so we continue to move to make progress be, but we have a lot of unfinished business. we have a lot of unfinished business in the area of economic justice as well. and it starts with the minimum wage. nobody who works a full-time job in this country should have to live in poverty. [applause] and what we see all too frequently are people working hard and falling further behind, people who have to make choices between do i pay the mortgage, do i pay the rent or do i pay for my be daughter's medicine? those are choices that we should never have to make here in america. i applaud the san diego city council. i applaud other local councils who are tackling this issue. thirteen states in the last year have raised the minimum wage. business owners across this country tell me, tom, this is a consumption-deprived economy -- recovery. i need more customers. and the way to get more customers is to put more money in their pockets. that's why we these to raise the minimum wage. and if we want t

and that's why people like colin powell and john lewis speak up about these issues.

of the iraq war has been his defining mission and today it remains an irony and a reminder of colin powell reluctantly said in going into that war, it's a pottery barn rule, you break it you own it, and there is a certain sense of that now. >> woodruff: you can hear the reluctance in his voice last night. >> he wants to stay out of iraq and defeat i.s.i.s. and wants to do both. if you do both, you will do both mediocrely and that's happened. i don't think you can do both. i.s.i.s. is a pretty impressive organization and have taken over. for us to say the iraqis will take care of i.s.i.s. is probably not an option on the table. getting the iraqi government is iffy, expecting them to beat i.s.i.s. on their own is unprecedented historically, and if the they are resolved to beat i.s.i.s., it will be weeks and months. so i think this split the different policy the president adopted of trying to be in and out at the same time is probably not tenable. >> judy, i remind our listeners, ronald reagan could not persuade the people on armed insurgence in nicaragua. bill clinton's popularity was droppi

with the end of the carter administration, negroponte served for a relatively short i'm as colin powell's deputy at the national security council, which meant that powell, as well as haig, became one of his patrons in his later career, and then with the start of the reagan administration, he embarked on the most controversial portion of his career as ambassador to honduras. and there's been a good deal of misunderstanding about honduras. the honduran government had, as the chief of staff of the army at the time -- i'm sorry -- the head of intelligence of the army at the time, negroponte arrived, a colonel alvarez, who became a favorite of the americans because, unlike most of the honduran military, who fundamentally couldn't have cared less about communism or anticommunism, general alvarez had religion on this subject. he had been trained by the argentine junta. he had the ideology of the argentine junta, and he also was not a catholic. he was an evangelical. a disciple of the rev -- reverend sun moon and anticommunist. the last several months of the carter administration it was a rather

. >> when you said we broke it and it's ours, it is the pottery barn rule of colin powell.veral opportunities, even with the withdrawal and the creation of the malaki government. we chose the wrong guys. we didn't use the pressure we could have used. even in this administration to keep malaki to the commitments he made. we didn't leave any of our forces there or force that issue. look, we are stuck. >> it's hard to end a war. we didn't end the vietnam war when we left. >> the problem politically for the president domestically is he said we're done with this, but we aren't. he tried to put out a framework to explain how the world would work in the future. the realities are intruding on that now. they are controlling them. he's not controlling those events. >> will he go on vacation this weekend? >> we expect he will. i think it could change. they have already announced at the white house today that strangely, he's coming back from his vacation for two days next weekend. no one knows why. >> that could be about immigration. >> it could be about anything. >> last word. what's

bringing in michael singh, former special assistant to secretaries of state condoleezza rice and colin powell. the one thing we talk about all the time and never seems to get better. >> that's right. obviously this is the third such conflict in the past few years and this is the 11th cease fire that hamas has either broken or violated, and the israelis have made clear whenever there's rocket fire they're going to respond and made clear they're not going to continue to negotiate while rockets are being fired. that doesn't mean they won't come back to negotiations or the cease fire talks won't resume once calm returns, but also possible we won't see a formal cease fire here. in 2009 we didn't have a formal cease fire, just0s of ended and then you had talks about reconstruction rather than political accommodation. >> the talks, though, -- there seems to be a need for the outside world, at least, for these talks to bring about some sort of resolution, so that maybe the palestinians and the israelis get a modicum of -- i don't know -- something they want. >> well, that's right, and i think there a

by mistake by the white house to the associated press saying the secretary of state at the time colin powellas out of the loop at the initial stages of the decisions to do these enhanced interrogations. correct? >> well, i'll let you speak to that. certainly that is what i've seen in the press, and when the report is finally declassified, then i'll be able to discuss it at length. >> thank you so much, senator. i hope we can have that conversation once it is out. to be continued. >> i do, too. i look forward to it. >> back to our breaking news this hour. the state department and the cdc are facilitating a medical evaluation for two u.s. citizens infected with the ebola virus. these evacuations will take place offer the coming days. when they arrive in the united states they'll be taken to medical facilities with pr appropriate isolation and treatment capabilities. he vacat. off the beaten path: he said trust me: he implored alas, she is beginning to seriously wonder why she ever doubted the booking genius planet earth's number one accomodation site booking.com booking.yeah! so factors like d

remember colin powell's rule. if you break it, you own it. we broke two states in the middle east. we broke by our policy the state of libya, we broke by our policy the state of iraq, and we own the rubble. >> we own the rubble. does that mean we have the responsibility for fixing it? >> no, we have a responsibility to learn the lesson at long last that we can't fix states like this. >> let me put it this way, 13 years ago almost exactly to this date, president bush got a memo saying al qaeda wants to attack america. >> and we learned yesterday, today, more details about how al qaeda is kind of disintegrating right into the islamic state. al qaeda has become the islamic state. george is right, i think we try to do all these things in iraq. now iraq is worse off. i mean, i hate to say that, but iraq is worse than before we went into iraq. christians are gone. there's no sense of order at all. saddam hussein is gone. that's a good thing, but what's left? a more emboldened islamic state. not contained apparently even by u.s. air strikes. >> we have to take a break but we're going to c

>> i think colin powell got it right when he said, forget the store but when you brake it, you own it. >> pottery barn. i am here to help you? >> i think that is a lesson we need to take to heart. when american national skoouft interests are at stake, we need to be prepared to intervene. we need to be prepared to take action. again, i pointed out where i differed from the president, natural gas and stronger sanctions on putin but it is an interconnected world. there is military and economic and we do need, i think the american people are allegations weary for the effect, paying for defense not only for america but for the whole world. basically, our navy that protection the shipping lanes for the whole world. i am disappointed and think we need a more aggressive, again, bi-partisan approach to allies around the world that they need to step up. very few of the nato countries even get close to what is supposed to be the minimum requirement of 2% of spending on defense. so we need to do this domestically but we need, also, our allies to step up as well. >> final two questions: the first

colin powell and george w. bush didn't always get along. >> the camera has to go to the look on lauren's face. >> what are you saying, that men can't talk about hugging? i mean, john boehner cries, for goodness sake. i'm so tired -- >> i'm not saying it. >> i am just so tired. let's just stop making hillary all of this about her being a woman. >> but if it had been john kerry, would we be talking about hugs? we'd be talking about windsurfing. >> it was a 2006 phrase. that's more egregious than anything. >> everybody is piling on with hillary miscalculating, she didn't handle it right, she handled it fine. isn't she just saying what she thinks? or do candidates not do that? >> i think she was saying what she thinks, but it was calculated. she knew exactly what she was doing. and both things are probably true. >> right. so then you would say but then she looked bad because she walked it bad. she called the president. >> there's that aspect. and then she will call back and apologize. >> but the second thing is, if