we want to welcome congressman gerry connolly. we are going to talk about health care and afghanistan. first, we turn to one of the students here. >> good morning. i am from dallas, tx. do you believe that the low progress in afghanistan is due to lack of strategy from our troops, or an inherent problem? guest: i think the current problems we're having in afghanistan have their roots in the fact that the previous administration under george bush and his secretary of defense made the decision to invade iraq, which have not been involved in 9/11, was not her brain al-qaeda terrorists. by doing that, they diverted resources we duffers ledesperatd the in afghanistan. they were in afghanistan took a backseat to the invasion of iraq and the subsequent activities that went on in iraq, including almost close to civil war in that country. for longtime, the united states was pouring resources into iraq, not afghanistan. the taliban and al-qaeda used that six years or seven years to basically rebuild, regroup, retrain in the protected areas

we will look ahead to president obama speech on afghanistan with gerry connolly, a member of the foreign affairs committee and a former military correspondent for "the washington post". "washington journal" is live on c-span every day. a couple of live events to tell you about tomorrow. the senate commerce subcommittee on aviation looks into airline pilot fatigue. that is on c-span at 10:15 a.m. eastern. then the senate intelligence committee considers the pending nominations at the departments of state and hall and security. you can see that on c-span-3 at 2:30 p.m. eastern. >> free-lance journalist david axe was embedded with u.s. troops in afghanistan. in this interview, we talked about his experience with the u.s. army and air force. this is his second trip to afghanistan. >> my first trip was near kandahar about to be zero years ago. i wanted to go back to the south and see if i could detect progress or see if things had gotten worse, but also to explore new areas of afghanistan i had not visited before. in 2007, i spent most of my time in kabul. this time i headed out towards the a

we will look ahead to president obama speech on afghanistan with democratic representative gerry connolly, a member of the foreign affairs committee, and thomas ricks, a former military correspondent for the "washington post." "washington journal" is live every day at 7:00 a.m. ms. stern hear on c-span. >> a couple of live events to tell you about tomorrow. the senate commerce subcommittee on aviation looks into airline pilot fatigue hear on c-span at 10:15 a.m. eastern. the senate intelligence committee considers pending nominations at the departments of state and homeland security. you can see that on c-span3 at 2:30 p.m. eastern. >> free-lance journalist david axe was recently embedded with u.s. troops in afghanistan. in this 40 minute interview, we'll talk with them about his experience in the u.s. army and air force. this was his second trip to afghanistan. >> my first trip was for -- -- was to the province in the south. on this trip i wanted to go back to the south and see if i could detect progress or see if things had gotten worse, but also could use some areas in afghanistan i ha