it was a rather different from what we came to but this was the benefit of hindsight. the overall impression of bits of information this wasn't my conclusion -- both ours and the americans and, the same conclusions reached by the un -- a collapsed government. i want to emphasize it would have been a problem -- >> let me look briefly in to the insurgency, to you -- let me ask about the -- what we anticipated. the meetings with the chiefs of staff on the fifteenth of january in 2003 two months before -- the risk of serious violence, two particular phrases, between the share of populations that were irretrievably fractured. can you tell us what you did to make sure this was to be addressed? >> there was a real worry about that. what we did to address it was to make sure that as soon as possible we make sure governing council, that was formed very quickly. the kurds were all represented on it. that was an issue. the fighting did not start until 2006 after the mosque was bombed to create such sectarianism. people were prepared to deal with that and we did. in late may of 20

in hindsight, it is important to carefully monitor south levels and we have made operational changes to address this issue. these are extraordinary and did not represent the day-to-day business. the venue is at full capacity sometimes, but the typical attendance is 30-60 patients. -- patrons. all of the photos of you saw earlier were those extraordinary circumstances whether it be world cup soccer or fleet week. it is not our intention to negatively impact our neighbors. we have had many encouraging findings. when the venue had a glass sun room with windows that open, there was no negative impact even if the venue was at full capacity. there were never any complaints. there was a frontage and opened -- that opened. with the doors fully closed and the entrance doors open, there are no noise issues. i can appreciate their concerns. we went and had an inspector from the entertainment commission do scientific measurement to see what was actually happening with the noise. the third one being with the restaurant at half capacity, we also took a double reader. our findings were that there w

. >> there is no benefit of hindsight. >> there's a video based stimulation that is serious business. >> it's not a game. it's training. this is going to prepare an officer when they are out there on the street. >> i said put it down, let me see your hands. >> reporter: watch this guy. he's sitting in a movie theatre one second and charging at me the next. >> okay on that one they are saying it could be justifiable force but i missed the guy. i fired several shots and completely missed him. >> reporter: today there was a chance to see what it was like in their shoes. mistakes were plenty. >> watch how my colleagues shoot this guy well after he put his gun down and surrendered. he they say they are -- they say they are doing this because they want the public to know how hard toss -- hard it is to make these decisions. >> reporter: in my final scenario, a teenager takes the officer's gun and starts shooting. i was shot in both my legs but i still was able to get off a few rounds and may have hit some passerbies. >> i fired several shots at him. >> so when you report it, you are going to

hindsight is 20/20. i can remember either it in the summer or indian summer time frame seeing the people, the weekends to photograph the poles and look at them. i am a stay at home mom and i talked to some of the people when they were picking the location. it was not anybody on a suit. it was a weekend, regular clothes, on marked trucks. -- unmarked trucks. they came out one week and with very large bucket trucks with men to test for the best place. again i ask what is going on. they said it is at&t, you will get self-service. i said great. i actually kugel -- googled the logo on the truck. i am in good faith thought this would benefit me as a customer and resident. but since then, the installation is just -- is really ridiculous to look at. we had a very nice utility pole that they have put a to buy for on top of -- they have put a two-by-four on top of. i have put solar panels on my house, not many work that i have got a permit and all my neighbors about, and i just wish we had the chance to talk about

you look at all of this at hindsight and what do you see? you see a mess here for you guys. police chief can't hold on for the jobs. they leave for other opportunities. what did gavin newsome pick? he picked an opportunist. he has no qualms about leaving to help the city of san francisco do a job. so you look in that light, if you're going to put together an item or put together an agenda to bring in a new police chief, i suggest you give him a contract that if he ever leaves his job, he has to give every dime he was paid back. because this kind of thing is going on and on and on. i don't know how many police chiefs we have in retirement today, collecting $250,000 a year with wages and pensions as the circus goes on of changing police chiefs. you just have to hold a job for one month and you collect a quarter of a million dollars a year for the rest of your life. why, the public just looks at you in awe. that's what's been taking place in my lifetime, and the city and county of san francisco. the office is turned into an opportunity knock. no one police chief has ever done a

in hindsight the mayor admits the city could have done a better job of informing the public. >> on thisase we probably could have communicate todd the public and let them know. there may have been opposition, people not liking that, so i always look at that and wonder maybe we could have communicated better. but we needed to do that. >> reporter: dog owners say without any warning for the city their pets could have swallowed the poison bait. >> they are fortunate that you know nobody did have an incident by it. but could it have had an incident, yes, it certainly could have. >> reporter: she understands why the city had to get rid of the squares. she just wishes it could have been done differently make you angry? >> no, i'm not that kind of a person. sad, not angry, just sad. >> reporter: and so there were reports of a lone survivor squirrel so this was not a complete eradication. the city says the squirrels will be back but it will take some time. >> a lone survivor. a lonely survivor? all right, kiet, thanks. >>> another reminder of just how mild bay area winters generally are compare

have been some polish experts present when they made the presentation there were a lot of things in hindsight they might have done to ease this before it before it hit ok fred we thank them so much coming. swiss bank has been found guilty of breaking the country's strict banking secrecy rules after he handed to wiki leaks data about tax evaders a judge as the record sentence rudolf elmer to a fine of over six thousand dollars while british investigative journalist tony goldwyn believes this trial was an attempt to prevent further revelations about the scale of the bank's illegal dealings the reason is to try to make sure that any bankers who are thinking of leaking information whether to investigative journalists or wiki leaks on the internet anywhere have a second thought and that's the whole point of this case i think this case is going to send shock waves across the swiss banking system because this chap rudolf has come up with some incredible information it looks like we have forty politicians and many other business people around the world who have literally been hiding large amounts of

>> i think in hindsight it will turn out to be a bet better year. what the republicans were reacting to is they felt president obama got too much done. not that thought he was being ineffective, he was being punished for his effectiveness. even at the last minute, nobody thought he was going to get don't ask, don't tell this year. then the final cherry on the soda, the star treaty at the end of the lame duck session. we all thought the lame discussion session was going to perhaps a waste of time. >> one of the paradoxes of 2011, while there will be much less progress, the president may end up being more popular. >> it's easy to have a foil, to play off of against. he's been dealing with a democrat congress of his own party with whom he's often had very tense relations, but is supposed to be friendly with them because they're all in the same party. so now if he's dealing with a hostile house of representatives maybe it will be better for him. gwen: just listen for a second to something the president had to say at the year end news conference which se

. >> there's no benefit of hindsight. >> reporter: with a program called force options training, a video-based simulation that's serious business, life and death. >> it's not a game. it's training. this is training and this is going to prepare an officer when he is out on the street. >> i said put it down, let me see your hands. >> reporter: this guy is sitting in a movie theater one second and charging at me the next. okay, on that one, what they are saying is it could be justifiable force but i missed the guy. i fired several shots and completely missed him. today, san francisco police gave reporters a chance to see what it's like to be in their shoes following three officer- involved shootings in the city in the last month. mistakes were plenty. watch how my colleagues shoot this guy. well after he put his gun down and surrendered. police say they are doing this because they want the public to know how hard it is to make the right judgment during such chaos. even in the cases with your don't have to shoot. >> look at this. >> reporter: glasses completely fogged up. heart beating fast. my fi

. >> so what would you say based on hindsight of has year's your most difficult task of putting on these games? >> i mean it's all logistics, you draw so many people to the super bowl. people are coming to miami and they may not be going to the game, but they're here for the activities of the super bowl, the excitement is incredible. >> what do you say to the cynics who would argue that hotel rooms and restaurants are already occupied and you don't bring much new money? >> i think first of all the people that come to the game spend pretty good. so if you ask the hotel industry, the restaurant owners, they really look forward to it, the big backers of it, and they really want it to come back the south florida, to south florida as often as they can. >> what does it take for miami to get future super bowls? >> today they are giving those cities that have really enhanced their sometimes, new stadiums or renovated their sometimes, they're rewarding them for that by granting them super bowls. and we hope that miami, we hope to really enhance our stadium here and really bring south florida the

giving us a picture i always prefer to rely on the contemporaneous evidence rather than somebody hindsight what is eight years later ninety nine years later going back to when the decisions were made we can always see documents more and more that say that in late two thousand and one after september the eleventh in early two thousand and two blair was looking for regime change was backing to looking to back the americans over regime change i think it's pretty conclusive that went to war it is the documents of the telling the story rather than mr blair blair again said that he regrets the loss of life in iraq yet also admitted didn't need to the inquiry today that his decision to invade was based on little more than a hunch that saddam would not change his approach on weapons inspections telling is that. i think that was possibly the most significant moment and especially is rather less sure of his case towards the end he was questioned about the detail of you know why he thought that saddam wasn't complying and he talked about the inspectors not being able to have free interviews with the

. >> reporter: in hindsight, ron says in his book, he realized what it was. >> knowing what we know now, about the nature of alzheimer's disease, we know that decades ahead of, you know, symptoms arriving, changes are happening in the brain. >> and you can see elizabeth vargas' entire conversation with ron reagan jr. tonight on "20/20." >>> still ahead on "world news," the pope and miracles. how do you prove a miracle on the path to sainthood? >>> the secret every driver can use to save time and gas and lives. >>> and the people who taught us powerful lessons about healing. our "persons of the week." our kids go to school together. -we work together. -i'm in your cooking class. we play ball together. [ male announcer ] chantix is a non-nicotine pill proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. and you can even smoke during the first week. quitting on my own never seemed to be enough. this time it was different. this time i was ready. ready to take control. ready to talk to my doctor. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility

. >> when you look back on this with hindsight you can say no. all i say to you is that the time there was quite a lot of work on this and what is interesting, i came across the other day when preparing for the inquiry, coffee and on at a press conference in april of 2008, he referred to a functioning iraqi civil service. the americans and ourselves were of the view that because of the nature of this regime there must be a pretty good functioning civil service taking advice as well from people who had recently left iraq. one of the lessons of this undoubtedly is that in any situation where you are removing an oppressive and brutal regimes assume the worst. assume that as a result of that brutality, what you may have is a hard security apparatus that actually not a governing bureaucracy. that weather resolvable problem. if we went into a security situation where we have internal elements, a certain amount of criminality, we could have managed that people fairly easily. >> that was your information. you declassified a letter, and he wanted some inf

in the end, they were -- look, one of the things about this that i think in retrospect and hindsightwe lose is that everybody found this issue difficult. you know, there was nobody -- not even robin was sitting there saying, look, this is clear. what was happening throughout was that people were saying to me in the sense, look, do your best on this to get the americans down a multilateral route. if you can get them down that, it's going to be easier for all of us. people were actually far more worried about the politics than anything else because, you know, some papers made clear -- i mean, here we were just reelected, a landslide, suddenly i'm about to go into an alliance with a right wing conservative republican president. that was the thing that worried people the most and the things they stress tested most of all, what are you doing to the government if we are forced to go into an alliance with president bush? that was the most difficult thing in a way politically and the thing was throughout and this is why i go back to september 11th, my view is i was not oblivious to the diffi

as you know, in life, you don't have hindsight. you don't have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.in the present. i did the best i could. and i know doctors did the best they could at the time. >> you're right. there are no do-overs in life. but knowing what you know now, are there any crucial moments you can identify where you think she and you could have taken a different path? >> for me, i mean, if you're going to ask specifics, it would actually be when i was working on the supreme court case, that, you know, i think there were things that daniel had going on in his life. that i missed out on. and i think that, to me, that was the crucial moment. >> daniel, her son? >> i focused too much on work and not enough on what was going on with daniel at the time. >> and i think, george, again, if i may add. the time when anna was pregnant with dannielynn, we're talking about the last few months, july, august, into september 2006, those were incredibly happy times for anna, for howard. they had relocated to the bahamas. they were basically expecting a change in life. things were going t

you know, in hindsight i realized that i wasn't. would i have made a different decision?now, this time i was so much more open and it worked out. i'm a happy guy. >> jimmy: you're saying now early that you have picked someone or maybe two girls to make up for last time. >> no, no, zero to two. >> jimmy: that would be great. that evens it out. >> no, no. but i have picked one woman. i feel like a very lucky man. >> jimmy: uh-huh. >> i'm a happy guy. i'm a very happy guy right now. >> jimmy: this woman was a contestant on the show? [ cheers and applause ] >> good question. it's so sad you have to ask that. but, yes, she was on the show. >> jimmy: i hope you picked the vampire because -- >> oh, madison. you know, can i say something about madison? >> jimmy: yeah, sure. >> okay, truly unique woman. it just threw me off a little bit. i wanted to get to the bottom of madison. you know, here we are, and believe it or not, i really do take that show very seriously whether people buy it or not. >> jimmy: i think you do take it seriously because you didn't enter into a frivolous an

interested in your views, which is challenging the conventional wisdom where the benefit is historical hindsight. could you talk about the difficulties that is involved with that particularly when editors and audiences have a particularly fixed view about something? >> i think that's really good question. there was a period in the late 1908s when a colleague of mine and i were frustrated. we had gone out to do some story and we coot get them to pay any attention. and he said at the "new york times" never be behind but never be ahead. and there's this sense that you can circle too far ahead of a story and it becomes very, very frustrating and lonely. but i think that's where the great journalism is. if you define yourself as challenging that conventional wisdom you're going to find great journalism. nobody has really changed anyone's mind by doing a slightly different version of the story everyone's already done. >> we're running out of time and i want to get to the two other questioners very quickly into the conversation. >> my name is paul, i'm not a harvard student but i am a news junky. quest

because the difference between the british and americans isn't as clear-cut as we did it and in hindsight. we tend to think of the american revolution as making a very clean break and creating an american nationality which is quite distinct from the british. and i argue that that process was only partial as of 1812. the officers on both sides, the soldiers on both sides often experience they see the people that they are fighting against has potential converts to their side, and as people who are culturally essentially similar steve got this great mixing in the united states of irish scots and english people as well as people born in the united states for many generations and african-americans, but to find the same mix of people over in canada. and so often people's perception is not that they are fighting american or british, but that they are and i rushed person who lives in america who happen to be in british regiments posted in canada. september of 1813a british lt. does it hit an american army can't get a message from his commander he had to bring to the american commander. and mr. ic

crazy horse was a great warrior, a great leader, be but in hindsight when you look at sitting bull, crazy horse and red cloud, red cloud had recognized in 1868 when he signed the fort laramie treaty that he couldn't win. he couldn't beat the army. the other two went on and fought for nine years with thousands of their own people being killed. he was impetuous, but wasn't really red cloud the wiser of the chiefs? >> that's a reasonable question. and i would say that you're missing some parts of the history here that are important. under the treaty of 1868, all sioux indians were allowed to inhabit any part of the great sioux reservation which included all of south dakota from the missouri river to the borders, the state borders. of what are now the state borders. and they were, also, permitted under that agreement to occupy what was called the unseated territory which was hunting territory up to the yellowstone river and west of the bighorn mountains and south down to the north platte. so the crazy horse people and the sitting bull people did not go outside of that territory, and they were

but with hindsight i think that was rather not used in the sense that my feeling now is that a lot of these places went a little bit too far in opening material. since the olympics a lot of that material has been reclassified so today i wouldn't be able to carry out the research for that book. it is not to say that everything has been reclassified but it's become must cover and interesting material out there. it's become a lot tougher. let's just hope that over the coming years the authorities and the people's republic will adopt the same attitude as elsewhere including the excellent union by making it available more systematically. it is a question i don't believe i'm important enough to be banned from the people's republic. you yourself quoted by the interesting about work on the book of the famine. there are others who have published on it. i am not really the first. i don't think that is something that happened 50, six years ago that was sufficiently important. given the number of females i get from people in the mainland keen to read the translation the would be published by the

it's very -- there's a lot of great, and a lot of complication and it's very easy for us in 2020 hindsight to say this is what happened, but to live through that. obviously with much more complicated. and i have heard that. no bonhoeffer, many of the men and seminary -- if you remember the confessing church viewer march by the sidelines. if you're in the war, they would pitch in the front lines literally because they need a kilt. sort of like, what was the same? david and sheba's husband, you know, put them on the front lines. they were literally marked for death, but very interesting and educational. yes, sir. we need a microphone. >> first of all, excellent lecture. it really was just wonderful. [applause] faq to do my biography now. you know, i'm a student of the holocaust in the ghetto, the uprising. it's still so hard. the resistance, the bravery. can you say these people, their top by their mother, their father and the things that were done it so hard to get through this to read about stroup and the liquidation of the ghetto. it's just heartbreaking to me. for the marches, afterwards

i do not think anyone now, with the benefit of nine months of hindsight, really believes the healthcare bill will bring down the long-term costs of healthcare. what you probably saw and i saw as individuals is health care premiums actually went up as a result of the health care bill. a blue cross/blue shield, i think blue shield in california, nonprofit home their rates about 50% last week -- raised their rates about 50% last week. if the democrats plan to fix medicare was health care, then it is back to the drawing board. host: what are some of your thoughts on medicare? guest: one of the things -- what have we done? we prioritize the spending cuts in terms of the easiest first and hardest last because we have to do something right away, to get a chance to look at why immediate cuts are still important. we started with non-military discretionary spending because we have the most control over right now -- we have to funded this year. when you look to entitlement, they are on autopilots. you have to pass permanent law to change that. much more difficult to do. obviously a much bigger pie

i think all thoughtful efforts are trying to go which in hindsight said, which is don't put everything now in an emergency. but where are we in 2015? were 2011 now. so i think he's asking us a tricky question, which is what are we doing now in this budget that sets us on that path? everybody is trying not to constrain demand further so we create a worse recession. so that is the challenge now and i love jim's point about hope. i think it's irresponsible to enter this conversation, saying don't pay any attention to it. that makes our voices sound very weak. i think we're paying attention to it. and i think even the most progressive leaning, you know, epi are looking to bring deficits, you know, to 3.7% in 2020. so i guess that makes turn -- and like to say we're on the move to bring things back. nobody's saying anything in 2011. the most aggressive or sanely make progress by 2015. even if you left it out loud and the cp square to be 20% in 2015. so i think the question is what are we doing out in the budget of 2011? excuse me, fiscal year 2012. what are we doing now that sets it on the

to one extreme in that the value went up and with the great power of high tide, these people -- hindsight, these people could have believed that the value was right and it was going to go up and then it collapsed. and has financial difficulties sometimes do, it probably aggravated other issues and concerns. this is obviously a very sad story and i feel very sorry for them. in terms of how often this kind of thing happens, there have been some huge runups. the top of the list is miami, florida, where prices went up something like 180% between the beginning of the decade and december 2006. los angeles, 173%. washington, 150%, and so on down the list. , those have been followed by the stellar collapses as well. in florida, nevada, and arizona, those were the hardest hit places. prices went up 150% or so and came down something like 50% or more in a couple of places. huge collapses. it is not only home prices, though, because local economy at goes into it substantially. realistic was a major economy. but secondly, if you look at the auto industry in detroit, michigan, it in detroit you can bu

to one extreme in that the value went up and with the great power of high tide, these people -- hindsight, these people could have believed that the value was right and it was going to go up and then it collapsed. and has financial difficulties sometimes do, it probably aggravated other issues and concerns. this is obviously a very sad story and i feel very sorry for them. in terms of how often this kind of thing happens, there have been some huge runups. the top of the list is miami, florida, where prices went up something like 180% between the beginning of the decade and december 2006. los angeles, 173%. washington, 150%, and so on down the list. , those have been followed by the stellar collapses as well. in florida, nevada, and arizona, those were the hardest hit places. prices went up 150% or so and came down something like 50% or more in a couple of places. huge collapses. it is not only home prices, though, because local economy at goes into it substantially. realistic was a major economy. but secondly, if you look at the auto industry in detroit, michigan, it in detroit you can bu

david halberstam and love to address challenging conventional wisdom potentially with the wisdom of hindsight. can you talk about what is involved with that particularly when editors and audience had a particularly effective you about something? >> i think that is a really good question. there was a period in the late 1980's when the conneen and mine -- when a colleague of mine and i were frustrated. he said, "the the new york times" never be behind, but never be ahead. there is a sense that you can circle too far ahead of the story and it becomes very, very frustrating. that is what great journalism is. if you define yourself as challenging the conventional wisdom, you have to find the great journalism. no one has ever really changed anyone's mind by doing a slightly different version of the story everyone has already done. >> we are running out of time and i want to get the two other questions very quickly into the conversation. >> i am not a harvard student but i am a news junkie. i the question for martha raddatz. i find your story about cheney breathtakingly cynical but not surprising. m