john mearsheimer, a west point graduate and former air force officer, is a professor and co- directorf the program on international security policy at the university of chicago. welcome, gentlemen, colonel mansoor, begin wuing, what are the lessons that we get or what do we learn from this trov of documents about the iraq war that we didn't know or fully appreciate before? >> i don't think the documents provide any new information if you have paid attention to the good reporting out of iraq. most of what's been revealed has been reported before but what the documents provide is a lot of the detailed granularity that was perhaps absent in sort of the general reporting from the theatre. >> warner: and prove ser mere shimenter what struck you? >> well, i agree with peter that what these documents are very good for is filling in the details. we had a rough understanding of what was going on in iraq and we had certain intuitions. for example i think most people felt that there was a good reason to think that iran was supporting the shi'a in iraq. but we didn't have a lot of hard evidence o

be able to engage and fight them effectively. >> warner: colonel mansoor thank you very much, john mearsheimerthank you. >> again the majoram developments the crucial mid-term election campaign of 2010, head mood its >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day.o the crucial midterm election campaign of 2010 headed into itd closing days. and afghan president hamid karzai acknowledged his office receives money from iran. and he insisted the u.s. has known about it for years. t and to hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, for what's on the newshour online. hari?er >> sreenivasan: watch more of jeff's interview with producer and director apatow on art beatn find ray's dispatches from his reporting trip to mozambique.ie see an interview with science writer annie murphy paul about her new book "origins." it looks at how a pregnant woman's behavior affects her baby.a and on our patchwork nationrs site, the latest poll numbers in ethnically diverse, middle income districts show some good news for democrats this election season. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill