joining me with his perspective is ambassador joseph wilson who served as deputy chief of mission in later a special assistant to president bill clinton and a senior director on the national security council. welcome back to the broadcast. it's good to see you. >> hi, alex. every ten years we get together. >> yeah, we've got to make it more often than that. i know you've been busy, as have i. here we go with the questions, sir. i read your new op-ed in which you wrote that in 1990 saddam hussein told you if it was dislodged, iraq would sink into war and chaos. as it turns out, he was right. but is iraq and the whole middle east better off without him? >> oh, that's a good question. i think it is entirely possible that what we see going on today would have happened at the time of saddam's ultimate demise. remember, he would have been 77 years old this year. his regime was already sclerotic when we invaded in 1993. the problem we have now is that had he been taken out by his own people, it would have been an iraqi problem. instead, he was taken out by us, and now in the eyes of much of

agency sends to niger, a veteran diplomat with extensive experience in africa, former ambassador joseph wilsoneign minister who was subsequently prime minister. i knew the minister of mines. it did not happen. it could not have happened. just because of the nature of uranium mining operations in francophone africa. the french maintained control. >> the most important thing to know about the yellowcake story is that the cia never believed it. >> but even as speculation, it is enough for administration officials to move ahead with plans to take out saddam. national security adviser condoleezza rice goes on cnn to alert the nation. >> the problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. >> what i was hearing and what i knew, did not jive. i asked one time at langley, am i crazy or is there no credible evidence of an ongoing program? and i had a former deputy director of cia say to me, you're not crazy. >> but there are administration voices urging caution. secretary of state colin

joseph. the professor was interviewed about his book soldiering in the army of northern virginia that provides a statistical analysis of the general fighting forces during the civil war. the interview was recorded at the wilson library at the campus of the diversity of south carolina. it's about 20 minutes. >> joining us now on booktv is the professor joseph and the university of north carolina. what do you teach here at the university? >> i teach american military history, u.s. history and seminars in the civil war. >> you've written several books as well. how did you get interested in that topic? >> when i was a little kid my brother got the american heritage volume at christmas and i just loved it. so that is probably how i learned to read, trying to read this book. and i love the pictures, the maps and so on and that really hooked me on the civil war. >> you don't sound like you grew up in the south though. >> i grew up in new york. >> what got you fascinated in the confederate? >> i've always had an interest in both sides in the civil war. my early books were all on the union. i wrote a book on black soldiers in the civil white officers in the civithe civil war cold forge battle. i wrote a book on partn