and i think he would have a tough battle with leon panetta early on, which was a mistake. first of all, not only the cia but leon panetta is a-- is a gifted, experienced former omb director, former white house chief of staff, one term member of congress, house chairman, you know, leon panetta knows, not simply where the bodys are but where they are buried and who buried them. i think it was tough. and the white house was-- i can't understand why they did it. >> lehrer: they didn't give him anyway out. >> no way out and a half an hour before his meeting with the president, where hess resignation was to be demanded, they released the-- leaked the fact they had been interviewing a couple of weeks his successors. that just is not a way of inspiring loyalty. >> lehrer: yeah. >> i do agree with that. and this is not exactly the first time they've been unnecessarily tough on people. maybe they want to show some muscle or maybe it is just in the flow of things things got confused and lost am but it is true that they have a record now of being unnecessarily tough. and maybe that's

. >> earlier this week, secia director leon panetta discuss the threat with pakistan's government. missing from that trip, national intelligence director dennis player. yesterday, the retired navy admiral announced he would step down, which was rumored for months. >> i think a lot of folks at the white house are saying that is something the united states should have known about if we are connecting the dots -- connecting the dots that appear in the plot should never have got as far as they did. >> belair's office oversees 16 federal agencies, including the fbi, cia, and homeland security. reportedly, several candidates are being interviewed for the job. reporting in the satellite center, mike conneen, abc 7 news. >>> oil giant bp admits that the oil spill in the gulf of mexico is far worse than initially thought. new underwater video shows the size and scope of the leak. bp says 5,000 barrels were leaking out every day. now some say it could be as much as 100,000 barrels, and today the epa is raising concerns about the chemical used to disperse the oil as well. >>> and obama is ord

my sense is he was struggling with leon panetta over various issues, lost bureaucratic fights.b doesn't work very well. bill may be right inside the counsel of the administration he may have been tighting for one side versus another. it will be interesting to see who now gets the job. >> chris: meanwhile, the obama administration is playing up a new set of sanctions against iran that it is apparently agreed to with china and russia. secretary of state clinton is over in asia and talking about the fact that there has to be a tough international response to the apparent north korean sinking of the south korean warship. how seriously do you take either of those? >> i think the iran sanctions actually was surprisingly good news. there was a moment at which it could have all fallen apart. when you have brazil and turkey suddenly making a great deal with iran, that it was going to ship out some of the nuclear material, and the rest of the international community didn't fall for it, which is good. now, are the sanctions crippling sanctions? no. they have plenty of loopholes in them, m

military organizations designed to flight in cyberspace and were not alone in public testimony, leon panetta said between 20 and 30 nations now have military organization similar to cybercommand, designed to fight in cyberspace. how do you fight in cyberspace? you're envisioning kiana reeves in the matrix are some name. not quite. get axiom is not. what do you do? what i typed about in the beginning, if you're on the offensive, you hack your way into those systems on which we all depend weird you hack your way into the control system for a power. and cause a blackout. you say that's a nuisance, but i can flick the switch and turn the power back on. well, maybe. but maybe the attack was designed to cause lasting damage to the power grid. maybe it melted high tension wires and caused generators to spin out and explode before it caused a blackout. if that were true, the blackout would last for weeks if not moms. what if the attack was on the railroad and caused at key junctions on the freight rail networks are to be mounted to rail mints causing days, if not weeks when the railroads would work

in public testimony, leon panetta, the cia director has said between 20 and 30 nations now have military organizations similar to cybercommand, designed to fight in cyberspace. how do you fight in cyberspace? you are envisioning gianna reeves in the matrix or something. not quite. not quite. milk kickboxing is-- no kick boxing is required. what do you do? if you are on the offensive, you hack your way into those systems on which we all depend. you hack your way into the control system for a power grid and cause a blackout. well you say that is a nuisance but i can flip the switch and turn the power back on. well, maybe. but maybe the attack was designed to cause lasting damage to the power grid. maybe it melted high tension wires and cause generators to spin out and explode, before it caused the blackout. if that were true, the blackout would last for weeks if not months. what if the attack was on the railroads? and caused at key junctions on the freight rail networks there to be massive derailments, causing days if not weeks worth of-- where the railroads would not work and supplies cou

. >> reporter: blair was also on the losing side of tur it of battles with cia director leon panetta, but his one white house official put it, his job was to connect all the dots and we only had bits and pieces. betty? h. >> bill plante at the white house. thank you. >>> a follow-up now on deportation fears for a second grader who met the first lady, michelle obama, this week. the 7-year-old girl hinted to mrs. obama that her mother is an illegal immigrant saying she doesn't have papers. so is her mom in trouble? apparently not. homeland security says immigration authorities won't pursue the little girl's family. >>> now to professional cycling's latest doping scandal. disgraced cyclist floyd landis finally admits he used drugs and he claims lance armstrong did, too. cbs news correspondent ben tracy has more. >> reporter: before crashing during a race in california thursday, lance armstrong fired back at accusations that he used performance enhancing drugs. >> it's all a bunch of [ bleep ]. >> reporter: he questioned the motives of his former teammate. >> it's his word versus ours. we

abc, leon panetta. cnn, ashley judd, dennis quaid. fox news, vanessa williams, marlon wayans.orker, david remnick at the at dinner. he's the editor, but he also wrote a book about president obama. "time" steven spielberg and michelle phieffer. "the washington times" has the owner of the redskins, dan snyder, and the redskins' new quarterback, donovan mcnabb, who is also at that dinner in 2005. in fact, if you go to politico.com, you can see a picture of then-senator obama talking with donovan mcnabb when he was in the super bowl that year with the philadelphia eagles. that was at that dinner, the white house correspondents' dinner. and tom brady of the new england patriots was also at the dinner that year. "the washington times" also invited dennis kucinich. you may have seen news reports that "washington times" is up for sale and john solomon could be the buyer. huffington post, which has a critical column about the white house correspondents' dinner on this site and it was written by a former staffer of john edwards. but the huffington post is also there this evening. they h

officials tell me cia director leon panetta has told the white house he does not want blair's job. the leading candidate now is general james clapper, he heads the intelligence at the pentagon. the bigger problem is that the post-9/11 reorganization that reated this whole new intelligence apparatus just has not worked but no one has a plan on how to fix it. >> andrea mitchell in washington, thanks so much. >>> the mothers of those american hikers jailed in iran received another encouraging sign today. nbc's ali eruzzi is tehran. is this going to be better than expected? >> reporter: this morning the three detained students get a chance to spend a little more time with their mothers in a tehran hotel room fueling hopes for a humanitarian release. the reunion was a dave long-awaited joy for the mothers of three u.s. students, shane bauer, jash fattal and sarah shourd, held in iran for over nine months. it is a moment to cherish for the families that have waited so long. >> it's just overwhelming joy. >> reporter: the three detainees have been accused of espionage after straining into

. >> did the president asked leon panetta?> i will not get into replacement. >> yesterday they voted to move forward the confirmation bill. it denies all funding for guantanamo bay detainee's. >> if i am not mistaken, the committee asked for a report on and some ideas on exactly how a facility might be structured. that report and details will be going on to congress. i will say that i can check anytime table. i will say that we have always maintained that we need increased prison facilities. i think the law prevents the department of defense, but not the department of justice, from purchasing such facilities. >> is there anything that in the process of dealing with this you have found in the 1990 law that limits the federal government's authority in which you wish it did not? >> not that i am aware of. we sent up structures to change liability. that was in order to ensure a disaster of this magnitude -- the economic damages that are going to be in, that our citizens will suffer through are adequately compensated even if they a