and fought hard against the nsc and the state department. before we left for italy and then germany, we had gone through everybody's arguments and it stayed in the speech. we flew first to venice, because there was an economic summit, a g-7 about to happen. and unlike these days where everything is on the 747 we flew on the old boeing 747 which was air force one. there was a lot of jet lag and time. the reagans flew to venice and went into seclusion for three days where they stayed at a villa outside of venice. we left the united states on june 3rd, on june 5th i visited the villa with the national security council advisor and did our usual briefings and the president and i spent some time afterwards talking through this speech. and the president said to me, what do you think? and i said, mr. president, i think it's a hell of a speech and a hell of a line but you're president, you get to decide. and he looked at the speech and i looked at the so-called offending paragraph and said well i think we'll leave it in. and that was on june 5th. and

and nothing more, to my left gail smith special assistant to the president and senior director at the nsc. and director of partners for democratic change in yemen. and to my right admiral and johanna mendelson former senior associate at the center for strategic and international studies. admiral, i loved that picture of the hospital ship. in the 1980's we were mining and now we're sending hospital ships there. it was a lovely distillation of change that we've asked our military to make in the post cold war generation. have you had to take on skills as a fighting force that really you weren't taught much about in academy? >> that's technically right, ray. i think the force has adapted fairly well to this. we are always working hard to try and improve our ability to work across the spectrum of activity from as we talked about in that last slide from the hospital ship which is sort of a pure example of soft power to our occasional and let's face it significant role in combat. the key is being able to move across the spectrum and take on intelligence information, security, logistics, the medi

as a senior director for president bush in the nsc, particularly during one of the most intense periods of the war from the time of planning inmenting the surge through the end of his administration, at pint to implement the surge. throughout that process i developed extremely strong relationships across the entire u.s. government. i was involved in setting goals, such as negotiating strategic framework agreement that started in march of 2007. organizing u.s. government getting the right team in place, the right people in place, the right inputs in place and having an operational plan in leading it through to fruition. weren't of many examples of my experience. finally, one of the most important criteriocriterion, th relationship with the iraqis. i've been calmed back into public service to come back to iraq over the past years is due to my unique relationships with the iraqis. i worked with these individuals since i first got to iraq in january 2004. i was involved in those early days in the negotiation of iraq's interim constitution calmed the transitional administration law and deals

we provided the information to the nsc, and they handled it from there. so i was concerned. i wasn't worried because there was a national intelligence estimate asked for by the congress that had gone to the congress the previous fall and based on that national intelligence estimate, the congress had overwhelmingly passed a joint resolution saying to the president, try to solve this diplomatically, but if you can't, we will support you going to war. so almost four months before i was going to the u.n., congress had already said to the president if you have to do this, we'll support you. and it was not a close vote. it was rather overwhelming. so anyway, i knew i could pull it all together from the national intelligence estimate. i went out to cia and lived there four days and four nights with my staff pulling it all together. with the director of central intelligence and with the combined wisdom of 16 intelligence communities that came together for the nie. and so we pulled it all together, and i tossed a lot of it aside because there weren't enough sources for it. and the th

was planning, what sorts of cyber attacks and methods they were planning that could have attacked the nscgs like fighter jet program. really feeding the u.s. very sophisticated information. the spy though was found out by the chinese government and has been missing for a few months. so we're not sure at this point whether he's in custody or perhaps if he's even still alive. >> you'll have a lot more i'm sure of this fascinating story. 7:00 p.m. eastern "erin burnett out front." thank you. >>> president obama says a sweeping new change to the country's policy is not amnesty. republican leaders disagree. we're going in depth. >>> and a reporter interrupts the president in the middle of the immigration announcement in the rose garden. the sparks that angered response from the president and controversy over his own behavior. >>> and exploding population boom in pakistan. why it could be the most dangerous crisis the u.s. ally is facing. [ male announcer ] what if you had thermal night-vision goggles, like in a special ops mission? you'd spot movement, gather intelligence with minimal collater

to my left, gail flynt, special assistant to the president, senior director at the nsc. and the director of partners for democratic change in yemen. and to my right, the admiral, and the senior associate at the center for strategic and international studies. admiral, i loved that picture of the hospital ship in nicaragua. in the 1980's were minding the harbor there and now we are sending hospital ships there. it was a lovely distribution of change that we cast our military to -- ask our military to make. you have to take on skills you were not taught much in the academy. >> i think the force has adapted and fairly well to this. we're always trying to improve our ability to work across the spectrum from, as we talk about the last slide, from the hospital ship, which is a pure example of soft power, to our significant role in combat. the key is being able to move across the spectrum and take on intelligence information, security, logistics. another thing that we can do is be helpful in communications, in setting up, and providing that early on. yes, we are moving along in