. >> just a fact, and that is the architect, a champion of going to war in iraq, paul wolfowitz, made the case that if we went, the war would be paid for with iraqi oil funds. news? iraq is producing oil. the biggest consumer? china. so we went to war so that china could have oil. anybody that talks about the status of troops agreement with the iraqi government, which is now in bed with iran, is delusional. >> i thought we retiring about -- were talkg about syria. >> the reason it is under iranian influence is because the american president -- we were the ones who were going to train the forces. we had complete control of iraqi airspace. it is now under iranian control, essentially. obama washed his hands. you can make your argument about whether we should have been there -- [crosstalk] when obama got into office, war was won and he walked away. >> he wanted to stay but we needed to have a status of forces agreement to protect troops there. if he had agreed to stay with a -- without a status of forces agreement, he would have been impeached. >> the bush administration could not get on

paul wolfowitz who became famous as a neoconservative for the in the iraq war. wrote a memo which was well very important influential within the first bush administration that the goal of u.s. foreign policy should be to ensure that no power in the world emerges at any time in the future on any continent that could pose any sort of rivalry to the united states well you know the united states has been pursuing that very policy since one thousand nine hundred eighty nine and it has led to extraordinary global instability this is not a. the position of a global hedge benign global hedging on this is to say or rather german since we just veer from crisis to crisis due to this desperate desire to be the dominant power on every continent you know bruce is he not it's a country that most of the world wants to emulate today. again i think you have to you have to desegregate that i mean clearly cut people in other countries. would rather pursue their own national destinies. they are countries converging instead of all countries to it and as george said in basically there

world war paul wolfowitz who became famous as a neoconservative for the in the iraq war. wrote a memo which was well very important influential within the first bush administration that the goal of u.s. foreign policy should be to ensure that no power in the world emerges and any time in the future on any continent that could pose any sort of rivalry to the united states well you know the united states has been pursuing that very policy since one thousand nine hundred eighty nine and it has led to extraordinary global instability this is not a. the position of a global hedge benign global hedge and this is obviously or rather a malign global hegemony since we just veer from crisis to crisis due to this desperate desire to be the dominant power on every continent you know bruce is he not it's a country that most of the world wants to emulate today. again i think you have to you have to desegregate that i mean clearly. cut people in other countries. would rather pursue their own national destinies or. changed course you said you have all countries to it and as george said i

think it was paul wolfowitz that said it would cost us about $60 million. larry lindsey, economic advisor at the time said it's going to cost $200 billion and he lost his job. yeah. >> it's now cost, what, $1 trillion. >> more than that. larry left his job. it probably had something to do with it. very expensive. nd the war in afghanistan was expensive as well. national defense is the first priority. f the leaders decide that's what's to be done, we spend money on that. f that was the right decision or not, people on that side may side.been on the wrong i don't think thinking about iraq through the fiscal lens is think about it. deficits were low and then came the crash. he iraq war is not the reason we're facing large deficit. the failure of growth is the reason we're facing large and we're poorly sput suited to getting back to growth today. we're poorly suited for a lot of ways. the government lumbers along our welfare state that's very inefficie inefficient. education system is not well suited to creating the welfare workers withe need in the future. reg

from the university of chicago like paul wolfowitz or like richard pearl. i mean, that is -- >> he had to attack chicago. no, i don't attack him for being a high school dropout. i attack him for being a grandiose narcissist. >> is that a felony? >> no. it's a plague around here. (laughter) >> woodruff: we're not going to get personal! >> when you work for an institution-- any institution, a company, a faculty-- you don't get to violate the rules of that institution and decide for your own self what you're going to do in a unilateral way that no one else can reverse. and that's what he did. so he betrayed the trust of the institution. he betrayed what creates a government which is being a civil servant, a servant to a larger cause and not going off on a unilateral thing because it makes you feel grandiose. >> woruffso he should be prosecuted? >> well, obviously there's a calculation involved. he was willing to sacrifice what was according to all reports a six-figure income, a prestigious position. i mean, and he was willing to sacrifice that or trade it for

bush and paul wolfowitz were.i think there are at least a few of us who think that maybe '08 was the election to lose simply because a president public public, wouldn't publish president mccain, wouldn't have been as bad on health care and would have appointed better judges, iran, is there a place we wouldn't be at war? might be a bit much. so i think there's an argument to be made and evangelizing for conservatives, if not on a moral basis, which it's funny, for a conservative catholic guy to be saying this but one point in the book is that i really just want to drop moral and ethical and metaphysical arguments. i think they're fundamentally important but just it's impossible to change people's mind on subjects. we have been having ethical debate about the role of government for a thousand years or more. but there are some really good consequencallists and pragmatic arguments and we i can take toes arguments to people on the right and say we need to spend x, y, z, on the military. maybe every now and then there's

the staff and the other generals that ran the war with and those at home, cheney for example, paul wolfowitzand others who've been involved with it. and the british and the israelis because they had a big part when the rockets began falling on israel so that was my involvement. >> host: you write no american military decision since the vietnam war provoked more controversy callamore de bacon delaware cost of commentary than the choice to offer iraq a merciful clemency. >> guest: some of your viewers will remember that was made after 100 hours of ground rules. they had invaded in august of '91 and they had been evicted and beat up and there was a strategic campaign that is eviscerated parts of baghdad and when they were on the run and being chased back across the river the decision was made to end the war. there remains controversial to this day. we went back in 2003 and invade iraq again in earnest and all of that came out of the decision making them had gone on in that earlier war. >> host: operation overlord. 30 words. you will enter the continent of europe in conjunction with the other un

if you want to try to build a democracy that becomes a model, which was maybe paul wolfowitz's agenda bush's, why not iraq? but that is -- a war without a cause. a war that goes off in search of a reason after the fact is a war of choice. >> so then what do you see as being the best and worst that can come from this conflict? >> it's getting worse right now, alex, because the syrian civil war and the fallout of the arab spring is turning sectarian conflict into a regional conflict. and who knows? it might spread to the gulf countries. and it is out of control. and i worry that the u.s. looks sort of paralyzed in the face of it. so right now it's on a real downward trajectory. a few years ago one might have seen something closer to a stable iraq emerging with the surge relatively successful. i know a lot of iraqis, and they deserve so much better than what they have. but they are caught in this spiral of history that we didn't create but we kind of turned it loose. and it's now pulling downward. so it could be a long time before any iraqi will feel that this is a country they can raise