. >> paul wolfowitz, bush's deputy secretary of defense, has had saddam on his personal enemies list for two decades. >> every time he survives something, he sends the message to his enemies, i outlast my enemies and if you on the wrong list when i'm still around, you'll be in trouble. >> paul wolfowitz would become convinced that if we looked strongly enough, if we looked closely enough, we'd find the hand of saddam hussein behind virtually every terrorist attack on the united states. >> even before 9/11 wolfowitz and undersecretary of defense douglas fife had been driving policy on iraq. >> some of us believe you'll have a saddam hussein problem forever unless you get rid of him. >> meeting notes from the afternoon of 9/11 showed donald rumsfeld tasking a top aide to find the best info fast. good enough to hit saddam hussein. he asks the aide to get evidence from wolfowitz of a saddam connection with ubl. osama bin laden. >> we all looked at each other, like, what are they talking about? who the hell, saddam hussein? bin laden hates him. he's a heretic. there's no connection betwee

in a 1998 letter to president clinton, paul wolfowitz, donald rumsfeld, and other leading neoconserve tis urge the president to take action to remove saddam's regime from power. the neocons align with an arbane iraqi ex-patriot who heads the iraqi national congress. a group of iraqi defectors lobbying to get rid of saddam. >> i say to you now that opposition is united in its aim of getting rid of saddam and establishing democracy in iraq. >> he was a very impressive and effective spokesman for the iraqi opposition to saddam. >> a very slick operator who was skillful enough to convey the idea that he could step in as new leader of iraq. that was totally divorced from realities on the ground. >> i george walker bush do solemnly swear -- >> when george w. bush is sworn in january, 2001, rumsfeld, wolfowitz and feif take the reins of policy. vice president cheney has reversed course and now supports regime change in iraq. motive awaits opportunity. and for the bush administration, 9 /11 provides it. ups is a global company, but most of our employees live in the same communities that we se

paul wolfowitz, what do you do then as a policy matter to stop this? >> it's a complicated situation. you don't just come up with we're going to bomb this or do that. i think a fundamental point, which was brought home to us in 1990 when the saudis agreed to everyone's surprise, to allow american troops into saudi arabia after iraq innovated kuwait, they said to us, if this were the united states of jimmy carter or ronald reagan that walked away after a few american casualties, we would not have said yes. we believe president bush is serious. we have to convince people in that region, kurds, iraqis -- maliki is a big part of the problem and he's not all of iraq. we need to find people there. and most importantly, i would say in syria where u.s. policy, in absence over the last three years, has sent a signal of lack of seriousness throughout the region. i would do something in syria. it's a bad situation. it's now dominated by assad and by isis. we should be finding people -- >> we keep coming back to the idea that somehow, military intervention, dexter

former deputy secretary of defense paul wolfowitz calling for president obama to take military action. yes, this is the same paul wolfowitz who in 2003 when asked what the iraq war would cost told congress not to worry, that iraq would be be able to finance its own reconstruction because of its vast oil wealth. a war that ultimately cost $2.2 trillion. a sum that is singularly america's debt and our obligation. it should distress any american that so many of our politicians and journalists are so free and fast with their calls for military action again in iraq. while offering no answers as to why they would expect a different outcome this time. why would we again take up iraq, al qaeda as our national burden solely without a clear line drawn between our sacrifice and cost and our interest and our compensation. yes, our compensation. no answers by the president or those who would cheer his intervention without strategy to the fundamental question, why should the united states assume the duty and cost and blood and money that should at the very least be shared with europe? president oba

. >>> joining me now, paul wolfowitz.y have called him the architect of the original war in iraq. thank you for coming on this morning. >> by the way, if i had been the architect, things would have been run very differently. >> okay. >> so that's not a correct label. >> fair enough. let me ask you this. there is certainly going to -- there's certainly plenty of i told you sos, whether the president left too early, when it comes to troops in there, and whether we should have gone in the first place. given where things stand today and you look back, any regrets about trying to go in and change the political landscape of iraq that was done back in 2003? >> iraq was a broken country under saddam with another ten years under saddam, it would be a more broken country and we would have still had this arab uprising that iraq would have inevitably been thrown into. the real point is not to do the i told you sos. let's figure out a sense out of this mess. if we come out of it in good shape then the people who helped get us out of i

wolfowitz was wrong 11 years ago and wrong again today. pa paul bremer is giving his opinion, the guy who failed at running iraq after the invasion, said it's in our interest to stay involved. >> how can you advocate anymore people, any more lives going to risk for that country? >> because it's in our interest and there are two points about our interest. number one as the president pointed out on friday in his first statement, we cannot allow -- the world's worst terrorist group to get a base of support in a failed nation. this is not afghanistan which is remote and behind the mountains, this is the heart of the middle east with a lot of wealth and we cannot allow that to happen. >> paul bremer just said iraq was a failed nation and they want to do a do-over? >> no one who was involved in the bush administration has the right to talk about iraq with any credibility whatsoever. these guys failed big time. the invasion of iraq was one of the biggest mistakes in american history. thousands of lives lost and of course for a war that was started on lie

ming up support for endless war, paul wolfowitz. on guitar you kidding me, how does this guy keep getting booked on television, lindsey graham. >> this stubborn-headed president who thinks he knows better than everybody else, who withdrew troops. stubborn-headed, delusional, detached president, but that's the last bad thing i'm going to say. [laughter] >> jon: my wicked tongue. [laughter] [speaking with southern accent]: i'm so bad... at foreign policy. now pour me another julep. >> jon: like any terrible band, they're nothing without their lead singer, old johnny rotten. johnny rotten judgment. his advocacy of the iraq war was legend, his sophisticated knowledge of the region unparalleled, in that it did not parallel with anybody who had knowledge of the region. >> there is not a history of clashes that are violent between sunnis and shias, so i think they can probably get along. >> jon: that is a true statement if you don't count the long history of violent clashes between sunni and shia. he's right, throughout history there are l

. >> that was paul wolfowitz on sunday, a man sounding very much like his 2003 self.y choosing to gloss over the sunni/shia schism in iraq and preferring to focus on labeling any violent terrorist group in iraq as al qaeda, even if the new group now threatening baghdad is not technically al qaeda. the pro-invision crowd has crept out of the woodwork attempting to rehabilitate their own record on iraq often by attacking president obama for not fixing the things they broke. even former british prime minister tony blair got in on the act this weekend. he wrote in his editorial the 2003 invasion has no bearing on events today. we'll discuss that in a minute. because there is one more attendee to this iraqi class reunion, al zawahiza abu musab . it was his presence in iraq that the bushes, never mind the intelligence, kept using to draw a link between saddam hussein and the 9/11 hijackers. eli lake is the senior national security correspondent for "the daily beast." eli, we have now seen the return of the conflation of what's happening in iraq with 9/11. i didn't think it

that's right, paul wolfowitz used the phrase an obscure shia/sunni issue there. we're not sure that that's an obscure issue. anyway, let's go on the ground. richard engel is now in baghdad and nbc's ayman mohyeldin is in northern iraq. richard, let me start with you. you're in baghdad. do you sense that this is a city that's preparing for a battle? >> reporter: yes, i do actually. i am right now in the square, which is where that famous statue of saddam hussein was pulled down as u.s. troops, marines came in, and eventually toppled saddam hussein. right now mostly the streets are empty, not a lot of people. people are afraid, they're staying inside their homes. prices are going up because some of the roads leading into the capital have been shut off because of the fighting. food prices are up 50% in some cases. fuel prices are also up. we've seen the iraqi army deployed, not just in their bases but putting their armored vehicles, their .50 caliber machine guns in front of the gates of their position. heavy military presence at the airport. we've been driving arou

know billionaire point about you know why we still see people like paul bremmer bill kristol paul wolfowitz taken seriously by the d.c. me i think what you're seeing is you know people like us may come to the conclusion that after this entire rack to back all that there really is no purpose for the united states to be involved in nation building but i don't really think the d.c. elite establishment has ever come to that scene and they've made they may admit that they were tactical mistakes in iraq but i think they're still committed to the same idea i'm sorry and this was i think might have been cheney was this nation that is able to pull fifty to one hundred billion dollars out of their oil over the next decade this this you may see the first. it was able to build to pay for their own reconstruction you know unlike the countries of europe after world war two the want need a marshall plan. that didn't work out so well so you're going to say well i think we all i mean it sounds like we all agree that we should do nothing but there's also it's beyond just a pragmatic decision of if we could d

neil: paul wolfowitz knows this region better than anyone. gas prices are climbing with all of this. not a surprise but what is is, of the politicians say in the middle of this dash gas tax? [ male announcer ] this is the age of knowing what you're made of. why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra. ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. this is the age of taking action. viagra. talk to your doctor. of taking action. means keeping seven billion ctransactions flowing.g, and when weather hits, it's data mayhem. but airlines running hp end-to-end solutions are always calm during a storm. so if your business deals

this is the same paul wolfowitz who said when he was asked what the world cost, you will congress noty, that it would be able to finance its own reconstruction because of its vast oil wealth. enjoy that ultimately has cost $2.2 trillion, a sum that is singularly america's obligation. this should distress any american that so many politicians and journalists, they are so free and fast with calls. while offering no answer as to why they would expect a different outcome this time around. and so why we would again take this without a clear line drawn without our interests and our compensation. yes, our compensation. and no answers but a president who would cure the intervention without strategy to the fundamental question, why should the united states assumed the duty and the cost in blood and money, that showed at the very least be shared with you. president obama as the wind is let's pray that he is strong enough to insist on the farm were rigorous rationalization of any u.s. return to iraq. and let's pray that americans insist this time on a clear statement of national purpose before t

who helped engineer nine eleven we remember being lied to by by dick cheney and rumsfeld and paul wolfowitz. who intentionally set out to get us involved in a war for per. this is that we're completely contrary to our interests americans understand that today and so that so as we see these chicken hawks and i say chicken hawks because most of the most all of the people that are on there beating the drum for a war if you drill down and you say well did you ever serve at all did you ever carry a rifle did you ever have bullets flying over your head what you'd find is the story the dick cheney story not only did they not serve but they tried desperately to stay away from places like vietnam by getting deferment after deferments after the firmament based on political favors so what we have now is we have these folks showing up on sunday talk shows and you almost have to say why would a book or put a dick cheney or a paul wall for wolfowitz are wrong so why would they put him on television at all and you have to conclude it's because there's nobody else that will go on in say talk this loony tal

neil: paul wolfowitz knows this region better than anyone. prices are climbing with all of this. not a surprise but what is is, of the politicians say in the middle of this dash gas tax? after this. means keeping seven billion ctransactions flowing.g, and when weather hits, it's data mayhem. but airlines running hp end-to-end solutions are always calm during a storm. so if your business deals with the unexpected, hp big data and cloud solutions make sure you always know what's coming - and are ready for it. make it matter. i got more advice than i knew what to do with. what i needed was information i could trust on how to take care of me and my baby. luckily, unitedhealthcare has a simple program that helps moms stay on track with their doctors and get the right care and guidance-before and after the baby is born. simple is good right now. (anncr vo) innovations that work for you. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. neil: is this instability in iraq were not enough to push up gas prices is no bipartisan push to hayek the gas tax it is

joining us is paul wolfowitz. ambassador, welcome.put it this way, we focus on iraq appropriately enough, it's where the worst things are happening right now. but what we're dealing with is a region wide phenomenon of al-qaeda and particularly al-qaeda in syria and iraq. i think the challenge is not to stop the violence from escalating. the challenge is to defeat al-qaeda in syria and iraq first, but then also to stop the spread of taliban violence into pakistan, the growth of al-qaeda in libya, and we should be saying al-qaeda, when you say sunni and shiite to most americans, their eyes glaze over. if you say al-qaeda, people understand what we're talking about. and that's what these groups are. >> true. they've taken over the sunni area. has the al-qaeda affiliate isis. so i'm seeing like many that if you go and say you're protecting the government, tale becoming all shia government. so we're taking a side. correct? >> that's the challenge. we've had that challenge in other situations where we don't much care for the government, but

also the question of bookers on our shows, bringing in repeatedly people like paul bremmer and paul wolfowitz were as responsible as anybody for this whole thing. >> a strange kind of metadebate has erupted. everything that's happening there, it's hard to find good silver linings. the conversation politically here about who has standing in this debate, and they're people making the argument you can't constrain the boundaries of debate, people lose and people might have been wrong once before, they might be right again, what do you say to that? >> i have some experience with this? i put out a fairly ill considered tweet a few days ago, saying, how about this -- if you stump for the war, maybe we don't need your advice now. oh, you're going to lock up people that disagree. that's not my point. my point is, if you were really grossly in error on this particular topic, on the likely consequences of military operations in this country, at least you should have a little bit of deference or retticence in saying, i was wrong then. i think in the last couple days, there's been some kind of shock aware

. >> when paul wolfowitz testified before the iraq war, he said there's not going to be a problem. there's no history of ethnic strife in this country. they didn't know what they were doing. they didn't know the region, they didn't care. and there's no way that we're going to be able to send in air strikes or limited amounts of military supplies that's going to change the general political dynamic. if you don't address that, nothing else matters. >> as i said a few moments ago, if we can't figure out richmond, we can't figure out baghdad. thank you, gentlemen. thank you, congressman. and thank you david corn. coming up, we all remember where we were 20 years ago. the murders of o.j. simpson's wife and her friend. the white bronco chase, the trial of the century. tonight, we have new information on the case we didn't know about then. a witness said he saw o.j. simpson disposing of evidence. plus, the hard right is triumphant over eric cantor's defeat this tuesday. now hungry for more victories to knock off more incumbents. and clearly they want the next majority leader for the house

in yet another middle eastern quagmire as the crisis in iraq continues to worsen people like paul wolfowitz bill kristol paul bremmer even dick cheney have come out of whatever hole they've been living in to offer their expert advice on what the u.s. should do to stop a new civil war in iraq a country that we destroyed eleven years ago not surprisingly the same people who pushed for war back in two thousand and three of the same people who are pushing for war now well paul bremer for example says that while he's not in favor of sending troops into combat right now they could imagine the u.s. needing to put boots on the ground in iraq in the near future. if our interests are that broad we should not be ruling things out now i'm not in favor of sending combat forces into iraq at the moment but i can well imagine that we would have to have some troops on the ground for example right i'm with the rude pundit who had a say rather insightful commentary on this bremmer cheney and everyone else like them are warmongers who have the blood of four thousand americans and hundreds of thousands of iraqi

it's wise to remember what the neo-cons told us before the invasion like paul wolfowitz on how the war will pay for itself. >> the oil revenue could are bring --. they could finance its own reconstruction soon. >> why did we do it for a trillion dollars? or bill crystal's testimony before the senate foreign relations committee in 2002 when he said, american and alliance forces will be welcomed in baghdad as liberators. who could forget this line? i believe demolishing hussein is's military power and liberating iraq would be a cakewalk. today on "morning joe" bremer defended the bush administration actions in iraq. >> iraqis lusted to choose their own government. don't get into this we are trying to shove democracy down somebody's throat. >> we did take out hussein, right? >> right. >> america, not the iraqi people. >> right. therefore, what? >> therefore we then tried to impose democracy in that country. >> we did not impose democracy. get away from that. it's not true. the facts are in the other direction on that subject. anyway, it's not the point right now. we are where we are. >> w

because what happened was we went to war after they told us, paul wolfowitz told us there are no sectarianles in iraq. he was talking the eric shinseki at the time, remember that? they're not going to rise up against each other. there's no evidence of that. then we went in, were there for 11 year, then drew down as president bush set up a timeline and we asked to keep some soldiers there and al maliki said no to an agreement. we left. they're ringing us up on the phone asking us to come back because the half a million men we trained have melted. is there anybody pushing back? >> pushing back meaning against acti sure. nancy pelosi is. nancy pelosi says it was a mistake to get in there in the first place and we don't want to make a mistake and get back in there, but here is the point. i don't think we go back, if we go back and we're not going to go back to anything like the 2003 invasion with hundreds of troops let alone thousands of troops. if we go back, we're not going back to try to fix iraq. the only reason that makes sense to go back is for our direct national security interests beca

>>> one guy who does not agree with general petraeus and by extension my friend the general, paul wolfowitz. his argument is this. either we get involved in this and try to stabilize this or we'll all regret it and whatever they're doing over there, they'll do over here. tonight, 8:00 p.m., fbn. >>> her heard drive destroyed. her e-mails gone forever. meet the computer guy who says, the irs, bs. (vo) after 50 years of designing cars for crash survival, subaru has developed our most revolutionary feature yet. a car that can see trouble... ...and stop itself to avoid it. when the insurance institute for highway safety tested front crash prevention nobody beat subaru models with eyesight. not honda. not ford or any other brand. subaru eyesight. an extra set of eyes, every time you drive. at od, whatever business you're in, that's the business we're in with premium service like one of the best on-time delivery records and a low claims ratio, we do whatever it takes to make your business our business. od. helping the world keep promises. when a pro at any 2014 pga tour event sinks a hole-in-one,

specifically, there in that clip that we just showed, that was paul wolfowitz trying to shut up then chief of staff, eric shinseki, who had said publicly, we would probably need a much larger force to try to hold iraq together than the bush administration wanted to say that we would have to send. iraq did descend into chaos and then into sectarian and regional civil war, as soon as saddam hussein was ousted and the army was disbanded. over more than eight terrible years fighting there, the american fight in iraq was not so much against the iraqi army, which basically dissolved on contact with the initial invasion in 2003, before it was formally disbanded, the fight was instead between iraqi factions and terrorist groups and insurgent militia groups fighting against each other and against u.s. forces. and u.s. forces ended their combat operations in iraq, on the timetable established by the bush administration in 2010, and therefore, the iraqi government would not consent to any agreement to keep u.s. forces after that point, well, then, u.s. forces did leave. all of them. and natural

switching gears to iraq, paul wolfowitz, former defense secretary and infamously an architects of the iraq war said this earlier to nbc's chuck todd. >> doesn't matter that much if iraq ends up in different pieces. frankly, i think the most likely result is much greater autonomy an one of malaki's big mistakes is trying to dominate the sunni areas and not giving them autono autonomy. >> he sees partition of iraq as a real responsibility and with another ten years under saddam hussein, iraq would be an even more broken country. do you think that's right? >> well, to stay with the first part, even more than partition, i think you are going to see the break-up or dismantlement of iraq. partition sounds too clean and neat for what we'll see. we will have the south and baghdad under the control essentially of iran. mr. malaki is serving iranian interest. the shia plurality or majority in iraq will live in that area. the kurds in the north are going to have what will amount to be their own state within iraqi borders and then you will have this area where sunnis will live, groups like isis w

starting with paul wolfowitz, bush's number two at the pentagon.aimed iraqi oil revenue would help pay for the war and mocked warnings that 20,000 u.s. troops would be needed as, quote, wildly off the mark. now he's calling for action. >> this is more than just an obscure shconflict. this is al qaeda. >> the sh ia/sunni split is obscure? he's disqualifying himself all over again. paul bremer, bush's envoy to iraq. in 2003 he signed the disastrous order to disband the iraqi army. in 2006 he admitted, quote, we really didn't see the insurgency coming. today he said the u.s. needs boots on the ground again in iraq. >> i'm not in favor of sending combat forces into iraq at the moment. but i can well imagine that we would have to have some troop ares on the ground. a big mistake we made was pulling troops out in 2011. it took away our political influence. >> the mistake we made was going to iraq in the first place. an even bigger mistake would be listening to bush's old team like andy card, bush's former chief of staff. in 2002 he set up the white house

and harry reid, you're probably aware of this, tweeted a picture of you, paul wolfowitz, dick chain wey thing i want to hear from iraq war architects is an apology. what's your response? >> well, harry reid's not going to get an insincere apology from me. i'm not a politician. i'm not apologizing for something that i think was not wrong. the war to remove saddam was the right thing and necessary thing to do. we can debate, carl can go on how terrible it was, i can debate what harry reid said before the surge it wouldn't work. we can go over the failure to leave a force there the failure to get involved in syria which i think is the real disaster but i would like to say in my defense and other people that have tried to right things the the last few days. let's look at the situation on the ground and not relitigate the past and what do we now do? this is a real crisis. if isis dominates a huge chunk of iraq and sear why and establishes a terrorist state there, that's a crisis for the united states. if iran extends its borders in effect west into iraq this is a crisis. let's have a seriou

. >> i'm not a military expert -- >> paul wolfowitz, some called him the architect of the original warferently and handled very differently. >> the specific issue of

i will say quickly, though, paul wolfowitz and rumsfeld said there's going to be no sectarian vie sgle violence. most folks said there would be some except those folks. let's make sure history is accurate. it's going to have to be a shia leader but one that's moderate and will reach out. for someone like me who lost 19 men in my unit in iraq and i was there and got back ten years ago, to see all the blood that we invested in that country and we gave it to them and they did have a central government, but maliki is part of the problem. he's not part of the solution. and he has to go. i understand a big announcement this week of 300 troops going in there, but we have to precondition that military support, because it's not a military solution, it's a political one. we have to get there by getting rid of maliki. and it's not we, it's the iraqi people and the iraqi government that has to get him to go. >> what i'm so excited about is having both of you here because both of you were there, so you have firsthand knowledge of what it's like on the ground. mikey, what do you say to that? is ther

let me first get your reaction to the presence of dick cheney and paul wolfowitz having greater militarye two individuals have no credibility with the world public, and i hope they have no credibility anymore with the u.s. public. we were all lied into this war and, in fact, it's a feature of democracies that they do tend to be -- they do tend to be lied into wars, and we can look at what's happened in syria. it's not just what's happened with dick cheney and wolfowitz, but actually what has happened in syria is obama's war, and that war has now crossed over into the border in iraq. the u.s. policy positions on this latest isis position are quite incomprehensible. it supports isis in syria. it supports saudi money supporting sunni militants in syria. it it supports iran's position on the isis in iraq and more broadly speaking, it supports a position against iran, for example in syria and i think perhaps the one thing that might come from this very difficult situation for the people in iraq is a greater collaboration between the united states and iran, the united states and russia to try

paul wolfowitz. judy miller, disgraced "new york times" reporter the newspaper had to apologize for after they ran her bogus pro-iraq war stories over and over and over again on the front page helping make a national case for that war that was false. judith miller, literally her. not just somebody who looks like her. there she is back on fox news in this case making the case for iraq war again. it is very frustrating to see that this is the way that we handle debates about foreign policy in this country. we take people who were so provably, terribly wrong and bring them back and treat them like experts on the very subject they have been so wrong about. it is maddening. their argument for taking them seriously is to ignore everything they've said up to this point. for neoconservative pundits it's a guaranteed job security. pushed for armed conflict and if it descends into chaos, that's reason to push for more armed conflict. there are no consequences for being so wrong all the time. it is frustrating.

i asked paul wolfowitz about that a short time ago. >> for those looking at the pictures coming out ofraq saying, look, this is the sunni/shia divide playing out. and this is exactly why we shouldn't have gone there in the first place. what do you say to that? >> well, i think first of all, we'd be looking at a much worse situation today if we had saddam hussein in iraq and assad in syria and the iranian thugs in iran. and i don't know how people think we would've gotten from where we were in 2003 to the syrian revolution three years ago with saddam hussein in power and been better off. we have got to deal with this. but i think to assume that it's just shia versus sunni, it's something obscure. people should remember it was a sunni group that hated us, hated the west, that attacked us on 9/11, that still hates us and carries these black flags of hatred and that, i think, poses a real threat to the united states. >> well, white house correspondent michelle kosinski joins me now live. administration officials said they were surprised this escalated as quickly as it has. the intelligence

i turned on "meet the press" and i saw paul wolfowitz. i thought it was a rerun. >> i think part of it is bringing those voices into the updated conversation. >> why? why are they back? >> well, because they have something to say obviously. >> which is? more war. >> they're not saying more war. >> they're saying get in there and start shooting. >> look, chris -- >> take sides and shoot in the war. >> i think their articles -- >> read it. >> the articles speak for themselves. to your question of why they are back in the conversation, i think a lot of the networks, ours included, are looking for voices to contrast against what the public is saying now and what the new realities now. >> playing devil's advocate -- >> how do you justify -- you saw dick cheney say the war was won. everyone looked at the screen and said, are you kidding me? that's part of the ongoing narrative about where american people are now on this argument about the war. >> this is a bartels & james ad here with his daughter. i think they are selling new sodee-pop or a wi

former deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz was on msnbc earlier saying is stopping isis was "about." i know that you believe that there is a potential terrorist threat from the isis if they succeed in taking iraq and succeed in thriving in syria. is that overstating is the case, do you think, another 9/11? >> that's a worst possible case. these guys are setting up shop in syria and parts of iraq. they're not unique, by the way. you've probably got a dozen countries in africa and the middle east where the central governments are unable or unwilling to police their own territory. we've got to the assume some of these individuals will get on airplanes and some of them will get through our security and police systems. that's just -- that's what life is like. but that doesn't necessarily argue for specific action. also, i think it's important to realize that what we've done is set in motion in the middle east over the years a set of policies where we help destroy existing authorities, and we've helped create vacuums where groups liking this now are able to gain traction and pose a threa