area and he established military bases to support this policy of protecting the flow of persian gulf oil and then wars were fought as well in line with the policy these men west are united in pioneering a new run dear of progress. serving the interest of the saudi arabs. serving the interests of the united states. and demonstrating the high caliber of the american system of free enterprise. which from this new frontier is nothing into the trade of the world oil. one of the material that is making a truly great contribution to our modern civilization. one of the reasons and the reason for the primary one for the invasion of iraq is to ensure u.s. control of really major energy resources in the world when the embassy in which one will be inside baghdad is a city sort of no other embassy and story around the world they're not building the embassy. in syria rakim the huge bases around with an intention to leave they're building the moon pension to maintain control. since two thousand and three the us has built dozens of military bases in iraq in chief thousand and eight the us and iraqi

think as a matter of defense planning, we cannot and must not understate the centrality of the persian gulf. the rebalancing of asian has been good up to a point because it reminded countries in that region including china that we are still very much a pacific power, that this is as important as any other, and that it has a lot positive going on that makes it important to stay involved. but the middle east while it has positive things, too has problems like iran that make it impossible to ignore. >> dr. o hanlon, thank you very much for these looks at the defensive establishment.hanlon, much for these looks at the defensive establishment.'hanlon much for these looks at the defensive establishment. we have a couple of gifts for you. one is our coin. >> thank you very much. >> and a thank a you gift that we hope you use go forward and continue to be our conscious in the defense establish the. >> thanks to you all. >>> libya's prime minister is here in the nation's capital today and he's speaking this morning at the carnegie endowment for international peace. he will be introduced by the vice

as we cripple our programs, the persian gulf is where world economy operates.t's a threat to have them be a able to threaten casualties to the u.s., it's a risk to the region and a substantial risk to the united states and ultimately it is something that cannot be tolerated. >> thank you, mr. speaker. you started this morning by talking about your commitment to the u.s. embassy being in the capitol of jerusalem and we know your commitment to that goal is based in part of your own personal connection to israel, the country and its people. can i ask you, please, for those in the audience who have not heard you speak about it before, to talk about i donyour own impressions of israel the country, israel the society? >> i was moved to be part of the 3,000th anniversary of the founding of david city, for anybody in our tradition, israel is the promised land has an echo that goes to our very heart and it's a deep part of who we are as a peeople. i grew up being reminded of the importance of israel, the term gideon's army. sampson bringing down the temple. the fact is

and i remember visiting the uss stanley in the persian gulf. first thing that i did when i came to a ship, was always to go down to engineering spaces and ask them the last time the commanding officer visited the engineering spaces. the railings were so hot that you could not hold on to them. so we have come a long way since then. i remained at the end of this hearing because i was quite surprised, to hear the response with respect to the questions from chairman levin and senator mccain regarding the independent study for the layout from okinawa and guam that we had mandated, and perhaps this is just a miscoordination, because it's not under the jurisdiction of the department of the navy, but i hope what you said is not right. we have mandated by law that there be an independent study and that they would report to the secretary of defense 90 days after the signing of the national defense authorization bill which was december 31st, which means it the study was supposed to be contracted and give its first report in two weeks and the secretary of

tunisia, libya, egypt, maybe syria, and in the persian gulf area i've been talked to -- i talked to a number of ambassadors there. they are all concerned about radicalism taking over. although we want to get rid of people like moammar gadhafi and mubarak, although he was a pretty good friend as far as the camp david accords were concerned, although we want to get rid of the bad guys, i want to know what we're doing to know we're not supporting a bigger problem than we already have. i understand we want to get rid of people that are persecuting their populations. but we also have to be concerned about what it means to the united states as far as energy is concerned, stability in the region, israel and all those things. and i'd like to know what guarantees we have that the governments we're supporting over there or fledgling governments we're supporting over there are not radicalized and supporting or implementing shah rhee yacht law and thus we would face a more difficult problem down the road than we face right now. >> congressman, with respect to israel, i can assure you that not onl

stanley in the persian gulf like in 1987. the first thing i would do when i would go aboard ship, it came from my youngster crews at the naval academy when i worked with engineering spaces with the s p snipes was always to go down into the engineering spaces and to ask them the last time their commanding officer had visited the engineering spaces. the railings on the ladder going down into the engineering spaces were so hot, you couldn't hold onto them. we've come a long way since then. i remain at the end of this hearing, almost at the end of this hearing, because i was quite surprised, secretary mavis, to hear the response with respect to the questions from chairman 11 and senator mccain regarding this independent study for the layout from okinawa and guam that we had mandated. because this is -- and perhaps this is just a miscoordination because i know it's not under the jurisdiction of the department of the navy, but i hope what you said is not right. we have mandated by law that there be an independent study and that the

i know sunni countries along the persian gulf are extremely concerned as well as the united states in the region with a nuclear iran with the government we have in place in iran. >> i don't think there are any elements that necessarily would view a nuclear armed iran as a positive. on the contrary i think it's an endless list of negatives that would come around if you had further spread of nuclear weapons in the region. but we have to take a step back here because that's not what we're discussing. we're not discussing whether iran should or shouldn't have nuclear weapons. what the negotiationers being focused on is whether there should be any enrichment in iran and under what circumstances. we are taking this issue to a far higher level of hysteria that it doesn't deserve to be at right now. iranians have a very impressive and mighty arsenal of zero nuclear weapons right now. that is not to say we shouldn't be careful and we shouldn't be very prudent in trying to look at every option. but what we're not talking about is weapons. what we're talking about, either containment or hitting

imports from the persian gulf these days. the research department dug into it, and it turns out, persian gulf oil is just over 16% of u.s. imports. most of our imported oil, nearly 24%, comes from canada. fewer american women are staying married. preventing dangerous drug reactions for people taking several prescriptions. and searchers find more bodies in the wreck of the "costa concorida" when the cbs evening news continues. so now i can take the lead on a science adventure. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator, working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure bef

given the uptick of tensions in the persian gulf and the presence of our military in the region, i'm interested to know about our potential vulnerabilities of our own military to cyberattacks in the gulf on that electrical infrastructure that our military depends on, and i'm thinking about this from the perspective of the u.s. military's reliance on fuel in the region, fuel that can't be produced without the electricity that runs oil extraction wells and refineries and that powers pumps for offloading fuel for storage and use. do we have an assessment of how dependent u.s. military in the gulf is on electricity infrastructure? do we have a backup plan if there were to be a prolonged grid outage and do we understand the constitution and vulnerability of the electricity grid in the persian gulf well enough to measure the effect on the oil production transportation system, especially but not limited to the oil refineries there? thank you for letting me direct that trio of questions at you. >> senator, i thought you were going to ask me if i got the new ipad. i thought that's how we were

world is not ready for a catastrophe this point because any war that it will be ignited in the persian gulf is going to be devastating for everybody in the world and so with that in mind while you may be having a change of mindset here letting people into it what is a military base we've been me. i think the reason if we have a war right now started nobody would know. but i think that's part of the war of the day the first day of the war it's going to cost the world economy over one trillion dollars you have the oil market was shot down and the persian gulf if i'm reading analysis from the israeli and from the american what are the target is going to be head on both sides we're looking at very devastating economic impact on both sides i think that israeli will pay very heavily economically because there's all these missiles that's going to help israel and the world market and the oil market is going to stop from the street or harmless and probably will reach two hundred to one hundred fifty dollars and we know when the oil goes what's going to happen to the economy of the world we have the

, and as long as we follow the current policy of crippling our energy programs, the persian gulf is the fulcrum on which the world economy operates. threat to have a nuclear armed iran sitting there with the capacity to bully its neighbors, and to frankly threaten enormous casualties for the u.s. if we engage them. i think it is an enormous risk for the region. it's a substantial risk to the united states. and ultimately it is something that simply can't be tolerated. >> from today's apec conference, comments of former house speaker and presidential candidate newt gingrich. we'll have more from today's news conference with the president and this question from cbs white house correspondent norah o'donnell. >> today is super tuesday so i wonder if you might weigh in on some of your republican presidential opponents. mitt romney has criticized you on iran and said hope is not a foreign policy. he also said that you are america's most feckless president since carter. what would you like to say to mr. romney? >> good luck tonight. >> no, really. >> really. >> one of the one or two lig

so this is a sector what was the plan from the beginning to build the persian gulf we have a little puppet in tripoli. i thought of the needle as we call it not was stuff. he's saying that he's going to intervene in so he's going to be what a couple of immigrants will come after two point zero is going to intervene against the people of syria nika all over again because they are splintering this is a tribal problem in libya we have been talking about this on our t.v. for months and i've been writing about this as on the other commentators the tribes in eastern libya have been antagonizing a central government tripoli for decades if not centuries and this is a second what's happening because of the sprinter nato doesn't care of course the u.s. the brits and the french don't care as long as they have contracts with tripoli what happens in the eastern part they don't care this is going to be more or less ruled by saudi arabia qatar so you don't think it off a lebia longtime dictator moammar gadhafi any better off than it was before and of course not and this is what you know for the faster ei

navy is beefing up its fleet in the persian gulf. what is the message here for us at home? how close are we to a possible armed conflict with iran? a former national security advisor to president reagan joins us next. >>> plus a 15-year-old girl vanishes on her way to school. what police found on the side of the road to make them suspect foul play. this is $100,000. we asked total strangers to watch it for us. thank you so much, i appreciate it, i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money ? if your bank takes more money than a stranger, you need an ally. ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. do about medicare and social security... security. that's what matters to me... me? i've been paying in all these years... years washington's been talking at us, but they never really listen... listen...it's not just some line item on a budget; it's what i'll have to live on... i live on branson street, and i have something to say... [ male announcer ] aarp is bringing the conversation on medicare and social security out fro

since the have threatened to close the persian gulf, you would need to take of the navy and a lot of the air force. this is not a raid like we have seen before in iraq and syria. it is a big deal. it has a lot of consequences. we have to think through it. i believe there is some hope. the iranians are in a real economic squeeze now. first of all, they have a bad economic system. second, the embargoes are having some effect. the valuation of their currency has gone down about 30% in the last six months. they are feeling the pain. unfortunately, a lot of innocent people suffer. that is something you are always concerned about, but the alternatives are pretty grim. in a war, there would be even more suffering. the embargo has to be tightened. we have to do everything we can to persuade china and russia. the europeans are assertive, talking about cutting off the import of iranian oil. all of that may have an effect. anything regarding iran these days, if there is a bright spot, it is a dark red spot. the dark bright spot is they contend over and over again, though we do not believe them

what happens to the world economies if we cannot ship strategic resources out of the persian gulf?ens if we cannot stop iran from closing the strait of hormuz? there are too many trouble spots in to many regions for us to abandon the two conflict strategy. the first round of cuts forced us to abandon the defense, on doing the military defense in the budget control act and that will allow us to return to that proven strategy. the third and final pillar is to restore a military chewed up from 10 years of fighting. this is the longest war we have had in our history. when the increase defense spending during the bush years, we spend money on things like body armor u,av's and armored vehicles. we did not upgrade replacement systems that were canceled during the clinton years. today's military is by and large a smaller version of the reagan military. most of the planes, ships, and tanks were built during his administration. we must end this on official procurement holiday and get our forces the tools they need to win the current war and to deter future wars. that means repairing and repl

the middle east, but on the other hand, it would like to see the united states tied down in the persian gulf because that means we have fewer resources to deal with china eastertorial ambitions in east asia. so i think that choina is going to try to play both sides because it wants iran's help. they have a long relationship with tehran, and it's not about to give that em to please anybody else. >> fundamental anxiety, your worst fear from the u.s. perspective is there may be rhetorical opportunity. maybe this thing will cool off. but other nations, most notably china and russia, kriblt contribute to their variables. how do you view those relationships? >> china and russia have taken a position on syria, where they have taken a much harder line saying we will not support military action. we want to give the syrian government more of an opportunity to find and negotiate its settlement. they are sticking with the regime. pretty much the rest of the world wants the regime to go. the reason they are doing that has to do with self-interests. russia wants to maintain relations. they are also oppose

it is the rising tensions in the persian gulf, the rising possibility of a collision not only between israel and iran, but the united states and iran, before this election i think is driving up the price of oil. and it's going so high it could threaten the economies of europe, john. this issue of iran and oil and gasoline prices are all coming together. i think it's going to be the principle issue in the fall election. >> let me move along before i turn to you. okay, presidential candidate rick santorum blames obama for knicksing keystone! >> we now have $4-gallon gasoline. it's going to $5 or maybe more this year. why? because the president's doing nothing to allay the fears of the world that america is going to try and help replace the oil that is tenuous now in the middle east. >> question, can president obama reverse his position on the ski stone pipeline? he negated the pipeline a couple month ago. >> first of all, pat is right about the nightmare scenario, if there is military action israel against iran. that might bring us $5 a gallon gas. so i think the president mightily does

the islamic republic of iran that it works within the parameters of peace and stability in the persian gulf and plays an active role in changes enveloping the region and the world elections have shown once again the solidarity and disposition of the iranian people reformists have always had an active political role to play the expressed opinion of the electorate reflects their support for a rainy and foreign policy currently the iranian government's objectives lie in achieving prosperity for our people security for our country and for the region we're working to achieve these objectives more than we have done before with background because. wealthy british scientists are. sometimes the type of. market finiteness come to. why no one should really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cause a report on our. lose lose. its tso. just see. liz. listen. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. today live. america's involvement i

you have a lack of communication which means that an accident in the persian gulf in particular can spark a larger conflict. i think also there is another component here. since the abandonment of diplomacy, an assumption that seems to have died in the obama administration's policy is the belief that the only time iran really backtracked was in 2003 and that was because there was an incredible military threat hanging over its head with the invasion of iraq. and of course the invasion of afghanistan. the belief has been that one has to re-create that perception of threat in order to get the iranians to come to the table to really deal seriously are perhaps one could put it as -- but this is not with the intent of actually starting a war. i do not believe that the obama administration really would like to go to war or have the intent for it but in order to create the image that it is ready for it, to maximize concessions out of the iranians and force them to the table as a talking point. this is a tremendous and dangerous approach in my opinion. partly because a, the premise of it is quite q

the islamic republic of iran that it works within the parameters of peace and stability in the persian gulf and plays an active role in changes enveloping the region and the world elections have shown once again the solidarity and disposition of the iranian people reformists have always had an active political role to play by the expressed opinion of the electorate reflects their support for iranian foreign policy currently the iranian government's objectives lie in achieving prosperity for our people security for our country and for the region we're working to achieve these objectives more than we have done before back on because. there's you know soon as you know and and i know. this is not cold those are not patriotic like the american flag but this song tells it otherwise. their words through song it says we will stand forever as a nation under the flag. meaning the red white and blue stripes. race to today is a stupid time to be the clouds on the outside. but their heart is scream of anger . the heart. of all kinds of struggles and they allow the choose. to allow these things to stay t

in the shipments of arms to hezbollah and hamas and to protect the freedom of the seas and the persian gulf and the indian ocean. we share these interests with israel. we have exact ly the same interests. so we must face the threat of those interests together. four years ago in marking the 60th anniversary of israel, i noticed that while the bonds of israel and the u.s. have grown strong her in the decades, it was not until the events of 9/1 1 that most americans fully, fully appreciated the sacrifices that israel has made to preserve a fragile peace, but as strong as those bonds have become, we cannot allow past or current expressions off mutual respect and goodwill to obscure the urgency of the iranian threat. rather, we must build on that hes tri of sha history of shared interests and shared respect to overcome a flawed policy and to develop the right one that the current situation demands. congress, and look, congress has played that role in the past, and current events compel us to do so again. and we will not shrink from that duty. israel's security is not negotiable. [ applause ] we

japan of course imports a large percentage of oil from saudi arabia, and the persian gulf, so it is very susceptible to the current concerns over oil supply disruptions. ai? >> we will keep track of energy related stocks. domestically then what else can investors be watching for today? >> retail stock investors should really hang around until the close because right after the close we're going to have fast retailing, operator of clothes stores coming out with february sales figures. that will be a crucial number there, but fast retailing of course one of the highlights in the retailing sector. a lot of investors will be looking at that as well, and of course keeping an eye on oil and also some of the energy related stocks as well. for now, back to you, ai? >> thanks for that update. ramin mellegard from the tokyo stock exchange. >>> the european debt crisis pushed the jobless rate to the highest since the launch of the euro in 1999. the european union statistics office said thursday that the eurozone unemployment rate rose to 10.7% in january. that's 0.1 percentage point higher than the

the islamic republic of iran that it works within the parameters of peace and stability in the persian gulf and plays an active role in changes enveloping the region and the world elections have shown once again the solidarity and disposition of the iranian people reformists have always had an active political role to play that the expressed opinion of the electorate reflects their support for a rainy and foreign policy currently the iranian government's objectives lie in achieving prosperity for our people security for our country and for the region we're working to achieve these objectives more than we have done before. us or stand shoulder green and one party or another socialism has spread the shadow of the regimentation over most of the nations of europe. i and the shadow is encroaching upon all of her to. leave early twenty first century military bases a network of military bases all around the forms of the new empire that the united states is trying something that's astonishing most americans have no idea there are more than a quarter of a million more than two hundred fifty thousand

iran would employ some or all of those to hit multiple targets in the crowded middle east and persian gulf neighborhood, where u.s. warships patrol. >> and it would very likely carry out attacks using those tools, targeting israeli, jewish and probably other american and western targets as well. we'd see rockets falling on us bases in the gulf and we'd probably see some sort of effort to block the strait. >> reporter: absurd, says alfoneh, the iranian leadership, is not suicidal. >> iran and the iranian regime is much more interested in survival than in revenge. and that is the policy that they have shown for many, many years. >> reporter: but jeffrey goldberg sees a danger of escalation even if tehran's senior leaders choose caution over retaliation. >> i find a third argument even more plausible, which is that an accident will happen. in other words, the persian gulf is filled with these small iranian speed boats run by the iranian revolutionary guard corps. and all it takes is one hyperactive commander acting on his own to ram, or try to ram a u.s. ship, and then all hell breaks loose,

we see these playing out best and exemplified through the issue of the three islands and the persian gulf and what i was brought up to known as the arab gulf. so these issues continue to define aspects of their relation. and these are position that's transcend which govern iran. they continue to be relevant today. and it's no surprise in this context that many arab regimes and arab governments at least at the leadership level, they're more worried about the nuclear iran than they are about the nuclear israel. and in a sense, israel's ability to be at the head and influence the arab politics is limited. for many reasons. iran has not. and so iran with nuclear weapons today is a bigger problem for government for arab governments than nuclear israel. i'm not going to talk about the gulf, by the way. this is true in jordan. this is true in egypt and elsewhere. iran, however, sought to replace this problematic narrative, the points of tension with a super narrative, with another narrative that allows them access at least to the arab street and public opinion. and that is a narrative of resista

part of a group enroute to the persian gulf and the strait of hormuz. >>> and that brings us to our finalort tonight. help for u.s. military veterans. when you think about it, their job while in uniform is to get the job done. now ask yourself, if you're an employer, don't you want someone like that on your payroll? that's the gist of our companywide campaign called hiring our heroes. a joint commitment by nbc universal and the chamber of commerce, which in the past year has held more than 100 job fairs for vets and their spouses. thousands of people have been hired. nbc's chris jansing has the story of two of those vets who got the help they needed. >> reporter: after five deployments in iraq and afghanistan, marine sergeant xavier reese wasn't expecting a struggle like this. 18 months of bouncing from one temporary job to another. >> i had stored up all my money, because i got to prepare for the fact that i may not get a job when i get home. >> reporter: frustrated he packed his 2005 mazda and drove 40 hours straight, from california, through phoenix and albuquerque, memphis to birmingh

since they threatened to close the persian gulf, you need to take out the navy and a lot of their airis is not a raid like we have seen before on iraq and syria. this is a big deal. has a lot of consequences. we have to think through it. i do believe there is some hope because the iranians are in a real economic squeeze now. first of all, they have a bad economic system. second, the embargoes are having some effect. the evaluation of the currency has gone down 30% in the last six months. so they are feeling the pain. unfortunately, a lot of innocent people suffer. that is something you are always concerned about. the alternatives are grim. if we had a war, there would be more suffering. the embargo has to be tightened. we have to do everything we can to persuade china and russia to be in it. we are talking about cutting off the import of iranian oil. all that may have an effect. there is anything regarding iran these days that is a bright spot is a dark bright spot. the one dark bright spot here is that they intend over and over again, although we don't believe them, they don't have a

someone like iran to be able to pull supply off the marketplace putting it through the canal to the persian gulf. that makes people extremely nervous about the ability of supply of crude oil to meet the demands of the u.s. and globally. >> the one thing that's really interesting. i worked for a company that covered oil and natural gas liquids. one of the things that i saw quite consistently are the paper trigs. the number of paper trades. it's not physical barrels trading hands that are driving up the price. a lot of it is speculators. >> it's funny. when prices are going up, we call them speculators. and when they are not, they are investors. they are a critical piece of any commodity trading. and when you talk to people who are really very deeply involved in that, it's a small piece. it's probably less than 25% of even the conversation, but it's part of the conversation. >> it's a big part. >> do speculators -- when they are wrong, you'd think the free market would discourage wrong speculation. correct speculation is good. i think it's going to go up because iran is going to do this. if it's r

. >> i think is betterically persian gulf ut otsgo if you look at theles zogby has an incredtory of being durps eric it keeber outsi-- if polls today, he's at the bottom of the not lost on even terrorist organizations like hamas. our demands hamas are the quartet demands on ma'am as, which hamas to be accepted as a responsible player needs to accept the quartet cons of recognition israel, renunciation of violence and adherence to all the agreements that have been signed between the plo and israel. so it's interesting that in telling that even -- that even hamas can stomach what bashar is doing to his people but it doesn't change our calculation. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator rubio. >> thank you both for being here today. ambassador ford, thank you for your service. it's one thing to sit here and talk about these things. it's another to be there. a quick question before i get to the bigger one i think this is probably for you secretary feltmen. i read that the head of the venezuelaia oil isn't prohibited from shipping oil. >> it is technically correct that they're not prohibit pd.