can i just say about general petraeus and his role. when he was the field commander in iraq he was the frund man and he would come and give the testimony to congress and so on. his superior at sent com, you wouldn't see so much of. now he's at coentcom and his proper role is to be one step back. i was there last week and they are doing, petraeus' staff is doing some really valuable research and evaluation of the situation on the ground in afghanistan. they're feeding that information into mcchrystal. so, i think that his role is, you know, there's all this, we always indulge in the political speculation and all the rest, who's in and who's out. i think that petraeus is doing what is proper for the position that he's in now. obviously, this is going to be a very controversial decision, whichever way it goes. if it doesn't go for more troops, mccain and the neoconservatives will go berserk. if the president does double down, the left wing of his party will have some great questions. that's why we elect presidents to make very tough decis

general petraeus, the commander of the u.s. central command, you heard john mccain make the reference there. general petraeus made some news today by contradicting reports he has endorsed the call for more troops to afghanistan. >> it is always appropriate to go back to what's the mission, and what is it that we want to accomplish? and that is what is being discussed right now. we're not yet at the point of talking about resources or numbers or what have you. in fact, i have not yet endorsed the resources. that is something that i can assure you has not leaked and is exceedingly closely held, although that is about to be introduced into the equation. >> "nbc nightly news" anchor brian williams joins us live now. brian, i'm so curious to hear about the followup question to that. as you know, if general petraeus is not ready to go along yet with more troops in afghanistan, that's a pretty big deal. >> it is. david and alex, you can go a little blind trying to read the tea leaves. at so many levels, petraeus, west point class of '

we'll be back to talk about general petraeus. is this guy running for president? we'll be right back with david corn and jonathan martin who knows his politics. general petraeus will have an easy time in new hampshire. (announcer) regular kool-aid. goes almost three times further than soda. kool aid. delivering more smiles per gallon. what if you could capture the fresh taste of broccoli in a luscious soup? v8 garden broccoli. from campbell's. velvety, delicious. campbell's v8 soups. also, try new garden vegetable blend. the energy to get the economy humming again. the energy to tackle challenges like climate change. what if that energy, came from an energy company. every day, chevron invests $62 million in people. in ideas. seeking, teaching, building. fueling growth around the world, to move us all ahead. this is the power of human energy. chevron. as the decades have past, the promise of medicare has always been there. and aarp has fought to guarantee none of the benefits you earned were ever taken away. today we're continuing that fight by protecting your free

strategic studies in london, but the administration does not want general mccrystal and general petraeus before the senate armed services committee. how does that work? >> congressman vick snyder, a veteran of the vietnam war and 7 terms on the house armed services committee says he has no doubt mcchrystal will testify but does doubt the alternative to his plan that are under consideration. >> i don't see how vice president biden's approach will work. i don't see how it works to do air strikes from a distance to somehow think that you can knock out al qaeda from the air with limited resources on the ground. >> snyder went on to say that the white house is encouraging in this period of strategy review. one assessment by military commanders and civilian commanders alike, something the congressman said was lacking in the last administration. bret. bret: james, thanks n other world news, israel got its first glimpse of soldier shalib since his capture three years ago. hamas militants released this video after israel released 19 female palestinian prisoners. he sent his love to his parents an

general david petraeus was diagnosed with early stage pros test cancer in february. the radiation treatment is considered successful. his office says it didn't affect his workload much. petraeus kept all this private, though key administration officials knew about it. >>> a man who fell out of a hot air balloon in albuquerque is in serious condition. it struck a tent yesterday, and the man fell about 25 feet to the ground. the 70-year-old has a dislocated hip. >> we saw the man cartwheel out at about 35 feet. he didn't hit the tent. what he did was he landed it looks like right on the the aspha asphalt. >> you can probably see the balloon rose quickly with a passenger out of the basket. then the pilot brought it down quickly to check on her passenger. she was a little banged up from the hard lan landing. >>> brett favre has been on the helm many of times when green bay teamed up on the football field. find out how he did against his long time team. >>> an alabama woman is in trouble for apparently allowing her teenage daughter to ride in a box on top of their van. po

. >>> today in washington, i interviewed david petraeus. the general has been in on these talks on afghanistan with president obama. he said, again, today, it's a far different war. a direct outgrowth of 9/11. among other things, i asked about the main reason u.s. troops went to that place eight years ago, osama bin laden. on your top list going forward, where does osama bin laden fit on those? >> well, bin laden obviously has enormous iconic importance and a degree of operational importance. it's really his deputy issuing the instructions. the top two are of significant importance. and, it is obviously a focus of a lot of folks in the central command area, responsibility and partner agencies, eventually to locate the individuals and to kill or capture them. >> bears repeating there. general petraeus saying bin laden is of enormous importance and operational importance to the u.s. a focus of a big effort by the military. it's an hour long interview. you can see it on our website, nightly.msnbc.com. >>> the month of september saw the end of

david petraeus, has prostate cancer. doctors say that the disease is in its early stages and the treatment is positive. in the bottom box, cooler weather helping to get california wild fires under control. full containment could come on thursday. martha: bertha lewis, the leader of the acorn has just released their own internal reports. she said, -- this, as new details are emerging on embezzlement. eric sean is in the news room. what did she say about the white house in her comments? >> she said there is no sinister when house -- white house acorn connection. they were involved in some past efforts, but today, she responded to a question about any type of white house connections, especially with top advisers. she said there is no connection. basically, trying to tamp down any relationship between the two. martha: she is talking about news that is not coming out, acorn embezzlement. >> we have known about this, about $1 million. this is from the brother of one of the founders of acorn. he embezzled $1 million. there is a

one of the other things to years ago when general petraeus testified he was joined by ambassador crockerto sort of report in from iraq and obviously some things have changed. the green zone has now been disbursed in terms of the new u.s. embassy and you are in a different physical location, and as congressman sanchez indicated the political challenges facing iraq are still as much a part of the end game as it was two years ago. how is the relationship between your office or you interact, and what efforts are still being made by ast to keep moving forward on the political and? >> thank you so much for the question. we interact every single day. we probably meet personally three or four times a week. i have an office in the embassy. i also have about 300 people within mnfi that are in support of economic police, training, other agencies, planning that are there every single day working with the embassies we are completely integrated at every level and continue to be completely integrated. we are updating the campaign plan which is a joint plan between ambassador hill and myself. we are wor

brian: and maybe general david petraeus. steve: while they say no politics involved, oh, come on, it's politics. brian: let's talk about iran. over the weekend the iaea and a secret report in the report says that iran really does have the ability to make an atomic bomb and this country has been working on it through their intelligence, through their defense department for the past few years. kind of turning on its head our own intelligent report from 2007 that says they stopped doing that in 2003. gretchen: have you got to wonder if the government workers who are looking into this can't figure out what's going on in iran how is the american public supposed to understand what's going on in iran. i was amazed to see that now they are going to go back in just a report that's two years old now going to say oh yeah, by the way, they are closing to making the bomb. didn't we find out in the last week that we knew they had the secret site for more than two years? gretchen: how did they come up with that original report in 2007 that

petraeus said today in the d.c. area that everyone agrees more afghan fighters, more soldiers need to be trained to take on that fight, they are in place to do it, the sooner we can surrender some responsibilities to them and the sea for it will be for the afghan people. they say they are facing an industrial strength insurgency and the sooner we put it down, the better everyone will be. shepard: but are those troops trainable? we shall see. thank you. president obama vowed to close guantanamo bay by january, 2010, but but today eric holder said it will be very difficult to shut that down by the deadline. the problem, according to eric holder, is to find out where to put the detainees who are already there. it is very difficult to transfer them from debt owed to u.s. presence. critics claim that many of the detainee's, many of them terror suspects, are too dangerous. i think that we have a very good track record. fox news is tracking h1n1, and the beginning of what might be the largest in isolation in u.s. history.

petraeus was shot, bleeding a lot, rushed to a nearby hospital. a doctor needed over five hours of surgery to save his life that doctor was former senate majority leader and heart surgeon bill frist. he joins us now with that story along with the story about his brand new book, "a heart to serve." it's your story and a look at what health care is today. was he a general then? >> no. everybody said what about this story? he was a battalion commander, fort campbell, kentucky. i was out at a soccer match with my son. got a telephone call long before politics. went in, and about an hour and a half later, about a 15-inch insignificance, opened the chest, my hand around his lungs, stoppedded the bleeding. he had been accidentally shot with a m-16 by one of his soldiers, recovered well. 16 years later we were back in iraq training troops for the future. brian: never going to forget it. >> i don't know. he was a great man. he was a battalion commander. not a general. i never even thought about politics at the time. that's what i write about in the book, c

rather ambassador crocker and general petraeus knew how to leverage our presence to ensure the iraqi leadership made the right choices. i am concerned we may be retreating from this posture to quickly in an effort to normalize our relationship with iraq. we must remember this is an embryonic democracy. as much as the situation in iraq has improved they think it's fair to say the situation is far from normal. so long as we have the force presence in i becker leadership should continue to improve itself in iraq and involve itself in the iraqi political affairs to ensure the right decisions are made. robust engagement seems to be the key to a redeployment plan. beyond the strategic and political military concerns, there are a host of issues ranging from operational implementation of the advisory and assist brigade to the enormous logistical challenges of moving all their equipment out of iraq. accomplishing this all in such a narrow window of time is a herculean task even if we do not face what you rightly called drivers of instability. i hope we can discuss these issues over the course

general petraeus diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer back in february.he radiation is said to be successful, the treatment, and his office says it didn't affect his work schedule very much. petraeus kept it private, but key administration officials did know about it. >>> a formation of black hawk helicopters is flying over downtown tulsa right now, part of the national guard aerial assault group. later this week the choppers and crew will leave fort seal and eventually board transport planes to begin a year-long mission in iraq. >>> late-night tv host david letterman admits his past sexual relationship with staff members caused serious problems in his marriage. he talked about last week's surprise announcement during the broadcast last night. he apologized to his staff for exposing them to intense scrutiny. also cracked jokes at his own expense but turned serious when he talked about the impact on his wife. >> the other thing is my wife regina. she has been horribly hurt by my behavior, and when something happens like that, if you hurt a person, and it's

general mcchrystal and general petraeus best field commanders think it's necessary. this should not be a difficult call. >> brett: juan, do you think it's possible could side with vice president biden and disregard or decide against general mcchrystal? >> yes, think he could. it would come at some tremendous political costs. the other political side of the equation that has been ignored in this conversation so far, is that most americans, while we want to win the war in afghanistan don't want to send more troops to afghanistan. this is true amongst republicans. the left in this countries obviously is very war weary but the right is war weary. some think it's republicans are critics of the president and wants to send more troops. that is not the case. without seeing any substantial progress in afghanistan come to the forefront instead of the question about fraud and even sort of a narco terrorist connection to the karzai government, people are dubious in what exactly we are trying to accomplish. that is where think the problem lies. if you say we're out to defeat the

that said, we worked very carefully, i work carefully with general petraeus in order to identify any capabilities that we have in no longer need that could be used in afghanistan but we have done that over the last several months and we will continue to do that. we will not require within power plant i have flexibility to speed up if i think the situation on the ground allows it or to slow down. we will-- i will continue to make those judgments as we move forward. as i announce we will probably be down 120,000 strength by the end of october. that is a bit faster than we originally planned and that is based on the improvement we have seen in anbar province where we have now replaced two brigades with one brigade oughten anbar and so we are able to make those decisions as we see progress on the ground and we will continue to do that so what i have to do is dilatorily do this without losing the gains we have made well understanding i cannot have forces there that will not-- that are not being used efficiently. >> general, iran has been in the news a great deal lately. what influence doe

included secretary of state hillary rodham clinton, defense secretary, robert gates and general david petraeus, who's in charge of the central command. >> we need to have the number of troops recommended. >> it is critical if you ask young americans to put their lives on the line, the strategy is equal to the sacrifice you're asking them to make. >> some have argued that u.s. drones can do the job. those planes killed six alleged militants today. republican leaders are charging any delay endangers u.s. troops. >>> urgency to pass health care reform, columbus day break for the u.s. senate. majority harry reid canceled the week long recess today coming after lawmakers request to pass a final health care bill by thanksgiving. congressional leaders planned on an end of the year deadline. the debate over health care is getting even more heated. house republicans are looking for an apology from grayson of floridwho criticized what he deemed the gop house plan on the house floor. >> do you want the democratic plan or the republican plan. remember the republican plan, don't get sick. if you do get sic

he did general petraeus. general mcchrystal killed zarqawi. our best field commanders think this is necessary. this should not be a difficult call. >> do you think it's possible he could side with vice president biden and decide against general mcchrystal's advice, the general he put on the ground? >> yes, i think he could and it would come, though, at some tremendous political cost. but let me just say that the other political side of the equation that has been ignored in this conversation so far is that most americans, while we want to win the war in afghanistan, do not want to send more troops to afghanistan. this is true even among republicans. the left in this country is very war-weary, but the right is also war-weary. some think it's just republicans. that's not the case. this country after eight years in afghanistan without seeing any substantial progress, without seeing a stable government come to the forefront instead of this question of fraud and sort of the narco-terrorist connection to the karzai government, people are dubious what

we need more generals like general petraeus.s to do what petraeus taught the generation of offices of what to do, and he tries to make his case as he was asked to, and he gets hammered for it. i think the white house is going both ways on this, and if i have criticism this week it's less for mcchrystal and more for the policy makers in the white house who i think are delaying this and exposing mcchrystal and making mcchrystal the fall guy if i read the last few days' headlines right, and that doesn't sit well with me. >> and whether you want to talk about the stimulus package or health care or going back to the state legislature, let things come to him and then he tries to sort them out. he may not have that luxury in afghanistan? >> no, he doesn't. and i think as david is saying, i think the review signals that. i interviewed obama in may and i asked him what has been the hardest mow maments so far. and he said without any hesitation and with passion he said 17,000 troops in afghanistan, and went into a long answer about that.

the head of central command, general david petraeus, says president obama should be allowed to settle what's the mission? what is it that we want to accomplish? and that is what is being discussed right now. we're not yet at the point of talking about resources or numbers or what have you. in fact, i have not yet endorsed the resources. >> general petraeus will be part of the national security team meeting with president obama twice next week to consider the best strategy for afghanistan. >>> kidnap survivor elizabeth smart minced no words, testifying in court about her horrifying ordeal seven years ago. the now 21-year-old smart accused her captor, brian david mitchell, of raping her three or four times a day for nine months, keeping her tied up and threatening to kill her if she tried to escape. smart described mitchell as "evil, wicked, selfish, not spiritual, not religious, and not close to god." >>> here's your friday forecast. a large storm brings rain to the midwest, the ohio valley and the gulf coast. stormy across south florida. the southwest remains dry with a high fire dang

it is much more than general petraeus in iraq.ill be an interesting couple of weeks, because this decision must be made it pretty soon. this weekend, a group of senators were well versed in foreign-policy. it will be an interesting discussion about afghanistan, iran, and of things coming out of the geneva convention. shepard: thank you. in the morning, you get bret baier, next "fox news sunday." if you are pregnant, you will one -- want to stick around for our next story. the centers for disease control are released in new numbers about pregnant women who have contracted a 21 flu, including how many of them have not survived the virus. pregnant women are said to be very vulnerable to this. . [captioning made possible by fox news channel] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- shepard: we're tracking h1n1. the new statistic for the centers for disease control. the cdc says that 28 pregnant women across the united states have died after catching the virus. the agency says that 700 pregnant women caught the

i wanted to talk to you about a conversation i have with general petraeus earlier this year when i wastalking about the electrocution deaths of some of our soldiers, and i was told there was an operation task force safe and they were going to do an investigation. and i believe the investigation was supposed to end about now. again, comes some horrible news about a former military man who came as a contractor to iraq, and he was recently electrocuted. so i had a couple questiones. was his facility inspected or were you only inspecting facilities that soldiers occupied? >> it was not inspected. what happens, as a contractor, it's the responsibility of the contractor to have adequate facilities, so we were not insuspectinging the -- inspecting those facilities. however, since then, we have outlined to the contractors what is expected of them in terms of proper safety requirements. and we have also offered them any assistance they need, and go and look at all their facilities so make sure they're in line with safe structures. >> since we we knew we were havg trouble with contractors, why w

>> i think general mccrystal and petraeus saying winning this war determines how we work with not howwe work against not just about killing or capturing, also about getting in and working closely with people across that spectrum. i think part of this new strategy is going to have to be how do we better establish our relationships with the people. >> brian: what about that point mr. ambassador? it is historically, a very difficult place to operate. >> it is. it has been the graveyard of history, british, soviets. we have to start thinking about the future. general mccrystal has said don't get the support within a year the game may be up. think of the impact in that part of the world, pakistanis have an idea that the americans are fair weather friends they will pack up and leave this will send wrong signals to those who want the americans out we cannot afford to pack up and leave. >> brian: i have trouble with this one thing lieutenant core knoll in iraq it seems things got better when we put enough people on the ground. in vietnam we learned you have to go in with an over -- overwhelmi

mcchrystal on counterterrorism and petraeus on counterinsurgency, the best in the world who know how this is done and who conclude you cannot do a counterterrorism strategy, only counterinsurgency and aidle he is reliesing on biden, rahm emanuel and himself to go against the advice of these experts. hard to believe. >> he is in a bit of a bind here because the base of his party doesn't want to do anything in afghanistan, it would appear, but on the other hand, if you do not put in the troops that general mcchrystal wants and has recommended, you are taking a big risk that if something happens with al qaeda from afghanistan, that he would be blamed for the rest of his presidency for not having followed the advice of his generals. >> that is true. vice president biden and perhaps general colin powell and general jim jones and others are advising that the threat really remains now in pakistan, and that al qaeda is concentrated there, and that if we spend resources we don't have militarily in afghanistan at this point, to go after the taliban, when al cad da -- al qaeda is an internation

>> i think it's even money that he will and that general petraeus will as well. those two guys have the guts to say mr. president, i can't do it, and lay down their stars. >> that would be huge, a very huge thing. k.t. mcfarland, jed, thank you both, and it's a scary time for the united states of america. >>> being forced to buy health insurance or pay a fine for notg having it. w we're going to ask a group ofo e people who are faced with thatam predicament, possibly. we're going to talk to them next. don't go away. we've got a lot on the show you're not going to want to miss.  >>> i believe that members of congress ought to be reminded for us.. work we don't work for them. rather than continue to spendsh money they don't have and push deficits through the sky and make it tough for families to get jobs and pay their bills, bl they need to balance the budgetg cut their spending, and saven american families from the daste disaster of debt and deficits. now, i'm collecting electronic signatures to deliver a messagec to congress, and i want

the military, mcchrystal, mullen, petraeus, all saying no. >> mcchrystal was asked, could you support it? he said no. now, some people are likening to the mac arthur/truman dispute. this is very different. it's worse. truman had a clear policy reiterated. here, mcchrystal is not differing with policy. the administration seems to be backing away from its own policy. into this vacuum, he's asked questions. not surprisingly, a week ago, with my customary mistake, i said he would be up there testifying very soon. evidently not. instead, he's talking in london and answering questions that are making life difficult for the white house. >> that'because, that could affect the decision, politically, and they don't want that happening, obviously. his point there, that you just heard, about not breaking promises, i think is a very important one. a ban in afghanistan again, could have an impact on us. this is really very serious thing that we would be doing here. >> we're talking about nonmilitary. smarter alternatives. >> it's not there to protect these people. the possibility of taliban taking

general petraeus who is a big advocate of general mcchrystal's plan, when he took over the command inraq, wanted every one of the troop requests made public so there's a debate over it made public. and what we're seeing now is general mcchrystal's assessment made its way to the public domain. a very public debate about this putting pressure on president obama and but -- and also, making the white house push back to some degree on what do you need and how does it fit with what our objectives really are in afghanistan and pakistan? >> do you get a sense there's friction between the president and general mcchrystal? >> i don't know there f there's friction. president obama asked the general to come over from london while the president was in copenhagen for the olympic's bid. a day before the general given a speech in london essentially said anything less than what he's asking for is not going to be successful. i wouldn't be surprised if there were a little bit of that conversation where about let's try to keep it more internal. let's not make this debate public. let's not give our nato a

. >>> general david petraeus was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer in february. radiation treatment is considered successful. he kept his illness private was administration officials knew all about it. >>> tyler perry reveals intimate details of his troubled childhood in new orleans including physical and sexual abuse. that's the news for now, i'm mike galanos.

and then we finally got it together with the anbar awakening and the surge and general petraeus takinghe right direction. now general mcchrystal is trying to do the same thing with afghanistan after we fought afghanistan wrong for eight years and i think general mcchrystal deserves support frankly. i hope the white house forgets about its reluctant. if we lose afghanistan, we may well end up with a pakistan with nuclear weapons in the hands of the taliban and islamist radicals and that whole part of the world could go very, very sour indeed. >> some are calling this a clear defining moment in this young administration. this could, as you said, mean worldwide implications. >> well, the president started out exactly right on this. he appointed general mcchrystal, who's a real expert on counter insurgency. he said this was the war he wanted to essentially have fought right. and for the first six months of -- six, seven months of the administration, it looked like they were going to work on repeating the success that general petraeus had had in iraq by going general mcchrystal's route. now

remember, general david petraeus, the hero of the surge in iraq who is now the commander of iraq andprostate cancer and he had all of that rigorous therapy. i think he was out of the loop and that is why i think the mcchrystal memo got leaked. >> i have a different theory why it took so long. because ann and her friends had us in iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction when we should have been in afghanistan maybe about seven years ago, that might be why is took so long. >> as long as you mention it, i would like to take this opportunity to mention what a disaster it is to move the focus of the war on terrorism from iraq to afghanistan. we win in afghanistan when you didn't have all the muslim focusing on afghanistan. it is not a good country for our military power where we can dominate from the air. we can't do that in afghanistan with the mountains and the caves. >> geraldo: that is where the bad guys are. >> i think the problem is. >> that is why you want to keep them focused on iraq just as george bush was doing. >> i think you have a strategic problem when you want to fight

we also talk to the guys like david petraeus, we talk to guys like general mcchrystal and fact of theatter is it the president has to make a decision. will he stand with his generals and win this war and keep america safe or is he going to cow tow to the liberals in congress. if we pull out, it has terrible ramifications. it also sends as terrible signal if we pull out prematurely to iran, to the russians, the chinese. we have to not to stay the course, but we have to -- one of the they thinks about this battle here that happened yesterday is that we didn't have enough troops where we needed held. and we need on to send the troops in, we need to back up our generals, and we need to win this war because that does have implications for us back home. in vietnam, they were not going to attack the united states. what happened in afghanistan with 9/11, the taliban and the al qaeda decided to organize in afghanistan and that had ramifications back home. so that's yits's so vitally important for us to win this battle and win this war. >> so, peter, do you think the president wants the troops

that's what the office of general david petraeus is saying. it says he was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer back in february. the radiation treatment is considered successful. his office says it did not affect his work schedule much and he kept it private, but that cue administration officials knew about it. >>> richard is here. if you're staying around for the next hour, so is he. i understand the economy is hammering the one industry that everyone thinks is recession proof. >> that's right. but not anymore, robin! we're talking about the adult sex industry. it is feeling the pain now. the next hour, we'll look at where we can see the downturn there and what is still selling in the sex industry. >>> plus a strategy in florida when a little boy asks his mom if he can take the wheel. what happens there. it is a catastrophe there. >>> plus if jon and kate gosselin saga just got a little nastier. stick around for the latest in the fight that just won't quit. >> i always thought the one recession proof industry was alcohol. >> that may s

on the other side you do see military as mara justalked about admira mullin, general petraeus and general crystal,omewhere in the middleo secretary gates and clinton. both of whom have been hawkish to some extent in the pt, but i don't think have given full-toated endoements yet to the full mccrystal, if you will. >> charlie: where is m jones? >> i tnk jim jone and robbie manual t chief of sr are re step particular call of trul stall full, heavy commitment of additional troops. certainlmore so than in march. >> charlie: ins both of you are required to some othe scussion that are going in, reaching out so thathe white house reaching out to you guys, to try to express a point of viewwhere is the predent? can yotell anythg by his questions how he sees the circumstance >> i think -- look, he said publicly tt he's skeical. that is probably true not just a way of signaing to the left that he'sin to their concerns he genuinely is reluctant to go with the 40,000 troop increase, that sort of size ofthings. the initial surge, if you will of tros he sentarlier in the year 21,000, probably any presid

win a war, yet, when you look at afghanistan, nobody's ever won there before and yesterday general petraeus said we're not going to make the same mistakes the soviets made when they were in afghanistan. isn't adding 40,000 more troops doing exactly what the soviets did? >> it might. it depends what kinds of troops they are and if they're special forces and special operations forces focused on specific areas to get rid of the al qaeda and ca taliban. it's going to take a long period of time. a lot of money and a lot of patience from americans. if all we're going to do is send lots of troops over there, you can bet they're not going to be successful. i think this is the problem the president's confronting and you're absolutely right about generals. look, anybody who asks a general is going to get the same answer. how many troops you want? i want them all. there is no such thing as too many resources. the real test is what you do with them. i think ultimately the president of the united states is going to come down, likely, in the middle. he's going to give some troops for a period of time but

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it was a different thing when general petraeus came to talk about the choices in iraq.s a big public hearing before congress. that was a way that the public could better understand. trying to squelch any generals opinion, it is hard to understand. bill: thousands of more nato troops, the other problem coming is the chain of command. general mcchrystal has to follow it. can you understand? >> general mcchrystal's responsibility is to say okay, you want me to accomplish this mission, this is what it will take to accomplish that mission. the president can say yes or no or make another adjustment. i hope that the president does not make a compromise with the mission remains the same and the general has his hands tied behind his back. bill: we will see exactly what comes out of this white house. bipartisan members of the house and senate, he said that he believes within 18 months afghanistan could be secure. that is a tall order. >> i would say that general mcchrystal is at the top of this list. numbers and approves, only a different strategy. he needs to be backed up all of

troops over there now for a full counter insurgency strategy such as president bush through general petraeus laid out so clearly and accomplished in iraq we are going to see more of the taliban coming in to afghanistan with their al-qaeda friends, giving them the potential to restore the planning platform from which they launched 9/11 and there is no higher priority than focusing on and dealing with this problem right now. >> shannon: senator let's talk about another international hot spot, obviously iran and the issues about its nuclear program. we have dates, apparently october 25th for inspection of one the covert facilities we have only recently discovered or gone public with. another of your col leaks on the sunday shows talked about sanctions. is that the path we need to go down? it has been tried. do we try that again or where do we go next? >> we had robust actions against iran. iran has lied to the world three times, been caught red handed three times. what they love to do is talk. the longer we talk the more they have take advantage of what they have and now it is because of the un

david petraeus was diagnosed with early stage cancer in february. yes undergarment two months of successful -- he has undergone a two months of successful treatment, which did not interfere with his job. jon: president obama will discuss afghanistan and pakistan today with key members of congress at the white house. john mccain, ranking member of the armed services committee, will be one of those at today's meeting. he says it would be a mistake to scale back afghan efforts against the taliban and narrow the scope is defining al qaeda. >> you cannot separate the two. if the taliban takes over -- not to mention the horrible things that would happen to the afghan people, but i strongly disagree with those who allege that they are similar problems. jon: karl rove served at a white house -- at the white house as a chief adviser. he is here to talk about afghan policy and issues related to health care. the president is in an uncomfortable situation. he picked general mcchrystal to run the war there, firing his predecessor, and then general mcchrystal say

we're not going to commit the numbers of troops that general petraeus' doctrine of counter insurgency says we ought to. so we're clearly going down some other road here, and we better make sure we know what that road is and where it leads to. >> we do recognize that he has a tough you decision, and he wants ample time to make a good decision. frankly, i support that, but we need to remember that every day that goes by the troops that we do have there are in greater danger. >> the president is going to make a decision, popular or unpopular, based on what he thinks is the best interest of the country. >> today's anniversary comes as the dynamic changes in afghanistan. one enemy's role is fading but another is gaining strength. more on that story in less than 15 minutes. >>> new details that you need to know about in an e-mail scam even more people may be affected. the scam started with hotmail. microsoft says users were tricked into revealing their passwo passwords. now some people using google, yahoo and other e-mail services were also tricked. the big worry is many people use one pass

david petraeus was diagnosised with prostate cancer. he kept this private but key administration officials knew all about it. >>> and tiler perry is sharing a painful past with his fans. he reveals intimate details of physical and sexual abuse in his child hood. >>> did cbs dump david letterman over a sex scandal? some say it is time for the king of late night to step off the throne. plus once again republicans are using smear tactics to gain political ground and once again it's working. and joining me on the studio, lewis black. how fabulous is he. all that and more tonight. >>> tonight some people are saying cbs should fire letterman over the sex scandal but their ratings have been huge. i don't think anyone is getting more out of the scandal than letterman himself. take a look. >> it's fall here in new york city. oi spent the whole weekend raking my hate mail. and it's cold. chilly outside my house. chilly inside my house. i got into the car this morning and the navigation lady wasn't speaking to me. ouch. and he apologized to his wi

i think general petraeus demonstrated in the iraq that if you pay attention to what the commanders sayto accomplish the mission, that is what you should fund and that is what you should finance. i think the mission without a change has been to confront al qaeda and the taliban, eradicate al qaeda and their sanctuary and render the taliban neutral any stay as is the type of thing on troops right now, i think stretches that goal. we have not been able to reduce the taliban. they have tripled since march. they have tripled. i think general mike krystle's request is justified -- general machrystle's request is justified. host: did you vote with senator mccain? guest: i did. i think i realized enough information from the generals on the ground where it was absolutely essential that the senate and house be able to hear the testimony of our commanders before a decision is made. guest: finally, one to get your reaction to the new unemployment number. 9.8% as employers cut to a hundred 60,000 jobs. host: -- guest: state tax levels were at their lowest level in decades. our federal revenues have

when moveon.org took on general petraeus with inappropriate ads you saw them stand up to denounce it. the republican party has refused to stand up to glenn beck or rush limbaugh. ? or glenn buck. >> thank you, robert. valerie bertinelli joins me next. >>> dad, don't you think we should be able to spend our money on a car if we want to? >> not if it doesn't make good sense. your mother was absolutely right for getting it. there's only one sensible solution. >> i know, keep taking the bus. >> actually i was thinking of buying you a new car. dad, who wants to ride a bus to school every day, i mean -- dad! oh! >> from there to here, it's been a long, long road and my next guest has certainly navigated it well. i'm happy to have the author of finding it with, val valerie bertinelli. >> you could haven't been cuter. >> that's all i had. >> i was watching this clip before and i saw mackenzie was in it as well. she was very young. was that whole thing going with her father before the show? >> this is the first season. i don't think it happened a little bit after when she was 19 or 17. she's 1

when moveon.org took on general petraeus with inappropriate ads you saw them stand up to denounce it.can party has refused to stand up to glenn beck or rush limbaugh. or glenn buck. >> thank you, robert. valerie bertinelli joins me next.              >>> dad, don't you think we should be able to spend our money on a car if we want to? >> not if it doesn't make good sense. your mother was absolutely right for getting it. there's only one sensible solution. >> i know, keep taking the bus. >> actually i was thinking of buying you a new car. dad, who wants to ride a bus to school every day, i mean -- dad! oh! >> from there to here, it's been a long, long road and my next guest has certainly navigated it well. i'm happy to have the author of finding it with, val valerie bertinelli. >> you could haven't been cuter. >> that's all i had. >> i was watching this clip before and i saw mackenzie was in it as well. she was very young. was that whole thing going with her father before the show? >> this is the first season. i don't think it happened a little bit after when she was 19 or

i think we have a little problem back in iraq and they finally listened to general petraeus that we needede troops. boy, look what happened. things calmed down. i think president obama ought to listen to his general when his general asks for more troops. let's give them the tools they need to win. let's not leave them with the bare minimum. let's get the job done and focused on other hot spots where we have to calm things down. that is my opinion. >> john is up next in beaumont. how are you? >> caller: i'm good mr. roberts. how about yourself? >> good. >> caller: this is being turned into another vietnam. obama said he was going to bring the troops home. well, he lied. the lawmakers whose children went to college to get out of line. the americans whose sons and daughters going overseas should be able to vote. no more troops should be sent. we should concentrate on bringing the troops home. >> tom, hi. >> caller: i agree with john in texas in pulling them out of there. the ground commanders do need to have more troops over there for security purposes. but we need to use diplomacy to pull ev

this is a former advisor to general david petraeus and he says, now, the only counter insurgency in the good, if the government is good and therefore, you have corruption and you have a government that the people there don't even believe is on their side. therefore, none of this will ever take hold so you have to reform first, and then you can then build what you were talking about, building schools and trying to drive down suicide attacks. on ap on and on. >> well, i mean, i think ultimately this down to two questions the president has to answer. first, do what general mcchrystal wants and send 40,000 extra troops or pull back in some sense and before he gets into these in particular details, and you need to answer that question. i thought it was interesting that the taliban, these poppy farmers are not tacked in any way and they're talking about that could be a path to suck success and gets the money from the people who get income from selling drugs. >> i've not heard that before. that's interesting. >> and the taliban has found a way to tax those people who beastically organizationed

i think general petraeus demonstrated in the iraq that if you pay attention to what the commanders sayd to accomplish the mission, that is what you should fund and that is what you should finance. i think the mission without a change has been to confront al qaeda and the taliban, eradicate al qaeda and their sanctuary and render the taliban neutral any stay as is the type of thing on troops right now, i think stretches that goal. we have not been able to reduce the taliban. they have tripled since march. i think general mcchrystal's request for more troops is a justified requests. it would have to be rejected only on sound facts or a change in the mission. i attended general jones's briefing, which was a secure briefing, the night before. i realize there was enough information i needed from the generals on the ground. i believe it is absolutely essential for the senate and house to hear the testimony of the generals before we make decisions. host: i want to get your reaction to the new unemployment number. guest: our economy is still in trouble. there are a lot of indicators that have

are looking at -- i have guard confidence that the president will agree to general mcchrystal and petraeusadmiral mullins' recommendation. we will need more money for operations and maintenance because we will be sending more men and women and equipment to afghanistan. so what is in this bill? a $3 billion reduction. well, and what's in its place? i'll be going over some of the projects that are in its place, mr. president. well, one of the more egregious items in the legislation we're considering today is the addition of $2.5 billion, for 10 c-17 globe master cargo aircraft. first let's have a little background. recognizing that the department's total requirement for 180 c-17 aircraft had well been exceeded for three consecutive years, the bush administration had actively tried to close down the production line for c-17's. nonetheless earlier this earlier this year there were eight more added for $2.5 billion to the 2009 supplemental spending bill. a bill that is supposed to be used to fund the wars in iraq and afghanistan. the final version of the bill included all eight of these aircraf