chris: this is great stuff, because here's richard holbrooke, who i thought was a hillary guy. he was one of the people in your book that says, wait a minute, your war problems? i thought she was part of the team, katty? >> it reflects the ambivalence. to suggest that he was gung ho for this war from the beginning. he was a man that said he wanted this open airing of discussion, he wanted hillary to say what hews vie are. chris: did he want her to be more hawkish than him? was this a good political move? >> i don't think that was it necessarily. i think he genuinely wanted the open debate that he felt there wasn't during the bush administration, that he felt this was the right way to run the presidency. the risk is that you have these kind of divisions in public. >> it was historical when colin powell, his outside advisor, comes in and says, you are the commander in chief. you can make these decisions. chris: david, i have to bring this, too, before i get back to bob and andrea, i want to have you as an outside observer here. it seems odd if you're talking about a president who

joining me now is richard holbrooke, holbrooke the u.s. special representative for afghanistan and pakistan. he joins me from the state department. welcome back, ambassador holbrooke. >> great to be with you again, fareed. >> so let's start with the talks. is it, in fact, the case that we are seeing senior taliban leaders, the kind of people who can commit the taliban to some kind of a peace deal, come out and actually talk to us? >> in the exact sense you just asked the question, my answer would be negative. i think the press has left the impression that negotiations of the type which ultimately ended the war in vietnam in 1973 and ultimately ended the war in bosnia in 1995 are somehow breaking out. that is just not the case, fareed. what we've got here is an increasing number of taliban at high levels saying, hey, we want to talk. i think this is a result in large part of the growing pressure they're under from general petraeus and the isaf command. and in that sense, your introduction, linking the two issues, is very appropriate. >> but

apart from that old excuses offered by richard holbrooke that you can't touch the poor ever going to farmers because they would join to tell about you jill carroll offered his new excuse that is it is up to the ever going to government to make a decision let me remind that this excuse would make sense only and when that nation will regain the total so over into for the time being the ever going to government is neither willing or able to authorize or exit cute the aerial eradication because it was due to the us occupation that corruption and the drug proliferation have skyrocketed obviously neither today not tomorrow the united states is not going to deal effectively with the opium eradication until the russian federation real offer a powerful stimulus for the united states to reckon suter its drug promotion polish that you know afghanistan the only way russia can influence u.s. policy regarding the drugs is to draw a lesson from the pakistan that is to condition the northern supply route from russia to afghanistan for the u.s. forces to make it conditional on their review of the you

special representative to the region, richard holbrooke. >> woodruff: then, we'll talk to three media analysts about the controversy surrounding national public radio's firing of analyst juan williams. >> brown: special correspondent betsy stark reports on an ohio house campaign in a district battered by job losses. >> more people collect unemployment checks than work in manufacturing jobs. plus mark shields and david brooks >> woodruff: plus, mark shields and david brooks provide their weekly analysis. that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the united states made a new move to ease tensions with pakistan today. it came in the form of a new five-year program of military assistance. margaret warner has the story. >> warner: secretary of state clinton announced the $2 billion in aid with pakistan

envoy richard holbrook over election fraud turned explosive. and u.s. officials have even voiced doubts about karzai's middle state. the recent bob woodward book, obama's war, cited intelligence that karzai has been diagnosed as man i can depressive. it quotes u.s. ambassador carl ikeen bury as saying he's on his meds, he's off his meds. the concerns over karzai's reliability have come as u.s. forces try to gain the upper hand over the taliban before beginning to draw down next summer. more than 1350 americans have died in the afghan war since 2001. for contrasting views of this, for contrasting views of this, ali jalali served as a former afghan interior minister. he's now a distinguished professor at national defense university here in the u.s. steven clemons is a senior fellow at the new america foundation, a washington think tank, and publisher of a blog, the washington note. mr. clemons, what do you make of all this new discord, i guess you would call it, between president karzai and the u.s. government? >> well, i think as your commentary showed e

i am trying to bring more of a perspective from the international world, things that richard holbrooke deals with. it is great to be here with you and here with ambassador holbrooke and we're going to chat for the next half-hour. i would like to first welcome you and appreciate you have changed your schedule to be here in front of this important audience. this is being streamed on line as well. let's start with where david left off. you have known david through several imprisonments and arrests. >> all of them. >> detentions. first in bosnia which i was covering and i remember being there and david was with the serbs at the time. how do you remember those days? there you were trying to forge peace and having to deal with the humanitarian [unintelligible] as well. >> we decided to stop the negotiations until david was released. i remember someone saying you are crazy enough to stop the negotiations for one journalists who should not have been where he was? i said yes. after three days they got him out. we got a -- my most vivid memory is the last time i saw david before captivity. it wa

special representative for central asia richard holbrooke first suggested this idea that instead of eradicating drug crops the u.s. should target drug labs and traffickers which was almost a year ago the number of labs producing drugs for russia has tripled a year ago we knew about one hundred seventy labs in afghanistan today we know of more than four hundred laps of producing drugs for russia for some reason it doesn't seem possible for nato to get rid of the poppy fields in afghanistan and yet at the same time it seems that they're quite successful or not necessarily nato but it has been proven that getting rid of for example plants in colombia can be quite successful so are we not talking about it here double standards here where they can solve the problem in one country and cannot solve the problem in another country for some reason. because when i visited the nato headquarters in brussels to address the russian nato council i pointed out that more than two thousand three hundred square kilometers of coca crop are destroyed in colombia annually good only twenty square kilometers a drug cro

special representative for central asia richard holbrooke first suggested this idea that instead of eradicating drug crops the u.s. should target drug labs and traffickers which was almost a year ago the number of labs producing drugs for russia has tripled a year ago we knew about one hundred seventy labs in afghanistan today we know of more than four hundred laps of producing drugs for russia but this is not seem to be a paradox that when afghanistan was under the control of the taliban the production was significantly lower than it is now and it has risen dramatically after the u.s. invasion nine years ago what what is the problem how is this fitting into the picture and the statements that nato is trying to fight the drug trade in afghanistan in your opinion. you're right i had a meeting with my pakistani colleagues here in islamabad and they too were amazed at this phenomenon there's only one way to explain it when the taliban sought official recognition for its kabul regime and they took on president of measures to eradicate oppin poppy crops they consistently took serious steps in one ni

special representative for central asia richard holbrooke first suggested this idea that instead of eradicating drug crops the u.s. should target drug labs and traffickers which was almost a year ago the number of laps producing drugs for russia has tripled a year ago we knew about one hundred seventy labs in afghanistan today we know of more than four hundred laps they're producing drugs for russia. and you can watch the full interview with victoria even off in about fifteen minutes tyler right here on r.t. . well the alleged russian arms trafficker is pealing against a thai court's ruling that he should be extradited i had rather to the u.s. victor boots a lawyers claim there's a no evidence against him and insists the judge should question witnesses his family fears that if extradite him he would be forced to confess on the was already unstable it's quite possible the extradite him and just look him up on some aircraft carrier and force him to give whatever testimony the u.s. wants him to give i think they'll go as far as it takes to get it and i'm sure everyone understands they're playing t

eleven but yesterday and italian journalists on the italian public television right interview richard holbrooke which is the u.s. envoy to afghanistan who basically corrected our. statements d'italia speight statements to say saying that actually the united states are now leaving in two thousand and eleven they will be starting to leave and that. italy is asked to of follow due coalition and to stay as long as the situation on the ground are so hard we're getting some conflicting reports here on how long the troops are going to be staying whether it's italy or america tell me this though do you think it's always really gaining anything by sending its troops to fight and die in afghanistan. yes or no i mean the problem is that we are not there because our government or our establishment in general is concerned about the situation in afghanistan so we're not really there for strategic calculation the one we're there because it's a way two hundred to coalition and differentiate that we have with the united states it's more political engagement right this is something which is very crude if you lik