they wanted to have a war against iraq they wanted to have saddam taken out after nine eleven you know one of the one of the things i found amusing these and richard clarke who was the. white house terrorism czar for many years wrote a book in two thousand and four came out and said the day after nine eleven bush came up to me and said you know can you check one more time can you link this attack to iraq and the bush white house you know attacked him called him a liar this that the other well in fact the first time they brought up iraq and nine eleven was on nine eleven you know. dick clarke was absolutely correct and if there is if we look at the historical record there's no denying that's what they would have wanted to do. was it i mean i've seen two kind of conflicting strands of history around that one is the. notion that. iraq is the center of the arab world the arab world an unstable place we've got to protect our ally israel cetera et cetera and if we can just put a giant footprint in the middle of iraq we've got it and you know arguably that was the the more reasonable rational

hussein saddam hussein's suppose a biological weapons program. it's i mean yeah i mean you know so the best case scenario is that they used it use it to ratchet up the fear to really get everyone on board with their iraq invasion and using that threat and they never really did come out and say that the anthrax was not the muslim terror is that they said it just kind of went under the radar robbie but now that we know that members of the bush administration were on separate and also the targeted members that voted they were opposite to the patriot act i mean what do you think the worst case scenario is now that we know these kind of damning facts. what was the worst case scenario is that i mean the motive. the motives there are questionable i mean why would someone who's a terrorist who wanted to you know muslim terrorists why would they want to send anthrax letters to people who are opposing the patriot act. i mean you have to wonder you know i can only speculate with the worst case scenario is that someone who sent those letters wanted to shut d

such a dangerously false narrative about muslim terrorists being responsible and even worse that saddam hussein was somehow involved so who was responsible well for years after the anthrax attacks the f.b.i. his main suspect was steven hatfill a member of the government that helped develop a biological weapons facility at fort dietrich maryland but instead of pursuing a criminal investigation based on actual evidence against him then the i began a witch hunt surveilling harassing and stalking him for five years and one interview hatfill said that he contemplated suicide multiple times but that he knew if he did that he would be guilty in the court of public opinion and he couldn't let them do that to him well after five years of this harassment hatfill was awarded a hefty five point eight million dollars settlement from the government to say hey sorry dude we ruin your life by telling everyone that you were the anthrax perpetrator sorry about that. the next suspect was bruce ivins a top anthrax researcher fort dietrich for eighteen years he was working on vaccinations for anthrax and al

saddam hussein was the center of the war. they leave.m 1992-2000, the detached threat, the nomination state threat develops. al qaeda it develops. we had not heard of al qaeda before. when the republicans get back into office, they've spent the last year on the outside rattling the "we have to take down a rociraq." the clinton people tell them, the most important thing you're going to deal with over the next few years is bin laden. but they have not adapted to that. this is a new world. and it is, "iraq is the most important." unfortunately, fax started been shoved into that mindset. if you have a piece of information come up, well, how does that relate to iraq? what is for breakfast today? how does that relate to iraq. >> i want to turn to your appearance on msnbc yesterday or you were joined by republican governor of new york who challenged the premise of your book and what you're saying now, your book "500 days: secrets and lies in the terror wars." >> this is incredibly unfortunate. first of all, having been there on september 11 and

saddam didn't have that. if he -- if you disagreed with saddam, you would be dead. so if he made that promise, he could deliver on it. the iranians have significant doubts as to whether the president of the united states is capable of delivering on something that they don't even know exactly what it is. as a result, this policy of just going for the pressure and sanctions in the hope that the iranians will become softer is so focused on the effort to add pressure and is not sufficiently focused on making sure there are clear choices that actually the iranians will able to see. otherwise, it will be nothing more than naked escalation which will yield naked escalation from the iranian side. that's all we've seen so far. thanks. >> i think it's an oversimplification of what's going on. which is that the sanctions, the pressure, the sanctions, are designed not to force a final solution. bad choice of words. but that they're designed to get the iranians to talk. and it would cost nothing to the iranians to -- if they felt the pressure was getting very intense, it would c

and i was intent on eliminating saddam hussein. i believed like a lot of people, in different western countries in the world, and on both sides of the aisle in the u.s., that there were wmd. more importantly, i believed the regime this suffocatingly brutal, you couldn't trust it. you had to assume that it existed out there. and the war turned out so miserably. i ham not a fatal list. had we had different generals, different strategy, could have been different. you can't say it wouldn't have matter no matter matte what we did, but a lot of the mistakes we made implicit in the hubris of the conception. we can play counterfactuals all we want, but at the end of the day you're stuck with the factious have, and you have to live with them and deal with them. >> you add up the cost, almost 5,000 american dead, perhaps hundreds of thousands of iraqis killed. a trillion dollars in costs. and you said, even if iraq -- even if everything turned out great and iraq somehow became an american ally and quasi-democratic, it would still be hard to

saddam hussein did not have those things. if you disagree with saddam hussein, you would be dead. there are doubts of whether the president can deliver on something he does not exactly know what it is. they're going with sanctions and the hope that the iranians will become softer. it is so focused on the effort to add pressure and is not sufficiently focused on making sure that there are clear choices. otherwise, it would be nothing more than naked escalation. that's what we have seen so far. >> i think it is an oversimplification of what is going on. the pressure of the sanctions are designed not to force a final solution, that choice of words, but to get the iranians to talk. it would cost iran nothing to sit down and say we want to get this thing settled. the perception in all the talks so far, especially the recent round, is that despite all the talks by all the different modalities of getting together, there was no substantial discussion. the agreement reached in istanbul in april was an agreement about how to structure the talks but there has not been one attempt to move tow

word do i think that we made a mistake i think we were wrong in our assessment they were wrong or saddam hussein deceived everybody so i'm going to say it turns out did not want people to know that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction including many people in his own administration wow so saddam wanted bush to think that he had weapons of mass destruction it was him who deceived this administration give me a break all right so what's next. torture during the bush administration there was a policy set at the top for torture and abuse a systematic policy of the legal methods of interrogation that violated the geneva conventions. so that if you were to conduct a poll in this country right now and ask people who is waterboarding torture i think the best majority of people would tell you it is and i would argue that that it's important for us not to get caught up in the notion that you can only have popular methods of interrogation if you want to in fact counterterrorism program don't like popular opinion get in the way of torture cheney one time obey more than eight hundred people were

a lot of times they don't judge you on the decisions you don't make and the point i make is that saddam hussein in power today would mean the world would be less stable and more dangerous and twenty five million people arrive he's would be living under the thumb of a brutal ruthless dictator my point is the world better with him gone i don't think anybody intentionally misled is a wrong word do i think that we made a mistake think we were wrong in our assessment they were wrong or saddam hussein deceived everybody so i'm going to say it turns out did not want people to know that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction including many people in his own administration wow so saddam wanted bush to think that he had weapons of mass destruction it was him who deceived this administration give me a break all right so what's next. torture during the bush administration there was a policy set at the top for torture and abuse a systematic policy of the legal methods of interrogation that violated the geneva conventions. that if you were to conduct a poll in this country right now and ask peopl

saddam's sons of saddam people inside the museum we know about what's really last time we talked you told me about two meters is being very very theft proof well when was the last attempt to steal something from the habitat and what was that when it was something actually stolen well you know it is like with the turkeys munir if you. if these are prevented nobody knows. no they're lost it was a terrible big theft in. two thousand and six which is an inside have to use usually is and saw all the proofs are well if somebody from your stuff stolen and somebody selling them from outside it's very complicated to think it but after this we still improved and improve things so that's where a little bit of a police state you know we have cameras in all the holes but also in the storage is of the corridors and so on and so on which everybody including the stuff but museum is also all who's a risk always a risk because with the open something world things must be accessible so you know we've seen fit. to the demands a lot of money and a lot of people being in work a thank you thank you very mu

the council decided that saddam hussein had to perform. and if he failed to perform and cooperate with the inspectors there would be consequences. it was only logical that the council that took that decision should be the one to determine one, whether they complied or not, and if they were in breach, what the consequences should be. should the u.n. go in or should they encourage a coalition to do whatever. and for the u.s. and the coalition to go in and do it outside the council, in my judgement was against the charter and illegal. because a country can defend itself when attacked when there is imminent threat. but when it comes to broader issues of security for all of us, you cannot do without the legitimacy of the council. >> rose: you have gotten some attention because of what you said about colin powell. >> uh-huh. >> rose: what is it you are saying about him. >> yeah, i think it has to be clear, it must be understood, misunderstood. because i don't want-- it misunderstood. >> rose: what has been said about what you said. >> yes, becau

ignoring all these warnings and believing they were part of a disinform ation campaign staged by saddam hussein displays not just total incompetence on the part of the bush administration but also downright negligence negligence that americans pay dearly for and continue to pay dearly for it's now been eleven years since the attacks and since then we've seen eleven years of continuing war eleven years of continuing surveillance and eleven years of a continuing disintegration of our civil liberties today we honor the victims who lost their lives on that day but as a nation we must also recognize the profound impact the decisions our leaders made in the months and years after nine eleven that have made our country less safe destabilized the planet and shredded our constitution and hope the future memorials to this day aren't clouded by war anger and xena phobia. now onto those who continue to struggle eleven years after the attacks i'm talking about the united and first responders the police officers firefighters and many volunteers who rushed to the rubble to look for survivors and spent

that i don't even remember what the original one was but one of the many reasons was citing that saddam hussein had support for international terrorist groups including you guessed it and ek check out the white house policy briefing about saddam's link to terrorism says iraq shelters terrorist groups including the k which is used terrorist violence against iran in the one nine hundred seventy s. and was responsible for killing several u.s. military personnel and us civilians. i can't say i'm surprised considering how tight the us of us was to saddam during the iran iraq war hero of that infamous photo of rumsfeld buddying up to the dictator. but as dickie goes is this a parker see is the most shocking part about the whole situation is when you look at what's been going on behind the scenes that's when the two tiered american justice system is really laid bare now for some context in two thousand and ten the u.s. supreme court ruled in the case holder versus humanitarian law that providing material support and quote a nation with a designated foreign terrorist organization is a felony pu

civilians so i should mention this is just one of six the bullet points in the entire list of saddam's terror related activities and now a decade later things have changed immensely to talk more about why this is the case i'm joined now by jim obviously the policy director of the national iranian american american council so this is really interesting jim all i know that your group has worked tirelessly to try to prevent this from happening why do you think it happened. you know my own words to make sure that this wasn't the delisting decision wasn't the result of a politicized process in which a designated terrorist organization uses money lobbying p.r. to pressure it's way off of the terrorist list i think of in the day this shows that the campaign that the m e k bardon worked and that paying people like rudy giuliani and howard dean to pressure the state department to take this group off the list and it up working and it creates a really dangerous precedent for other organizations that are dangerous to u.s. interests and undermine frankly our policy regarding resolving the dispute w

for war with iraq this is from back in two thousand and two now the section of this is titled quote saddam hussein's support for international terrorism that says iraq shelters terrorist groups including this group the mujahedeen economic organization which has used terrorist violence against iran and in the one nine hundred seventy s. was responsible for killing several u.s. military personnel and u.s. civilians so on this page is just one of six bullet points in this list of saddam's terror related activities a list that helped make the case for war and a decade later i guess things have changed immensely well to talk more about why this is the case i was joined by jamal the policy director of the national iranian american council. my my words asian worked to make sure that this wasn't the delisting decision wasn't the result of a politicized process in which a designated terrorist organization uses money lobbying p.r. to pressure it's way off of the terrorist list i think of in the day this shows that the campaign that the m.e. k. mart on worked and that paying people like rudy giuliani

saddam hussein himself. it out of your pocket, you have to have your coat open. >> no. i'm here today to explain to the people of iraq why the united states and the world community has responded the way it has to iraq's occupation to kuwait. let me quote the words of one arab leader. saddam hussein himself. an arab country does not have the right to occupy another arab country. >> sat sat's unprovoked invasion, his ruthless, systematic rape of a peaceful neighbor violated everything the community of nations holds dear. the world has said this aggression would not stand and it will not stand. >> small country. everybody in the united nations have taken over by the fourth largest army in the world. >> at what moment did you know the country was going to war against iraq? >> in n my heart i knew it quickly after he went into kuwait. a few hours. i wasn't sure it was going to be a war, but i knew we would have to get him out and i remember when the presiding bishop of my church and he came to see me. he said mr.

civilians so this is just one of the six bullet points on the list of saddam's terror related activities and now a decade later things have changed immensely to talk more about why this is the case i'm joined by rima dia r.t. arab correspondent and rima we all know you know that the any k. is opposed to the current government of iran and for the most part so is the u.s. so is this just one of those situations the enemy of my enemy is my friend well first of all from the ads that you just aired a little bit ago it tells you whole lobbying is important in this country and what lobbying has let this country to do meaning that there delisting and make a group that was deemed terrorist just until lately just until as the document even shows just until very recently. well this is. this is an organization that the u.s. and other countries said that it's a terrorist organization the organization is still the same it has not changed its focus it has not changed its activities it has not changed anything particularly in the only thing that changed is the political atmosphere is the political envir

broke away from saddam last year. which killed two million people. threatening sanctions if the latest round of talks doesn't and . the libyan militia group jado revolutionary brigade has handed over its compound to the government and the country's president has to disband all come under government control widespread anger against the armed groups has increased its assault on the u.s. embassy in benghazi which killed ambassador chris stevens. the leak of a shocking prison obese media in georgia has loved the government squandering to save face but the whirling wave of protests is only gaining momentum. i had a chance to talk to the man who filmed of the jails and he claims the president was entirely aware what was happening in the facility. the public is in fact still so shocked and angry that they're comparing the footage from george and for those with back from guantanamo except it contains suspected terrorists while here we're talking about ordinary georgians in me another factor irritating the public right now is

embassies and saddam all in response to an american film. meanwhile in colorado the violence shows no sign of dying down as clashes enter their fourth day despite attempts by the country's most influential political group to. also washington scrambles for damage control after a deadly anti-american demonstrations spread over the arab world but efforts so far failed to appease the angry crowd. though and welcome to our team. with our latest most developing story the wave of anti-american protests is gathering strength as it sweeps across the muslim world police in yemen have reportedly fired warning shots at another mob of protesters heading for the u.s. embassy while similar clashes rage in the egyptian capital over in lebanon one person said to have been killed and dozens wounded in clashes with police after a k.f.c. restaurant was set on fire. or has the latest from the region. we are hearing reports that the police fired tear gas as well as live ammunition at the second call that is trying to storm the. mary came in the seat in the capita

summit at the plaza hotel, first united states ambassador to iraq when iraq was finally liberated from saddam hussein, lot of businesses wanted to get in on that country to help rebuild it. what are the challenges? we know there were some problems. also, the u.s. ambassador to the united states coming up next. we will be back with more of "countdown to the closing bell." [ female announcer ] you want family dinner to be special. dad, we want pizza. you guys said tacos. [ female announcer ] it doesn't always work out that way. you know what? we're spending too much money on eating out anyway. honey, come look at this. [ female announcer ] my money map from wells fargo is a free online tool that helps you track your spending. so instead of having to deal with a tight budget, you could have a tighter family. ♪ wells fargo. together we'll go far. with the fidelity stock screener, you can try strategies from independent experts and see wh criteria they use. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks. then you can customize the strategies and narrow down to exactly those stocks you want to follow

on june 29th, in response to neocon, it was meant to distract the white house from saddam hussein. bin laden associates expected "near term attacks to have dramatic consequences, including major casualties." on july 1st the operation had been delayed but will occur soon. on july 24th, the attack was still being readied but had been postponed. again on august 6th bin laden determined to strike in the u.s. for more on his remarkable reporting, i'm joined by kurt eichenwald contributing editor to "vanity fair" and author of "500 days, secrets and lies in the terror wars." kurt, thank you for this remarkable piece of journalism and your op-ed that has struck a nerve and reopened many questions. tough questions. i guess having looked at the op-ed, what is the single most important secret that is no longer secret and the most important lie that has been debunked? >> well, there are so many unfortunately. one of the -- i think one of the most important lies or important secrets, something that happened post-9-11 was this effort to essentially blame the c.i.a. blame the counter terrorists

we have eight years of the holy defense in which saddam hussein backed by many western powers was against our nation, and then witnessed many other events. about ten years ago, perhaps, iran was under direct threat. those who have occupied iraq and afghanistan were threatening iran on a daily basis. i do not believe that we are under any special conditions now from those sources, but the fact that the world -- historic period in the world is coming to an end, an era during which power has set the first and last word. those holding the keys to power have set the fate of many populations. that era is coming to an end. >> the big catalyst for protests at the moment in the middle east was the video that was released which mocked the prophet muhammed. as a result, there was an attack as you know on the american embassy in benghazi in libya. the ambassador christopher stevens was murdered. do you condemn the attack which caused his murder? >> translator: fundamentally, first of all, any action that is provocative offends the religious thoughts and feelings of any people, we condemn. likewise, w

they hung saddam hussein. he came out with a statement that i thought was going to change the united nations. that people were attacking the iraqis for a planned capital punishment. he made a statement, he said, maybe we should not focus on saddam's death, let's focus on how many people he killed. i said, discuss it gets it. the next day, but they got to him. he said, do not misunderstand what i am saying. the fact they killed him is terrible. he changed the way he was viewed. host: did you talk to him? guest: i did not. i came close. two body guards pushed me away. host: here is more. >> hell yeah they knew in rwanda. they said, this is what is going to happen. here is modest authority. operational authority. one of them was to protect and sees an arms cache. more than that, it would send a signal that we know. he was told no. he was told, it is more important for you to protect the image of impartiality then it is for you to take these modest operations. >> were you or the other members made aware? >> it was

you've got a government, the opponents, they think he's becoming almost -- saddam-like in his power.>> well, there's certainly a lot of tensions in iraq now and there's growing concern that the prime minister is acting in an increasing authoritarian sort of way. his goal was to do more than extract forces from iraq. what he wanted to do and tried to do and was to create a partnership government, a power sharing in iraq. >> but that's been afailure. >> he attempt tod negotiate an agreement which would allow american forces to remain. for example, iraqi air space would not be a corridor for rainian air flights to syria. and he attempted to establish a footprint where american civilians would be in iraq to do police training. and that didn't really work out. >> it didn't work out for a variety of reasons. but what i see now is a government in baghdad increasingly aligned with a government in tehran. it's almost a nightmare scenario for the u.s. but tell me if you see that same nightmare scenario unfolding. >> i have a slightly different view. i think it's too much of a caricature to say

he was determined to ensure that saddam hussein does not give the u.n. and international community the run around anymore, so he was absolutely determined. he was taking the right decision. >> host: was he angry? >> guest: no, he was -- but i wouldn't say he was angry in the cumbre stations with me. >> host: let's talk about peacekeeping. it something you have spent a lot of time in the book on as well and it's something you have spent a lot of time on in your career before you were secretary-general. you were head of the peacekeeping operation. a review of your book by "the washington post" by david ignatius called your book to study in the failure of a noble idea. has had a fair characterization of the united nations peacekeeping operation? >> i would have chosen different words, but some of the points he makes, perhaps i could ask the question when we talk of the united nations in this context, who are we talking about? is that the member states who take the decisions, who give us a mandate, who give us the resources to carry out the mandate or someti

of siding with saddam. it's the tragic incidents of september 11 and the military actions of afghanistan and iran that's left millions killed and homeless has not happened and if instead of killing and throwing the corporate into the sea without informing the world and the people of america, an a team had been formed to make the general public aware of the cause because the incident and prepare to bring into justice the prerp traitors have at rich not will be used to secure political goals had the arms been turned into pens and military expenditures been used to promote buildings and animosity among nations. had the conflicts not been beaten and if differences have not been used for the purposes of advancing political agendas, had the right to criticize the policies and actions of the -- to allow the world media to freely report and shed light on realities instead of taking gestures bent on offending the sanctities and beliefs of human beings and divine messengers who as the purest and most compassionate hu

. >> the french thing that i called for when they were propping up saddam hussein. hurt france. >> it hurt their feelings more than their economy. you don't want to push egypt into anarchy. >> bill: i don't want to push egypt. i want to send a message to them if you do it again -- >> -- you have sent the message over the airways. >> send you over there to annoy them. if you do it again geraldo rivera are a comes over to annoy you. plenty more this evening. chaos in polling precincts. cbs news says the president is leading. rasmussen says the governor is ahead. lou dobbs is will analyze. then a brand new friday factor feature called what the heck just happened. greg gutfeld and bernard mcguirk. security is standing by. we hope you stay tuned to those reports. >> bill: lowe's the boss segment tonight. dueling poll. among likely voters, president obama leads mitt romney 49, 46. brand new rasmussen poll out today has romney up 48% to 45%. you may remember rasmussen was the most accurate pollster in 2008. here now the mighty fox business anchor lou dobbs. when you are lo

it turned out to be not true in the case of saddam hussein. he didn't have any weapons of mass destruction. can the west afford to go into any kind of military conflict with iran, with ahmadinejad, and then discover actually all he was saying turned out to be true? >> well, first of all, piers, the evidence is not just intelligence services, but also the international atomic energy agency that's had inspectors in there, though tehran has interrupted and obstructed their inspections from time to time. but we know they have 3.5%, 5% enriched uranium, we know they have thousands more cascades than they had four years ago, creating enriching uranium and we know they have some uranium that's been enriched to 20%. this is all iaea, who have been on site and seen these things. so i think the likelihood of a mistake there is not great. >> right. let me just ask you both the same question. i'll start with p.j. crowley. the key thing is what america does, clearly. if we assume that israel is serious, benjamin netanyahu is absolutely deadly serious that

invaded iran and had the big powers supported the right of iranian people instead of siding with saddam, if the tragic incident of september 11th and the military actions against after gap stan and iraq that left millions killed and homeless had not happened and if instead of killing and throwing the cup pretty into the sea without informing the world and the people of america, an independent fact-finding team had been formed to make the general public aware of the fruit behind the incident and prepared for bringing to justice the perpetrators, had extremism or terrorism not been used for political goals, had the harms been turned into pains and extend pendy turs had been used to build an equity. had religious conflicts not been beaten and if differences had not been used for the purpose of advancing political agendas, had the right to krit siechl the policies and actions of the world zionism been recognized the allow the world media to freely report and shed light on realities instead of taking deceitful gestures bent on offending the sanctities and malsacred beliefs of human beings an