to eliminate saddam.ouse, paul wolfowitz's deputy, undersecretary of defense, douglas fife, an iraq hawk like his boss, presents a slide show to national security officials that is full of questionable assertions. >> of all the places where intelligence was being manipulated in the bush administration, the fife shop was the key place. >> there was a debate about how one characterizes the relationship between iraq and al qaeda. nobody made the argument there was no relationship between iraq and al qaeda. >> i want to thank the -- >> the administration deploys its biggest guns to push congressional leaders for quick passage of a resolution to authorize the president to take military action. >> it's an important signal for the world to see that this country is united in our resolve to deal with -- threats that we face. >> the president made the point that there was an urgency to taking action. that it couldn't wait. he got very animated. he used uncharacteristically profanity and used the middle finger to de

we didn't create we left saddam in place and saddam did keep a lid on things but when his son bush the second went back in zero three what did he do created the very power vacuum that his father supposedly was trying to avoid creating and not only did week he create a power vacuum he sucked all the power out of that country when they disbanded the army and national police hey there is nothing left and as joseph said who is quote caught in the middle of this whole mess the people of iraq i'm telling you countless countless thousands of iraqis are dead we talk about forty five hundred american soldiers god bless them a lot of contractors guck have gotten killed over there you never hear about them but i'm telling you the people of iraq have suffered and as joseph said nobody is speaking for them and i'm telling you half a million to a million iraqis are dead in my humble estimate and not to mention the number that have left that country we created that vacuum when we went back in zero three and disbanded their own security forces and then and then left the surge the surge was nothing mor

guest: saddam hussein was a many do dictator, and not want him, regardless. but there's no question in my mind that the iraq war was the singular most devastating event in recent american history for americans national interest. anause it really wasted historic opportunity for the united states to assert itself globally. in the 1990's, they were the decade of american influence and dominance following the end of the cold war. the u.s. had resources, and yes they were attacked horrifically -- in 2001, but they could have reacted differently. americathe anger with and the diversion of resources has affected us very negatively globally, and we're still paying the price. line, goodlican morning. caller: it was nice that we had someone from johns hopkins -- host: university of maryland. sorry. i am trying to be positive this morning. these suggestions have been tried before. maybe this is the time that this would work. one, the americans pay the sunnis that have been [indiscernible] before, according to their rank. thatecond suggestion is saudi and kuwait fund the

around saddam. >> yes, people around saddam. it's interesting listening to senator kerry. he's there for a reason -- >> rose: his reason is? >> well, you know there was an election in april and they haven't formed a new government yet. so now maliki's essentially the caretaker prime minister now and they have to form a new government. up until this happened it was probably almost certainly going to be maliki. is it going to be maliki now? i think if senator kerry or secretary kerry, i think he's pushing people in the other direction. i think, this is me talking but i think the whitehouse is trying to get somebody else. that maliki, they've decided maliki's too sectarian. he's responsible for a lot of this. and so his time's up. >> rose: i told sustani seemed to indicate he was aware of the problem and some of the statements he's made. >> that's the word, i think. in fact, the word on the street somebody told me this just a couple days ago that ayatollah sustani is the leader of the shiite, a large g

did the kurds to the north and shias to the south who suffered terribly under saddam hussein consider themselves hockey iraqis at all. now that a sunni guerrilla army is seizing the territory and initiative from a shia-led government we have to look at the splits and tears at iraqi society again and we have to look at the wider set of surpris pressure pushing on iraq. the sunny militias are fighting iran's allies, the shia who run things in baghdad. >> any action that we may take to provide assistance to iraqi security forces have to be joined by a serious and sincere effort by iraq's leaders to set aside sectarian differences. >> president obama said friday he's weighing options for military intervention in iraq, but said the iraqis must protect themselves and heal long-standing sectarian divisions. this has to be a wake-up call. the willingness to make hard decisions and comprises on behalf of the iraqi people in order to bring the country together. >> his comments come as a sunni force takes territory. but another powerful force stands in the way. grand ayatollah has called on peop

joined by supporters of saddam hussein and sunni tribal leaders. in mosul, they marched together on their way to hang an iraqi soldier. this weekend, the militants released pictures of dozens of iraqi soldiers being led to their death. the iraqi army is now fighting back with air strikes and thousands of new recruits. but the insurgents have their sights on baghdad. and if they can't get to it, they may try to send in suicide bombers instead. it is strange to come back to baghdad and see it like this. this is normally the busiest market in the city. today all of the shops are closed and this street is normally full of traffic. today, hardly anything, and there are gunmen on every corner. some are soldiers. many are shiite militiamen responding to a call to arms from their religious leaders. they're ready to defend the capital and the shiite faith. we did find one shop open. a grocery owned by jamel. he thinks the isis radicals aren't strong enough to enter baghdad now. instead, he expects car bombs. "people are afraid" he said. "we expect bombings

i mean you know i'm an american and you know i hate to say that but saddam did keep a lid on things and the only way you know you can avoid a dictatorship like his is for the u.s. to go back in there and occupy the country. what about syria the isis has a branch in there it's restless in the country just over the border does this essentially guarantee a constant flow of reinforcements and a threat to iraq. i would say so iraq is right smack in the middle you sunni sunni to the west shiite to the east you've got syria to the west you've got saudi arabia to the west you've got your ran to the east and everything iraq is right smack in the middle of everything has been since the you know cradle of civilization so to speak and it's still there now and it's really a tragedy what's happening and one of the speakers earlier before i came on. said that you know the top referred to paul bremmer for the united states but it was paul bremmer disbanding the iraqi army that had been in existence for decades and when i was over there from zero six to zero seven we were supposedly. getting the ira

you said there was no doubt saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. said we would be greeted as liberators. you said the iraq insurgency was in the last throes back in 2005. and you said that after our intervention extremists would have to "rethink their strategy of jihad." now with almost $1 trillion spent there, with 4500 american lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many? >> no, i fundamentally disagree, reagan-- megyn. ( laughter ) ( applause ) >> stephen: that was no mistake. as a true conservative, every sentence has to contain at least one reagan. ( laughter ) and he just fundamentally disagrees with reality. it's easy now to monday morning "not invade iraq" but dick cheney remembers how it felt at the time so right. >> you've got to go back and look at the track record. we inherited a situation where there was no doubt in anybody's mind about the extent of saddam's involvement in weapons of mass destruction. >> stephen: there was no doubt about the extent of saddam's involvemen

some of the former allies of saddam, the former sunni allies of saddam.t also operates, as you said, across the border in syria and is fighting bass aar al assad's group. it's 800,000 iraqi security forces in iraq, and what we've seen is that, as you said, they captured this money. they also capture good 400,0400,000 -- captured about 400,000 defense articles, pieces of equipment recently. sent some to syria and are using some inside iraq. it is rate now a real mess, and it is moving rapidly. >> and significantly, as this war began, this war that was about weapons of mass destruction and not about regime change, when the war began we dissolved the iraqi army. some of the leaders of that army, unemployable by anybody's account, wanted to join up with something else. more recently, nuri al maliki did it again, we're not going to let you be there. we have a command and control structure that understands war and understands conflict very well. all of a sudden they also have all of these munitions which were ours, and they have all of these guns which were our

saddam was not -- i mean, did not care about who was sunni or shia.ared who was with him and considered, whom he as loyal 1000% and whom he does not. i asked some american friends a couple of times -- i don't know if you remember the deck of cards with saddam being the ace of spades. 54 bad guys in iraq, i used to ask my american friends whether they knew how many shia were in that deck of cards. one of them said 0, 1 of them said four or five. wasally, the number of shia four or five. inot of shia were fighting the ranks of the army of their country against shia iran. i think he was extremely suspicious of the shia because they were shia. he asked a lot of religious leaders -- there was that. but nothing like what existed after that and what it is today. you haveador brahimi, suggested that sectarianism was exacerbated following the 2003 invasion of iraq by the u.s. >> sure. >> one of the other effect you mentioned earlier was the spread of terrorism, particularly suicide attacks in iraq, which prior to 2003 were unprecedented. neither iraq, afghanis

with saddam in there and a state sponsor of terrorism.le say there were no weapons of mass destruction. there were weapons of mass destruction. same substances we were going into syria about. the situation was improved. i think that there is some criticism of the obama-clinton strategy for iraq and the greater region moving forward. we are not investigating that at this point. we are seeing -- we are reaping what that policy has sown. just like the former president's policy. host: let's get an e-mail from joe in york, pennsylvania. i want to know what the consequences will be for this conflict in iraq? will it be gas prices? guest: it absolutely is going to be gas prices. there is uncertainty on the world market. those are the immediate domestic consequences. what we do not know and what we will hopefully find out -- the fact that people are equating this with the southern border. if there is some opportunity associated with this -- we do not know that at this time. we hope that it does not happen. i am not implying that it is going to. t

shiite and the sunni's are upset because they were in charge and they want to take over again and saddam kept the lid on a wall of this maliki doesn't have a prayer of the iraqi the iraqi government can't can't and i don't know if any iraqi government could do this unless it was a dictatorship like it was under saddam and more news coming your way after the break including the looming deadline for ukraine's gas debt. well dreams with. thirty four countries been building billion euro zone says of each one million degrees with some token much fuel to sell from st petersburg to france the trouble in situ the sun. we've got the future covered. choose your language. please make it with zero if you're going to kill innocent children the. right to choose the kids the concentric. choose to get to use the great. choose the stories that impact the. truth be accessed through. the media leave us so we leave the baby. by the seat cushions secure the play you party there's a goal. for shoes that no one is asking with to get that you deserve answers from. politics. welcome back you're watching our kids

bashar assad or let's say even saddam hussein being in charge of baghdad or damascus rather than the man by the name of a blue box or daddy who is they had of isis and troops are now moving towards the capital of iraq why is there american foreign policy always based on the best case scenario why do you always disregard the worst possible outcome well first of all i agree with you that alba is a terrible outcome and i think it's important for us not to make him the outcome and while certainly there's room. for discussion on this issue as we discussed earlier about whether bashir al assad whether the first policy point should have been that he should he should go i understand the point you're making but i'm much more interested in what we're going to be doing going forward because i think we have an enormous challenge and whether we come to an agreement or disagreement on something that took place three years ago is not going to help us get through that challenge or worse yet something that took place eleven years ago is not going to help us get through this challenge my point is i th

that did bring it up to the saddam era. the pre-kuwait invasion saddam era. they were making good progress. i don't think they were making fast enough progress based on some of the models. they could be a $12 million a day producer. touched the height of the saddam years. steve is on the phone in pennsylvania. to ask a would like question, if i may. why is it only the united states of america faced with immigration, faced with oil russia ore you think england or china or japan would take the abuse the dead states is taking from those terrorists? guest: let me talk about the oil aspect. i will spit take to my knitting here. these are global in scope great oil is a global commodity. you can take glut from one area and use it in another or there is a shortage. this is one of the drill baby drill crowd shortcomings is they argue that if we produce more oil than we would have lower gas prices. them we could have irrespective what was going on in the rest of the world. we are always going to pay the world's price. everybody is. youhave a system where subsidize the

one that is contained might be better but even if saddam hussein -- saddam hussein -- to some peoplehe very weapons of mass distraction against his people that we were concerned going into syria over so he is no better actor and allowing someone who could be cajoled into being a state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, that cannot be accepted either. this current group of folks i think we know what we are going to get with them. we are going to get a sponsor of terrorism worldwide. they will use that as a base of operations and unfortunately we can't just put up a wall around the country and contain them all in there. that would be an easy solution but that's not a pollutant -- solution set. americans myself included have to get our brains are from the fact that we are going to have to deal with this whether we like to or not. >> host: one official administration official in the ground in iraq reported in the financial times this morning saying if you push too hard on this issue of nouri al-maliki he will push them right into the arms of iran. >> guest: yeah. i think that has a fair amo

and again, the difference being had the iraqis taken out saddam, they would have to sort it out.iraqis and many parts of the middle east will blame us forever. and in iraq, forever is a long time. they still remember the invasion of the hordes in the 13th century. >> ambassador joseph wilson, let's not let it be another ten years. let's make a deal on that. nice to see you. thank you so much. >> all right. thanks, alex. >>> tomorrow, soccer icon hope solo will be in a washington court facing assault charges after an incident allegedly involving members of solo's family. nbc's mark potter has more. >> reporter: she's one of the biggest names in women's soccer. in the spotlight this weekend for all the wrong reasons. two-time olympic gold medalist hope solo was jailed on two counts alleging domestic violence assault in the fourth degree. police say they arrived at this house near seattle early saturday morning. after a 911 caller complained a female was hitting people and wouldn't leave. inside, they say they found solo appearing intoxicated and upset, and her sister and 17-year-ol

well iraqi government's incompetent it's inept but you know that the job is impossible you know saddam was that was a bad actor he was a bad guy but he kept a lid on everything through force the maliki you know is a shiite and the sunni's are upset because they were in charge and they want to take over again and saddam kept a lid on all of this maliki doesn't have a prayer of the iraqi the iraqi government can't and i don't know if any iraqi government could do this unless it was a dictatorship like it was under saddam. and though while iraq struggles to feed the hottest in the country the u.s. is fabricating terrorists at home. what they're trying to do was to convince the american public that there is this large army potential terrorist that they should all be very very scared about a muslim advocacy group report says that since two thousand and one u.s. security services have been traveling and convicting innocence which washington perceives might be dangerous in the future stay with r.t. for the details. please. please please please take a look very hard to take i. want to get on a

this was important to saddam hussein. ift was the birthplace of the biological weapons, the heart of the chemical weapons, research facility, stockpiles of mustard gas. it was bombed during the gulf war in 1991. weapons investigators deactivated everything in 1992, found nothing there. post gulf war, arrival of u.s. troops, it was inspected. the biggest danger is moving the rusting things around. militarily, they don't pose a threat, but that said, some of saddam hussein's army are now fighting with the rebels here. so, there is a danger, but it seems to be a minimal one at this time. >> nic robertson live in iraq, thanks. >>> house republicans made their choices to lead the caucuses. kevin mccarthy from california is the next majority leader replacing eric cantor who stepped down after a primary loss. he got his role after four terms. the fastest rise for any majority leader in history. >> they elected a guy who is a grandson of a cattle rancher, the son of a firefighter. only in america do you get that opportunity. they

on dollar thank you so much for the opportunity so you grew up for part of your childhood under saddam's rule in iraq moved to the u.s. and then you went back after the u.s. invasion now that you were but what kind of differences that you observed as a child as opposed to going back after the invasion well. our family here and when i returned in two thousand and four this is after the eight years of iran iraq war the devastation of the six weeks of the one nine hundred ninety one gulf war thirteen years of sanctions and then shock and awe and there was just extensive devastation to roads infrastructure and when you just mantle of government and. civil society structure and one thing that was noticeable to me it's very basic but garbage collection and this then becomes an issue a health care issue for communicable diseases and many displaced persons and so it was really it was a shock to go back and let's take a listen to a pretty stunning but mr. took it all took. place. down the center of the reich you could easily end up seeing pieces of iraq fly off it's a quagmire paraded around the

that did bring it up to the saddam era. the pre-kuwait invasion saddam era.were making good progress. i don't think they were making fast enough progress based on some of the models. they could be a $12 million a day producer. touched the height of the saddam years. steve is on the phone in pennsylvania. to ask a would like question, if i may. why is it only the united states of america faced with immigration, faced with oil russia ore you think england or china or japan would take the abuse the dead states is taking from those terrorists? guest: let me talk about the oil aspect. i will spit take to my knitting here. these are global in scope great oil is a global commodity. you can take glut from one area and use it in another or there is a shortage. this is one of the drill baby drill crowd shortcomings is they argue that if we produce more oil than we would have lower gas prices. them we could have irrespective what was going on in the rest of the world. we are always going to pay the world's price. everybody is. youhave a system where subsidize the consum

maliki arose after the fall of saddam hussein as a quiet hero, a leader of the shiite resistance to saddam'sore than 20 years in exile to escape a death sentence. he became prime minister in 2006 amid high hopes. >> he's the right guy for iraq. and we're going to help him. >> reporter: maliki punished those loyal to saddam, but a troubling pattern emerged as the years passed. top jobs went to fellow shias and fear of terrorism became a pretekts to crack down on sunni dissidents often with brutal force. opponents have been rounded up, sometimes killed. iraq analysts say that's the primary reason many sunnis are assisting the isis insurgents now. it's a way of striking back. >> maliki has been a huge disappointment. we really were hoping that the iraqi political system could produce a leader that could bring the country together. that's the key to ending the violence. instead a lot of iraqi sunnis look at maliki as essentially a shiite saddam who is oppressing them. >> reporter: it is all problematic for the legacies of both george w. bush and barack obama because each stood by maliki in bette

. >> is the united states innovated iraq and overflew saddam hussein more than a decade ago, and then spent years pacifying the country, hoping to leave behind a stable, rebuilding nation. one of the country's main cities has fallen to guerilla fighters, and the baghdad government may be losing it's grip. that's the "inside story." hello, i'm ray suarez, a brown university study puts the cost of the iraq war to the united states at over $2 trillion. the cost of war project at ground estimates 134,000 iraqi civilians died in the long years of war. add security forces, aid workers, and journalists, and that number leaps to between 176 and 189,000. just under 4500 american troops died. that eight-year american presence brought down the murderous rule of saddam hussein, disbathed the ba'ath party and the army. americans worked hard to rebuild the civil serves and the police. and u.s. left in 2011. after eight years and eight months, unable to reach a deal with the iraqi government for keeping troops in the country. and today, less than three years later, the weaknesses, contradictions and

has been empowered by fighting in syria and is comprised of loyaltyists of the late saddam hussein. it was his regime that fighters defeated in the iraq war. i.s.i.l. fighters have already taken down two cities. if the government in baghdad collapses it might cause chaos and could draw the world back into a fight the united states left three years ago. imran khan reports from baghdad. >> in the holy city of car carr, the people must act. there i call on rakes who are capable of carrying arms and fighting terrorists in defense of their people and their holy shrines. >> local regrument center to join the iraqi army. >> we have volunteered to defeat the criminal i.s.i.l. fighters. we will go to mosul and god willing we will defeat them. >> belong to the islamic state of iraq and the levant and other sunni groups. while there's an uneasy calm in the city those who have left are finding it difficult. they haven't found shelter in the kurdish state of iraq. where half a million people have gone and need help. >> our normal life has been destroyed. our fate remains uncertain because of the

in 2002 he wrote that for the war on terrorism to succeed saddam hussein must be removed. when george w. bush set out to do just that, kagan cheered him on. then in 2006 called for a surge in american troop levels to prevent iraq's collapse. now robert kagan is stirring controversy again with this lengthy article in the new republic. superpowers don't get to retire. wh he calls for america to return to muscular global activism. his article brought a sharper post from another scholared historian who seized the role differently. they have seen the horrors too closely to advocate more of the same policies that failed in vietnam and iraq. a graduate from west point with 23 years in the military including time in vietnam. he teaches history at boston university and writes best selling books and articles and essays and journals both liberal and conservative. like this critique of kagan titled "the duplicity of the idea logs." welcome back. what do you mean by that? >> kagan's essay, which does deserve to be read because of his stature in washington, gives us a falsified sanitize

was right when we expelled saddam hussein from kuwait.s a smaller country being invaded by a larger foreign power. he did that one well. on the other hand, within iraq and afghanistan, we were talking about entire civil wars. there is no outside force that's determining this. and i am sorry that one side is losing versus the other, although i must say, in iraq, it's sometimes hard to find the good guys. but i -- the alternative, what they are talking about is an indefinite american presence at the cost of tens and tens of billions of a year. and by the way, one other thing for these great geopolitical people. one of the major losers, if there is this sunni surge in iraq that destabilizes it is iran. now, much of the time they are talking about how iran is our greatest threat. but iran is a shia country. and the iraqi government is the iranians ally. so this is, in fact, a much greater loss for iran, what's going on here, than it is for america. they don't mention that. >> remarkably, if i'm tracking john mccain and lindsey graham's ample

we we like nouri al maliki because the multinational corporations have come back into iraq after saddam hussein nationalize the oil in the one nine hundred seventy s. and the oil companies as well as other western companies now it's a feeding frenzy on the dying carcass of iraq so we will do what we want to to defend our. interest the funny thing is that we are now. collaborating with iran who also wants the sectarian maliki government to stay and so both of us are arming nouri al maliki and that's an interesting situation really is what do you see the future of the country ten years from now what will stop and the bloodshed and just utter destruction well i don't know whether it'll be ten years whether it be one year whether it'll be fifty years but this is the history of iraq and iraqis know their history very well they have seen the highs and the lows and they as i said unbelievable resilience to keep going and keep struggling for their families their city and and their country there is no there was no. divisiveness before the occupation showed up and what they want to return is a se