the iraq war was not a good idea. if that's confusing to you, if you have not bothered to figure that out, that means you're not thinking clearly about the role of america in the world and the idea of what counts as a good idea for a war. and the republican party has not been thinking very hard or clearly about these issues for the past ten years. as evidenced by the fact they picked somebody to be their nominee who had nothing to say on the subject of foreign policy and that didn't bother anybody in the republican party. because they are not taking this issue seriously. they are refusing to think hard about the issue or reckon with mistakes made. the party is at sea when it comes to what america's role in the world should be. there's nobody in charge. that means by e default the guy who gets to be in charge is the guy who says he ought to be, the guy who is the real republican party expert on foreign policy. so for the lack of any competition for the title, the republican party is once again turning to this man senato

the iraq war began on march twentieth. on the twenty eighth just eight days later the soldiers came to see me. i mean. they called me at work and i came home to them. and they said mr suarez your son is a hero but you know he died tonight in the battlefield they were iraqi soldiers shot him in the head. i swear to those words destroyed my life. but that is the three days later a journalist called me. you said mr suarez they lied to you and your son wasn't killed by the enemy so he was killed by friendly fire in the explained what happened. in my face. it is during the night of march twenty sixth. planes struck and twenty thousand cluster bombs. into see it on march twenty seventh my son's unit marched on baghdad. and he stepped on an american cluster bomb. i mean nobody's paying me to talk to you it doesn't matter what i do will never come back. we my grandson will never see his father again. but in each of your faces i see hasten. it was he visited more than five hundred schools around the world. but just to go to the next

now being done by private companies food laundry now and similar services provided within the military now in iraq you still need a lot of support mechanisms and there's just not enough military infrastructure to do that private contractors come in and they fill the gap. but i saw the contractors doing anywhere from six tanks and helicopter mechanics pretty much any job that's in the military there's a civilian contractor right there there are over one hundred thousand private contractors working in iraq kuwait and the surrounding area. this war has been privatized to a greater extent than any other war in history they're part of a multi-billion dollar industry fueled by your tax dollars an industry very much of me by the u.s. military. forty cents out of every dollar congress controls now goes to contractors. there's more than twenty thousand private military on the ground so the second largest armed force in iraq or probably skirting the out scale the brits are on the other to. my questions are going to is in regards to private military contractors the uniform code of military justice does not a

war or voted for the iraq war.it was a big factor in my getting involved and in i think a lot of young people getting involved. >> throughout the fall, obama worked small rooms across iowa and new hampshire, clearly connecting with the mostly white electorate. >> thank you! >> be courageous. >> thank you, i will. thank you. >> you read some of those early speeches and rallies. do you remember the feeling you had in the room hearing barack obama for the first time? >> it was really a physically tangible feeling in the room, of excitement, of inspiration, of hope and possibility for change. and i think that was the sense that we were really here in the presence of somebody who's a new kind of leader. >> are you fired up?! ready to go?! fired up! ready to go? fired up! ready to go? >> ready to go! >> so am i. >> on january 3rd, 2008, these fired up voters swept obama to victory in the iowa caucuses. >> they said this day would never come. >> he had beaten john edwards by eight points. senator clinton had come in third

while the people in iraq in the western side of iraq are supporting the revolution so everybody is interfering you know that's why the picture is such a mutilated one and i think that the external powers would have to follow the general line that has been promoted by russia china and the other countries that there must be a political solution and the present moment the west continues to pour arms and now they want to create the vehicle that they can give them provided that this vehicle is not going to use the arms against the west just like what they have done without a bun just like they've done with. with many other instances they create these institutions on the basis that they would be our friends they would be the people who are presenting our interests i eat western countries and then once this picture chains they become against us we have the same situation in many countries and i think this is what the risk that we have at their moment in syria well if you say that the only way for peace then is for these external powers to stop their interference so how realistic is that quite briefly

the war not worth fighting. a republican opinion is more divided on iraq. i've asked americans about a set of 11 goals and this is how they respond to those. as usual in the chicago council surveys, protecting jobs is job one of american foreign policy in the minds of americans. this has always been the case, it is even more emphatically the case. if you interpret the second goal, that is reducing our dependence on foreign oil, at least partially as an economic goal, what's striking in this set of findings in 2012 is that these are the only two goals where the percentage of americans saying that these are very important have gone up. the estimates of importance of the other goals have all dropped, by small numbers, by single digits, but there is clearly a pattern there of a sense of lessened threat from outside and greater desire to focus on domestic issues. so coming off of this assessment of threats and this construction of goals, how are americans going to think about the kind of role we should play? first, the good news is, at least in our estimation, i

there's more than twenty thousand private military on the ground so the second largest armed force in iraq or private security the out scale the brits are a real solution. my question is regarding is in regards to private military contractors the uniform code of military justice does not apply to these contractors in iraq i asked your secretary of defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions is wrong and i ask him go ahead . i was hoping your answer might be a little more specific. mr rumsfeld answered that iraq has its own domestic laws which he assumed applied to those private military contractors however iraq is clearly not currently capable of enforcing its laws much less against you know over our american military contractors i would submit to you that in this case this is one case that privatization is not a solution and mr president how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law i appreciate that very much i wasn't kidding. i found out. april of two thousand and three by a phone call to say well the goodness is congratulations you've bee

the allegations are that $1.2 billion left iraq-- >> yes. >> to buy military equipment. >> yes. >> and only about $400 million worth of equipment came back into the country. and that $800 million somehow disappeared. >> it isn't true. [ticking] >> and later we'll look at the billion dollar industry of shoplifting. if this is happening all over the country, why do so few people know about it? >> when you talk about shoplifting, not a lot of people think about organized crime. most people think, when you say shoplifting, it's the opportunistic shoplifter. >> that's ahead when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. hmm, it says here that cheerios helps lower cholesterol as part of a heart healthy diet. that's true. ...but you still have to go to the gym. ♪ the one and only, cheerios part of a whole new line of tablets from dell. it's changing the conversation. ♪ [ female announcer ] today, it's not just about who lives in the white house, it's about who lives in the yellow house, the green, and the apartment house, too. today we not only honor the oval office, but we honor the cubicle, and the home

class with the security system, a basically became like that. with iraq, it got to the point where you could not be in unilateral anymore. in afghanistan, that is typical. >> that is the term for non-embedded. unilateralist. >> you are unilateral. >> what was important for me in the iraq war was working for the l.a. times we had people and bedded and non-embedded people. we had three or four photographers. you could not go from one side to the other. in other conflicts, you can move from one side of the conflict to another side of the conflict. what was important was having people on both sides. >> what happened both in iraq and afghanistan after a time was that it became very hazardous to have non-arab or non-iraqi journalists. there was an increasing reliance on iraqi or arab journalists to be able to tell the other side of the story. the unilateral side. >> i am sure all of you have many stories. could we get to some of the ethical issues? were there situations where you came across an ethical dilemma and you look back on it today and you think about i

it reflects his military career and the wars in iraq and afghanistan. for about an hour at politics & prose in washington dc. >> evening, i am bradley graham, co-owner of politics & prose with my wife melissa. on behalf of the entire staff, i would like to welcome me you here. before turning to our guest author, i would just like to say a word about an important event coming up this april. it is being called world book night and it is an ambitious attempt to hand out 1 million free books around the united states. you can read about how this amazing effort is being organized, and sign up to get involved yourself at us.worldbooknight.org. the deadline is tonight, but there is still time after this event. now, a word about our guest this evening, paula broadwell. also, vernon loeb. and the new book, "all in: the education of david petraeus." paula was given unusual access to him and brought his story up today. as she writes early in the book, one of his most important mentors, general jack galvin, talk to him about the concept of the big "m", which stood fo

arrest warrants for some of the top officials in the iraq defense ministry. d of massive fraud, almost all of them fled the country. one of them was ziad cattan, an official in charge of military procurement. but when we caught up with cattan in paris, he didn't seem terribly concerned about the charges against him. there is an arrest warrant out for you. >> yes, i hear about that. >> if you went back to baghdad you'd be arrested. >> uh, no. nobody will arrest me. they will kill me. [speaking arabic ] >> the son of a retired iraqi general, cattan had been living in poland until a few days before the u.s. invasion, running a pizza parlor in germany, and importing and exporting used cars. but his can-do attitude and ability to speak english impressed the americans, including ambassador bremer, who praised cattan in his memoir. after a few months working with the coalition on neighborhood councils, cattan was given a position in the new ministry of defense. so you were recruited for this job. >> yes. >> by the cpa. >> yes. >> by ambassador bremer and his aids. >>

obama laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknowns and then met with families who lost loved ones in the iraqnd afghanistan wars. >>> some lawmakers are outraged that the fbi left them in the dark about its investigation into general david petraeus' extramarital affair. new york congressman peter king talked with cnn's candy crowley today. >> it seems this has gone on for several months and now it appears they're saying the fbi didn't realize until election day that general petraeus was involved. it just doesn't add up. >> petraeus resigned from his post as cia director after his affair with his by og gra fer paula broadwell went public two days ago. much more on the investigation in a few minutes on cnn. >>> a bipartisan plan for immigration reform appears to be in the work. charles schumer and lindsay graham say their plan includes a tough love path to citizenship. graham and schumer teamed up on immigration back in 2010, and that plan went nowhere. republicans may have fresh motivation after election losses last week. >>> two newly reported deaths in new york have raised the death toll fro

the u.s. was a hyper power, and it could act with impunity. if it wanted to occupy iraq and put a government in and exploit the riot -- the national resources, it could do so without opposition. while it is true that russia and china did not interfere with the rest going into iraq in that way, the iraqi people did. the iraqi people were educated, mobilized. they had a big pharmaceutical industry, petrochemicals, and they were wired, educated. they inflicted damage along the u.s. military along the way, both from sunni and shiite. many iraqis never accepted the idea of a foreign occupation of their country, and it failed. the project for a new american century, formulated as a proposition that the u.s. could be an empire on the old british model, that crashed and burned because people are now mobilized, politically and socially. it was the lack of mobilization in the old 19th century, when people were not literate, were not connected with each other -- ok, and maybe the british empire could exist. but that is not the situation any more. what i am saying is, petraeus was s

he changsd the wars in iraq and -- changed the wars in iraq and afghanistan. >> he was revered. >> he's described by many as the most influential and the most important general of his generation. >> reporter: that was his legacy until friday when it was revealed the fbi had begun an investigation of e-mails he exchanged with 39-year-old journalist paula broadwell, the author of a book about him. patraeus called his behavior unacceptable and said after being married for 37 years i showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. president obama accepted the -- he said he witches them the very best at this time. patraeus, a military phd changed the war in iraq and afghanistan. >> he's enormously important. >> reporter: usa military writer and author of the iraq book "a chance in hell" jim michael. >> he was foundering around in the early years of these wars, and he really helped set the strategy and the direction of the u.s. military in both those wars. >> reporter: presidents learned to trust his judgment and he lobbied for that cia director's job. >> i wanted this j

he saved the war in iraq, he saved the war in afghanistan.sident when he had to get rid of another commander, general mcchrystal a couple years and take over this job. for this to happen when people thought he was in the last duty station in his career has been a surprise for people across the military world. >> quickly, any idea who is next? >> i know the deputy is going to take over for now. i think that will be another round of musical chairs for the new term in the obama administration who will take over for preys at cia. >> phil, thanks. that does it for "the cycle." martin, it's yours. >> thank you. good afternoon. it's friday, november 9th. we're following breaking news, the director of the cia, general david petraeus, has resigned. ♪ >>> we will get to the president and negotiations over the fiscal life in a moment. we have breaking news regarding general david petraeus who has just resigned as head of the cia. his resignation letter reads as follows. after being married for over 37 years, i showed extremely poor judgment by engaging

>> it was the right decision to go into iraq. i supported it at the time; i support it now. >> jon: but do you support it -- (laughter). now? >> we don't want another iraq. we don't want another afghanistan. that's not the right course for us. >> well, i guess that's not a flip-flop so much as a principled recognition because of the iraq war's current unpopularity. (laughter) you know what? iraq and afghanistan those are yesterday's wars. it's tomorrow's war that counts and if there's anything governor romney has been vociferous about lo these past 18 months it is his uncompromising belief that it's time to rattle our sabers at iran. >> this is a president who should have instead communicated to iran that we are prepared, that we are considering military options, they're not just on the table, they are in our hands. >> the president should have built credible threat of military action. when they see our military option in our hand, a possible blockade or aerial strikes they recognize we mean business. >> jon: we mean business moth

bad news is your unit you'll be commanding is assisting the prisons experts with the restoration of prisons for all of iraq. and they're already deployed and i said well can i go. and there was just a second of silence on the other end of the telephone and he said you want to go i was reading the bible in greek and hebrew and studying those languages and hebrew sort of flip naturally into arabic i was also interested in student loan repayment . you know upwards of forty thousand dollars in student loans which the army promised to repay the option available to me was to get a secret clearance to become an interrogator and i agreed to this was pretty nine eleven i didn't really expect that have to interrogate someone or imagine if i did it would have been a conventional war where things would have been very different i received a telephone call. from mr saddam he said can you help me he said the americans took my money and they hurt me very bad and i just came from abu ghraib he told me of one incident where. you know he was strip nude and they tied a rope to his penis for and with seven or eight other men a

and more international news in the session minutes carry up in a few moments our special report iraq. we speak your language any time of the war not a day of. news programs and documentaries in spanish matters to you breaking news a little turn to angles stories. here. in troy all teach spanish find out more visit. tito it's. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations are all today. just such a loser. in recent years as we have been active for you to be engaging and war thanks the government used to do is now being done by private companies food laundry now and similar services provided within the military now in iraq you still need a lot of support mechanisms and there's just not enough military infrastructure to do that private contractors come in and they fill the gap. by side contractors doing anywhere from the fixed tanks and helicopter mechanics pretty much any job that's in the military there's a civilian contractor right there there are over one hundred thousand private contracto

it was not the operation to secure. country. fork in iraq. it was the campaign for making billions of dollars for. forty bills exceed one billion dollars for sale. for profiteers. wealthy british pols. market. what's really happening to the global economy with. global financial headlines. when i woke up early that morning he was about to say about four thirty am we had to be out by our trucks and by seventy and we already knew what we were going on our mission we were told at seven pm the night before on the eighth of april a soldier that was sketching a map with his boot in the gravel. next to his vehicle while some of the saw part of some of that stood beside the road to rig and i wasn't sure what red meant we left the post. nearing eleven o'clock we're going down the road and we got pretty close to the i believe that the grubby prison and also the traffic there's no traffic. and right about then. i mean bullets came from everywhere sounded like we were in a hail storm there were coming through my doors that he might take or if they're hitti

on the field before he got up it's ten twenty five in the morning december first in iraq. on the road to baghdad we approach the checkpoints going to china shows. me that if i had the opportunity to go to iraq and i went there at the end of november two thousand and three. what is your name would you jihadists louis louis louis good t.a.'s to me. bob i bring you this message on behalf of all let you know parents we are very proud of you be very careful place. this was done by cluster bombs. kate argh why did i go to iraq i was full of hate for you of the i hated bush because he stole my dreams you see i want to get one he took my son and his death destroyed our family. title action of thank. the tradition in the mexican tradition we plan to cross where the loved one has died. in all of the cemetery where he died we believe this is where the soul remains. that. i. saw. her then it's true it's. i i. last one. was here way and i'm. glad. i. know most of course i'm ok we're going to meet the mother of a soldier who died in iraq. john her son was an american citizen but she does

the u.s. losing a foothold in iraq meaning that they didn't have as much influence there now if you look at the. iraq's foreign policy they're a little bit in a vulnerable position they have iran on one side they're surrounded you know with in a hostile region basically and so their foreign policy has been all over the map so to speak they've been looking to iran for support looking to the united states for support as well also looking to russia so after this deal was announced they said that they were going to cancel this deal under concerns of corruption and that investigation is now under way now let's talk a little bit about the deal more than four billion dollars in air defenses specifically attack helicopters and missiles a spokesperson said that an investigation into this is underway again because of corruption now if you look at corruption in russia this is a concern here as well there where well aware of it if you look at the events of last week surrounding the scandal at the defense ministry anatoly said the call that was asked to resign because of this candle and also the chief of st

they participated in the iraq war and world war ii. >> you can daypack to the famous example of the abraham lincoln war elephant troubles with the war but in the 20th century with the close u.s. ally -- ally disrupted partly but as soon as the cold war gels thailand comes as the strong u.s. ally and definitely a strong cold war ally as the component to the u.s. global strategy. >>host: why do you call it "in buddha's company"? >> those who fought saw themselves says buddhist warriors. some as a logical someday tried to halt communism as a threat to the practice of values or religious tradition they saw buddhism and is under threat by a communism past to do with thailand as being the center of the intense tradition and many thai soldiers that fought they're took in both in front of what we call the enrolled buddha and many of them wore buddhist amulets especially when they came in contact with soldiers with other countries as the defying simple and to rebuild the buddhist temples that were abandoned because of the fighting. and their service was informed by ideals and a lot of the veterans w

student and wanted to speak to students about the merits of counterinsurgency approach to fighting the iraq war. >> brown: later researching her book broadwell had extensive access to petraeus during his time as overall commander in afghanistan. in august of last year, wife holy at his side the four-star general retired from the service. he took the c.i.a. post the next month. today the general's former spokesman retired colonel steve boylan told abc the affair began then, after he had left the army which strictly for bids adultery. >> this all started about two months after he was in the c.i.a. as the director and just so you know it alsonded about four months ago. he deeply hurt the family. he knows that. he acknowledges it. right now his whole focus is going to be geared towards taking care of the family and getting through this. >> brown: it's been widely reported that the affair was uncovered during an f.b.i. investigation protechd by 37-year-old jill kelly of tampa, florida. a friend of the petraeus family. the general's former associates insist there was no romantic involvement betwe

one of the main reasons we kept our troops in iraq and lost 4500 tubes was to maintain the unity of iraq. that depends on plurality and democracy. that's all we have now with all its faults and the need to be supported. the other major threat is the debate, struggle, disputes between the kurds in the north and the central government under prime minister maliki. that is a complicated issue but one of the factors playing a huge role is oil. oil is either the glue that will hold iraq together with kurdistan contributing to some degree to the massive increase in iraqi exports we will see by the end of this decade. 45% of all new crude-oil that will come on the international markets is predicted to come out of iraq mainly from the south but some from the north if all goes well. that is a big if and that is something we have to play a huge role in. the administration has been engaged in working a deal like currently is in place to get the kurdish oil in the north exported to turkey out of pipelines controlled by the central government but it is a difficult balance and is being pulled in differ

the hopes that you know the united states in a different egypt can get along i agree that the intervention in iraq was misguided and that the united states as charles said greatly overestimated its ability to bring about a political transformation of iraq but that was a military intervention carried out for other reasons which was then justified and tried to turn into a political reconstruction mission ok charles what do you think about that because again there's a lot of hypocrisy here and people on the ground see it ok the americans will support this democratic movement but not that one i mean how do you explain it to them i think you just straight like we're doing on this show and except the idea that there are moments when the united states can lean forward and push democracy there are other moments when the tradeoffs are too dear and therefore the united states eases off but i would agree with tom is that when it when it comes to the arab spring the u.s. has a general done a pretty good job it is dealing with the muslim brotherhood and. said of political actors that for a long time most ameri