." >> moments ago, u.s. defense secretary, leon panetta arrived in baghdad to participate in the formal end to u.s. military involvement in iraq. we want to take you now live to baghdad, where you are looking at live pictures of the casing of the colors ceremony in the iraqi capital. it has been almost nine years since the u.s. invaded that country. and in that time, at least 128,000 iraqis have been killed in conflict situations. more than 4400 u.s. troops have also died. and now at this very moment,ed american military command in the country is closing a chapter in the history of both iraq and the u.s. armed forces with this somber ceremony. it is such a big contrast to the explosions that marked the beginning of the war in iraq, back in march of 2003. >> now, this moment does, in a very real sense, mark the end of a difficult period, not only for the u.s. military, but for the people of iraq. damon has covered the key moments of the iraq war and joins us from baghdad. you know, arwa, you've seen it all. i

ally but it's unclear what role the u.s. played but u.s. forces were stationed nearby and someone to say the united states knew all about this. and at the time the bush administration refused to look into the incident claiming it was an internal matter for the afghan authorities but a promise by president obama to investigate ten years later what exactly happened and what role the u.s. played in these events remains a mystery well in two thousand and two it team actually did go to afghanistan and investigate the grave site at national a and they made a film documenting their discovery it's called afghan massacre a convoy of back here's a piece of it after the bloodiest. war. some of the. group to the northern alliance and u.s. special forces on the go to see who lives would be spared. today up to three thousand. in the more green. and you mackenzie is a human rights lawyer who actually visited the site in two thousand and two and he joined me a little bit earlier from london i asked him to tell me a bit about what he saw there take a listen

ally it's unclear what role the u.s. played by u.s. forces were stationed nearby and some witnesses say the united states knew all about this now at the time the bush administration refused to look into the incident claiming it was an internal matter for afghan authorities but despite a promise by president obama to investigate ten years later what exactly happened and the role that the u.s. play that all remains a mystery to help sort it all out i spoke to nathaniel raymond a former lead investigator on behalf of physicians united on the dr lee case i asked him just what did his team discover take a listen. our team physicians for human rights under the auspices of united nations visit the site at least twice to conduct for luminary exam a sions in two thousand and two they found multiple. skeletal lies remains that means that the flesh on the bodies had decomposed and they concluded from those remains that the cause of death was consistent with this fixation. and so having found that your team urged both the u.s. and afghanistan to c

well the u.s. government now has very limited options in terms of what can be done in iraq it has withdrawn its forces the only thing it has now it's an embassy in iraq which actually is a massive and this is sixteen thousand people five thousand of them are private security contractors but their their mandate is within the. premise of embassies that the united states and the consulates that he has in iraq america's position in iraq now that he has left has actually being diluted it doesn't carry the same way twenty comes to domestic iraqi affairs i think there are other outside players who have got their much bigger in power saudi arabia is one of them certainly iran is another major player in the turks are going to become much more involved and what happens in syria will have an impact also in fact one of the reasons why we see the recent skirmish domestically skirmish within iraq between prime minister nuri al maliki and his vice president tariq al hashimi is because of the question of syria vic

so with the u.s. presence in the region providing a kind of stabilization keeping sunis and shias from going at each other do you think it would make sense for a u.s. presence to continue or return to iraq do you think that would be preferable to a current situation that could lead to possible down the line something like civil war. i think that the worst thing that could happen would be a return to u.s. occupation that's what led to this level of of of sectarian divide in the first place that is the wrong approach i think that what is needed is a full withdrawal of the u.s. troops not only from iraqi territory but from what they like to call over the horizon we now have thousands of u.s. troops poised at new u.s. bases in kuwait on ships on the coast and ready to move back in that's a very threatening environment as well as threatening of course to iraq's neighbors most notably iran this is not a stabilizing force it never has been i don't accept the premise that the us occupation force has provided

of the u.s. policy at the moment is quite accurate we don't see president obama invading countries just because of his or will we saw he became involved in libya. in libya proved the intervention of the libya was approved by the united nations it wasn't a unilateral move by the united states and i have to say that if the international community and i emphasize the word international community and the u.n. approves the use of force against bashar assad's forces in syria who are causing mass occurs it would be a mistake for america not to participate and i don't think anybody in the middle east will forgive the united states of america if you were not planning to help when he says really fairly or three you have to try and if that's what the u.n. wants to go ahead i'm not quite sure of human rights concern about human rights whether it's in libya whether it's in syria or whether it was in iraq is always a fake leaf for u.s. primacy and for the u.s. to intervene whether it's libya where you don't. y

of the u.s. invasion as the united states has ignited sectarian tension and conflict in the middle east which is having profound effects ripple effects throughout the region i think syria is a critical piece here so is saudi arabia of course iran is the one positive thing as is as the united states withdraws even though we had a very bloody to day today in baghdad in iraq as the united states withdraws the one positive potential peace here is the united states will have less of an ability to actually use iraq as a battleground for this sectarian tensions that we've been igniting in the region that's the one potential positive but it would require from here in washington and of course there's not that much hope of it but it would require from here in washington for us to recalculate our position in the region instead of setting the different states and sectarian interests against one another we should be bringing them together in a way similar to what we did in europe awhile ago with the organizat

aid while for the u.s. it would at the very least mean resorting to other a logistical partners in the region an option it's currently disinclined to use so strong as both countries may feel they will turn into if they're still worse ok let's talk about some of those alternatives first i'd like to go to robert you wrote an article pakistan going rogue you said it is hard to judge such things from a distance but the pakistani reaction this time feels qualitatively different from the crises preceding it over the past few months what do you mean by that what is qualitatively different this time because there's march's report pointed out there's been a lot of downs and further downs in this relationship recently. you know that there have been in the past the perception at least has been that even when the pakistanis were very angry even when they were making threats of a future action of the it might take for instance if the u.s. were to launch a nother cross border operation such as the one that it launched to

the protesters are demanding an end to the u.s. drone raids. the u.s. military has stepped up its drone attacks, suspecting residents of harboring armed insurgents, but this has led to the killing of civilians. this town of dera ismail khan is some 150 kilometers from the border with afghanistan in northwestern pakistan. many refugees have come here to escape the drone attacks. this man lost his three sons in the u.s. drone attack. he fled here with his relatives. >> translator: many innocent people, including women and children, have died. some of the victims may have been terrorists, but too many civilians have been killed in these attacks. >> reporter: 6-year-old farooq became a refugee two years ago. he says the sound of the drones are still disturbing him. he stays at home all the time and doesn't go to school. >> translator: the drones make a terrible noise. i still have bad ringing in my ears and i sometimes have headaches. >> reporter: a local psychiatrist warns that more people like farooq are suffering from mental problems because of the incre

the u.s. and pakistan relationship is on life support so what happens of ties between the two countries collapsed completely. and at the massacre of the u.s. doesn't want you to know about thousands of taliban prisoners of war killed and then burry both by dirt and paperwork because according to the bush administration all's fair in the war on terror. and speaking of paul's fairburn on the waterboarding and enhanced interrogation tactics that's right some u.s. senators don't see a problem with returning to our tortured past. it is thursday december first four pm going to washington d.c. i'm liz wall you're watching artsy. well start off today by taking a look at a relationship growing more troubled relations between the united states and pakistan seems to have reached a new level this after nato forces accidentally killed at least twenty four pakistani soldiers now pakistan is taking action kicking us aircraft out of the country the relationship between the two countries already rocky after th

ally it's unclear what role the u.s. played by u.s. forces were stationed nearby in some way to say the united states knew all about this at the time the bush administration refused to look into the incident claiming it was an internal matter for the afghan authorities in spite of promises by president obama to investigate one year later what exactly happened and the role the u.s. played in the events remains a mystery well in two thousand and two a team actually did go to afghanistan and investigate the grave site that dasht e leili and they made a film documenting their discovery it's called afghan massacre the convoy of death here's a piece of it. after breakfast before but in time after more phones and some of them songs will soon run good to the northern alliance and u.s. special forces underground in t.v. but the rights would be spared. today up to three thousand roubles men line and remark doesn't agree and he repente as a human rights lawyer who actually participated in the investigation back in two thousand and two and he join

more u.s. soldiers are now losing their lives to suicide than enemy bullets unable to readjust to peaceful life that's causing some veterans to warn young people not to listen. and british humor rises groups fight for no spies own it in the world's most surveilled country calling on oxford city council not to report what's being said in taps and or in other city rejected a similar surveillance tactic their. allies here in r.t.f. next are just crosstalk finds out of there are any winners from the turmoil of iraq and if a state of war has become the natural foreign policy of the us. hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle with the american occupation of iraq officially coming to a close this week it's time to take stock was the war in occupation worth it are there any winners is a rock a better place and is war now the natural state of u.s. foreign policy. to cross-talk iraq's future i'm joined by sabri in london he's an exiled iraqi academic in tel aviv we have mayor javedanfar he's a

and the u.s. would have to build on what has been achieved in this new setting, relying on training and joint exercises, maybe with a joint security commission, with diplomatic and political means, with intelligence, rather than huge military means to play its role. but iraq will be tested and iraqi politics and whether political leaders can rise to the occasion and cooperate. those will be important to determinants. >> iraq will be tested, but so, too, will american interests. what america wants from iraq is not what iran wants from iraq. the balance of power is shifting with the end of u.s. forces in iraq. >> there is a u.s.-iran dimension, no doubt. and there is -- although both u.s. and iran wanted saddam out, beyond that, more than power, there are significant differences between the united states and iran with regards to iraq. we would have liked to maintain a military presence beyond the end of this year. the iranians are very much opposed and they used their influence quite cleverly to pre

u.s. has signalled it is ready to help with efforts. is. >> you would think the philippines are used to this kind of wther, not so much. it all happened so quickly despite warning, this happened in the middle of the night. it caught many people off guard. all of that rain collects in the mountains and has nowhere to go so it funnels down the mountains and goes into the rivers and streams and water raised so very quickly it reached rooftops. it gave people very little time. >> it's going to take a while for all of this to run off so we don't know the complete damage to this. >> people are still missing. they have already rescued about 2,000 people and maybe about 400 additional people are unaccounted for. no power, roads are cut off. it will be difficult to get in there and clean up. >> thank you very much. we will go to cairo where they are bricing after another violent day in egypt's capital. a defensive woman nearly naked to the waist dragged off by officers. she was just one of the vict

u.s. troops are going to be out of iraq by the end of the month. >>> president obama accuses republicans of playing politics now with the economy. this in an interview, cbs's ""60 minutes"," the president challenges the political partisanship. he says republican strategy cuts him off at the knees. >> i think the republicans made a different calculation, which was, you know what, we really screwed up the economy. obama seems popular. our best bet is to stand on the sidelines because we think the economy will get worse and at some point just blame him. so we haven't gotten the kind of engagement from them that i would have liked. >>> all right. a lot of political buzz this morning that's centering on the weekend's gop debate. it was one to watch. at one point mitt romney criticized the frontrunner, newt gingrich, as being a political pro. then he markets himself as an outsider. this is an exchange, have you to see this, gingrich snapping off a comeback. >> we have differences of viewpoint on

u.s. legislators have approved measures stopping u.s. companies from doing business with iran's central bank. they're punishing iran over its nuclear weapons program and for storming the british embassy in tehran. white house officials caution it could backfire because it will push up oil prices and do better to deter iran's nuclear ambitions. >>> aung san suu kyi says she's confident the country is on the road to democracy. she spoke to reporters after holding a second round of talks with hillary clinton. the u.s. secretary of state has called myanmar's reforms a positive step. she warned they need to make more changes before the u.s. will consider restoring diplomatic relations. >>> jipgs wi s -- the militarys of egypt say they won't be ready until does he or sunday. >>> democrats and republicans say an extension of the payroll tax cut will help the economy but can't agree on how to pay for it. the senate shot down proposals brought by both parties forcing more negotiations. those are the top stories from cnn, the world's news leader,

more than a third of u.s.ready done with most of their holiday shopping, according to a new survey. another 28% of people surveyed said they plan to take a break from spending now that black friday is behind them. about four in ten shoppers plan to finish checking off their holiday lists at discount chains, highlighting that many americans are trying to remain frugal. >> tom: were bond holders misled about the miami marlins finances while being encouraged to buy bonds to build a new baseball stadium? that's what federal investigators want to know. miami, its surrounding county and the team are financing the stadium, with the city and county covering most of the $645 million cost of building the new stadium and parking lots. they issued $500 million in bonds to help pay for it. the stadium opens next spring. the team says it's cooperating with the investigation, but did not comment further. the united states postal service wants to sharply reduce overnight delivery on first class mail. it plans to close half it

and even predominance of u.s. and nato parties as a whole in other areas just grow you know it will always stretch the very concept of strategic stability and it may well break apart we are very sponsible in this regard how close or how far is moscow from possibly pulling out of the start treaty of the us advances with their missile defense plans in europe we have a very clear explanation of this situation by a president with video of who on the twenty third presented what i would describe as a phased adaptive answer to the phased adaptive approach our phased adaptive answer means that we are not rushing into any dramatic decisions like the kind you have just described we begin with a very mill limited response to what we think is a real danger a real threat to our assets if situation develops in a negative way if we. steal and will be still unable to arrange with the us on something meaningful in the area of missile defense sold them further action may be in visaged including our view droll from the new start but

and while the u.s. keeps its eyes on just about everyone we're watching the two thousand elections from around the world the votes are in the united russia party claims the majority of the seats in the state duma elections meanwhile egypt is having a runoff in its parliament a parliamentary parliamentary elections we'll bring you the latest. it's monday december fifth four pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t the elections in egypt and russia the euro crisis and a u.s. drone brought down by iran those are the headlines starting off this week the u.s. and iran seem to be engaged in a political game that could turn dangerous the u.s. now stepping up saying sions against the country sanctions that would target their central bank an oil industry meanwhile a series of mysterious incidents have some pointing to the u.s. in gaging and covert operations in an effort to stall and iranian nuclear program from developing from assassinating key scientists to unexplained explosions of governmen

putting their guard up the u.s. may like to tout the idea of a nuclear free world but it isn't practicing what it preaches so ten years after the u.s. pulled out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty with russia what. it's been blatant hypocrisy or something. and the time person of the year goes to the protester from egypt to the u.k. the us to libya unrest has spread like a wildfire around the world so who are these protesters and why are some treated like heroes when others are treated like villains. and speaking of protests it looks like the u.s. is moving right on down its checklist of foreign enemies next stop syria for bashar al assad is clinging on to power we'll ask if syria is on its way to becoming a libya two point zero. the friendship with him coming wins big in body the two are getting along with the opposite sex sort of. and as protests happen around the world and leave it to the mainstream media to miss the real headlines like these outlets are more concerned with getting the story out first over getti

right here in the u.s. where right the similar things have happened yeah the bay area rapid transit which we know by the bar which oversees the transit system in the california shut down cell phone service during the beginning of the occupy protests because they saw on twitter and other social networks that protesters were going to try and move from one protest area to another via the transit system and you know. it is sort of a militarizing police agency which we saw right now i mean they had an incident where they shot a restrained suspect i think two years ago but what bart decided to do was they they shut down cell service they didn't actually have a policy regarding this. after the fact they came up with a policy saying anytime public safety is in jeopardy we reserve the right to restrict cell service and the federal communications commission is currently headed by a democrat just to show that this is completely nonpartisan. said you know that's great as long as it's for preserving public safety so in

and the u.s. british nato occupation today. i want to end with the kind of seven. plan for peace. >> sending. >> i was in the middle of an interview with the afghan foreign minister when a detonation interrupted us. what was that explosion, ast? explosion, what explosion? elaine november, 1981, almost two years since soviet troops had invaded. the officials then was that everything was under control oh, yes, the dynamiting. in the broom and the distance. he looked relieved and eager to assure me that i was mistaken if i had thought that i could hear the sound of war from his office . that was the stone's throw from the present a palace. they do it almost every day. sometimes twice a day. producing stones for destruction and stand. well, the minister wanted me to understand that the explosions could not be military. since the war was virtually over. we destroyed the main high debts of the bandits and mercenaries. now they can't act in a group. it's only a few individuals to involuntary stick to the

now u.s. congress is rallying to crack down on the country there was a series of economic sanctions the u.s. senate unanimously passed several new things since last thursday and although they may be in agreement over how to deal with iran many other political figure heads are certainly not on board treasury secretary timothy geithner is one of them he said quote and its current form it threatens to undermine the effective carefully phase and sustainable approach he also went on to say that sanctions could hurt the world market by raising the price of oil without deterring iran's nuclear program so how effective would a new round of sanctions really be and what is the potential fallout from all of the was here in our d.c. studios to talk more about this and more to start things off i asked if these sanctions do more harm than good here's what he had to say. absolutely these are these are the broadest sanctions imaginable these are sanctions against iran soil sector they make it illegal basicall

jim axelrod was with the u.s. invasion force in 2003, and he's back there today. >> reporter: at camp victory, the u.s. military headquarters in iraq for nearly nine years, vice president biden paid tribute to the nearly 4500 u.s. troops who lost their lives here. >here. , and the more than 40,000 wounded. >> because of you and the work of those of you in uniform have done, we are now able to end this war. >> reporter: neither side would call it a handover ceremony but that's exactly what it was. this is the last night u.s. troops will sleep at camp victory. beginning tomorrow, the iraqis will control it. 13,000 u.s. troops remain in iraq. that number will be zero in three weeks, if the plan holds. the main worry here is that when troops leave, there will be an eruption of violence between sunni and shi'a arabs, a return to the bloodiest days here, or even worse, a descent into civil war. but former national security adviser mowaffaki al-rubaie is not worried, saying any outbreak of sectarian conflict will not las

and as the u.s. gears up for the holiday days we have seen the signs we've seen the christmas tree lighting we've certainly seen the black friday shopping day ham. right ok. so one question remains where is santa claus coming from china well we'll speak with author professor and least she'll make the case and speaking of holiday cheer pimco bon titan bill gross tweeted about stan.

the u.s. president, barack obama, has promised iraq continued support even after they watched the troops returned at the end of this year. it came in washington after meeting with the iraqi prime minister. the 8000 troops still in iraq are scheduled to leave by the end of 2011. security remains precarious, however. the renegotiations and keeping some forces in iraq, but they broke down after washington insisted that the troops remain immune to prosecution by local authorities. we will be taking an in-depth look at how iraq is preparing for the withdrawal of american troops. a spokesman for the russian prime minister, vladimir putin, says that the results of the parliamentary polls will stand as a wave of protests continue. the governing party's victory has struck the largest protest since the 1990's. his supporters are taking to the streets as well. >> pro-vladimir putin protesters held their rally in view of the kremlin, the russian siege of power. some 5000 vladimir putin supporters came out

the u.s. senate." >> thank you. >> booktv has over 100,000 twitter followers. be a part of the excitement. follow booktv on twitter to get publishing news, scheduled updates, author information and doctorate the with the other string our life program. twitter.com/booktv. >> "the canal builders" is the name of the book. julie greene is the author. professor greene, wendy the idea of building a canal come about? >> the idea was an old one in american history, at least in the u.s. at least in the mid-19th century onwards, but even before that. europeans have dreamt of it for centuries spent and always through animal? >> no. there was a lot of talk of going through nicaragua or even mexico, but for a lot of reasons the french seize on the idea of hannah martin, and in the united states debated long and hard about possibly going to nicaragua, but some earthquakes and the fact that the french have done some construction worç in panama made at a better;ç;s approach that went to the french get started

billions of dollars from the u.s. side and from iraq so it destroyed the u.s. image around the world so that to put spin today to make this seem as a success i don't think anyone believes that and despite all these points you've brought up raid there are some believe that what we saw in iraq you know going into this war under false pretenses building a democracy quote unquote that this is a model that will carry on for the future i mean do you think this do you think that not just in the arab world but in the arab world in particular but just for the rest of the world do you think that this is sort of a model that the u.s. will follow in the future. i think it was a very hard lesson that the u.s. and other countries to think about it learned that the hard way especially that this is happening this year the year of the strings were many people argued for decades i argued for the last ten years that the u.s. should not have invaded iraq and that iraqis would have had the capacity to change their political regime by themselves and that was not to try to get any mo

well the u.s. always says it has a gold plated military and it gets an inanimate with technical fixes and gee whiz things whereas countries like iran or china that don't have as much money what they tend to do is try to focus on what the military calls asymmetrical threats in other words they don't they want to get our expensive systems and they want to find some easy way to get into them or hack into them using cyber methods or you know find some other way to neutralize them that's cheap because they don't have a lot of money and sometimes i can be devastating like in iraq we had the roadside bomb the low tech rows. created hell out of havoc with that that's another example of asymmetric threats that the u.s. military faces in this drone was certainly an asymmetric threat being hacked like that and i'm apparently the company at lockheed martin and they knew from the beginning that these drones were had the capability of being hacked that they had their scratch that they still allowed them to fly g

. >> susie: from hiring to housing, the outlook for the u.s. economy is muddled. still, u.s. stocks rose sharply today. it's "nightly business report" for thursday, december 29. this is "nightly business report" with susie gharib and tom hudson. "nightly business report" is made possible by: >> susie: good evening, everyone. my colleague, tom hudson, is off tonight. strong gains for u.s. stocks on the second-to-last trading day of the year. investors bought up stocks on fresh economic reports showing an improvement in the housing and job markets. an unexpected jump in pending home sales encouraged investors. the national association of realtors index of pending sales was up 7.3%. that index tracks signed contracts, not completed transactions. but still, that's a 19-month high. in the job market, new claims for jobless benefits rose slightly in the past week, but it was the fourth week in a row that the numbers remained below 400,000, a sign that the labor market is improving. now, all that played very well on wall street. the dow rose 135 points, the nasdaq added 23, and the

let's turn to the u.s. serve housing related data will be out this week, housing starts and new home sales for november will be released on tuesday and friday. the third and final reading of third quarter gross domestic product is due out on thursday. the markets are expecting the latest figure to be a touch higher at 2.1%. durable goods will come out on friday. are consumers pulling back? we'll find out when consumer spending for november comes out. >>> here's a recap of the latest market figures. >>> that's the latest in business for this hour. >>> "newsline" is the place to turn to for the latest on japan post march 11th. we have two segments offering two unique perspectives on fallout from the earthquake and unami. "nuclear watch" brings insight and information on the impact of the fukushima daiichi crisis. and the road ahead examines the efforts to recover and rebuild. don't miss "nuclear watch" and "the road ahead." >>> the japanese government decided its next generation fighter jet will be the stealt