. >> whitehouse press secretary jay carney entered several questions on the escalating violence in iraq. he told the reporters we would continue to offer assistance but are not thinking about sending in any troops. >> i am not an oakland fan but last night my son's team had a season-winning ending and here is to the bcca's! and that is the only announcement y at the top. the president does have an event at 2:00 so we will get to briefing unless everybody decides they want to run over and cover that. but i wanted to note that is on schedule and if anybody needs to go over that is fine we will keep going. jim? >> thanks, jay. just to clarify something on behalf of my colleagues. this isn't your swan song? >> it probably isn't. we will see how it goes. can i decide that at the end? [laughter] >> the president just today with prime minister abbot the u.s. is prepared to take military action when our national security is threatened. does the islamic state of iraq offer a threat to the u.s. national security? >> as the president said, jim, we are very concerned about the isil and the extremis

. >> once again, you are looking at a live press conference said to begin here those are the parents. we saw them yesterday speak at the whitehouse. in a matter of moment here, i would estimate in about 30 to maybe 45 seconds, they are going to take the podium along with a military official. one last question here as we wait for this press conference to begin, juan. what do you make of the he felt mir of qatar acting sort of as a middleman for the united states? >> the qatari government has tried to mediate discussions between the afghan government and the taliban for some time. there was a plan to set up a taliban office in qatar and doha. all of that fell through in the end. you have a new emir who seems to have tappy up this mediating role with more vigor. and has had an enormous success. i think, also, the u.s. public 0s a debt of gratitude to shake hamin in freeing bergdahl. >> you see bob bergdahl, the son, showing solidarity, he grew his beard out. do you think, juan, i think it's too early to sigh sect this deal and its impact but will this change the administration's handling of foreign policy moving forward? >> i think

you are absolutely right, that the whitehouse has put forward time and time again over of course of the last week or so, when conflicting reports have emergeed in the pressut is the president going to go through with limited air strikes? will there be limited air strikes? has he taken air strikes off the table altogether? the white house has not tipped their hand only insisting on the no boots on the ground line in the sand if you will probably not a very apt metaphor considering we are talking about iraq. it's a complicated situation, del, we don't have to remind ourselves of the sectarian strive there the sectarian nature of it. the rivalries which is related to the sectarian strive between iran and iraq. including many in the president's own party, the democratic party looking at this playing footie with the iranians. now we also have members of the president's only party, diane feinstein among them, elliot angle the top democrat on the house foreign affairs committee all calling for nouri al-maliki to go. al-maliki has come under a lot of criticism as we have well documented from the administration, his ineffectiveness, unwilling to bring sunnies in

kindly for not recalling when we went to the whitehouse the president outlined his budget/plan, and i unwisely went outside and was asked about it and said to the press and the tv cameras, we hear and understand it and will support it but it is a river boat gamble and i caught all sorts of hell about that. but the truth of the matter it was a river boat gamble and the truth of the matter is it worked. but it is near the top of the list of things i should not have said. >> dole agreed with you. >> i know he did. we talked about it. a good part of my evaluation of the message was based on what dole and i talked about. he was important in the senate and to me because he -- there is one other thing you should know and i don't know if it still happens or not, but i had a meeting we called the committee of chairman and the leaders office over which i presided. we invited one freshman at each meeting who hopefully just sat there. anyway, that was an important thing to me. that is where i got insight and what might be going on and that is where i first game to have a regard for bob dole's ability as chairman of that committee. his presentation was lucid and