>>> league. i am joined by joe sestak of pennsylvania, who commanded an aircraft carrier battle group in the run-up in the iraq war and rose to three-star admiral serving as the white house director of defense follow i is and heading the anti-terrorist unit. zainab shelby, her father served as sa dad's personal phi lot. phyllis bennett , matt alagir, former army captain , served in iraq from 2007 to 2009 and author of a book, kaboom.
>>> today is day of the legal framework where u.s. forces were permitted to operate in iraq . few mainstream media paid much attention to the troop's departure or the milestone that today represents. it will not be remembered and there will be no kiss in times square . no one, perhaps rick perry , seems interested in holding a parade. even the movies about iraq go unseen. the staff and i spent the day deciding whether we should dedicate the show to the war in iraq . at the last of the u.s. troops crossed the border into kuwait, some of us weren't sure if the war warranted two hours of coverage, myself included. we started to talk about it. we couldn't stop talking about it. america 's invasion of iraq dominated our last two presidential elections , redefined our military, reshaped our domestic politics and aur place in the world but despite all that, america is so eager to forget iraq that most of the republican presidential candidates are continuing to repeat it in iran and the candidate gets no credit for it while his broader military party goes unchallenged while those claim it is insufficiently muscular and belligerent. whether we like it or see it, iraq is still with us. it is hard to fathom how we will escape it if we are unwilling to face it, face what it did to america and what america did to iraq . the worst of it, we never faced on our tv screens. as you are about to see, much of what we did see was disturbing and graphic.
>>> iraq continues to flaunt its hostility towards america and support terror. states like these and their terrorist allies constitute an access of evil.
>> there are known knowns. there are things we know we know. we are also know there are known unknowns . there are some things we know we do not know. there are also unknown unknowns , the ones we don't know we don't know.
>> i don't oppose war in all circumstances but what i do oppose is a dumb war.
>> less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the united states senate in the fall of 2001 . iraq declared 8500 leaders of anthrax.
>> we stand here because our right to dissent and our right to be participants in a true democracy have been hijacked.
>> could you give us some ideas of the magnitude of the army's force requirement for an occupation of iraq .
>> something on the order of several00,000 soldiers.
>> saddam hussein and his sons must leave iraq within 48 hours .
>> the rescue of private first class jessica lynch of west virginia .
>> that is at once a pathetic and symbolic representation of saddam hussein .
>> major combat operations in iraq have ended, the united states and our allies have prevailed.
>> the justice department is now investigating whether someone in the white house leaked the identity of a secret cia agent to punish her husband, former am basd door, joseph wilson , for challenging one of the president's reasons for going to war with iraq .
>> saddam was hiding out with this really hole in the ground.
>> the capture of saddam has not made america safer.
>> it turns out, we were all wrong probably in my judgment. this is most disturbing.
>> most weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere.
>> american civilians in iraq ambushed, shot, burned, and dragged through the streets.
>> the four men worked for a north carolina firm, blackwater usa .
>> i don't believe anything like that, of course, like those pictures happened in guantanamo but i don't know the answer to that. i hate to keep pleading ignorance. that's the reason why we need the general and others before the committee.
>> i am humbled by the trust an the confidence of my fellow citizens.
>> now, why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass ?
>> as you know, you you go to war with the army you have. not the army you might want.
>> people have come out just to celebrate the first time they are being allowed to vote in freedom here in iraq .
>> they don't have what i like to call skin in the game. we are all affected.
>> as the death count has reached 2000 .
>> we are losing on a day an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. this is not civil war , god knows what civil war is.
>> the world's second most wanted men, abu mu za has been killed.
>> he suited up to go on a run with a young and cure age yulgus iraqi war veteran.
>> saddam hussein will be executed before sunrise .
>> at least 11 people shot dead. iraqi officials claim by blackwater guards.
>> now, 4,000 dead, american casualties of war .
>> preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the united states .
>> 23-year-old david hickman was killed been an explosive in iraq on november 14th , making him the last american soldier killed in the war.
>> all the fighting, the dying, the bleeding, the building, the training, the partnering, all of it has led to this moment of success.
>> a simple ceremony at the baghdad airport to case the colors and to mark the completion of nearly nine years of war.
>> that's just a look back at the nearly nine years of war that we spent in iraq . some of the highlights and low lights i would say. as people who experience the war in a variety of different ways, i guess i'm just curious what your reactions are seeing all that footage. some of which was so iconic when it happened, the rumsfeld known/unknown moment. the bush and the flight suit on the deck of mission accomplished . some of it was remarkable as a staff. we were sifting through a timeline to put together in the video of all these moments, the bombing of the golden dome in samaria which was the iconic moment that inaugurated the civil war , the shooting by the blackwater guards that had sort of completely faded in memory. i am interested in your reactions, phyllis.
>> well, it is difficult to remember some of it. but i think that for me there were two things that really stood out. one was remembering the price that iraqis paid. i was glad there was mention of how many people were dying on a daily basis. the other was something that david kay said. one of the two main weapons inspectors in iraq . he came back to tell the security council that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction and we needed a couple more weeks to confirm and finish our job. he said, we were all wrong. i kept thinking, watching that, we weren't all wrong. they were all wrong. there were people in iraq , the middle east , and across the world and here in the u.s. who were right, who were saying this is not a legitimate war, not about weapons of mass destruction . this is about power, oil, the expansion of u.s. control in the world. there were people saying that and the amazing moment of february 15th , 2003 , when the world said no to war and the guinness book of world records said, between 12 and 14 million people came out in the streets to say no to this looming war. they were all wrong. we were all write. we were all write. the people in iraq were saying the same thing.
>> it always seems like small comfort.
>> it is not comfort at all.
>> it isn't. it makes it all more grotesque.
>> yes.
>> the best estimates and they are wildly ranging estimates in the total number of iraqi deaths, inaugurated by the war, different methodologies people use. the iraq body count which collates news sources has the number between 104,000 and 114,000. shocking totals.
>> your point about the weapons of mass destruction , i can remember sitting next while i was still in the military. weapons of mass destruction had not been found. sitting next to newt gingrich as he spoke to the defense university. afterwards, i asked him, what do you say now to the public? the answer was, we will give them another reason. so the cost also to us americans the cost is not $1 trillion that has been spent up front but the cost of $2 trillion to our wonderful veterans that do serve us but that they have come home with post-traumatic stress disorder, to be homeless as a veteran, 2 out of every 5 veteran families have been on food stamps . this has been a tragic misadventure. the lesson cannot be forgotten that it is not just military advice that is most important in deciding whether and how to conduct a war, it is also how does it affect overall national security . do it and do it and do it rather than re-assess it.
>> this point of military advice is interesting. i want to ask someone that served quite high up. you are a three-star admiral in the navy.
>> yes.
>> one of the things we have seen in the years since the war began is this notion that we should listen to the jerrelgenerals on the ground. there is this question of whether we should be involved in the war. this tactical question of how to engage in whatever military work we are doing at the moment. what do you think the legacy has been coming out of this in terms of how we think about the politics of war, how we choose to fight it and not outsource the questions?
>> this is one of the greatest lessons we have to walk away from this conflict with is that military advice is merely a piece, an important but a piece of how we go about the national security decision of going into war and how to conduct it. as some great military thinker once said, war is really politics by other means . it is why franklin d. roosevelt kept his hand on how and when we ended world war ii . why general eisenhower said car rhea has to stop. why general kennedy said after the bay of pigs , i will never again take aboard solely the military advice and intelligence. the failure across the board in congress and the administration to say, how is this affecting our national security , our leadership in the world, our impact at home, how we could not defend south korea with our army? those aspects were totally missing.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45881411/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
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