letter that was for israel, solidarity for israel. there are only four senators who wouldn t sign that letter. he was one of the four. he has, in 2007 the, we had legislation concerning the iranian revolutionary guard, which is a terrorist group, to put them on a terrorist list. he voted against that in my opinion he is wrong on the issues in the middle east. but he is right in line i might say with president obama. bill: you said this was many years ago. i m just wondering, with the passing of time was he able to explain to you fairly and sufficiently why he felt that way? i . bill: and whether or not he perhaps has changed today? i don t think that will happen. he has been too consistent. bill, a good time to ask me that question in about six hours from now when the hearing s over. bill: perhaps we can revisit that. he faced opposition from others. whether it was his position
to pump out more nuclear materials at a faster rate. as you can imagine that has raised concerns around the world. staosteve centanni for this live. how did the international community become wear of this. reporter: diplomats in vienna are telling news organizations that the iranians are moving forward with this plan. teheran sent a letter to the a tony dungy energy agency about its upgrade of equipment at iran s main enrichment facility about 140 miles southeast of teheran. iran has 10,000 centrifuges at that plant. they are an older type that easily breaks down and were believed to be compromised at one point about two years ago by the stux-net computer violence. the new technology developed in iran with the hef pakistan would be able to enrich uranium two to three times faster. it s believed iran plans to install about 3,000 of these newer, faster machines. iran is believed to have enough
remember a few days ago a top iranian official said any attack on syria would be deemed an attack on iran. boy, this one could get very tense. we re watching it closely. kt will join us on that one. bill: a little bit under the radar so to speak. we ll see what happens next. we re getting going. minutes from now the confirmation hearing for defense secretary nominee chuck hagel starts in washington. first we will talk with someone doing the questioning. oklahoma senator jim inhofe will join us. is happy with hagel? you will hear from him. martha: just hours after a report that the economy actually shrunk for the first time in years this quarter, the white house says it knows why this happened. wait until you hear who they are blaming. bill: there is outrage in the city of chicago. gun violence claiming the life of a promising teenager just back from the inauguration in washington, d.c.. worry about where she is
as a result of this huge storm that went through. some of the images earlier showed some of these foundations just completely rocked to the ground. that is the aftermath you re seeing, what appear to be clearly tornados at least in calhoun, georgia. we re watching the system. it rocked the northeast overnight last night. hopefully it is out of here. what follows that is a cold weather system that will shake you yet again. it will feel a lot more like january and february once the system rolls through but for the folks in northern georgia and calhoun, they have a lot of cleaning up to do. we ll get you down there live as we tap one of our reporters out of atlanta. bill: meantime significant breaking news in the middle east. iran and syria are now threatening to retaliate against israel after the israelis reportedly hit a weapons convoy in syria late yesterday. kt mcfarland on what happens next there. martha: plus some much obamacare s most vocal supporters are now saying hold on. why so
efforts to color senator hagel s approach on some of these things don t do justice. reporter: expect chuck hagel to say he is in line with president obama s thinking on iran. he understands what the president is trying to do in afghanistan and other parts of the world. we know hagel has arrived in the room. so we re close to hearing from him directly, bill. bill: mike, is there any support from republicans for him? reporter: one senator, thad cochran said so far that he will vote for chuck hagel. others are waiting. we heard mitch mcconnell saying let s see how the hearing goes. what is striking how a lot of republicans have come out and said no including john cornyn. to senator hagel simply does not understand the true basis or true importance of the u.s.-israel aloolance. that is one of many reasons i can not support his nomination. i can not support a nominee for defense secretary who