don t feel as though you re doing enough to control gas prices. what did the president say? we ll hear his response. former news of the world editor rebecca brooks is arrested. they arrested the former aid and five other people. it stems from the alleged phone hacking scandal that now closed the newspaper. we begin this hour in depth in afghanistan and a reality check on the safety of american troops there. antiamerican protests are boiling up again two days after a killing spree. the taliban vowing to avenge the killings by beheading americans anywhere in the country. the suspect of the attack, a u.s. army sergeant, has been moved to a safer confinement area in kandahar. a fou hours ago defense secretary leon panetta arrived in the region. he ll try to shore up the strained relationship between the two alleys as it threatens to unravel. also this morning, unsurge gents opened fire on a delegation of afghan rebels as they visited the site of the massacre. one brothe
story, watching the hearing and talking to people over there, good morning, mike. first, to the deployment issue related to afghanistan. why the hold-up, and why the delay? reporter: admiral mull ln laid out, bill, 4500 of the surge troops are already there in country, and the number will rise to 18,000 by spring, and then they say they ll have the 30,000 additional troops by the end of summer. the pentagon says the issue is essentially that if an army unit has spent a year deployed in iraq or afghanistan, you need to give them a year at home, with family, and, to essentially retrain, replenish their supplies and that sort of thing and based on the dwell time , the earliest you can get the full 30,000 is by the end of summer, now there has been controversy of whether or not that is a change, we looked back at the president s remarks, and he did say that over the the next day after making the announcement, december 2nd, robert gibbs said they did anticipate to have the 30,000
that s a political decision. that s a military decision. i think i ll leave that to those folks involved making those decisions. sure. but in terms of the impact of multiple deployments, we don t know the impact yet. this is, as i understand it from the vets i ve seen, the first war in the history of modern american warfare, where soldiers are sent back to the same combat area again and again and again, and even when they re home, matt, mentally they may not be. it s called dwell time. but they may be getting ready for the next deployment. we don t know the impact of all that. when i lecture around the country, my concern is exactly what nick said. i don t want the stigma of any soldier, any warrior who s been in iraq or afghanistan to be besmirched by what happened in this one isolated incident, and