crews hope to have that fire fully surround, hopefully by the end of next week. now we have learned the cost to fight the rim fire has reached $100 million. the los angeles times reports the cost rose as crews struggled in hot and very dry conditions. and more than 3,000 firefighters are still out there battling this rim fire. martha. martha: incredible. claudia, thank you very much. bill: so what is next in washington? speaker john boehner, house republicans, will speak on the hill any moment now. what will they say about the stunning developments surrounding syria? we ll find out. martha: we ll look for that. plus bill o reilly sounds off on the syria situation. why he says america doesn t have the strength to deal with assad. the sad truth is, we can not do it any longer. the usa is too weak and it pains me to say that. it s too weak to even take care of a cheap thug like assad.
we were at a g20 meeting at los cabos last year. i suggested the need for russia and the united states to work on this particular problem. it doesn t solve the underlying syrian conflict. if we can solve the chemical weapons issue which is a threat to us and the world, then it does potentially lay the groundwork for further discussions around how you can bring about a political settlement inside of syria. bill: mike barrett, former director of strategy for the homeland security council, intelligence officer for the office of secretary of defense. mike, good morning to you. good morning, bill. bill: this is vladmir putin and barack obama. who is pulling the strings in this tug-of-war now? i think clearly, you know, putin comes out on top of these things. he looks like the hardcore, hard-nosed realist. one realities here, the administration, president obama is trying very hard to give america a kinder, gentler appearance to the world and
urgency to these efforts. so congress has a responsibility to continue this important be debate on authorizing the use of force against the syrian regime. be as each of us knows, committing our country to using military force is the most difficult decision leaders will make. all of those who are privileged to serve our nation have a responsibility be to ask the tough questions before that commitment is made. we must be able to assure the american people that their leaders are acting according to u.s. national interests with well-defined military objectives and with an understanding of the risks and the consequences involved. the president be is an entire national has an entire national security team ask those difficult questions before we concluded the united states should take action against syrian regime targets. i want to address briefly how we reached this decision by
respond to the assad regime s chemical weapons attack on its own people. a large scale and heinous sarin gas assault on innocent civilians including women and children. i also wholeheartedly support the president s decision to seek congressional authorization for the use of force in syria. and i believe secretary kerry outlined those reasons very clearly. the president has made clear that it is in our country s national security interests to do, to degrade assad s chemical weapons capabilities capabilitir him from using them again. as secretary kerry mentioned, yesterday we outlined a way to accomplish this objective and avert military action. it would require the assad regime to swiftly turn its chemical weapons arsenal over to international control so it can be destroyed forever.
time address. as we said, bret baier will anchor our coverage at 8:55 eastern tonight. shepherd smith on the big fox network, and that gets underway at nine as well. bill: new video shows rebels and government forces fighting it out in a northern syrian city and near a christian town which al-qaeda-linked rebels captured about a week ago. leland vittert on that story in jerusalem. what s the situation in this christian village, leland? reporter: right now not very good, bill, for the christians who are left. the village is 3300 christians there, home to two of the oldest monasteries inside of syria. the rebels have fully overrun that village, are in control of it. there are now reports that some of the christians who remained in the village were threatened with beheadings if they did not convert to islam. at the same time, the rebels are now threatening on videotape to blow up some of the churches there. bill? bill: leland, thank you.