vacuum? the answer america is already losing ground to iraq s neighbors to the north and east. in other words, to iran and turkey. iraq is being bombarded from both sides. tv shows and trade from turkey, 1,500 trucks reportedly go back from iraq to turkey at one checkpoint alone. $6 billion of trade between the two nations in all of last year and there are investments and oil deals with iran, not to mention millions of pilgrims going back and forth. and both nations, iran and turk turkey, are working their hardest to influence politics in baghdad. iran s side won a big victory when the shiite prime minister, nuri al maliki maintained his position. the turks were backing the former prime minister, al alawi. after spending more than $700 billion on the iraq war effort, we are losing influence to
hardest to influence politics in baghdad. iran s side won a big victory when the shiite prime minister, nuri al maliki maintained his position. the turks were backing the former prime minister, al alawi. after losing more than 4,400 american lines and after spending more than $700 billion on the iraq war effort, we are losing influence to turkey and iran. the real big picture here is that this is a sign that u.s. effort in iraq was always too focused on hard power, on military power and not enough on soft power, on political and economic measures. by the way, america s ice cream chain baskin robbins has 31 flavors. iran s ice pack has 34. i wonder what the extra three are. we ll be right back. do you think the obama administration has a special role to play here? they have had a special role to play here. they were very good early on,
found that he downloaded afghanistan war logs from the period of 2004 to 2009, even though he was part of the iraq war effort. there was a tenth mountain division and its second brigade. he was apparently able to use his top secret clearance to download military reports from around the world and that, investigators are saying, is apparently what happened in this case. here is that iraq video, that first got manning into trouble. it was a rocket attack on insurgents that wound up killing two reuters cameramen, and the video was released apparently by this well, it was released and the investigation is suggesting that it may have been released by bradley manning. at any rate, we will stay on top of this story. we expect to be hearing something from the secretary of defense, who says this wickileaks thing has done grave damage to the afghan war evident. we expect to be hearing from him this afternoon.