thousands of lives, american and the iraqi, it took a trillion dollars. that s what it takes to take a tribes with flags state and turn it into a chance for some kind of decent democracy. that s not something we re in a position to do. no. and the u.s. has learned a lesson from iraq. i m a little less convinced than tom that these are complete nonstates, tribes with flags. what i m struck by over the last decade the way the states have held together, despite enormous stresses. you still got iraq and still have a lebanon and syria. what our forces, in particular what our cia officers are doing right now, is to try to figure out the order of battle. who are these people? how strong is al qaeda in iraq in the syrian fighting? that s really been their most important job the last few weeks, is to get to know these people, get to understand their
june. panetta was asked whether it was true and he declined to comment. he didn t deny it. you say this is essentially panetta trying to get the word out publicly because we are trying to deter israel from doing it in this manner? the obama administration has put unrelenting pressure on israel not to use military force and i think they are worried they are not succeeding. as we have seen from recent comments from senior israeli officials. they know how close iran is to nuclear weapons and they don t plan to lets that happen. having failed privately to stop the israelis i think it administration is going public. perhaps next secretary panetta will say what he thinks the flight path will be or order of battle will be. megyn: the administration is taking criticism for doing this. pete king had this to say.
that person hasn t come forward. the rebels don t really even know who their commanders are. communications are very poor. cell phones barely work. they don t have specific orders or even tactics. unless someone emerges, a strong unifying figure, it seems to be a very haphazard approach following where american and other military strikes have been and rebels creep forward to see if they can advance territory. let s talk about the western command and efforts by allies, french, american and british fighter pilots or bombers and tomahawk missiles. the fighting tonight, what has been going on? what s the order of battle? what do we have in the fight right now from the western side? reporter: well, what we ve seen is mostly the evidence. it s difficult to know on the ground what exactly has been fired. we know that tomahawk missiles have been fired. we know there have been american
other nations, italy are now involved, canada, gives us the kind of cover we did not have in 2003 against saddam hussein? well, i think we did have cover. let me ask you this, geraldo, who is in charge? geraldo: that is an excellent question. i think we are and i think that we will continue to be even if we very publicly give over command to some nonamerican command. that is what worries me. you can t run this kind of operation politically or militarily by committee and the logical order of battle here is for the united states to be in command. that does not seem to be what the president wants, number one. number two, he keeps saying that his objective is protection of the libyan people. geraldo: let s get number two on the ear sid other side . we ll be right back after this. we ll be right back. nexpected.
other nations, italy are now involved, canada, gives us the kind of cover we did not have in 2003 against saddam hussein? well, i think we did have cover. let me ask you this, geraldo, who is in charge? geraldo: that is an excellent question. i think we are and i think that we will continue to be even if we very publicly give over command to some nonamerican command. that is what worries me. you can t run this kind of operation politically or militarily by committee and the logical order of battle here is for the united states to be in command. that does not seem to be what the president wants, number one. number two, he keeps saying that his objective is protection of the libyan people. geraldo: let s get number