saying that the syrian have provided scud missiles with a range of about 400, 450 miles to hezbollah in lebanon? secretary gates did not confirm that, but a senior israeli official says that is now their belief, that the syrians have transferred missiles with that capability to hezbollah. chris lawrence is working the story at the pentagon. thanks, chris. president obama is trying to stay focused today on america s bottom line. he flew to iowa to talk about jobs. and the economy, kicking off a new swing through the midwest. our white house correspondent suzanne malveaux is traveling with the president, at a town hall meeting with him right now. what s going on, suzanne? reporter: well, wolf, president obama very nostalgic about being here, saying it is just great to be back in iowa, reminiscing about the old days when he was in a van and a truck and nobody really knew his name beforehand. clearly there are a lot of people suffering. 58,000 iowans lost their jobs during this lea
the president, which were reportedly quiet tense. one area where they disagree, jewish settlements in a disputed part of jerusalem. now word syria is in the process of sending long range scud missiles to hezbollah and lebanon capable of hitting jerusalem and tel aviv. the white house says it is increasingly concerned about the sophisticated weapons apparently being transferred. robert gibbs was pressed on that by my colleague major garrett earlier today. we have relayed our concerns. [inaudible] we have. and. at the highest level? yes. gibbs was asked later in the briefing about the relationship between the u.s. and israel. he says the u.s. and israeli people have an unbreakable bond but he did not mention the netanyahu government. shep? shepard: mike emanuel at the pentagon tonight. mike, thank you. if you had the choice, would you want your taxes raised? some rich folks are now saying yes. raise our taxes.
unknown number of scud appear to be in the hand of hezbollah which operates out of lebanon, meaning it s next door to one of our allies, syria and lebanon do not have a good relationship with israel as all, nor does iran, which is not far away but it could be a game changer but scuds have a range of more than 400 miles that, means hezbollah could target jerusalem from inside lebanon. mike emanuel has more. i white house is speaking about this but the idea hezbollah would take it to that level and bring in the rest of the world is not a leap we re making. just the possibility changes the game. sure. at a time when israel is feeling threatened by iran, if you put more powerful weapons in lebanon, pc crowley says if this
provided an incomplete picture of the battlefield. he compared it to war as seen through a soda straw. the organizers could not be reached for comment. top senate democrat wants to extend jobless benefit by one month. the senator says the extension is needed to give house and senate negotiators more time to iron out a separate bill to extend benefits through the end of the year. both parties continue to quarrel over whether the program should be paid for with borrowed money, if the unemployment benefits program is extended, it will cost about $7 billion per month and add about $18 billion to the national deficit. brian? great. all right. syria is allegedly transferring long range missiles. shimon perez charged the syrian government with providing scud missiles to forces inside the lebanon. it threatens to alter the u.s. middle east balance but syria has denied the charges. some leaders are urging the capitol hill to block the
i think the president, the vice president, the secretary of state did the right thing for american interests and for israel by the way. i think we got to put this in a broad context. i think what hillary s reaction and biden s reaction, they were speaking for many secretaries of state, many presidents in the past who had israeli settlements shoved in their face. we need to take care of our politics. there is a lot of back story. this isn t just that trip. second, i think we need to keep the following in mind. what have we, the united states, been doing for israel rightly i believe. we didn t fight the iraq war for israel but in taking out saddam hussein we took out a guy who scud missiled israel. we fought against what i think was the goal stone report on the agaza war on the world stage. we helped israel protect it