syria. you have no boots on the ground and it really is an operation that experts expect will last two or three days and twhants it to they want it to be done by the time the president leaves next week. there s always the risk if he uses chemical weapons again, we re going to find ourselves right back where we are now trying to prevent him from killing his own people. we heard this many, many times talking about the coalition of the willing here really trying to drum up as much support as you could to hit hussein in iraq. how is that different from what we re hearing today? this is very similar. we have no international constitutions backing this action against syria. russia was blocking a resolution. the arab league is divided over this. so is the european union. britain voted against any action. there s no major international
trace, while he didn t use the word, explicitly, he clearly was implying that the u.n. s conclusions are irrelevant because the united states has already reached its own. trace? trace: when we talk about the coalition of the willing or the coalition of the unwilling, where do we stand right now with our partners? clearly we have lost our most usual and most robust ally in the shape of the uk. the british parliament voting last night and voting against any participation in military action. that was a huge defeat for the prime minister there, david cameron, and clearly a blow to president obama s attempts at building a coalition. we have not yet heard a definitive answer from french president. he has indicated he supports the use of force but has not said whether french military assets
i find it very interesting. ever since they did a movie called the united states on trial, i played a palestinian kidnapped by the united states government for acts of terrorism. i started to get very involved in terms of the middle east and some of the policy and the whole quagmire over there. gretchen: that s where we find ourselves now. looks like the president will hold off on a decision. many reports thought some attack would happen today. now great britain hesitant. president obama in a bit of a pickle. how do you see it? well, i m not in the white house, i don t have all the intelligence. but just from my own unless we have the u.n. and russia weighing in on this and the coalition of the willing, i think we shouldn t go it alone. it s a very difficult thing. the most important thing and the civilians getting hurt over there. it s a no win situation. eric: hollywood elite, mayor of the liberal wilderness, michael moore, he tweeted this.
they are not part of the coalition of the willing after this vote on the parliament? not with active military action but there are other ways they can participate. we are learning more tonight about the capabilities of the u.s. intelligence system as well as what it can not do. reporter: a $52.6 billion top secret spy budget for fiscal 2013 which the washington post says it obtained from edward snowden reveal details which insiders say could provide damaging insight. u.s. intelligence agencies made slow progress trying to address key questions about chemical and biological weapons. on syria the national security agency was able to monitor unincrypted communications at the start of the civil war until president bashar al assad s
lebanon if someone was to bomb syria. seems like the coalition of the willing is the united states on its own. but of course we re being pushed, you d say, by britain and france, which is very reminiscent of libya where we were just supposed to be involved a little bit in the beginning and britain and france and nato were supposed to do the heavy lifting and they can t. they don t spend enough on their military so it falls to us. talk about how the white house is selling this. jay carney said they believe the chemical weapons pose a direct threat to the united states. so they re kind of trying to form this in a way that becomes more palatable to the united states. of course, obama all along has really tried to prioritize the united nations. part of libya was about enforcing the writ of the international community, set eight side whether or not there is an international community. we re not going to be permission from the u.n. russia and china won t allow it. so they re trying to