issues here in europe, bolstering european allies for what is happening on the eastern edges of europe, john. one complicated factor, nic, is that many of the people, including conservatives who were calling for the release of bowe bergdahl, are now criticizing it, making the white house position even more difficult. nic robertson in brussels, thanks very much. one person now defending the efforts to find and freiburgdale is retired army general stanley mcchrystal, former commander of the u.s. war effort in afghanistan. he tells yahoo! news they had to take sometimes risky steps to try to find the soldier, something he has no apologies for. this as even more of bergdahl s former comrades come forward to blast his actions, including his former squad leader, who tells the lead bergdahl was a deserter, in his view, whose actions led to at least six deaths. that s something the defense department denies. i can t really say i blame bergdahl to the fullest extent, but if he wouldn t
the lead that bergdahl was a deserter, also claimed that bergdahl was responsible for six deaths. now the pentagon disputes that. all soldiers he and others claim were killed searching for the p.o.w. that was the claim there. and as i said, the defense department denies that. this as former afghanistan commander stanley mcchrystal is defending the sometimes dangerous missions undertaken as they searched for the captured soldier. anyone who serves has a responsibility to the people they serve with, but also, we as a nation have responsibility to those who serve. so, i think if we raise this discussion up, and we say we ve got a service member for whom we are responsible, the answer s pretty clear. then we also should look at sergeant bergdahl, and he had responsibilities as well, and i think they should review that and see whether we are meeting those responsibilities on both ends. yes, no american needs to be left behind. then again, it goes again to that he needs to be accountab
so let s get to it. as you heard here, about 90 minutes ago on cnn, the president said that the federal government has gotten too big and complicated. that s not a revelation but he says he can fix it by streamlining, consolidating, simplifying. he said a leaner government would create a leaner and better national security. congress didn t consolidate on its side so now the department of homeland security reports to over 100 different congressional panels. that s a lot of paperwork. that s a lot of reports to prepare. that s not adding value. it s not making us safer. well, congress will have to approve a rewrite and republicans promise a careful review of that. military investigators say that they have tracked down and interviewed at least two of the marines seen urinating on corpses in afghanistan. the video has gone viral. today the deputy commander of u.s. forces in afghanistan issued a directive, reminding troops, and i quote, we must treat the living and the dead wi
that that s what they forget. they end up shooting at each other. reporter: this trust that threatens the u.s. war effort in afghanistan. we cannot operate effectively on the border without addressing the fundamental trust lacking between us. reporter: the pakistani s reject the u.s. findings. getting that trust is more distant than ever. why didn t we have those cool graphics. look at this. it s call of duty! okay. his polyester sports jacket. willie goes to a break now. hold on a second? what are you doing? i think i heard him. willie? it s halperin. hey, mark, have you seen willie? oh my god.
breaking the record set in 2009 and in 2008. petraeus says it will get worse still this year. what was your impression of war wearyness among lawmakers? yesterday, haley barbour talked about the idea of he envisions starting to pull a lot more troops out of afghanistan, trying to deal with it with smaller forces. been hearing this quietly among republicans for months, but not much publicly. obviously, we heard some criticism of the president from some republicans, but could you detect war wearyness on a bipartisan basis among the senate questioners yesterday? a bit of it, chuck, but to be honest, what i sensed more was war boredom. given the number of troops we have who are fighting and dying, but the whole hearing had this weirdly sort of pallid feel to it. there were few reporters. few people listening to the testimony. a lot of the senators would kind