Page 2 - Ground Issue News Today

Russians and then of course the syrians signaled they were willing. now, the syrians were in moscow, russia, as well as the united states looking for a way out of this crisis. russia wants to reassert itself in the middle east. it wants to protect the caucuses and the other areas on its periphery from resurgent islamic fundamentalism. theyre worried about al qaeda. they want to figure out a way to preserve the regime in syria and avoid an american air strike. so they have a lost of interest here...

And time too digest before we start talking to the media. on the other hand, i do think that very explicitly we would want to address the boots on the ground issue. and i think weve done that. >> reporter: just real quick, you asked the question about boots on the ground. he seemed to fumble a little bit saying he was thinking out loud. what did you like of his response? >> obviously i didnt want like his thinking out loud response at all. he did come back and close the door on that. it was usef...

Martha: you would think, obviously this is an intel on the ground issue. we have no longer the presence we had on the ground there because we dont have that outpost anymore that we once had. that what we learned that those cia assets were in part there to sort of try to track down perhaps shoulder-fired missiles that went missing africa introduce if i was taken out of office there -- gadhafi was taken out of office. there are a lot of questions about ongoing operations that may be sort of simmer...

The surrounding area. however, thats only if they keep it reasonably well contained, as they have so far, reasonably well. >> barry, if we are so fortunate to be blessed by winds and other variables that dont spread the material around, it doesnt address the on the ground issue of the fact that, again, youve got four rem per hour coming off of unit four when the u.s. threshold for nuclear workers is five rem per year. is there any contingency, any material, are there jackets, are there coats, an...

>> so it was clearly a signal yet again which you and i have both been reporting for moss that july 2011 was simply, in many ways, the left saw it as, yes, a date for withdrawal. the white house didnt correct them, even though they would point out to you, no, no, no, no. it is a conditions on the ground issue. by the way, fun little back and forth yesterday between the russian president and president obama. they did hamburgers together and talked about replacing the red phone. take a listen. >> ...

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