Page 3 - Michaelo Hanlan News Today

You know, we might still be occupying western iraq today, with a substantial number of troops. look, who negotiated the reduction of our troops and the withdrawal? not barack obama, george w. bush did in 2008. and then, you know, i agree with michael ohanlan that the obama administration can be criticized for some things and he wanted to get the troops out by 2012. undoubtedly partly for electoral purposes. but look at that another way, chris. he campaigned in 2008 on getting those troops out. t...

This is where we could also be critical. if you want to learn from history, you can say, anytime you go to war, you better be prepared for it to be a lot more ugly than you might first hope. and mr. rumsfeld and others at the pentagon did not have a plan that allowed for that possibility. thats where ive been the most critical, and i think that senator rubio, for example, could have chosen that tact. >> well, the situation in iraq is a function of what happened back in 2003 and what happened sub...

>> a group of separatists cant shoot down military transport planes, or they claim, shoot down fighter jets without sophisticated equipment and sophisticated training. and that is coming from russia. >> and on top of that, michael, at brooke,ininbrookings, at you you have a piece up saying the most damning evidence so far, separatist leader igor wrote, an antonov-26 has just been shot down crashing somewhere near the mine called process. we have warned you, do not fly in our air space. the ukrai...

Guess. putin himself is probably the best example of that. he goes out of his way time and again to explain how little leverage and influence he has over the -- what they call pro-russia separatists. those are their arms. those are their attacks. those are their bombs. while in reality, look at the kind of adoring relationship that the separatists had during the official crimea handover back in march or april. putin looked like a grandfather surrounded by his little cubs there. his military inte...

Theyre only sending three people, two people from the fbi and one from the ntsb or three people total and to kiev, not to the crash site itself so far. so there are real risks there. its unclear whether that is the way to strengthen the government in kiev or whether money and munitions is the best way right now going forward. >> yeah, and michael, on that same point, on the idea of strengthening militarily that government so they could actually go in and start to really fight and stand up to the...

Its half of the arms race. so if we cant get putin to stop, then i think we probably should and will increase western military support for the ukrainian government. i think the more important thing is to get putin to stop at the risk of having more sanctions placed on his country if he doesnt and presenting a united front with western europe to that effect. >> all right. well leave it there. andrea mitchell and michael ohanlan, thank you. ahead, were keeping an eye on our other major story of ...

Verse anniversary of the u.s. invasion of iraq. almost on cue, there were a series of ten coordinated car and suicide attacks that left more than 50 people dead today and over 200 wounded. in the decade since the invasion in 2003, iraq is neither a failed state nor a stable democracy, but the price in terms of american blood and treasure has been severe. over 4,400 service members killed. 32,000 wounded. and at a cost of $800 billion, according to the department of defense. and, of course, more ...

We have by speaking out against it but other means to stop the violence and to move forward to serious reform. >> bret: the obama administration announcing today that the, they are imposing financial penalties against three top syrian officials. and this comes as there is a crackdown again in syria. as we told you earlier, the situation seems to be growing worse in syria, as protesters refusing to back down. the government continues to crackdown. talk about this with the special foreign policy p...

Its miraculous to think they have held out as long as they have. if gaddafi has or does take misurata we are headed for a long-term stalemate. i think we have been too slow recognizing the provisional government, equipping it, on arming it, on training it there are many things that could be done. some of them will take time. but the sooner the things start and the sooner the message is there, the sooner things will change. >> bret: michael? >> defensive arms we should be supplying now. this is o...

Substantial trip wire. we have other capabilities were trying to build militarily to come in the need be. that kind of thing and hardening our electoral machinery against russian shenanigans like we saw in 2016 is crucial. worrying about cyber attacks. thats crucial. that has to continue. we need to walk and chew gum together. we need to think about whether theres any kind of broader dialogue to engage in over time. that might allow both sides to air their grievances and rethink the basic way in...