through the capital for republicans. especially who may not have been as conservative. they don t want to get primaried. it s like a new word around washington. to some degree, you have to protect yourself against that. it doesn t do anybody any harm if you re a republican to vote no and still not have the responsibility of shutting down the government. the true test is going to be what happens when they get into negotiations. are the same republicans going to vote no and take the responsibility of possibly shutting down the government. that changes the political climate entirely. ken strickland, our deputy bureau chief here in washington. thank you so much, sir. which senator frequently brought a where s bill sign to the floor in 1995? rick santorum. he was referring to his budget proposal. up next, the u.s. war effort in afghanistan.
back is going to be meaningless and there s even some sign that the 2014 deadline, which was held up as the next time u.s. troops really start to leave afghanistan, that may prove to be less significant than we thought. petraeus said yesterday he d be open if the afghan government was agreeable to having the u.s. there beyond 2014. it s that the war may not even end in 2014 either. you talked a little bit about the expectation of what this year s spring offensive is going to look like when the seasons change in afghanistan. the fighting with the taliban increases. what was his expectation of what that was going to look like over the next three months? it was a very frankly disspiriting and depression prediction. it was that the spring and summer in 2011 will be much bloodier. it s worth remembering that last year was the bloodiest year,
the president s got a whole menu and i think too much of a domestic political debate in the united states is about using forms of intervention. not no fly zones or arming opposition. that s a really small part of the political spectrum. i think the president for the most part is right to hang back. to play for the long-term. this is potentially historic stuff going on in the middle east. we re talking about years or even decades. we don t have to try to do decisive things in a matter of days or weeks. we re also still involved in afghanistan and iraq. we ve got the budget overhang. we ve got to be very weary of what kind of investments we make here. i want to go quickly back to libya. if you ve got britain and france pushing so publicly to do something militarily, does the united states have any choice but to sign on with two of our closest allies in europe? sure. if we could just give lodgistic
the long-term troop presence. we re talking about leaving and staying all at the same time and that can be confusing. i m also concerned about whether we re sending mixed messages to both the american people and to the afghans. above your pay grade, there have been mixed messages about timetables or drawing down troops and about what our objectives in afghanistan should be. national journal senior correspondent yoki dreesen joins me now. what did you learn from general petraeus about the war yesterday that you didn t know before the testimony? chuck, two things. the first one is that this july 2011 deadline that the white house has been trying to walk
a delegate moment indeed. a lot of questions surrounding a deadly attack in pakistan. this one, a suspected drone strike in the northwest. was it linked to a new u.s. travel alert in europe? and deep concerns about a possible new al qaeda plot? cnn s fred pliken is in afghanistan. wolf, the alleged drone strike happen in the near ali area in waziristan which is the place with the taliban and al qaeda tend to be. and also other militant groups as well. two independent pakistani government sources who tell us that the eight people kill in this drone attack were, in fact, german citizens. they say it was three missiles that hit a compound and said all of those kill in that compound were, in fact, german citizens. now, we do have to be very careful about this information because anyone who s ever been at the site of a missile or drone strike knows that it s often very difficult to determine who was inside a building or car or whatever was