i'm erin burnett. "out front" on a friday night, the end of the war in iraq. all american troops will be home by the end of the year. that's 39,000 men and women. there was talk that 5,000 troops might stay next year, but, no. we've got jessica yellin at the white house and chris lawrence at the pentagon. i wanted to start with you. this came down to whether our troops would be protected proprosecution in iraq in part, didn't it. >> reporter: that's right. the white house, this administration and the iraqi government were trying to work out a deal to get american troops immunity from iraqi laws so that some could stay behind as trainers and advisers. the iraqi government did not agree to that and you heard the president announce that all u.s. troops would be coming home. some critics are raising security concerns with all u.s. troops leaving iraq by year's end, and the president emphasized that he has kept a campaign promise. this was a man who ran vowing end to the war in iraq and it is remarks and he howed also to refocus america's efforts on taking out terrorists, especially allocat qaeda. he is underscoring that he has kept his promises to the american people, a surprisingly political message from the president along with this announcement today, erin. >> jessica, thank you very much. obviously, the campaign trail, perry, romney, cain, our political roundtable will weigh in on scathing criticism there. we'll go to the pentagon and chris, to hear what secretary leon panetta has had to say tonight. >> reporter: erin, he's traveling in ash ra right now, but spoke to reporters onboard the plane and he said now the plenty gon has to turn its attention to establishing a long-term strategic partnership with iraq and even suggested that after all of the troops leave at the end of the year that there could be some initial discussions about perhaps bringing military trainers back to iraq at some point down the line. i also talked to a top pentagon official here who said, look, they would have liked to have a standing presence in iraq, but barring that, they can see perhaps an area where they would take new iraqi officers, bring them to the united states to maybe have them learn in some of america's war colleges or each conducting combined training with the iraqi forces at a third host country. erin? >> thank you very much, chris. we'll see whether this really is the end or not. we do know this, this has been a long year any costly war for america. nearly 4500 americans have died for the war since it began in 2003. the u.s. has spent nearly $700 billion on the iraq war alone, not including afghanistan and the cost of continuing operations is about $4 billion a month. william cohen is former secretary of defense under president clinton. thanks so much for taking the time. it has been a long war and costly in many ways. lives more important than anything. the american people have spent a lot of our future money on this war. did we get what we paid for? what we gave to the iraqi people was the opportunity to become a democratic country. more than they asked benjamin franklin at the end of congress, what have you given us. what we have given the iraqi people is an opportunity to have a democratic government. can they keep it in much would depend upon the forces inside the government whether they can reconcile the differences between the sunni and the shia. all of this is unknown at this point, but frankly, coming back to the present decision, i would like to have seen 30,000 or 40,000 remain for a limited timeframe beyond the end of this year, but if i had to make a choice as to whether they could stay without the protection of the force's agreement. >> immunity. >> if they had no protection i would take them out as soon as possible. >> i want to ask you, though, about this issue of paying because it is a complicated question, and when i was in iraq covering the oil industry there was a lot of hesitancy among iraqis. not necessarily hate of america, but a real hesitancy to give oil contracts to american companies whether it was based on animosity or not wanting to look like they favor american companies and now iraq is open to business and it is the second biggest oil reserves in the world and you're seeing russian oil companies get the majority of the countries. shouldn't this frustrate americans? >> it's very frustrating. as a matter of fact, we've seen this take place elsewhere where we are carrying the heavy load in terms of the military obligation and the loss of life, loss of limb and not to mention the cost of our treasury, and yet we're not getting the share of contracts that we should be getting and this again gets back to the many miscalculations we have made to iraq and number one, how quickly the war would go and number, two to be able to pay their own way with the oil reser reserves. the calculations over the past nine years and there will be a great disappointment that the united states doesn't have a greater share of the economic opportunity now that they have a fledgling, at least, in a delicate and hopefully a democracy that will take route and become much stronger, but right now it's still pretty fragile. >> let me ask you about this. you brought up the issue of paying for it and that was one of the initial things under the bush administration. we were told that iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war and obviously not the case. libya, the question coming up. i wanted to see more video. i'm sure you've seen some of it from yesterday. this is new video and equally as disturbing as what you saw last evening on the moments before and after moammar gadhafi was killed. there are growing calls to investigate whether he was executed. some of the videos and shots do appear to show a close shot right to the side of his ear. his body in misrata and the family trying to say that it should be handed over to observe islamic burial rites. what have we signed up for? the president has tried to make it clear that we didn't break this. it's not our responsibility to fix it, but an unstable libya where extremists can be running wild, but it has a lot of oil and doesn't seem like it's something america can walk away from? >> not walk away from, but there are many countries who have an interest in seeing a stable libya. certainly the british, the french and not to mention the other gulf states who have a lot at stake and also have a lot of money that they can propose to help stabilize libya until such time as the libyan people decide do they want revenge or do they want to have reconciliation. do they want to have a rule of law or the law of rule that they've had for all these years? they've got to make the decisions and i think fairly quickly because the euphoria is going disappear quite quickly, and then the question becomes what do we have? we have poverty or an opportunity to make progress and have some prosperity. so the libyan people have got to get involved very quickly in this and we can play a role, but it's one where we can try to help build their institutions, but the money's going to come, i think from some of the states very close to libya. >> mr. secretary, thanks very much. appreciate you taking the time. you have a long flight today to come in to talk to us. he flew in from tokyo tonight, everyone. that's how much he wanted to do this. so thanks so much. let's bring in david gergen now. cnn senior political analyst and the daily beast along with j.c. watts, former republican congressman from oklahoma. let me ask you all this question of iraq. did we and this has now spanned two administrations. did we win? >> i think the secretary was right. we don't know yet. what do i think is that president obama, we have to remember, this -- the promise to get out of iraq is what ignited this campaign and what led him to the nomination and led him to the presidency and in effect he's right that he has ended it as he pledged and for many americans this will be a walk-on moment for for those who study and think about this, for the way we go out will be a great disappointment. you heard secretary cohen say not 3,000 to 5,000, that shows how much military types really thought we needed to keep a significant presence there and the fact we couldn't negotiate some type of deal to keep them there with immunity says a lot about the fact that we don't have a relationship even today after all we've done for these people that that government isn't doing some of the things that's in their interests and our interests. >> it gets to the contracts which is after all of this, here we are. >> and that is a surprise to what extent. the country was broken and there are deep resentments and we're not getting the, frankly appreciation that some might argue we have and let alone the back end of economic, but president obama's been able to do this. he was able to depolarize iraq which is deeply polarizing at the beginning of the administration. >> getting everyone onboard publicly. >> this is no longer the polarizing issue, and he's successfully upped the attacks on al qaeda. not just bin laden, but leader after leader after leader and now this multilateral approach. it's been hard for the republicans to play. >> go ahead. >> i think it was very bipartisan until today, and the way we're going out has brought a very partisan response. the republicans are condemning this and the democrats are saying we ought to do this, yes, it's a risk and we ought to do it. i think all of us hope we leave with a sense of stability and together. >> but it's a sovereign nation and we can't determine that. >> j.c., let me bring you in on what david gergen said because it is a partisan issue today. you have rick perry. i'm deeply concerned president obama is putting expediency ahead of sound military security judgment. mitt romney, to secure an orderly transition. these aric credibly political statements, but they do show that all of a sudden is back on the table. >> iraq was not going to be off the table in a presidential election. it would have been an issue on the republican or democrat side. i think the way the president announced it probably the republicans would take exception to it to say i'm fulfilling a campaign promise. removing 39,000 troops at the end of the year and going from 39,000 to 150, take the politics out of it and was it the right thing to do? was it the thing to do in terms of maintaining some stability in iraq and i think -- all of us objectively would question whether or not going from 39,000 to 150 in a very volatile situation is that the right thing to do? now, when you consider what iraq has done in terms of not giving the immunity you know, that comes into question so trying to take the politics out of it and the right thing to do is trueing to determine if it was the responsible thing to do. >> we'll take a pause right there. all three of you will be back because we'll talk about what's out front next and that's herman cain. he was in detroit defending the 9-9-9 plan. actually, he made real news here. we went and ran the number, the bottom line and flash robs and no, i did not misspeak. robs are the latest trend in crime. we'll tell you about it and senator jeff sessions proposed an honest budget act today. is it truly the truth? we'll be back. another reminder of what i couldn't do. ♪ the accident could have been my excuse to quit. i made it my reason to go even harder. ♪ [ male announcer ] helping people achieve without limits. at the hartford it's what we do... and why we're the founding partner of the u.s. paralympic team. show your support at facebook.com/thehartford. we asked total strangers to watch it for us. thank you so much, i appreciate it, i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money ? 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[ female announcer ] get an aleve coupon in this sunday's paper. people have all kinds of retirement questions. no problem. td ameritrade has all kinds of answers. call us for quick help opening your new ira. or an in-depth talk with a retirement expert. like me. stop by my branch for a free retirement check-up. retirement hows and how-muches? whens... and what-ifs? bring 'em on. it's free. you're gonna retire. and we're gonna help. retirement answers at td ameritrade. roll over your old 401(k) and get up to $500. 446,745,562, that is is how many hamburger happy meals you can buy for $1.51 billion. that was mcdonald's net income in the third quarter. it makes you feel like you want a hamburger until you think about it. doesn't it? all right. today presidential candidate herl an cain addressed critics of his bold plan. the critics, you heard him at the presidential debate earlier this week say he would raise taxes on most americans. cain said americans under the poverty line would pay a very rate of income tax. so it would be 9-0-9 and then mr. cain said something else. >> bottom line, folks, 9-9-9 means jobs, jobs, jobs! >> cain has said his plan would create 6 million jobs and that is enough to make up the gap in taxes. we did the math on how much the government loses in revenue when they cut taxes on individuals to 9%. on capital gains to zero and the thing is it's in the corporate tax realm that things got hairy and as we were joking today, hair -- depending on what you assume, that's where the plan will succeed or fall flat. rich lowery is behind the 9-9-9 plan economic adviser. thanks for joining us tonight. we appreciate it. >> my pleasure, erin. >> i know you spent a lot of time on this, and we have spent a lot of time and used a lot of people on the economic strike team to look at this, and i wanted to ask you this overall as to why you're economichoosin into all of this detail, i'll picture it out when i get there or chris christie saying i'm going to cut, cut, cut, and i won't tell you what it is until i'm in office and everyone criticizing him for not giving detail and then he did it. what about doing that? saying you'll get a tax cut and not getting yourself boxed into the details. >> we're not boxed in. that's a typical reaction where if you don't release details they're going to come after you for not releasing details. if you do release details they'll come after you for releasing details. so we're going stay above that and continue to sell the story to the american people that we need to get washington out of the middle of the tax code. we need to prevent them from picking winners and losers. we need to limit their power and influence and we need to return power back to the people, and if you do that it equates to 6 million jobs in an expansion of $2 trillion of gdp and an increase in wages of 10%. >> it's interesting, by the way, some of the math we did, one place where you may have underestimated under what we've seen f your math is right on how much the economy will grow you'll get 12 million jobs, not 6 million job which is is something that mack ykes you sm whether you agree with it or not. i talked to people on wall street about your plan, the way you treat companies may result in a world where companies may not want to issue as much debt and that affects earnings and that would cause the stock market to drop. there's a lot of potentially unintended consequences here. >> well, that's ridiculous. >> that's totally ridiculous. if the economy expands by $2 trillion and we're creating that many jobs, why in the world would the stock market go down. when you look at how we level the playing field between exports and world goods, exports now leave our country with high embedded costs that would have to compete in markets with low embedded costs and we're unproductive. the result is companies locate overseas to avoid those embedded costs and the jobs follow. under the 9-9-9, products and exports will not pay the business nine and they'll never see the sales 9. so they'll leave here lean and mean and they'll be able to compete anywhere in the world. we're going to be a magnet for capital. we're going to be the place that companies are going to want to locate to be the most efficient producer to reach world markets. on the import side. imports come in today. they don't bear hardly any of our tax code and under 9-9-9, the imports will come in and be subject to the business 9, the personal 9 and the sales 9. so that levels the playing field between them and domestic goods which also pay 9-9-9. so the problems we have are really more self-inflicted and it starts with the tax code and if you just level the playing field and allow the private sector to grow, we'll get back to the natural state which is prosperity. >> do you keep a lot of corporate deductions that they get now whether it's for interest expense or things like that? >> no. no. the only deduction is gross sales minus purchases from other businesses that are essentially subject to the same tax system. you can expense all capital investment. we're throwing out depreciation schedules and you can deduct exports and that's it. so companies that earn billions of dollars right now and don't pay any tax are going to be the on ones that see the tax bills go up the most. >> companies that issue debt and that americans rely on that they can't deduct, that they might not issue the debt, that might affect earnings. >> it affects price to earnings multiples in the equity market. >> that's somebody's opinion. >> okay. solid, underlying fundamental growth is what's going to drive the market in stock prices. >> so i wanted to ask you this on the details and again, i hear you, you're criticized for not giving them and you're criticized for giving them. will you continue to give more and more and drilling down further and further or is there a point when you will say enough is enough. >> no, we released this from day one. it's there for anybody that chose to look at it. what we found is some loent look at it. the tax policy center when they released their study they excluded the entire amount that we had carved aside for poverty exemptions so that they can draw a conclusion that this was going to hurt the poor. all of the detail has been spelled out exactly how much we have carved aside for poverty exemptions and it's been out there all along. >> we appreciate you taking the time. >> thanks for having me. >> so let's talk about how the 9-9-9 or 9-0-9 will pay politically. david gergen and john adline and j.c. watts. david gergen, what do you make of this tough thing. you can go down on the details anywhere here and cause all sorts of problems for the plan, but are they giving too many details or too few in. >> no. this is the centerpiece of mr. cain's campaign. this is the most important pledge he's making. he's now rhisen to the top of te polls in many states and it's imperative that people try to analyze his group, we need other studies of this plan to determine what the real effects are otherwise you're buying a pig in the poet. as a political matter we've been arguing for three years whether we ought to raise taxes on affluent americans. this plan lowers taxes on affluent americans and raises taxes on working people. >> to that point he'd say no, that's not true because they'll pay a $500,000 car and you're paying $9,000 of tax and the lower income you buy used cars and this is where the detail comes in. >> one part of analysis said 84% of people will pay more taxes and they clarified it since then, b