reiterated his pledge saying, please, republicans should all be nice. here's mr. gingrich, in his own words. >> i only have one opponent, that's barack obama. i have a number of friends running and one opponent. and i'm going to run this campaign on a positive basis because i believe the people of iowa are smart enough that they can see the difference between somebody trying to help the country and somebody who simply is running a negative campaign. >> can he stay positive is the big question because speaker gingrich make no mistake, is feeling the heat. let's bring in cnn's jim acosta. here in iowa tracking the republican candidates, jim, that is the big question. the speaker's the front-runner. he says let's be nice. describe to our viewers the kind of heat he's getting. >> reporter: well, you know, it's almost impossible to figure out a direction where he's not being attacked from right now. keep in mind he's has three other candidates in this field attack him with either web ads or paid tv ads running on the local stations in iowa. rick perry, ron paul, mitt romney, are all doing that. you mentioned the mitt romney flyer it that is going out in mailboxes this week, hitting newt gingrich on the ad with nancy pelosi. he's take it from all sides. the governor did an interview with the associated press this afternoon and told a reporter with the a.p. he's not sure newt gingrich has discipline needed to be president. he's taking it from all sides. and you know it might be safe to say that this bug here and which has the airport code for sioux city, john, might sum up the last 24 hours for newt gingrich, it hasn't been pleasant. >> i have a sticker from the airport. i use that. i have a bad day, a look at that. >> reporter: i couldn't resist. >> you mentions the web ads, tv ads, skepticism from an establishment leader here in the state like governor brandstad. that's talk. what is evidence that the newt momentum, as they like to call it has actually stalled? >> reporter: right. you know, i think all you have to do right now is perhaps look at the polling numbers. there's a new one out today from the folks at gallup, they've got their daily tracking poll out and it shows newt gingrich has taken a hit nationally, among republicans. we should mention this is a national poll. but it shows newt gingrich 29%, mitt romney at 24%, and ron paul there at 10%. contrast that with ten days ago the same tracking poll showed newt gingrich at 37% and mitt romney at 22%. he had a 15-point lead 10 days ago. people can talk all they want about how much they hate negative attack ads. a woman went up to newt gingrich today in iowa and said, newt gingrich don't give up, stay positive, don't fall for these attacks. and he said he wouldn't. he would stay positive. but negative attacks appear to be having an effect, john. >> that's the history of politics, voters don't like them but they tend to work. jim acosta live in sioux city. congress and the major issues that need to be resolved before members leave for the holidays. first up, government runs out of money, yes, at midnight tomorrow night and faces a partial shutdown if funding is not put in place by then. secondly, there's that big debate over extending the payroll tax cut. democrats and republicans want to do it but cannot agree how to pay for it. a source telling cnn the democrats' original plan to put a surtax on million dollar salaries off the table. remember the republicans hated that idea. so maybe, maybe a compromise can be reached after palm a lot more discussion on that item later in the program. it's easy to get lost when talking about this in the thicket of the politics surrounding the payroll tax extension. what does it mean for you? what are the hard numbers? let's turn to cnn's christine romans. >> john, let's strip away the politics and the process and look at what the payroll tax holiday means for workers' paycheck. first, what are the payroll taxes? taken out automatically, taxes you pay on earnings for social security and medicare. supposed to be 6.2% of your paycheck. last year the president and congress gave workers a break, we pay 4.2% of our pay, up to $106,200 of our income in our taxes. the defense is felt in our paychecks every week. and economies say that flows straight into the economy. how much money are we talking about? if the tax holiday expires a worker earning $35,000 a year would see a $700 tax increase next year. a $50,000 a year earner would pay $1,000 more in taxes. and anyone earning six figures or higher, they would see $2300 tax hike. these tax goodies are not free, as you know. they cost $200 billion. both parties want to extend the holiday but they say it must be paid for with cuts somewhere else. and that's where it gets ugly. consider how small this $200 billion fight is in relation to what congress has to fix. it will take $4 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years just to stabilize our national debt. that's 20 times greater than the amount that has paralyzed congress now. there's a lot of work to do. if the payroll tax holiday is any indication, john, they haven't even begun. >> christine romans breaking down the numbers there. stunning presentation. after nine long bloody years the war in iraq is officially over. a quiet ceremony attended by leon panetta, u.s. troops lowered the flag of command that flew over baghdad. virtually all american forces will be out of iraq by the end of the month. as of this week 5,500 u.s. troops inside the country. nearly 4,500 americans were killed in iraq, more than 30,000 wounded. long war cost the united states more than $800 billion. stunning new developments in the saga of the downed u.s. spy drone that ended up in iranian hands. a new report how the iranians got it. we know more about its true mission. the top republican on the senate arms services committee is demanding information about the downed drone. >> i think it's a very legitimate question, why was the drone placed in such a situation where our highest level of technology could be compromised? and somebody ought to answer for that. and i think we need to know, at least congress needs to know. we've heard nothing obviously from the executive branch, but the media reports are that our highest level of technology is now compromised. >> let's get the latest from cnn pentagon correspondent chris lawrence. chris, let's start with the information you have on exactly what was this drone up to across the iranian border. >> well, john, in a word, spying. two u.s. military officials now confirmed to cnn that the drone was on a surveillance mission looking at suspected nuclear faciliti facilities and sites inside iran. that's an abrupt about-face from what some u.s. officials were telling us when the drone crashed. first they were saying this was only being conducted on the afghanistan side of the border. it was strictly looking for insurgents, nothing to do with spying. now these u.s. officials are saying, no, it definitely was spying. but as to something john mccain just mentioned, i've spoken to several former military officials and aviation experts, they say, yes, this drone is probably one of the most sophisticated drones out there but it's not the most advanced stealth technology and they say the u.s. has some new technology coming online in the next year or so that will probably make this outdated. >> and, chris, what about these reports that iran essentially used technology to hijack the drone? >> yeah, the "christian science monitor" spoke with an iranian engineer who says iran hacked into the gps signal and guided the drone down, basically tricked the drone into landing in iran when it thought it was landing at its landing site in afghanistan. now the chairman of the house intelligence committee, mike rogers, has said that's just not true. he says this was a technical problem which echoes what some u.s. officials have said. but i spoke to a couple of aviation experts who say they do believe that iran may have that technology to hack into a gps n signal and perhaps bring it down. >> fascinating. still a lot of questions. every day it seems more questions. in three minutes here, here's a question, is the air rash spring spreading? senator mccain on his warning to putin. coming up at 6:40, christian bale roughed up in china and cnn was right there. stay with us. 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>> senator mccain was quick to respond, again, using a tweet. dear vlad, is it something i said? senator mccain joins us from capitol hill. what's the point of this exercise? are you having a little mono a mono with putin or do you think, a, you want him to change something and, b, the united states in terms of our policy to do something? >> well, john, first of all, later on, after that you didn't include, he said that i was, quote, nuts. but in a way, it is a bit amusing. but it's also very serious. and i think the reason why prime minister putin reacted the way that he did is because of the arab spring that's taking place, because of the demonstrations which, frankly, surprised him a great deal. it will be very interesting to see what happens on december 24th. but my point was that i have told you and i have discussed other times on this program, arab spring is spreading around the world to china, russia, every country where there is an oppressive or repress everybody government and people want their freedom and they want their democracy. and i think that december 24th will be a very interesting day when the demonstrations say -- demonstrators say they're going to continue. so it's a little bit, you know, i try to make light of it in some respects, but obviously the seriousness with which he takes it is warranted. >> i want to speak to you again about the history of this day. you and i have had many discussions over the years about troop levels in iraq, when this day would come. today's the day the united states officially brought down the flag and concluded its mission in iraq. i want you to listen to yourself here a bit because you took the opportunity just before this day to essentially tweak the commander in chief, saying you mighting ending this war but remember you're getting to do it because of the success of a policy you vehemently opposed. listen. >> all i will say is that, for three years the president has been harvesting the successes of the very strategy that he consistently dismissed as a failure. i imagine this irony was not lost on a few of our troops at ft. bragg today, most of whom deployed and fought as part of the surge. >> i remember senator, an interview we conducted on one of saddam hussein's palace balco balconi balconies, what now? i know you wanted more u.s. troops left, residual force left behind. are you convinced now that all of the troops can come home and iraq will remain stable? >> by no means clear to me that iraq can remain stable. general keen, as you know, one of the architects of the surge said we won the war and now we risk losing the peace. and i think it's important to point out that even though the bush administration made the agreement, condoleezza rice, former secretary of state, said, we had always envisioned a residual force, i always envisioned a residual force because of the areas of intelligence, the area of protect of airspace, the contested areas in northern iraq and iraq/kurdistan border. there was every military commander, everyone, recommended we have 20,000 troops remain behind in order to help with the stability and the security of iraq. and the president campaigned saying he was going to withdraw all of the troops. he did that. and i think it places the whole situation in great risk of a disintegrating situation, and i hope and pray that i am wrong. >> senator, i'm in sioux city tonight to watch something unfold that you have a great bit of experience at, a debate between the republican presidential candidates. iowa votes in 19 days. a consequential debate, last one before iowa votes. one of the men who ran against you last time, you vanquished him, rudy giuliani, he looks at the race now, he sees newt gingrich and mitt romney at top, he thinks speaker gingrich is the better candidate. let's listen. >> maybe that newt is appealing to something that mitt isn't appealing to. there's something wrong when you've will running as long as mitt has and you're at 25% and you don't go much above or below. 75% of the other republicans are telling you about him. >> rudy have a point there, senator, when you look at gingrich, romney, who do you think's the stronger general election candidate? >> john, in all due respect, as you know, i've stayed out of this and i haven't been critiquing the flavor of the month and who's up and who's down. >> i thought this might be the night to get in. >> thanks for trying, john. >> what's it like, give me this, don't pick candidates, what it's like to be in the room, it's the last debate before a big vote? >> i think they've had too many debates. i think it's now who makes a mistake rather than who articulates his or her vision for the future of the country. i think it's, you know, i think a certain sense of relief that it's finally coming to the first real voting part of the campaign. there's a certain relief there because all of these candidates have been really at it for well over a year, some of them a lot longer than that. so a bit of relief. but also, you know, one mistake and kraur you're in serious tro the way it works now. not enough town hall meetings. not enough discussion about your vision for the future, in my view. and that's just my impression. remember, it takes three days of your week, the day to prepare, the day of it, the day after. and so i think there's a lot more to campaigns than just debates. >> senator john mccain of arizona action appreciate your time tonight, sir. >> thanks, john. up next -- tonight's truth answers this question -- will speaker newt gingrich get his christmas wish? 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[ male announcer ] from fathers to sons, i joined the navy when i was nineteen. i spent four years in the military and i served a tour in iraq. all the skills that i learned in the military are very transferable into the corporate and real world. chase hired me to be a personal banker. the 100,000 jobs mission has definitely helped me get my foot in the door. chase is giving opportunities to vets who don't think that there's any opportunity out there. chase and these other companies are getting a great deal when they hire veterans. chase is proud to help 100,000 veterans find jobs at home. tonight's debate may test his revolve but at the moment newt gingrich may prefer you and anyone running against him think positive. >> we have an ad that will come up next week, wishing people merry christmas. we're talking in a positive way. i just think these guys keep this kind of negative junk, it is so discord ent with the spirit of christmas. >> we wait for that new spot, the current gingrich tv ad laments the new tone of the gop campaign. >> we want and deserve solutions. others seem to be more focused on attacks rather than moving the country forward. that's up to them. >> it is up to them. and and here's tonight's truth. the attacks won't stop because history, including very recent history, proves they work. look here, the numbers don't lie. what the gingrich campaign likes to call newt mentum is stalling. eye and new hampshire shows gingrich drop, just in recent days. take a look, down 5 in iowa. down six in new hampshire. that very same period, gingrich has faced tough attacks in debates, on the web, and on tv from several of his rivals. >> newt gingrich was a career politician. selling access here in washington, d.c. >> if enough of us demand action from our leaders -- >> together we can do this. >> now voters always lament negative ads and negative campaigning, and front-runners always plead, keep things positive. a brand-new rick perry tv ad to prove the candidates trailing gingrich will ignore his be nice christmas wish. >> the problem, political insiders. newt gingrich support increasing the federal debt ceiling $1 trillion and billions in new ear mashes. >> to be clear, gingrich is no stranger to attack politics, hardly. >> let's be candid. the only reason you didn't become a career politician you lost to teddy kennedy in 1994. >> now, wait a second. wait a second. >> newly positive gingrich, think of that attack? >> he set up too good an opportunity but i shouldn't have done it. >> now the former speaker's rivals are certain, trust me, certain to continue their attacks. and because of that, truth is, gingrich may well have to reconsider his civility pledge if he wants to halt his reason slide and keep his place atop the pack. let's discuss the truth with a familiar face and local legend, giving gingrich advice. the former actor and former congressman, fred grant did who endorsed speaker gingrich. >> i love the local legend thing. it's good. >> you knew -- >> feel like an indian chief. >> you know how think works, run your own campaigns, veteran of the caucuses here. gingrich is leading, everyone be nice. they're not going to be nice. >> they're going to be naughty. there's going to be ashes and soot in the speaker's stocking and everybody knows that. >> does he have a chance? we see the momentum stalling, he's plateaued if not starting to drop a bit. can he stay nice or does he have to fire back? >> give plea a definition of nice i thought did i thought the clip that you just ran about teddy kennedy was a fair comeback to somebody that had been on the speaker's case about being a career politician. >> unfortunately he's on camera saying he wishes he hadn't done it. now if he does anything, anything he does that's contrast, you're going to bring that up. >> i suspect, because he's the front-runn front-