We should never, ever give up. Brown thats all ahead on tonights newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by bnsf railway. And by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Brown president obama worked through this labor day monday, seeking support for military strikes against syria. He called in a pair of his Toughest Senate critics, hoping theyll round up votes for a resolution authorizing the use of force. Vote against that resolution by congress i think would be catastrophic because it would undermine the credibility of the United States of america and the president of the United States. None of us want that. From two hawkish republican senators, john mccain and lindsay graham, the president got backing for military action but complaints that he is doing too little, too late in syria. For two years the president has allowed this to become quite frankly a debacle and when it comes to selling the American People what we should do in syria given the indifference and quite frablg contradictions it is going to be a tough pull but it is not too late. So mr. President , clear the air. Be decisive be firm as why what it means to us as a nation to get it right. I think we work very hard, americans are skeptical. Top americans of the Security Team lobbied for votes today in a Conference Call with house democrats. It was all set in motion saturday with the president announcing hes decided the u. S. Should attack syria as punishment for attacks but he last said ive long believed that our power is not just rooted in our military might but as an example of a government of the people by the people and for the people and thats why ive made a second decision. I will seek thorgz for the use of force for the americans peoples representatives in congress. John kerry hit the sunday talk shows, added to the evidence he laid out friday. We have learned through samples that were provided to the United States, that have now been tested, from first responders, in east damascus, and layer samples and blood samples have tested positive for signatures of serin. So this case is building and this case will build. That was followed by a high level sunday briefing for lawmakers but some in both parties sounded unconvinced. I feel terrible about the chemical weapons that have been used. However we know that chemical weapons have been used in other instances and we did not take military action. In my mind its far from settled. Its not something that should be undertaken light. Certainly, the mood, of the district i represent is do not do this. And i honestly didnt hear anything that told me i ought to have a different position. Brown others said they are worried that the administration might be asking for a blank check. The draft resolution is very, very broad. I think one of the concerns in the past has been whether these types of resolutions were too broad. Brown the white house sent up that draft resolution on sun. It would authorize the president to use necessary and appropriate military force against syria in order to deter disrupt prevent and degrade the damascus regimes ability to use chemical weapons again. Senators mccain and graham said today they heard the makings of a plan from the white house. We still have significant concerns. But we believe that theres in formulation a strategy to upgrade the capabilities of the Free Syrian Army and to degrade the capabilities of bashar al assad. With the debate beginning in earnest, four ships deploying in the red sea. Meanwhile syrian president Bashar Alassad warned that more further aggression would risk a further all out war. Preventing any aggression against it. Assad drew support from moscow where the Russian Foreign minister said the u. S. Evidence of chemical attack is, quote, absolutely unconvincing. Back in washington president obama will try to dispel such doubts when he sends secretary kerry and defense secretary Chuck Haig Brown amid the focus on possible u. S. Military action, there was word today that the syrian refugee problem has become even more desperate. The United Nations reported some seven million syrians have fled to other countries, or been displaced within their own borders. Many are now appealing for outside military action. We have a report from Martin Geissler of independent television news. Jordans biggest refugee camp gets busier by the day. The streets here lined with people who have lost everything. Forced to flee their homes and their country in a bloody civil war. They saw foreign intervention as their only hope. Now theyll tell you the whole world has let them down. If no one stops assad hell kill 5 million says akmed. He cant understand why the u. S. Is backing away. Assad has used chemicals 14 times at least. What is the matter with the world . Are they drunk, are they on drugs . Almost 150,000 Syrian Refugees now live in zatarie camp. None of them want to be here but theres a depressing sense of permanence about the camp. Whats striking about this swarming swelling mass of people is the fact that across the border in syria almost the same number of lives have been lost in a conflict almost two years old. These people say the regime they hate will be emboldened. If obama doesnt strike assad hell look weak, says this man. Hell think it is okay to use chemical weapons. Dont send us missiles, send us guns. Well go fight assad. The world is playing a game with syrian blood. They all know more of that will be spilt before any of them can go home. Brown so where do things stand now . For that we turn to retired army general jack keane, vice chief of staff of the army from 1999 to 2003. He was an influential advocate for the surge of troops in iraq. He now has his own consulting company. Dov zakheim was the defense departments comptroller during the george w. Bush administration. Hes now a Senior Advisor at the center for strategic and international studies. And p. J. Crowley was assistant secretary of state for Public Affairs during the first term of the Obama Administration. Hes also a retired air force colonel welcome to all of you. General keene i want to ask you, because i understand you talked to senators mccain and graham after their meeting with the president. Did they have a sense of some kind of plan on the table for what could be done militarily . Yes i think they came away from that meeting a little more optimistic than they thought they would be. I believe theyre encouraged by the fact that i think the plan is a little bit more robust and that degrades significantly assads Delivery Systems to include air power. Brown what does that mean to degrade significantly . Well the Delivery System would be rockets, artillery and also his air power. Those are the assistance he uses to deliver chemical weapons. And the command and control associated to it. Theres a part 2 that theyre encouraged by also and that is the commitment to upgrade more than what we are currently doing, the Opposition Forces would train assistants with money and with arms. It was under brown arms . Hes already made a decision to do arms but no arm of any kind has arrived yet. And while if not in open sources, the fact of the matter is those are largely small arms. Its unclear as a result of this meeting today if the arms are going to be the kind of weapon systems the Opposition Forces want which is any air antiaircraft and antitank system. Brown youve written against military action, why . Well what are we going to do strike with tomahawks . We did in 1998. Didnt stop the taliban from supporting al qaeda nine years later, it was a disaster. Sudan didnt make much difference there. If its going to be anything like general keene is talking about thats not a one day shot. Thats going to be multiple attacks. Were going ohave to see how much damage we have actually done, Battle Damage assessment. Our record is spotty on that. Will we get everything were targeting . Maybe not. A lot of the aircraft, in fact the aircraft that seem to be more effective, l29 trainers, dumpy Little Things but they dont have to fly off air fields. But what if we hit the russians, then what happens . Brown p. J. Crowley, will a limited strike be effective . Sure. The immediate strike question up into strategy. Our strategy is containment. As john kerry reiterated on friday, we will do what we can to help the opposition, but were going to contain the civil war as much as possible, inside the borders of syria, obviously as the Previous Report noted we need to do much more to help the humanitarian side, with the refugee flows into lebanon jordan and turkey. But much like we did in bosnia ultimately we have to wait for an opportunity where the fighting just works its way through, and then see if we cant solve this mill tailor. Militarily. In the meantime the president has drawn an appropriate red line. In seeking to contain we need to be sure that these weapons that can kill far more than any other weapon in the battle field today that that is not a weapon that assad has at his disposal. But to dovs point at least what is to come out of this congressional debate is a strategy and aa policy that gives the President Authority to do it more than once but preparing for that. Brown youre suggesting going further as far as degrading his regime . I think the issue is how far are you going to go with a limited attack option . One of the things ive been advocating is, cruise missiles dropped out of airplanes that fly long distances to targets, they work best against fixed targets as opposed to things had a can move around the battle field. His air power is very vulnerable to this because you can take his infrastructure away, that is, his air fields, the logistics fracture command and control et cetera, plus his aircraft is vulnerable to that. Assad in using these chemical weapons never thought in my view that he would lose his air power over the use of these weapons. So we still have a huge opportunity odegrade him not as significantly here and to take down some other delivery means as well. Brown what do you see can is it sounds almost it sounds very, very easy but took us quite a wile in libya, in fact even in bosnia took 78 days. Kosovo. Kosovo where we were bombing away. What happens for example if the helicopters are moved and hes doing a lot of killing with hopts these trainers are moved and he keeps moving them, what happens then . What happens if we face much more sophisticated air defenses because the russians have given s300 air Defense Systems which the if the syrian syrians are in in ex e. Xtremis, we dont know what the limits are, we have never known what the limits are and once we cross the limits we get sucked in big time. Brown what do you think p. J. Crowley, was there an upside of the president going to congress for getting congressional support for anything like this that might ham . There are some anomalies here. Two years ago the president was involved in the sixmonth intervention in libya. The administration had a u. N. Counsel resolution but he did not Security Council resolution. He called it for legal purposes not hostilities. In this case hes ostensibly going to congress for support for a shot across the bow as he has called it. But as jack said, the key is, what the president s saying is im going to do whatever i have to do to take chemical weapons off the table. But again im not going ouse military to use military action to impose solution on the civil war. Thats an uncomfortable situation for us to be in but hes creating the boundaries that he needs to have as much flexibility within those boundaries to be able to do what he needs to do. And then militarily. And then the home run here is then to try to use the limited application of military force to try to unlock the geneva process and get this back on a military track. I think well have to face the fact that this could take years to resolve as it did in bosnia. Brown what about the potential general keene for the potential for more regional impact, blow back in many ways . If you didnt maintain the status quo, that regional spill overnight has begun. Spillover has begun. That regionality, in terms of blowback and i think nothing but hubris from the russians, they dont have much military capability to be frank about it. Syria is not going to attack israel, they lost every war they fought with them. That would be a huge mistake, the iranians are not going to conduct an attack, a conventional attack open israel and invite israel to take down nuclear systems. I think has been in their kit bag for a long time. Hezbollah has been firing rockets on israel, something that could happen. Something that enlarges the war i dont think so. Brown 30 second response to that if you would. I think if assad falls the question is who takes over . And if the islamists take over the most likely group is el nusra. Theyre not the biggest but the best organized. It wasnt in the Russian Revolution the biggest that won, it was the bolsheviks. Brown ill give you a last word. For the administration ultimately syria as horrible as it is is really of secondary importance compared to trying to resolve the situation of iran. Brown all right, p. J. Crowley, dov zackheim, general jack keene thank you very much. Thank you. Brown still to come on the newshour, Margaret Warner in egypt on reaction to the syria crisis; how the Civil Rights Movement spurred other fights for freedom. But first, the other news of the day. Heres kwame holman. Holman american diana nyad today became the first person to swim from cuba to florida without a shark cage. The 64yearold arrived in key west 53 hours after she jumped into the water in havana on saturday. She swam 110 miles across the Florida Strait with a support team keeping her on course. Nyad was sunburned and a bit dazed as fans welcomed her on the beach. I have three messages. One is we should never, ever, give up. [cheering and applause] you win, you never are too old to chase your dreams. Thats right. It looks like a solitary sport. Holman this was nyads fifth attempt to swim the strait. The others ran into boat trouble, storms, and jellyfish stings. The Top Nuclear Regulator in japan raised concerns today over new leaks at the damaged fukushima power plant. The latest leak was found over the weekend in a connecting pipe. There may also be leaks from three storage tanks where elevated radioactivity was detected. In addition, officials fear leaks also may be coming from as many as 300 other tanks. But japanese Prime Minister shinzo abe said again his government will not just stand by. Regarding the considering problem of contaminated water at the Fukushima Diichi plant, the government will come forward to implement necessary measures to deal with the issue. Unlike pastimes, we must take supplemental measures. Holman the fukushima plant has been crippled since the march 2011 earthquake and tsunami led to the meltdown of three reactor cores. Fire crews in california announced big gains today in controlling a huge wildfire thats burning partially in Yosemite National park. As of this morning, the fire was 60 contained, up from 45 last night. But it also grew by about nine square miles overnight and now covers more than 357 square miles. Firefighters estimate it will take about 20 more days to contain the blaze fully. In south africa, former president Nelson Mandela spent his first full day at home in nearly three months. An ambulance returned him to his johannesburg residence sunday, after doctors discharged him. The government said he remains in critical and sometimes unstable condition. Hell continue receiving treatment at home. The 95yearold mandela was admitted to the hospital in early june for a recurring lung infection. Verizon has announced a 130 billion deal to make it sole owner of its wireless business. The company said today that british carrier vodafone has agreed to sell its 45 stake in verizon wireless. Its the second largest acquisition deal on record. If it wins approval, the deal is not expected to have much of an effect on verizon customers. Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to jeff. Brown and we return to the middle east and reaction to president obamas decision to seek a congressional vote before launching a military strike against syria. Our own Margaret Warner is in cairo, egypt. I spoke to her a short while ago. Margaret welcome. Tell us about the reaction youve been getting from people so far about a possible u. S. Strike against syria. Jeff ive only been here 24 hours and im surprised at the unanimity about the strike on syria. Despite the fact thatom people here believe assad probably did use chemical weapons. People here say it will just cause more instability in the region. They mention more refugees to strengthening jihadi forces inside the rebel forces in syria. And at the root of it theres really great distrust of the United States, both its past action he in the middle east and its motives for even considering this. Brown so youre saying they might well believe that the assad regime used chemical weapons but its about the feelings first and foremost about the u. S . Warner it really does jeff. They said you got it wrong about iraq, there were weapons of mass destruction being made and there were not. There