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Us was something unquestioned. i remember going with a key member of the bush national security team to see president clinton and he putting his arm around her, telling her not only was the intel right, but she was doing the right thing morally. it was not only a mistake, it was based on manufactured evidence. here, nobody is asking this basic question, except for our friends in moscow, what if assad didn t order this? what if this wasn t a syrian troop chemical attack? what if this was perpetrated by al qaeda affiliated oppositi oppositionis oppositionists? the consequences for going into syria are even more grave than iraq. if we go in and degrade and weaken assad to be the extent other al qaeda affiliates have, if that s what happens, and we think they re going to stop there, that s the definition of insanity. now, i ve heard people advance that scenario, i guess, that this was not actually assad who ordered this attack. maybe it was other elements of ....
Believe what we re saying for good reason. we made it up last time. josh? i m not one of these people who thinks that all the rebels are good or all the rebels are bad, but there is a bunch of evidence here that i think we should just put into the discussion, especially those march attacks that hillary mentioned. there were signals to intelligence. we caught syrian military commanders talking about this. as we did with iraq. we interrogated those iraqis after the fact. colin powell displayed them to the world. you know what they said? they couldn t believe how much we had contorted, distorted, and taken out of context what they were saying on the phone. i spent over a decade in the u.s. government. that is not how syrians do their battle plans, on the phone. we should also take a look at this attack. this was a rebel-controlled area that was a key venue for how the rebels got arms into syria through jordan. it was a long desire of the assad regime to take over these neighborhoo ....
Very dicey support among his conference. eric cantor number two hawkish on syria in the past. presumably trying to get republican votes here. i think the president really needs to do is get his own people on board. the congressional black caucus, a number of them. very tough. very tough to do. very opposed to any new military action in the middle east. dick durbin, number two senate democrat still not on board. he s the whip. he s got to get him on board. he probably will. dick durbin voted in the iraq war he s not a fan of overseas military engagements. is very supportive of obama and that s why he s keeping his options open. won t show his hand for a while. a lot more on the republican side, too. first we have somebody who will get a vote on this senator angus king. we ll talk to him after the break. [ male announcer ] this is jim, ....
Execute. hillary, hang on. i want to get heather in here. i raised it a minute ago. given how difficult and complex this situation is and given how limited the operation would be if the operation takes place, what happens if it really doesn t change the equation at all, if it doesn t change assad s thinking? what happens then? we ve been pretty explicit that it s not going to change the situation in the near term. in another way, it already has changed the equation. for example, assad isn t using the phone to talk to his generals anymore. the whole way they were conducting themselves, they now know we can hear. so the day-to-day operations have changed. the last week they ve been spending time moving prisoners around, moving equipment around, moving weapons around. assad s comfort level with how he can behave in his own country will never be the same. at one level, we have already changed things on the ground. second, and i think the american people need to know this and it needs t ....
What do we need to put in this resolution to get in the votes. i want to get this in. what do you make of this, john mccain and lindsey graham all on board, we cannot in good conscious support isolated military strikes in syria, not part of overall strategy that will change the momentum on the battlefield, so they are basically saying we might vote no because we want more. do you think that s an empty flet? no. i think they are fighting through. they will say, we support regime change, too. we just don t think these strikes are the way to do it. ultimately syrian people will bring about regime change. i think the resolution will go both ways. i think there will be attempts to limit it. great, we want it limited, to expand. of course at some point we want to expand it as well. you ve got to give something to everyone to give them votes and cover they want to say i voted for something limited, ....