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this dictator, murdering and putting his thumb on top of this entire country, snag they've been fighting for a long time. bill: you think about berlin in 1986, i think with the -- about the raid that followed in tripoli and benghazi by our u.s. military, pan am ten three, 270, many of which were americans in 1988, you think about the wmd development that was happening at least until a few years ago in libya. and you think about, you look at the excitement there, but it's the excitement, you're going to feel freedom. how many family members do they know that have been murdered by this individual? four decades of it. why did it take so long, why did it have to last, and you've got that internal uprising itself where this is a good day when this is brought to justice. there is still a -- a lot of work to be done because you want to make sure this new government doesn't fall into any of the past behaviors, get the democracy they desire and it's why they rose up. bill: on that point can they define democracy today?
their own confirmation. so all that now on the table at 9:33 here in new york. martha. martha: for more on these development, huge developments this morning, we want to bring in waleed faris, middle east terrorism analyst and author of the coming revolution and struggle for freedom in the middle east, wally, good morning, can you hear me okay? >> i can now. martha: your impressions of what we're watching on the streets of libya this morning. >> we are watching the end of a major chapter in the history of the middle east. qaddafi came to power in '69, i was 12 years old when that happened. now, after all these decades of bloody involvement, he repressed his own people and he was involved in international terrorism, including against americans, the pan am tragedy, against the french, against our europeans, he was involved in the continent of after cash now this is over, his regime is over, but his remnants probably will continue at some point in time to play the role of
still up in the air, you had issues in saudi arabia that were tampered down, oman was an issue, yemen has fired you and we still don't know what's happening inside syria. this entire region could very well be known as the year that the dictators went down, what kind of a future does it hold, what kind of government takes place here, what kind of policy, how does that affect the u.s. policy in the middle east, these are wide open questions we'll go through throughout the morning as we bring in some terrific guests over the next two hours. martha. martha: bill, thank you. as you know, the u.s. military played a crucial role in bringing about the beginning of the end of qaddafi's regime. jennifer griffin has been following this all along for us, they joins me live from the pentagon. what is the word from the pentagon this morning on all of this, jennifer? >> reporter: martha, neither u.s. defense officials or intelligence officials at this point can confirm that qaddafi has been either captured or killed but we can confirm from nato officials that nato war planes did drop bombs on two vehicles that were loyal to qaddafi
that involvement we're not here today at this point, and we would have been in a much more difficult and, you know, stressful situation in terms of where that country is going. setting that aside, you know, this is owned by the libyans. they have to take control of this, and they have to push forward. there was no real government structure. gadhafi ran this country in a very clever way under his thumb by setting up sort of a bizarre, dysfunctional series of committees and congresses. it was an unusual structure. it's not like egypt where move bar rack lees -- mubarak leaves and you've got some infrastructure to build off of. i think probably the closest example we've got in -- is iraq, and we need to take lessons about what happened after hussein was killed to avoid that chaos in libya. bill: i predict in two days over the weekend you will be reading stories published online and print inside newspapers in this country about radical fundamentalists operate anything the libya.
you look at hosni mubarek on trial and whether -- he said he was going to go out with his last drop of blood, you know. he may have put himself in a position where they had no choice but to shoot him. >> well, we don't know. we're going to get the information at some point in time. but just with the information that we know, we could do some projections. he was shot in the leg, so he was disabled. then he was shot in the head, after being hit according to the report. we don't know. with shoes on his body. so it seems that the unit that captured him did not want him to be alive for a tribunal procedure. these are the facts we can read from the reports we have, but we need to get more information. martha: before i let you go walid, your biggest concern for libya this morning. >> the biggest concern is what comes next, the next chapter, that the transitional national council will move quickly towards, first, civilization, there will be no revenge against those who have been defeated because that would be the fuel for the next insurgency. most importantly, for us,
and then we had that sort of back and forth, from the lines, from misurata to benghazi, it became a civil war on the ground and both sides pushing back. now that you've got by all -- from every word that we're hearing this morning, qaddafi gone, what happened with that part of this whole story? >> reporter: well, i can tell you that as the people were going forward to fight, as the rebels were moving forward to fight out of their cities and towns, their friends and neighbors were backfilling their spots, they would keep the streets clean, direct traffic, they would keep the power on as people who were taking care of those things were moving forward to join the fight. so in that sense it looked clear to me these people were able to control their own country, they were okay with not having a fixed government in place at that point because they could run things on their own without their leader. and i think that they are -- they have what it takes to make it work. of course, we don't know yet, but for the most part these people seemed honest, intelligent, committed, and
bill. so there's breaking news, of course, this morning and we are all over it for you, the reports out of libya that moammar qaddafi has been captured or killed. we just showed you the picture that is attribute to being a death photo in this situation. we're waiting for the final confirmation on that to come from our intelligence sources here in the united states. let's bring in rick leventhal who has extensive experience covering this story for us on the ground in libya. spent a lot of time with the rebels there. is this tape that we can play now, rick? all right, those are just some images of you on the ground rick. welcome. right off the bat, your thoughts on what's unraveling. >> it's a dramatic development, obviously, and this is what the rebels or revolutionaries have been focused on since this started. they were singularly focused on capturing or killing car daie -- cadoofie, that's what they wanted, freedom and democracy like we enjoy and they were willing to lose their lives to pursue it. martha: you made an interesting point, having
iraq when you have a megalomaniac who controls people for 40 years, just how tough a transition it is. martha: all right, we're having an audio problem, obviously with steve harrigan, we'll try to get him up an running. are you good now? >> okay. we'll try to get back to steve harrigan in a little while. he was in the middle of making a good point, which is we have seen what happened in iraq over the overthrow of saddam hussein, how difficult it is to build a form of democracy in a country, and that is the challenge that lies in front of the people of libya now. bill: we're getting a statement from john mccain. as far as i know, he's the first significant politician to put out a statement on this. and mccain is saying that the death of qaddafi marks an end of the first phase, the libyan revolution, he says while some fighting continues the libyan people have liberated their country. trish turner, our producer on the hill asked him how does he know because a lot of the reports are unconfirmed. we've had at least two
legs and he was shot in the head. that's what he's telling david piper on the ground in tripoli. does that change your analysis? >> i don't believe anybody at this point, frankly. i think we need to see what forensics and a little bit calmer time reveal. but i do think it's going to be important one way or the other, whatever the facts turn out to be. bill: it's a fave assumption this war is not won by rebels without nato involvement, without droning operated by the united states or given or operated by the u.s. >> no, absolutely, and i think that's one of the real questions for u.s. policymakers going forward. if we had acted swiftly and decisively at the beginning of this thing, instead of having it drag out for six months, with a much higher toll in civilian deaths, we might have shattered qaddafi's government near the beginning of the conflict and brought it to a resolution sooner. i think that's a real issue. bill: there are reports about six -- there were reports about six months ago about the number of foreign fighters in the areas of afghanistan and in the tribal region of pakistan,
responsibility for his death, the nato forces we know hit a convoy this morning as well, we don't know whether there's any connection with that, but the reports are that he was shot, which makes it sounds like it was a close range assassination. bill: and to the original point out of sirte, mccain concludes a statement by saying, i'm quoting now, the united states along with our european allies and arab partners must now deepen our support for the libyan people as they work to make the next phase of their democratic revolution as successful as the fight to free their country, and that point is the biggest challenge facing that country now. waiting on a statement from hillary clinton. wendell goler is traveling with her. it appears based on sores out of libya and the capitol city of tripoli that moammar qaddafi is dead.