Syria Somewhere Inside News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Stories we're watching. still to come this morning, a top u.s. intelligence official that al qaeda made its way into syria. why this is raising serious concerns and the passions flaring during the debate on birth control coming up. >> men and women of the cloth it seeps to me ought to run, not walk away from that line. heather: this was a heated hearing to say the least. we'll have more on that. and why some critics say this fight over religious beliefs turned into a constitutional issue. bill: treasury secretary tim geithner in the hot seat taking questions on the president's budget from the ...

Bill: fresh news on the economy this morning. now caterpillar is making plans for the peach state. it just announced it will build two new plants in georgia to employ 1400 people. they are expected to create 1,000 other indirect jobs. you might remember president obama's 2009 visit to a caterpillar plant, pe -- peoria, illinois, fight over stimulus at that time caterpillar's ceo promised to hire back all the layoff workers if the stimulus passed. as we noted the stimulus turned three years old today. heather: the nation's top intelligence and defense officials raising new concerns over al qaed...

Are there in syria, how concerned should we be about that and is that something that irans has its eye on? >> absolutely. chemical weapons capabilities of syria are far, far in excess of anything that existed in libya. it is not just chemical weapons. let's not forget, in september of 2007 israel destroyed a nuclear reactor being constructed there by of all people, the north koreans. almost certainly we will find that was a joint venture with iran. my guess there are other clandestine nuclear weapons activities being conducted by iran with syria somewhere inside syria. that is a pretty good wa...

In iraq is extending its reach into syria. we think it will just continue. we don't see any, short of a coup or something like that, that assad will hang in there and continue to do as he has done. >> it does raise concerns for us that al qaeda is trying to assert a presence there and that means that, you know, frankly, our concerns which were, which were large to begin with because of the situation, deteriorating situation in syria, that the situation there has become that much more serious as a result of that. heather: john bolton, the former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. and fox news contribu...

Threat and why should we be concerned? >> well it is a very curious threat in a sense because iran backs the assad regime. they have a lot at stake in deep keeping the regime in power. al qaeda has been carrying out attacks against the regime. some suspected this is double game. that iran and al qaeda are cooperating to infiltrate the opposition but in any event, what it shows is that al qaeda, whether aided by iran or on its own is still a very clear threat in the middle east and around the world and the idea that al qaeda has been bottled up along the afghan-pakistan border and been debilita...