Original subtitles

[dramatic musical sting]

- For all who love freedom

and peace, the world

without Saddam Hussein

is a better and safer place.

[cheering and applause]

- The war may be

officially over,

but the violence rages on.

- Congress must no longer

follow him deeper

into the quagmire in Iraq.

[crowd chanting]

- President Bush fired

an election year shot,

decided an urgent need

for a constitutional amendment

banning gay marriage.

- Hurricane Katrina is now

bearing down on Louisiana.

- Where is

the federal government?

Where are the troops?

crowd: Shame on Bush!

Shame on Bush!

- Signs the economy

is in trouble

just keep on coming.

- I see a great day coming

for our country,

and I am eager

for the work ahead.

God bless you,

and may God bless America.

[cheering and applause]

[dramatic orchestral music]

♪ ♪

[cheering and applause]

- My fellow Americans.

Major combat operations

in Iraq have ended.

In the battle of Iraq,

the United States

and our allies

have prevailed.

[cheering and applause]

♪ ♪

[helicopter thrumming]

- Today, there's a total

of 147,000 American troops

throughout Iraq,

42,000 in Baghdad alone.

That's 50% more

than the entire U.S. force

it took to fight

and win the war.

But critics claim

it's still not enough troops

to win the peace.

[crowd shouting

in foreign language]

- While the administration

had thought about

getting rid of Saddam,

there had been

very little thinking

about what to do

after he was removed.

[crowd shouting]

- Seven weeks after the war,

the U.S. military

has still not been able

to restore law and order

to many areas

of war-torn Iraq.

[crowd chanting]

- There was a sense

that all we had to do

was take a hammer

and smash

the totalitarian state.

And out of that,

democracy would suddenly bloom

out of the soil.

[crowd shouting]

That did not happen.

[crowd chanting]

- There really wasn't much

of a plan for phase four.

I remember asking, in fact,

"After we take down Baghdad,

what happens?"

And the answer was,

"You just get us

"to Baghdad, Dave,

and we'll take it from there."

- Like a

presidential candidate

on an early primary swing,

the new American administrator

of Iraq

posed with local officials.

- Paul Bremer

was an experienced

foreign service officer--

tough-minded, capable.

But some

of the early decisions

were, to me, predictably bad.

- He's made the tough

and risky decision

to fire all senior members

of Saddam's Ba'ath Party,

which could further paralyze

the infrastructure here.

[tense music]

- For the ordinary Iraqi,

if you weren't a member

of the Ba'ath Party,

there was no way, really,

to have not just

a comfortable life,

almost any kind of life,

because Ba'ath Party membership

made it possible for you to be

an elementary school teacher,

to give you

a civil service job,

to be in the military.

And when all that

was taken away,

people who previously

had been running the country

were now excluded from it.

- [shouting

in foreign language]

- "At least Saddam Hussein

fed us," says this man,

an Iraqi soldier

who hasn't been paid

for three months.

- There is no job,

there is no money,

there is no food.

What's the problem?

- Within Iraq,

there are very bitter tensions

between the Shia

and the Sunni

that had been contained

under a strong dictator.

But once that dictator is gone,

the infighting begins.

- The Sunnis had been on top

under Saddam.

Suddenly, we invade.

We get rid of Saddam,

and now they're on the bottom.

So you've got millions

and millions

of pissed off Sunnis,

some of whom

are gonna join the insurgency.

- [speaking foreign language]

- "We are not followers

of Saddam Hussein,"

says this man.

"We are sons of Iraq,

and reject

the American occupation

of our country."

[shouting]

- When you end up

fighting insurgents--

among the population,

not wearing uniforms,

with improvised

explosive devices,

ambushes, guerilla tactics--

that's a very,

very different task.

- The militant cells

each have about eight

to ten core members.

They're hard to catch,

because they often hire

poor villagers

to pull the triggers.

- The United States military

was kind of caught

pretty flat-footed

by this insurgency

that was gathering steam,

and the policy makers

wouldn't admit

that it was an insurgency.

- Are we into quicksand,

are we--

is this going to be

another quagmire?

- Well, um...

time will tell.

- It is very early

in the morning,

but there is

very interesting news afoot.

The rumors are getting

very strong--

the reports are becoming

much more numerous--

that Saddam Hussein

is in custody,

that Saddam Hussein

has been captured.

- Ladies and gentlemen,

we got him.

[cheering]

- There was

a quick celebration

in the streets

of many Iraqi cities

and certainly

in the administrative offices

of the Bush administration

and the American government.

This is a real victory

for U.S. forces in Iraq

and for President Bush.

- You will not have

to fear the rule

of Saddam Hussein ever again.

All Iraqis who take

the side of freedom

have taken the winning side.

- It was a disoriented

and bewildered Saddam Hussein

who was captured near Tikrit,

his hometown.

He was hauled out of a hole

like a dazed animal.

- The capture

of Saddam Hussein

of course was something

that we saw as a victory.

But from the perspective

of the Sunnis,

he had been their leader,

and for many of them,

their protector.

- While many in the Arab world

may have been quietly relieved

at Saddam's capture,

for others, the image

of an Arab champion

sheepishly submitting

to a humiliating medical exam

was taken as an insult

to Arab pride.

- We look at it as triumph,

but when they look at it

on Al-Jazeera,

it has

a totally different meaning.

It's a meaning of humiliation,

and that definitely feed

into the idea

of radicalization.

♪ ♪

- Last month,

the U.S. Army announced

17 soldiers in Iraq,

including a brigadier general,

had been removed from duty

after charges

of mistreating Iraqi prisoners.

But the details

of what happened

have been kept secret--

until now.

♪ ♪

- The photographs were shot

at the Abu Ghraib prison,

where Saddam Hussein

subjected prisoners

to hideous torture.

These pictures are

reprehensible, abhorrent.

You know,

this really reminds me

of what Saddam used to do.

- The myth is that America's

the great liberating force

and democratic

and that our soldiers

are more disciplined

than anybody else's soldiers.

And there's a lot of truth

to that myth,

but, of course,

it's partly a myth.

Human nature being what it is,

there are excesses,

and there are abuses.

- They are saying,

"We came here to free you,

"but in order to do that,

we will torture you."

What democracy

he is talking about?

- We handed Islamists

a recruiting video.

You couldn't have had

a better way

of encouraging young Iraqis

to join the jihad

against the United States.

[crowd chanting]

- Good evening.

We're a block off Broadway,

and it's opening night

for the first

Republican Convention

ever held in New York City.

The choice of the city

was no accident.

It's much about image.

The image of President Bush

at ground zero

as commander in chief

in a war on terror.

That is the picture

he wants voters to remember.

But that image is competing

with this one:

the massive

weekend protest here

against President Bush's

policies and the war in Iraq.

- Many observers are thinking

that 2004 might go poorly

for President Bush.

- Where are the weapons

of mass destruction?

- Where are the weapons

of mass destruction?

- You had inspectors

scrambling everywhere,

and they couldn't find

what been one of

the primary justifications

for the war.

- It turns out we were

all wrong, probably,

in my judgment,

and that is most disturbing.

- I concluded that there

were no weapons

of mass destruction.

We'd gone to war on that basis.

But others

in the administration

continued to insist

that they existed.

So Charles Duelfer

was offered the job

after I resigned,

and he confirmed

the exact same conclusion.

- Chief Weapons Inspector

Charles Duelfer

issued a comprehensive report

that confirms

the earlier conclusion

of David Kay

that Iraq did not have

the weapons

that our intelligence

believed were there.

- It was an embarrassment

to the Bush administration.

And so Democrats are feeling

that there is an opportunity

for a different direction.

- I'm John Kerry,

and I'm reporting for duty.

[cheering]

- John Kerry seemed

to solve a problem

for the Democratic party.

The Democratic party,

at that time,

was seen, in political slang,

as the "mommy party,"

whereas the Republicans

were the "daddy party."

The daddy party goes out

and fights the war.

The mommy party is softer

and, as some people saw it,

weaker.

And the Democrats had to show

that they were more warlike.

Let's get a war hero.

- I've defended our country

as a young man,

and I will defend it

as President

of the United States

of America.

- He was able to use

his Vietnam service

as a weapon, really,

against George W. Bush.

He's able to say,

"When the bell rang of Vietnam,

"I said, 'Send me.'

"I won a Silver Star,

I won a Bronze Star,

I won three Purple Hearts."

- There was a time

when John Kerry's war record

seemed untouchable.

But in just two weeks,

a small veterans group

has managed to put the senator

on the defensive.

- I served with John Kerry.

- I served with John Kerry.

- John Kerry

has not been honest

about what happened in Vietnam.

- He is lying

about his record.

- The ad is so tough,

even some top Republicans

have come out against it.

- I condemn the ads

as dishonest

and dishonorable, and I--

I think it's very, very wrong.

- This group of Swift Boat

Veterans came up

and made it seem like he had

exaggerated his exploits.

- The public face of

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

is that of a salty band

of Vietnam vets

who served at the same time

as Kerry.

But a closer look shows

the group has the support

of big-money Republicans

in Texas, with direct ties

to the Bush White House

and the President's

political advisor, Karl Rove.

- The President

keeps telling people

he would never question

my service to our country.

Instead, he watches

as a Republican-funded

attack group does just that.

- It was unfair,

it was untrue.

But it worked,

and Kerry lost some altitude

because of those

Swift Boat Veteran attacks.

- Good evening, everyone.

We're going to begin tonight

with that

ever-contentious subject

in America today:

same-sex marriage.

- If there's any doubt,

it's gone now.

Gay marriage will be an issue

in the election campaigns

ahead.

The Supreme Court

of Massachusetts

pretty much sealed

that deal today.

- By the power vested in me

by the commonwealth

of Massachusetts...

[cheering and applause]

- With this ring, I thee wed.

- I now pronounce you

legally married.

[cheering and applause]

- In 2004, no one's

really thinking that much

about gay marriage.

But then it becomes legal

in Massachusetts,

and that's enough

to agitate a lot of people.

So, suddenly, the Republicans

see this great opportunity.

- Today, I call

upon the Congress

to promptly pass,

and to send to the states

for ratification,

an amendment

to our Constitution

defining and protecting

marriage

as the union of a man and woman

as husband and wife.

- President Bush had,

at his right hand,

one of the great

political masterminds

of his era.

- Karl Rove was very good

at exploiting

the vulnerability

of the American middle classes

who were unsure

about the world

in which they lived.

- What two men do

when they get together,

what two women do

when they get together

is perverting the human body.

- You don't know about God!

You don't know about love!

- Republican operatives

managed to get referenda

about same-sex marriage

on the ballot

in states that would matter

for W.

And the goal was

to get Evangelicals

so riled up

that they'd go to vote.

And while they voted

against same-sex marriage,

they would vote

for President Bush.

- You had the Republicans

using same-sex marriage

as a wedge issue,

but Dick Cheney's daughter,

Mary, is a lesbian.

- Do you believe

homosexuality is a choice?

- We're all God's children,

Bob, and...

I think if you were to talk

to Dick Cheney's daughter,

who is a lesbian,

she would tell you

that she's being who she was,

she's being

who she was born as.

I think if you talk

to anybody,

it's not choice.

- John Kerry tried to show

the hypocrisy

of the Bush campaign

with regard

to the LGBT community,

but it backfired.

- This is not a good man.

What a cheap and tawdry

political trick.

- It just looked like

he was dragging

the private lives

of vice-presidential families

into a campaign,

and Americans don't like that.

- Twelve full hours

after the last poll closings

of Election 2004,

there's now

an undisputed winner.

[cheering]

- Despite all the problems

that had emerged

in 2003 and 2004,

still, the power

of national security

is a theme in America

after 9/11.

And the use of wedge issues

all added up

to a successful political mix.

- Ladies and gentlemen,

I give you the President

of the United States.

[cheering and applause]

crowd: [chanting]

Four more years!

Four more years!

Four more years!

- The government of Iraq

has declared

a state of emergency

as American forces

make last-minute preparations

for an assault on rebels

in the town of Fallujah.

- This is going to be

urban combat in which

a force of roughly

10,000 Marines

fight their way

through the city of Fallujah

in an effort to eliminate

about 2,000 to 5,000

insurgents.

- Fallujah was lost

by the middle of 2004.

It was an insurgency-held city,

and it essentially became

a giant bomb factory

that was just

driving the violence.

- Fallujah is not just

the biggest hotbed

of resistance in Iraq,

it's also believed

to be the base of operations

for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,

the Jordanian militant

who the U.S. hopes to capture

or kill if he's there.

- When the Americans

bombed Afghanistan,

Zarqawi was still

an obscure terrorist leader

looking for a new fight.

He found one in Iraq.

Zarqawi and Bin Laden

were very different men.

Bin Laden was

an international businessman,

and Zarqawi was a street thug.

He was covered with tattoos.

When he got religion,

he took a knife

and cut them off his arm.

- U.S. officials say

they can't allow

Zarqawi and others

to use violence

to keep the predominantly

Sunni Muslim towns

from voting in Iraq's

January elections.

- Zarqawi wanted to create

a sectarian civil war

because he felt,

"That will deprive

"the United States

of establishing

any government in Iraq

that can be pro-U.S."

- This town's

being held hostage

by mugs, thugs,

murderers, and intimidators.

And all they need is for us

to give them the opportunity

to break the back

of that intimidation.

- These guys have been

hitting us

and hitting us and hitting us,

hiding out in this town

over here for the past,

what, eight--

eight months to a year.

And they don't even know

what's coming.

Hell's coming.

[explosion booms]

[gunfire]

- The battle for Fallujah

has begun in earnest.

More than 10,000

U.S. and Iraqi troops

who have surrounded the city

have now begun to squeeze it.

- All around,

tanks hammered away

at the insurgents

trying to halt the advance

deep into the city.

Marines dodged in and out

of streets and alleyways,

flanking the tanks

where they could,

taking cover

behind their armored bulk.

- This was the most

intense warfare

the Marines had faced

since the Vietnam war,

since the battle of Hue.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq

was extremely well dug in.

They booby-trapped

a lot of buildings,

they knew the city very well.

- See him?

- No, no.

- Where is he?

- Hey, he's in that garage!

- This one right here?

- Yeah!

- He's in there!

- We got friendlies

on the road!

- As the Marines move closer

to the center of the city,

they're meeting more

and more resistance.

[rapid gunfire]

It's very hard

in these narrow alleyways

to find out where exactly

the firing is coming from.

- Inside!

[rapid gunfire]

- Watch out!

- [yells]

- I can't remember any fighting

that was comparable

to what took place in Fallujah.

- Everybody frag out!

- Go, go, go,

go, go, go.

- It was a real reminder

of how hard city fighting is,

having to clear every room,

every alley, every road.

- Moving house to house,

they found weapons caches

and booby-trapped,

mutilated bodies.

- You would go into a room--

and they called the doorway--

they call it

"the fatal funnel"--

and the idea was,

get as many Marines

through the fatal funnel

as you can

to overwhelm your enemy

who is sitting in this room.

[explosion]

[men shouting]

[gunfire]

- Shit!

- Go, go!

[men shouting unintelligibly]

- The most heroic thing I saw

were the 19,

20-year-old lance corporals

who got up every single day

and walked through

those doorways.

- Where they at?

- Right there, right there!

See him?

[gunfire]

- U.S. military officials

in Iraq

say they have won

a major battle.

The city of Fallujah, they say,

has been seized.

- The Americans say

they have captured

nearly 1,000 insurgents

and killed more than 1,200.

They found no sign, however,

of alleged insurgent leader

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

- Tactically,

we seized the city,

and the insurgency in Iraq

no longer had that

as a safe haven.

Unfortunately, the cost

of telegraphing our moves

in Fallujah was that most

of the Al-Qaeda leadership

just headed up north.

So the insurgency just

continued on and on and on.

- Suicide bombers

driving cars and trucks

loaded with explosives

left a trail of death

across Baghdad today

as Iraqi insurgents

stepped up their campaign

to disrupt

nationwide elections

now just 11 days away.

- America will not impose

our own style of government

on the unwilling.

Our goal instead

is to help others

find their own voice,

attain their own freedom,

and make their own way.

- It is election day in Iraq.

a critical day in that

troubled nation's history.

Perhaps as critical a day

in U.S. foreign policy.

- The first Iraqi election

was very meaningful

to many Iraqis

who participated,

and it was very meaningful

to people here

in the United States

to sell them the Iraq war

as a grand success.

- Officials estimate

the turnout was about 60%

of the nation's 14 million

eligible voters.

- The Iraqis seemed

to be energized

by the opportunity

to determine their own fate,

and I remember feeling

that, "You know,

"I think we've got

a shot at this.

I think this just might work."

- It was this

really exciting moment,

but actually what it was

was a census

of the Shia population

in Iraq,

because the Sunnis boycotted

the election.

- Most Iraqis are Shi'ite.

They voted

in overwhelming numbers,

hoping to take back power

after generations

of being relegated

to the sidelines.

- I was always skeptical that

this was gonna turn out well,

that the occupation

and the remaking

of the Middle East

in the image of Vermont

was somewhat beyond

the capacity

of the United States.

- What this may mean

for the future of Iraq,

for U.S. policy here,

and for the possibility

of some early withdrawals

of U.S. troops,

is just too soon to say.

- There's nothing quite like

a looming storm

no matter how many

you've been through,

and Katrina is now

a full-fledged hurricane.

- When you live

in the Gulf South,

the hurricane belt,

you pay attention

when you hear there's

a tropical storm coming.

So everybody in New Orleans

and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

was eyeing this storm.

You might have to

board up a window,

you might have to move inland

a little bit.

Yet everybody in New Orleans

had a Big Easy attitude.

"Oh, the big one's

never gonna hit us."

- The big concern:

The Big Easy.

The low-lying city

of New Orleans

deeply vulnerable

to a direct hit.

- Katrina exposes this city's

worst nightmare.

The very waterways

on which New Orleans has lived

and worked and thrived

for centuries

now threaten to drown it.

The city center, surrounded

by protective levees,

could fill up like a bathtub

with storm surge.

[crowd murmuring]

- Ladies and gentlemen, I wish

I had better news for you,

but we are facing a storm

that most of us have feared.

A mandatory evacuation order

is hereby called

for all of the parish

of Orleans.

- This storm is now the size

of the state of Florida.

It will be in the top five

in terms of strength

to ever hit the United States.

- By the time the mayor

declared an evacuation,

it was too late.

- Thousands of people

have been in line for hours

here at the Superdome,

where 30,000 people

may end up spending the night

inside this giant shelter

that officials are confident

will hold up.

♪ ♪

- Hurricane Katrina,

the Category 4 storm,

is now bearing down

on Louisiana.

- This is what everyone feared,

the storm surge.

- It is a very frightening

scene outside.

Conditions are-are just

getting worse and worse

minute by minute.

- New Orleans has lost power,

and the roof is leaking

at the Louisiana Superdome.

[wind roaring]

[people screaming]

[wind howling]

- New Orleans is no longer

safe to live in.

It is that simple

and that stark.

More than a day

after Katrina hit,

things should be

getting better,

but they have gotten worse.

A major breach

in a levee overnight

sent more water pouring

into an already flooded city.

Residents are being urged

to find higher ground

as soon as possible

to get out.

- New Orleans has essentially

been swept off the map.

Not even on 9/11

did I remember seeing

a dead body that closely.

I-I'd never seen a dead body

just floating

in the street of a major city,

on the news.

- There were, like, bodies

floating past my front door,

you know?

[sobs]

Bodies floating past

my front door.

- You can't find your wife?

- No, she told neighbors--

she told--I try--

[stammering]

I hold her hand

tight as I could,

and she told me,

"You can't hold me."

She said, "Take care

of the kids and the grandkids."

- It looked like

a great American city

was about to disappear

right before our eyes,

and George Bush was made

to seem indifferent.

♪ ♪

- He doesn't actually go

to New Orleans

in the beginning,

he flies above it.

And that was a metaphor

for a president

who was out of touch.

- The challenges that we face

on the ground

are unprecedented.

♪ ♪

But there's no doubt in my mind

we're gonna succeed.

[somber music]

- Help!

Help!

- There have been

some complaints I've heard

from on the ground down there

that they expected

the federal government

to come earlier.

Does it appear

that the government

now has this situation

under control

and is actively coordinating

the effort?

- Absolutely not.

I think that the question

to that, George,

is an unequivocal "no."

- Person after person

came up to me today,

and they were angry,

and they're saying,

"Where is

the federal government?

"Where are the troops?

Where's the National Guard?

Where's the Army?"

People are desperate.

- The Bush administration

was caught asleep

at the switch.

Instead of

immediately responding,

sending in the troops,

it took a few days.

- I'm Peter Mayer

in Washington.

President Bush leaves

for the disaster zone

an hour from now, but one

Louisiana official says

the federal recovery effort

is a national disgrace.

- We can't take this,

we been out here

for three days.

- I don't want to die

like this.

- We wanna know where

the officials at for this.

They on the television,

crying like they care so much.

Where they at?

Look around you.

- Because we conceived

of the post-9/11 world

as a war,

America's entire apparatus,

from intelligence

to emergency managers

to police,

was geared towards one goal.

Stopping 19 guys from getting

on four airplanes again.

In that process,

FEMA was put within

the Department

of Homeland Security.

It had no funding,

it did not have the expertise

or the professional group

of people that it once had.

It was, in many ways, an orphan

of the entire

Homeland Security apparatus.

And it was FEMA

that failed so miserably.

♪ ♪

- We're gonna make

absolutely certain

that the devastation

that has been reaped

upon these people

is taken care of,

and that we get their lives

back in order.

- Mr. Brown,

some of these people are dead.

They're beyond your help.

- The people they put

in place--

"Brownie," for instance--

this guy had been head

of an organization

that dealt

with Arabian horses.

- Brownie, you're doing

a heck of a job.

[all chuckling]

The FEMA director's

working 24.

- They tells us

they got 500 buses coming.

- Where they at?

- We been here five days.

- We're seeing

an American city

essentially being left

to rot...

with mostly black people in it.

You can't disassociate

the reality of the visual.

- The destruction

of the spirit of the people

in southern Louisiana

and Mississippi

may end up being

the most tragic loss of all.

- George Bush doesn't care

about black people.

- To say President Bush

doesn't care about black people

was one thing, but I think

what Kanye West was saying

and the way

it was translated as,

"America doesn't care

about black people."

Katrina is a symptom

of a much larger disease,

and we've got to

eradicate racism

if we're ever

gonna have equity.

- Sir, what do you make

of some of the comments

that have been made?

That there was

a racial component

to some of the people

that were left behind,

and left without help?

- My attitude is this:

the storm didn't discriminate,

and neither will

the recovery effort.

- I don't think that it's true

that the President

was racially motivated,

but I do think

that he was clueless.

- The cavalry is,

and will continue, to arrive.

There are those, however,

who will complain,

and have complained,

that it is too late.

- This is an administration

that prided itself after 9/11

at anticipating problems,

and yet Katrina proved

that that was all false.

all: Shame on Bush!

Shame on Bush!

[applause]

- Our work in Iraq is difficult

because our enemy is brutal.

But that brutality

has not stopped

the dramatic progress

of a new democracy.

I am confident

in our plan for victory.

I am confident in the will

of the Iraqi people.

I am confident in the skill

and spirit of our military.

Fellow citizens,

we are winning.

[applause]

- Good evening.

As we come on the air

back here in New York tonight,

we begin with a tense

and violent situation

half a world away.

[crowd chanting

in foreign language]

- As bad as the situation was

in Iraq,

things certainly took a turn

for the far worse

following the bombing

of the Golden Mosque

in Samarra.

- Until this morning,

there was a glittering,

golden dome

over the 1,200-year-old

Al-Askari mosque.

Now this is all that remains.

- This is like the Vatican

of Shi'ism.

That's the level of anger

that it engendered.

[crowd shouting, screaming]

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

understood that by attacking

at one of the most

sacred shrines

to the Shia people,

that he would succeed

in tipping Iraq

into civil war.

- The anguish and rage

of the Shia crowd

soon turned

into bloody retaliation.

- Throughout the country,

at least 100 Sunni sites

have come under attack.

[crowd chanting

in foreign language]

[sirens wailing]

- It's hard to describe

how bad it got.

Every day you'd wake up

in Baghdad,

there'd be a hundred bodies

on the street.

- Iraq was indeed enmeshed

in the civil war

that Zarqawi always wanted,

and the prospects of ever

stabilizing the country

seemed completely lost.

- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,

the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq,

is dead.

A tremendous boost in morale

for those who tracked him,

for troops in Iraq, and perhaps

for the U.S. as a whole.

- Zarqawi was killed

by an American airstrike.

But by that time,

the movement had started

to get completely out of hand.

- Zarqawi created something

that was

essentially un-killable.

It didn't need commanders

because it just had cells.

And the cells, essentially,

weren't really connected

to each other,

so that if you killed one

of the leaders,

the rest of it keeps going.

[sirens wailing]

- Now you've got

an Iraq war

that has gone bad,

you've got a Katrina response

that--it was considered

inadequate,

and the voters responded.

- S-say,

why all the glum faces?

Yesterday, the people

went to the polls,

and they cast their vote

for a new direction

in the House

of Representatives.

And while the ballots

are still being counted,

the Senate is clear.

The Democrat party

had a good night last night.

- And so we have

a divided government.

Democrats running Congress,

a Republican

in the White House.

That portends battles ahead.

- After that election,

many Republicans

are concluding that Iraq

is their Vietnam,

and that this war is gonna have

a big political cost,

and Bush needs to do something.

- Congress must no longer

follow him deeper

into the quagmire in Iraq.

- But then he takes one

of the most unexpected steps

you could imagine.

He says there's gonna be

a surge of troops in Iraq.

- On Capitol Hill,

President Bush faced

more skeptical,

even hostile reaction,

to his plan to send

more than 21,000

additional troops to Iraq.

- 20,000 to 30,000 troops.

We did that before.

- One senior official today

in the building

summing it up, he said,

"It's not about the number

of troops we have," he said,

"but it's about

the number of troops

that are dying in Iraq."

- They could try to stop me

from doing it,

but I've made my decision,

and we're going forward.

- Whatever else you thought

about the war,

whatever else you thought

about President Bush,

I thought it was one

of the braver,

more courageous

presidential decisions

'cause he probably didn't have

10% of the country

with him at this time.

- Are you still willing

to follow a path

that seems to be in opposition

to the will

of the American people?

- I am willing to follow

a path that leads to victory.

- The Bush administration

had to reverse the situation.

Otherwise, the failure in Iraq

would be its lasting legacy.

[helicopter blades whirring]

- There's a new American

in charge, tonight.

General David Petraeus

formally took over as head

of all coalition forces,

and he's facing

some major challenges.

- The surge,

especially under the command

of General David Petraeus,

proved remarkably effective.

- [speaking foreign language]

- [speaks foreign language]

- What mattered most

was not the additional forces,

it was the change in strategy.

Instead of continuing

to consolidate on big bases,

we realized that we had

to live with the people.

That was

the number one insight--

to live with the people

to secure them,

and securing

and serving the people

is our paramount mission.

- In counterinsurgency,

soldiers, Marines,

they have a rifle in one hand

and a wrench in the other.

When they go out

of their compound each day,

they're ready for a handshake

or a hand grenade,

and they can deal with either.

- The observation

of David Petraeus and others

was that the Sunnis

were terrified,

and they were angry,

so they were gravitating

to Al-Qaeda.

But they also were victimized

by Al-Qaeda.

[crowd murmuring]

- What we set out to do

was to declare peace

with Sunni tribes

that just wanted

to take back control

of their own neighborhoods

from these abusive

Al-Qaeda figures.

- This market is

the most important statement

of an economy

coming back to life.

It won't happen

if there's not security,

uh, and it won't happen

if there's not some money

to be spent.

- Part of the secrets

of many people

who were joining

terrorist groups

wasn't that

they were necessarily

religiously fanatical,

they needed a source of income

to feed their families.

So this was a way

of weaning away people

who were joining

underground organizations,

by giving them a salary,

giving them a role,

and also giving them a stake

in the future of Iraq.

[cheering, whistling]

- As a new year begins,

overall violence is falling,

and hope seems to be rising.

- One of the key lessons

that we learned

is that you really ought

to understand a country

in a very granular,

detailed way

before you invade it.

- In order to win wars,

you have to know your enemy.

Understanding

where they come from,

what makes them tick.

What makes them

blow themselves up.

It's not only about

winning hearts and minds,

you have to dismantle

an ideology.

Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden

were not just an organization.

It's an idea.

- Some say the gains

we are making in Iraq

come too late.

They are mistaken.

It is never too late

to deal a blow to Al-Qaeda.

It is never too late

to advance freedom.

And it is never too late

to support our troops

in a fight they can win.

- Breaking news

on Wall Street tonight.

It is a, quote,

"Once-in-a-century

"financial crisis," according

to former Fed Chairman

Alan Greenspan.

That's what he said yesterday.

Then, today, it got even worse.

The Dow had

its worst point drops

since the markets reopened

after the 9/11 attacks.

Lehman Brothers has filed

for the biggest bankruptcy

in history,

and Merrill Lynch

is being taken over.

- Certainly the largest

financial disaster in decades

in this country,

and perhaps the end of an era

in American business.

- What happened in September

of 2008

was of a scale

I had never seen before.

You really did think,

"Oh, my God.

The financial world

could collapse."

- Confidence

in our financial system

and in its institutions

is essential

to the smooth operation

of our economy.

And recently, that confidence

has been shaken.

- After a tumultuous

two terms,

President Bush is dealing

with a financial crisis

that could be devastating

to the nation.

- Fear has taken hold

of the financial market.

- This is irrational panic.

People are selling first

and asking questions later.

- And Bush and his team decide

that the answer

is gonna be government.

- I faced a choice:

To step in with

dramatic government action,

or to stand back and allow

the irresponsible actions

of some

to undermine

the financial security of all.

Under our proposal,

the federal government

would put up to 700 billion

taxpayer dollars on the line

to purchase troubled assets

that are clogging

the financial system.

- The Troubled Asset

Relief Program shows you,

I think, just how much

resistance there was.

- This bill offends

my principles.

- It is simply wrong.

It's irresponsible.

- New York City fat cats expect

Joe Six-Pack to buck it up.

- Their idea was,

"We need the government

"to have access

to a huge amount of money

that we can then use

to shore up banks."

- How many times

do we have to dig

in our pockets?

- A lot of people hated it,

obviously.

Here, we, the taxpayers,

were handing money over

to the bankers.

That seems and sounds terrible.

And yet, had we not done that,

I'm not sure

where we'd be today.

[gavel banging]

- The motion is adopted.

[cheering]

- We're rescued!

[laughing]

- We have acted boldly

to help prevent

the crisis on Wall Street

from becoming a crisis

in communities

across our country.

- Even though it's not

conservative orthodoxy,

I think what they did in 2008

was the right thing to do

to save the economy,

and I think they probably

did prevent a wipeout

of a tremendous number

of people

and a second Great Depression.

- Good evening, I'm Dan Harris.

President Bush made

his final trip

to Iraq today.

This surprise visit

was designed

as one last opportunity

to thank the troops

and meet with Iraqi leaders.

And while the President

was cheered by U.S. forces,

the trip will almost surely

be remembered

for these pictures

of an Iraqi reporter

throwing his shoes

at the President.

[man shouting

in foreign language]

- This is the worst thing

you can do to a human being

in the Arab world.

Shoes are the dirtiest thing.

I think it's just an indication

of how so many Iraqis felt.

- [shouting

in foreign language]

- There was evidence

all over the Arab world

what low regard they had

for him.

And this is a man who,

in his heart, really wanted

to improve the conditions

of Arabs

by bringing democracy.

But, unfortunately,

we tried to bring it

in the wrong manner.

- The financial crisis

has dragged

the President's

approval rating

to a record low--

just 24%.

- The combination

of the long-range disaster

that was the Iraq war

with the manifest incompetence

that was Katrina,

with the huge,

global catastrophe

that was the financial crisis,

leaves him utterly tattered

as a historical figure

when he walks out of office.

- I suspected...

there would be

a good-sized crowd

once the word got out

about my hanging.

[laughter]

- I think history will be

far kinder to George Bush

than Americans were

toward the close of his term.

Was he perfect?

Far from it.

Did he get us through it?

Did we endure?

We absolutely did.

And for that,

I think historians

will be very kind

in evaluating his leadership.

[somber music]

- Bush was a good man

with a good heart.

The people

that suggested to him

that we go into Iraq gave him

some of the worst advice

any American president

ever got.

It was his fault

for listening to them.

But I think he was led

into Iraq for good intentions.

And of course we know where

good intentions often lead.

♪ ♪

- He did his best.

He's not a great president,

he's not

a transformative president.

He'd done his damnedest.

And I think that's the legacy

of George Bush.

[cheering and applause]

- There were some good days...

and there were some tough days.

But every day was an honor

to be your president.

[cheering]

History will be the judge

of my decisions,

but when I walked out

of the Oval Office

this morning,

I left with the same values

that I took to Washington

eight years ago.

[cheering]

And when I get home tonight

and I look in the mirror,

I'm not gonna regret

what I see.

[cheering and applause]

Except maybe some gray hair.

[laughter]

[dramatic music]