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Iran refusing to back down over nuclear ambition

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    Reaction from Rep. Pete Hoekstra

  • Duration 5:35
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This transcript is automatically generated

-- red line should be -- Right here.

Before.

Before we -- completes the second stage of nuclear enrichment.

Necessary to make a bomb.

Well -- -- prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew a literal hard line in his UN speech last week.

Insisting on limits to Iran's controversial nuclear program.

And just earlier today Iran Iran responded calling this display childish and primitive and vowing to push ahead.

But after spending some time with some high ranking Israeli officials in assessing the security situation across and -- our next guest.

Says Netanyahu is not the only one expressing grave concern.

We have -- is a former Republican US congressman out of Michigan.

And a former chairman of the house permanent select committee on intelligence and a candidate for US senate -- -- structure thanks so much for being here.

It anywhere else and -- just returned from -- at least as we said you had many high level meetings with government officials what did they tell you.

Well I think what they're telling is very very clear you know I served on the joint inquiry that looked at the intelligence failures after 9/11.

I would.

Let the conference committee there re wrote our intelligence.

Laws in 2004.

To make sure that.

You -- in the future our intelligence community would always be able to connect the dots identify threats before something.

Terrible happen.

What I heard and is -- the thing that I've been very nervous about based on my experience in the intelligence community.

Is that once again America is not connecting the dots.

What are the big dots that are out there number one a ring and now is one year -- -- from having a new killer capability.

Number -- the Muslim Brotherhood a radical jihadist group he is.

Running the government in Egypt.

And number three we have large parts of northern Africa and the Middle East that now have weak central governments which means that large parts of that area.

Are now.

Breeding in trading grounds for al-Qaeda you put those three things together.

It's a dangerous environment number one for Israel but also for the United States of America and we keep talking about the Arab Spring.

This is not an air spring this is an upheaval in the Middle East that were not taking seriously enough the threats are -- And did this these Israeli officials and Middle East -- government officials tell you what they plan to do about Iran's nuclear threat.

Well I think that we didn't get into that detail I mean obviously they're looking war.

America to provide the leadership in the Middle East that we provided in the past.

Their assessment is that America has stepped back.

This void has been created this -- is now being filled by radical elements in each of these countries and is making the Middle East but very threatening area.

Both a threat to Israel and to the west and to the United States of America.

You know -- reading your statement when you just returned it -- what they told you -- they want America to be America again.

What would that look like can.

Well what it would be like it's rather than apologizing for a video.

That's produced in some obscure corner of America have America stand up and say no we value freedom of speech.

Go to the is go to the Egyptian government as they are persecuting.

In killing Coptic surround their country and say that is totally unacceptable you need to protect religious freedoms.

To hold these countries accountable for -- third behaviors.

In their actions what they're seeing right now is a weak America as we described it in many of describe that for the last two and a half years America that is continually.

On an apology tour one that is not standing up for our values but most importantly they want an America that recognizes the threat that is out there.

Police connect the dots otherwise is -- will be in trouble.

And America -- faced serious challenge and we'll do another.

Future inquiry as to why didn't we connect the dots and it will be how could we have been so stupid -- ran Muslim Brotherhood -- -- areas.

Of course everyone should have picked out that this was a very very.

Dangerous scenario but our leadership both politically and the intelligence community once again failed to connect the dots.

And back to Ben Ghazi for a second it does seem that we missed.

We we neglected connecting the dots before our ambassador was killed now all -- the administration seems to have.

Gotten on the same page and agreed -- this was a terrorist attack how should we respond.

Well we got to go back we got to put that the pieces back together.

Clearly we missed the -- what -- the dots number one -- master went to.

Ben Ghazi on 9/11 9/11 is one -- The second -- is we have a record in recent months of a number of terrorist attacks in been -- we knew it was a dangerous place.

To be and thirdly we knew we had -- weak central government in Libya we had a resurgent al-Qaeda -- and the in the big guys the area somewhere along the line people didn't connect that and say you know what it's really a bad idea for us to have a facility and been Ghazi and it's even a worse idea to let our.

Ambassador gold there on 9/11 congress and Pete Hoekstra thanks so much for coming in.

And giving us an update -- your visit we appreciate it.

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