DOWNLOADS: (452)

PLAYS: (6787)

Embed

Author and Defense Analyst Thomas Ricks' interview on Fox News this morning was a brief affair. Ostensibly brought on to talk about Benghazi, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and Republicans like John McCain criticisms of her, Ricks quickly gave his opinion that the matter was "extremely political, partly because Fox is operating as the wing of Republican Party."

And with that Jon Scott abruptly ended the interview, thanking Ricks for coming on.

Fox: When you have four people dead including the first US ambassador in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?

Ricks: How many security contractors died in Iraq, do you know?

Fox: I don't.

Ricks: No, nobody does, because nobody cared. We know that several hundred died, but there was never an official count done, of security contractors dead in Iraq. So when I see this focus on what was essentially a small fire fight, I think number one, I've covered a lot of fire fights, it's impossible to figure out what happens in them sometimes. And second, I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican party.

Fox: All right. Tom Ricks, thanks very much for joining us today.

Ricks: You're welcome.

DOWNLOAD (242)

PLAY (167)

Thomas Ricks thinks that the Iraq war is far from over. "This year we're in now, '09, is going to be, I think, a surprisingly tough year," Ricks told NBC's David Gregory.

Ricks believes that the Bush administration's surge strategy kicked the can down the road. "Basically the surge succeeded militarily, failed politically," he said. General Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, sees negative effects of the surge. "What he says is that Iraqis, many of them, used the breathing space we created to step backwards to become more sectarian, become more divided," explained Ricks.

Thomas Ricks is author of the new book, "The Gamble."