Obama explains Iraq mini-surge, opposition to Saudi lawsuit legislation

On Monday, President Obama talked with CBS's Charlie Rose about the deployment of 200 more troops to Iraq, mostly in an advisory role, and the still-classified U.S. documents about Saudi Arabia and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "As we see the Iraqis willing to fight and gaining ground, let's make sure that we are providing them more support," Obama said. "We're not doing the fighting ourselves." The mostly Special Forces troops will advise Iraqi military units closer to the fighting against the Islamic State, and Obama did not expect immediate results in the big battle underway for Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul. "My expectation is that by the end of the year, we will have created the conditions whereby Mosul will eventually fall," he told Rose.

On Saudi Arabia, Rose asked Obama if he had read the government documents on Saudi Arabia and 9/11, and Obama said "I have a sense of what's in there," but that classification of documents is a "process which we generally deal with through the intelligence community." James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is going through the documents "to make sure that whatever it is that's released is not going to compromise some major national security interest of the United States," Obama said, "and my understanding is that he's about to complete that process." Rose pointed out that "it has been a long time," and Obama agreed.

Finally, Rose asked Obama about legislation that would allow U.S. families to sue Saudi Arabia "and other governments in different circumstances." Obama said, "I'm opposed because of that second clause in your sentence." If the U.S. allows private citizens to routinely sue foreign governments, he said, "then we are also opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries." You can watch excerpts from CBS News below. Peter Weber

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