Sunday
Aug092009
Transcripts III: National Security Advisor Jones on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Korea (9 August)
Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 19:44
Video and Transcript I: National Security Advisor Jones on North Korea, Pakistan, Iran (9 August)
Transcript II: National Security Advisor Jones on North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran
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The transcript of the interview with General James Jones, President Obama's National Security Advisor, on CBS News' Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:
BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning again, General Jones is in the studio with us this morning.
Thank you very much for coming, General. You went to Afghanistan back in June, you took reporter Bob Woodward along on the trip and afterwards he reported that you told the commanders there they would have to make due with what they had. Yet every day brings a new report that General McChrystal, the top American commander on the ground there, is preparing a new assessment and it appears that he is going to ask for more troops.
We hear that from various people, Anthony Cordesman from CSIS is just back from there. He says we have set impossible goals. We set impossible time frames. He says you are going to have to have more resources.
Are you getting ready to consider putting more troops into Afghanistan?
JONES: We -- first of all, it is a pleasure to be with you, thank you very much for having me. The fact is -- and I’ll get to my remarks on what the intention was, but the fact is that in March, we announced a very comprehensive strategy that everybody participated in.
That strategy has essentially three legs, more security, followed by economic development, followed by better governance from the -- at the local levels in Afghanistan. And buttressed by more rapid development of the Afghan army and the Afghan police. So we want to put an Afghan capacity together as quickly as possible. We have over 40 nations on the ground, we have all of the international organizations you could want, from the U.N. to NATO, to E.U., the World Bank, the IMF, and nongovernmental organizations.
And Afghanistan will be solved by a better coordination of these elements. The troop strength is an important piece of it, and my message to General McChrystal and to the commanders when I went there was to say, think about the total strategy that we have all agreed to, General McChrystal is conducting an assessment at the request of secretary of defense.
They -- the Defense Department will evaluate what General McChrystal has to say, and in due time it will come up for a decision by the president.
But I did not say -- I want to be clear on this, I did not say that troop strength is off the table for discussion. What I did say is that we have yet to be able to measure the implementation of the new strategy, so if you have recommendations, make it in the context of the new strategy.
This -- we have learned one thing in six years, we -- this is not just about troop strength.
SCHIEFFER: Well, but that sounds like you are getting us ready for sending more troops to Afghanistan.
JONES: Well, let me put another thing on the table here. When the president made his decision, there were additional troops that were on the charts that the secretary of defense said at the time, Mr. President, you do not have to make this decision now, this is something we can consider later after we measure the implementation of our strategy.
So we will have discussions as the weeks and months go by. The big thing for us now is to make sure that the strategy is being implemented, we have got new commanders, we have got new diplomats, we have got Richard Holbrooke, who is providing the theater engagement.
It is not just about Afghanistan, it’s about Pakistan and what is going on there.
SCHIEFFER: But, General, we have been there how long? Six years, and it is like -- it sounds like you are talking about we just got there.
JONES: No, no, no. We -- I have been involved in this for six years also.
SCHIEFFER: Well, how bad is it there? Every report we have is that it is worse than it has ever been. That it has become sort of a sinkhole and now you are trying to develop yardsticks to find out how well we are doing.
When are we going to know how we are doing, even? JONES: We will -- that is a very good question, and it is a fair question. I -- this is my opinion. My opinion was that we did not have a well-articulated strategy until March of this year.
We had a strategy for security. We had a little bit of a strategy for economic development, which was other people’s problems. And we had a strategy that may be addressed a little bit of governance and the rule of law. This strategy merges all of those three things.
We also are -- we are definitely going to, in conjunction with our allies, develop the Afghan army at a faster rate and the Afghan police so we can have Afghans in charge of their own destiny in a shorter period of time.
So, yes, we have been there six years. But if you go back to the overall history of it, and you look at the three pillars that need to be developed, security has always been done reasonably well, although we have had some backsliding since 2007, but the other two have been allowed to not develop as quickly.
So in conjunction with our allies, and I want to make sure that I make this point as well, that this is not just a U.S. problem. This is an international problem, and we cannot -- I think we have the strategy and we will shortly see, and I mean within a year, whether this strategy is working and then we will adjust from there.
SCHIEFFER: We’ll know in a year if the new strategy...
JONES: Within the year...
SCHIEFFER: ... is working?
JONES: And we have the metrics to evaluate this strategy. The Congress has mandated them. We were going to do them anyway. The president has said, “I want regular reports as to how we’re doing.”
SCHIEFFER: But so far it isn’t working? Would that be fair to say?
JONES: Well, it’s -- it’s only been three months old.
SCHIEFFER: Well, I mean, the previous strategy?
JONES: We don’t even have -- the troop strength that has been agreed has not even arrived there, so -- so my benchmark is this administration, in March, committed to a new strategy. We involved Afghanistan. We involved Pakistan. We involved NATO, the allies. We had the NATO summit, where the allies had a -- a new...
SCHIEFFER: So let me see if I can just sum this up.
JONES: ... a new attitude.
SCHIEFFER: You’re going to develop a new strategy...
JONES: We’ve had it.
SCHIEFFER: ... and you have a new strategy going, and you may have to send more troops to Afghanistan?
You’re not, at least, going to rule that out at this point?
JONES: I won’t rule -- we won’t rule anything out that stands to reason, but it is fair to say that, once we agree on a new strategy, we want to make sure that it is -- has a chance to be evaluated.
SCHIEFFER: OK.
JONES: And if things come up where we need to adjust one way or the other, and it involves troops or it involves more incentives...
(CROSSTALK) JONES: ... for economic development or better assistance to help the Afghan government function, we’ll do that.
SCHIEFFER: Now, what was it, last weekend, that Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, flew out to meet with General McChrystal?
JONES: Correct.
SCHIEFFER: That suggests there may be some sort of -- we may be in some sort of crisis mode. This was a secret trip that wasn’t announced until after they completed it.
Would you think -- would you say that things in Afghanistan at this point are at a crisis level?
JONES: Well, we’re -- coming up to a very important election. We have, I think, a -- no, I don’t think -- I don’t think we’re at a crisis level, in terms of -- or that there’s going to be any movement on the ground by the Taliban that’s going to overthrow the government. We’re going to have, I think, a good election. The signs are that it’s going to be -- the instruments of security are being well- thought-out.
I think, with the success that we’ve had on the Pakistan side of the border, which we can talk about if you like, and the growing troop strength by the U.S. and some of our allies on the Afghan side, I think -- I think the security aspect of things is -- going to get better.
There’s going to be a little bit more fighting. Unfortunately, we’re taking more casualties, but if we’re able to marry up the other two legs of this three-legged stool that I mentioned, put things that will change the economic forecast for the Afghan people on the ground, put Afghan troops, Afghan police in the villages languages and towns, I think that’s the -- that’s the future.
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about this situation in Pakistan. Mehsud, the top Taliban man -- I heard you say earlier today that we’re 90 percent sure that we got him. Now, how important is that?
JONES: Well, I think it is very important. First of all, it’s important because this is Pakistan’s public enemy number one, if I could. He has -- he controls a very violent aspect of the insurgent problems in -- on the Pakistani side of the border. And this would be -- this is a big deal, and...
SCHIEFFER: Let’s talk, a little bit, about the developments in North Korea. Former President Clinton went there. He got these people. We now know that it was the North Koreans that said, if you’ll send him, we’ll -- we’ll let these two young Americans go.
We also know that, because I’ve heard you already report this, that the president, former president, did have conversations with them on a variety of subjects.
What happens now? Do we -- do we expect some development here now?
JONES: Well, we hope so. President Clinton did have the opportunity to talk to the North Korean leader and suggest that the happy scene that was carried out in California with the unification of families could have happened with the detainee from South Korea in Seoul or in Tokyo with the Japanese abductees and he represented our desire to have them released as well.
I think that obviously with his, as the former president, with his father, the Korean leader’s father, was -- had eight years of experience with dealing with North Korea, and he was able to, in his own way -- the I hope persuasive that there is a better way, there is a better path, that it is clear that a couple of things are clear.
One is that we sent no official or unofficial message from our government, so there was no -- there is nothing secretive here, that North Korea knows that the path to talking is through the six party process, and that within that six party process --
SCHIEFFER: They seem to want to have some sort of one-on-one dialogue with the United States. Would we be willing to do that?
JONES: Sure within the context of the six party talks.
SCHIEFFER: What does that mean?
JONES: Meaning if they come back to the talks, we will talk to them bilaterally within those talks. We have coordinated all of this by the way with the other allies, the Chinese, the Russians, the South Koreans, the Japanese. So the path is clear, and President Clinton is a very convincing gentleman and I hope he was able to convince them.
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this, General. Why do you think the North Korean leader wanted to do this? Was he trying to impress his own people? Was he trying to impress his military that look, I can get a former president of the United States to come over here. That shows you I am still a strong and vibrant leader? Or was he trying to impress the rest of the world? What was that all about?
JONES: You know, I would be guessing. You know, internally, he can manipulate this anyway he wants but as far as the rest of the world, I think that we are clear on what it was and what it wasn’t.
SCHIEFFER: And what it was?
JONES: What it was is a private humanitarian mission to rescue and obtain the release of two girls so they could be with their families and that is President Obama’s -- that was his goal in this.
SCHIEFFER: Finally, Gitmo. Every indication is you will not be able to make the president’s deadline of closing that down by the end of the year.
JONES: This is a complex issue and we are working on this every single day. I still believe that we can achieve our goals, but it is a complex issue.
SCHIEFFER: But you are not sure if you are going to make it?
JONES: No, I think we will. I think there are some things on the table that we can’t necessarily talk about right now, but hopefully there are some signs here that we will find the right way to do this.
SCHIEFFER: All right General Jones, thanks for being with us and I hope you come back.
JONES: It is a pleasure, thank you very much.
Transcript II: National Security Advisor Jones on North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran
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Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
The transcript of the interview with General James Jones, President Obama's National Security Advisor, on CBS News' Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:
BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning again, General Jones is in the studio with us this morning.
Thank you very much for coming, General. You went to Afghanistan back in June, you took reporter Bob Woodward along on the trip and afterwards he reported that you told the commanders there they would have to make due with what they had. Yet every day brings a new report that General McChrystal, the top American commander on the ground there, is preparing a new assessment and it appears that he is going to ask for more troops.
We hear that from various people, Anthony Cordesman from CSIS is just back from there. He says we have set impossible goals. We set impossible time frames. He says you are going to have to have more resources.
Are you getting ready to consider putting more troops into Afghanistan?
JONES: We -- first of all, it is a pleasure to be with you, thank you very much for having me. The fact is -- and I’ll get to my remarks on what the intention was, but the fact is that in March, we announced a very comprehensive strategy that everybody participated in.
That strategy has essentially three legs, more security, followed by economic development, followed by better governance from the -- at the local levels in Afghanistan. And buttressed by more rapid development of the Afghan army and the Afghan police. So we want to put an Afghan capacity together as quickly as possible. We have over 40 nations on the ground, we have all of the international organizations you could want, from the U.N. to NATO, to E.U., the World Bank, the IMF, and nongovernmental organizations.
And Afghanistan will be solved by a better coordination of these elements. The troop strength is an important piece of it, and my message to General McChrystal and to the commanders when I went there was to say, think about the total strategy that we have all agreed to, General McChrystal is conducting an assessment at the request of secretary of defense.
They -- the Defense Department will evaluate what General McChrystal has to say, and in due time it will come up for a decision by the president.
But I did not say -- I want to be clear on this, I did not say that troop strength is off the table for discussion. What I did say is that we have yet to be able to measure the implementation of the new strategy, so if you have recommendations, make it in the context of the new strategy.
This -- we have learned one thing in six years, we -- this is not just about troop strength.
SCHIEFFER: Well, but that sounds like you are getting us ready for sending more troops to Afghanistan.
JONES: Well, let me put another thing on the table here. When the president made his decision, there were additional troops that were on the charts that the secretary of defense said at the time, Mr. President, you do not have to make this decision now, this is something we can consider later after we measure the implementation of our strategy.
So we will have discussions as the weeks and months go by. The big thing for us now is to make sure that the strategy is being implemented, we have got new commanders, we have got new diplomats, we have got Richard Holbrooke, who is providing the theater engagement.
It is not just about Afghanistan, it’s about Pakistan and what is going on there.
SCHIEFFER: But, General, we have been there how long? Six years, and it is like -- it sounds like you are talking about we just got there.
JONES: No, no, no. We -- I have been involved in this for six years also.
SCHIEFFER: Well, how bad is it there? Every report we have is that it is worse than it has ever been. That it has become sort of a sinkhole and now you are trying to develop yardsticks to find out how well we are doing.
When are we going to know how we are doing, even? JONES: We will -- that is a very good question, and it is a fair question. I -- this is my opinion. My opinion was that we did not have a well-articulated strategy until March of this year.
We had a strategy for security. We had a little bit of a strategy for economic development, which was other people’s problems. And we had a strategy that may be addressed a little bit of governance and the rule of law. This strategy merges all of those three things.
We also are -- we are definitely going to, in conjunction with our allies, develop the Afghan army at a faster rate and the Afghan police so we can have Afghans in charge of their own destiny in a shorter period of time.
So, yes, we have been there six years. But if you go back to the overall history of it, and you look at the three pillars that need to be developed, security has always been done reasonably well, although we have had some backsliding since 2007, but the other two have been allowed to not develop as quickly.
So in conjunction with our allies, and I want to make sure that I make this point as well, that this is not just a U.S. problem. This is an international problem, and we cannot -- I think we have the strategy and we will shortly see, and I mean within a year, whether this strategy is working and then we will adjust from there.
SCHIEFFER: We’ll know in a year if the new strategy...
JONES: Within the year...
SCHIEFFER: ... is working?
JONES: And we have the metrics to evaluate this strategy. The Congress has mandated them. We were going to do them anyway. The president has said, “I want regular reports as to how we’re doing.”
SCHIEFFER: But so far it isn’t working? Would that be fair to say?
JONES: Well, it’s -- it’s only been three months old.
SCHIEFFER: Well, I mean, the previous strategy?
JONES: We don’t even have -- the troop strength that has been agreed has not even arrived there, so -- so my benchmark is this administration, in March, committed to a new strategy. We involved Afghanistan. We involved Pakistan. We involved NATO, the allies. We had the NATO summit, where the allies had a -- a new...
SCHIEFFER: So let me see if I can just sum this up.
JONES: ... a new attitude.
SCHIEFFER: You’re going to develop a new strategy...
JONES: We’ve had it.
SCHIEFFER: ... and you have a new strategy going, and you may have to send more troops to Afghanistan?
You’re not, at least, going to rule that out at this point?
JONES: I won’t rule -- we won’t rule anything out that stands to reason, but it is fair to say that, once we agree on a new strategy, we want to make sure that it is -- has a chance to be evaluated.
SCHIEFFER: OK.
JONES: And if things come up where we need to adjust one way or the other, and it involves troops or it involves more incentives...
(CROSSTALK) JONES: ... for economic development or better assistance to help the Afghan government function, we’ll do that.
SCHIEFFER: Now, what was it, last weekend, that Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, flew out to meet with General McChrystal?
JONES: Correct.
SCHIEFFER: That suggests there may be some sort of -- we may be in some sort of crisis mode. This was a secret trip that wasn’t announced until after they completed it.
Would you think -- would you say that things in Afghanistan at this point are at a crisis level?
JONES: Well, we’re -- coming up to a very important election. We have, I think, a -- no, I don’t think -- I don’t think we’re at a crisis level, in terms of -- or that there’s going to be any movement on the ground by the Taliban that’s going to overthrow the government. We’re going to have, I think, a good election. The signs are that it’s going to be -- the instruments of security are being well- thought-out.
I think, with the success that we’ve had on the Pakistan side of the border, which we can talk about if you like, and the growing troop strength by the U.S. and some of our allies on the Afghan side, I think -- I think the security aspect of things is -- going to get better.
There’s going to be a little bit more fighting. Unfortunately, we’re taking more casualties, but if we’re able to marry up the other two legs of this three-legged stool that I mentioned, put things that will change the economic forecast for the Afghan people on the ground, put Afghan troops, Afghan police in the villages languages and towns, I think that’s the -- that’s the future.
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about this situation in Pakistan. Mehsud, the top Taliban man -- I heard you say earlier today that we’re 90 percent sure that we got him. Now, how important is that?
JONES: Well, I think it is very important. First of all, it’s important because this is Pakistan’s public enemy number one, if I could. He has -- he controls a very violent aspect of the insurgent problems in -- on the Pakistani side of the border. And this would be -- this is a big deal, and...
SCHIEFFER: Let’s talk, a little bit, about the developments in North Korea. Former President Clinton went there. He got these people. We now know that it was the North Koreans that said, if you’ll send him, we’ll -- we’ll let these two young Americans go.
We also know that, because I’ve heard you already report this, that the president, former president, did have conversations with them on a variety of subjects.
What happens now? Do we -- do we expect some development here now?
JONES: Well, we hope so. President Clinton did have the opportunity to talk to the North Korean leader and suggest that the happy scene that was carried out in California with the unification of families could have happened with the detainee from South Korea in Seoul or in Tokyo with the Japanese abductees and he represented our desire to have them released as well.
I think that obviously with his, as the former president, with his father, the Korean leader’s father, was -- had eight years of experience with dealing with North Korea, and he was able to, in his own way -- the I hope persuasive that there is a better way, there is a better path, that it is clear that a couple of things are clear.
One is that we sent no official or unofficial message from our government, so there was no -- there is nothing secretive here, that North Korea knows that the path to talking is through the six party process, and that within that six party process --
SCHIEFFER: They seem to want to have some sort of one-on-one dialogue with the United States. Would we be willing to do that?
JONES: Sure within the context of the six party talks.
SCHIEFFER: What does that mean?
JONES: Meaning if they come back to the talks, we will talk to them bilaterally within those talks. We have coordinated all of this by the way with the other allies, the Chinese, the Russians, the South Koreans, the Japanese. So the path is clear, and President Clinton is a very convincing gentleman and I hope he was able to convince them.
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this, General. Why do you think the North Korean leader wanted to do this? Was he trying to impress his own people? Was he trying to impress his military that look, I can get a former president of the United States to come over here. That shows you I am still a strong and vibrant leader? Or was he trying to impress the rest of the world? What was that all about?
JONES: You know, I would be guessing. You know, internally, he can manipulate this anyway he wants but as far as the rest of the world, I think that we are clear on what it was and what it wasn’t.
SCHIEFFER: And what it was?
JONES: What it was is a private humanitarian mission to rescue and obtain the release of two girls so they could be with their families and that is President Obama’s -- that was his goal in this.
SCHIEFFER: Finally, Gitmo. Every indication is you will not be able to make the president’s deadline of closing that down by the end of the year.
JONES: This is a complex issue and we are working on this every single day. I still believe that we can achieve our goals, but it is a complex issue.
SCHIEFFER: But you are not sure if you are going to make it?
JONES: No, I think we will. I think there are some things on the table that we can’t necessarily talk about right now, but hopefully there are some signs here that we will find the right way to do this.
SCHIEFFER: All right General Jones, thanks for being with us and I hope you come back.
JONES: It is a pleasure, thank you very much.
Reader Comments (1)
[...] The National Security Adviser said that the killing of Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mahsud was ‘not a turning point’ but was good news for the war effort. The Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan, of whom Mahsud was a leader, give support to the Afghan Taliban just across the border. (Transcript at Real Clear Politics [...]