Defending Torture, Bombing Iran (Video): Dick Cheney on Fox News Sunday (30 August)

Torture and Lies: Confronting Cheney — 7 More Points to Note
Torture and Lies: Confronting Cheney

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Apologies for not mincing words, but the US in the midst of a sustained public-relations effort to whitewash the torture stain of the Bush Administration by 1) arguing that it wasn't torture and 2) if it was, it helped win the War on Terror. After the release this week of the damning 2004 CIA internal report on the Administration's authorisation of torture and its ineffectiveness, Dick Cheney has been at the front of the campaign to save his legacy, if not America's standing in the world. Fox News set him with the softball questions this morning.

(An important side note for Iran-watchers. Check out the passage late in the transcript where Cheney comes out as a strong supporter of an airstrike on Iran in 2007-8):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CfFiBy8jLM[/youtube]

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: Mr. Vice President, welcome back to "FOX News Sunday."

RICHARD CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's good to be back, Chris.

WALLACE: This is your first interview since Attorney General Holder named a prosecutor to investigate possible CIA abuses of terror detainees.

What do you think of that decision?

CHENEY: I think it's a terrible decision. President Obama made the announcement some weeks ago that this would not happen, that his administration would not go back and look at or try to prosecute CIA personnel. And the effort now is based upon the inspector general's report that was sent to the Justice Department five years ago, was completely reviewed by the Justice Department in years past.

They made decisions about whether or not there was any prosecutable offense there. They found one. It did not involve CIA personnel, it involved contract personnel. That individual was sentenced and is doing time. The matter's been dealt with the way you would expect it to be dealt with by professionals.

Now we've got a political appointee coming back, and supposedly without the approval of the president, going to do a complete review, or another complete investigation, possible prosecution of CIA personnel. We could talk the whole program about the negative consequences of that, about the terrible precedent it sets, to have agents involved, CIA personnel involved, in a difficult program that's approved by the Justice Department, approved by the National Security Council, and the Bush administration, and then when a new administration comes in, it becomes political.

They may find themselves dragged up before a grand jury, have to hire attorneys on their own because the Justice Department won't provide them with counsel.

It's a terrible, terrible precedent.

WALLACE: There are a lot of aspects that you just raised. Let me review some of them.
Why are you so concerned about the idea of one administration reviewing, investigating the actions of another one?

CHENEY: Well, you think, for example, in the intelligence arena. We ask those people to do some very difficult things. Sometimes, that put their own lives at risk. They do so at the direction of the president, and they do so with the -- in this case, we had specific legal authority from the Justice Department. And if they are now going to be subject to being investigated and prosecuted by the next administration, nobody's going to sign up for those kinds of missions.

It's a very, very devastating, I think, effect that it has on morale inside the intelligence community. If they assume that they're going to have to be dealing with the political consequences -- and it's clearly a political move. I mean, there's no other rationale for why they're doing this -- then they'll be very reluctant in the future to do that.

WALLACE: Do you think this was a political move not a law enforcement move?

CHENEY: Absolutely. I think the fact is, the Justice Department has already reviewed the inspector general's report five years ago. And now they're dragging it back up again, and Holder is going to go back and review it again, supposedly, to try to find some evidence of wrongdoing by CIA personnel.

In other words, you know, a review is never going to be final anymore now. We can have somebody, some future administration, come along 10 years from now, 15 years from now, and go back and rehash all of these decisions by an earlier administration.

WALLACE: Let me follow up on that. The attorney general says this is a preliminary review, not a criminal investigation. It is just about CIA officers who went beyond their legal authorization. Why don't you think it's going to stop there?

CHENEY: I don't believe it. We had the president of the United States, President Obama, tell us a few months ago there wouldn't be any investigation like this, that there would not be any look back at CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the prior administration. Now they get a little heat from the left wing of the Democratic Party, and they're reversing course on that.

The president is the chief law enforcement officer in the administration. He's now saying, well, this isn't anything that he's got anything to do with. He's up on vacation on Martha's Vineyard and his attorney general is going back and doing something that the president said some months ago he wouldn't do.

WALLACE: But when you say it's not going to stop there, you don't believe it's going to stop there, do you think this will become an investigation into the Bush lawyers who authorized the activity into the top policymakers who were involved in the decision to happen, an enhanced interrogation program?

CHENEY: Well, I have no idea whether it will or not, but it shouldn't.

The fact of the matter is the lawyers in the Justice Department who gave us those opinions had every right to give us the opinions they did. Now you get a new administration and they say, well, we didn't like those opinions, we're going to go investigate those lawyers and perhaps have them disbarred. I just think it's an outrageous precedent to set, to have this kind of, I think, intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration.

I guess the other thing that offends the hell out of me, frankly, Chris, is we had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from Al Qaeda. The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, how did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time?

Instead, they're out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions, threatening contrary to what the president originally said. They're going to go out and investigate the CIA personnel who carried out those investigations. I just think it's an outrageous political act that will do great damage long term to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say.

WALLACE: If the prosecutor asks to speak to you, will you speak to him?

CHENEY: It will depend on the circumstances and what I think their activities are really involved in. I've been very outspoken in my views on this matter. I've been very forthright publicly in talking about my involvement in these policies.

I'm very proud of what we did in terms of defending the nation for the last eight years successfully. And, you know, it won't take a prosecutor to find out what I think. I've already expressed those views rather forthrightly.

WALLACE: Let me ask you -- you say you're proud of what we did. The inspector general's report which was just released from 2004 details some specific interrogations -- mock executions, one of the detainees threatened with a handgun and with an electric drill, waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times.

First of all, did you know that was going on?

CHENEY: I knew about the waterboarding. Not specifically in any one particular case, but as a general policy that we had approved.

The fact of the matter is, the Justice Department reviewed all of those allegations several years ago. They looked at this question of whether or not somebody had an electric drill in an interrogation session. It was never used on the individual, or that they had brought in a weapon, never used on the individual. The judgment was made then that there wasn't anything there that was improper or illegal with respect to conduct in question...

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Do you think what they did, now that you've heard about it, do you think what they did was wrong?

CHENEY: Chris, my sort of overwhelming view is that the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the United States, and giving us the intelligence we needed to go find Al Qaeda, to find their camps, to find out how they were being financed. Those interrogations were involved in the arrest of nearly all the Al Qaeda members that we were able to bring to justice. I think they were directly responsible for the fact that for eight years, we had no further mass casualty attacks against the United States.

It was good policy. It was properly carried out. It worked very, very well.

WALLACE: So even these cases where they went beyond the specific legal authorization, you're OK with it?

CHENEY: I am.

WALLACE: One specific question about Holder, the Obama administration -- you put out the statement saying that you were upset that President Obama allowed the attorney general to bring these cases. A top Obama official says, hey, maybe in the Bush White House they told the attorney general what to do, but Eric Holder makes independent decisions.

CHENEY: Well, I think if you look at the Constitution, the president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer in the land. The attorney general's a statutory officer. He's a member of the cabinet.

The president's the one who bears this responsibility. And for him to say, gee, I didn't have anything to do with it, especially after he sat in the Oval Office and said this wouldn't happen, then Holder decides he's going to do it. So now he's backed off and is claiming he's not responsible.

I just, I think he's trying to duck the responsibility for what's going on here. And I think it's wrong.
WALLACE: President Obama has also decided to move interrogations from the CIA to the FBI that's under the supervision of the National Security Council, and the FBI will have to act within the boundaries of the Army Field Manual.

What do you think that does for the nation's security? And will we now have the tools if we catch another high-value target?

CHENEY: I think the move to set up this -- what is it called, the HIG Group?

WALLACE: Yes.

CHENEY: It's not even clear who's responsible. The Justice Department is, then they claim they aren't. The FBI is responsible and they claim they aren't. It's some kind of interagency process by which they're going to be responsible for interrogating high-value detainees.

If we had tried to do that back in the aftermath of 9/11, when we captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, we'd have gotten no place. I think it moves very much in the direction of going back to the old way of looking at these terrorist attacks -- that these are law enforcement problems, that this isn't a strategic threat to the United States.

I think it's a direct slap at the CIA. I don't think it will work.

I think that if they were faced with the kind of situation we were faced with in the aftermath of 9/11, suddenly capturing people that may have knowledge about imminent attacks, and they're going to have to have meetings and decide who gets to ask what question and who's going to Mirandize the witness, I think it's silly. It makes no sense. It doesn't appear to be a serious move in terms of being able to deal with the nation's security.

WALLACE: Well, on another issue, the CIA has stopped a program to kill or capture top al Qaeda leaders, top al Qaeda terrorists. And CIA Director Panetta told lawmakers that you told the CIA not to inform Congress.

Is that true?

CHENEY: As I recall -- and frankly, this is many years ago -- but my recollection of it is, in the reporting I've seen, is that the direction was for them not to tell Congress until certain lines were passed, until the program became operational, and that it was handled appropriately.

And other directors of the CIA, including people like Mike Hayden, who was Leon Panetta's immediate predecessor, has talked about it and said that it's all you know a very shaky proposition. That it was well handled, that he was not directed not to deal with the Congress on this issue, that it's just not true.

WALLACE: The CIA released two other documents this week -- "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Preeminent Source on Al Qaeda"...

CHENEY: Right.

WALLACE: "Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al Qaeda."

While they say that the overall program got absolutely crucial information, they do not conclude whether the enhanced interrogation programs worked. They just are kind of agnostic on the issue. And then there's what President Obama calls the core issue -

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn't answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: Well, these two reports are versions of the ones I asked for previously. There's actually one, "Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al Qaeda," there's another version of this that's more detailed that's not been released.

But the interesting thing about these is it shows that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah provided the overwhelming majority of reports on Al Qaeda. That they were, as it says, pivotal in the war against Al Qaeda. That both of them were uncooperative at first, that the application of enhanced interrogation techniques, specifically waterboarding, especially in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is what really persuaded him. He needed to cooperate.

I think the evidence is overwhelming that the EITs were crucial in getting them to cooperate, and that the information they provided did in fact save thousands of lives and let us defeat all further attacks against the United States.

The thing I keep coming back to time and time again, Chris, is the fact that we've gone for eight years without another attack. Now, how do you explain that?

The critics don't have any solution for that. They can criticize our policies, our way of doing business, but the results speak for themselves. And, as well as the efforts that we went to with the Justice Department and so forth to make certain what we were doing was legal, was consistent with our international treaty obligations.

WALLACE: At one point the Vice President showed us the view of majestic mountains from his back yard. I asked about the Democrats running battle with the CIA including Nancy Pelosi's charge the agency once lied to her.

Republicans have made the charge before, do you think Democrats are soft on National Security?

CHENEY: I do, I've always had the view that in recent years anyway that they didn't have as strong of advocates on National Defense or National Security as they used to have, and I worry about that, I think that things have gotten so partisan that the sort of the pro defense hawkish wing of the Democratic party has faded and isn't as strong as it once was.

WALLACE: Now that he has been in office for seven months, what do you think of Barack Obama?

CHENEY: Well, I was not a fan of his when he got elected, and my views have not changed any. I have serious doubts about his policies, serious doubts especially about the extent to which he understands and is prepared to do what needs to be done to defend the nation.

WALLACE: Now, he has stepped up the use of the Predator drones against Al Qaeda. He has continued rendition. Aren't there some things you support that he has done?

CHENEY: Sure, some of those things have been -- the use of the Predator drone, something we started very aggressively in the Bush Administration, marrying up the intelligence platform with weapons is something we started in August of 2001. It has been enormously successful. And they were successful the other day in killing Batula Masood [Beitullah Mehsud], which I think all of those are pluses.

But my concern is that the damage that will be done by the President of the United States going back on his word, his promise about investigations of CIA personnel who have carried those policies, is seriously going to undermine the moral, if you will, of our folks out at the agency. Just today, for example, the courts in Pakistan have ruled that A. Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistan nuclear weapon man who provided assistance to the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Libyans, has now been released from custody.

It is very, very important we find out and know long term what he is up to. He is, so far, the worst proliferator of nuclear technology in recent history. Now we have got agents and people out at the agency who ought to be on that case and worried about it, but they are going to have to spend time hiring lawyers at their own expense in order to defend themselves against the possibility of charges.

WALLACE: Actually, the CIA has now said that they are going to pay for the lawyers.

CHENEY: Well, that will be a new proposition. Always before, when we have had these criminal investigations, the fact is that the employees themselves had to pay for it.

WALLACE: What do you think of the debate over healthcare reform and these raucous town halls?

CHENEY: I think it is basically healthy.

WALLACE: And what do you think of the healthcare reform issue?

CHENEY: I don't -- well, it is an important issue, but I think the proposals the Administration has made are -- do not deserve to be passed. I think the fact that there is a lot of unrest out there in the country that gets expressed in these town hall meetings with folks coming and speaking out very loudly about their concerns indicates that there are major, major problems of what the administration is proposing.

WALLACE: There was a story in The Washington Post a couple of weeks ago that in the process of writing your memoir, you have told colleagues about your frustration with President Bush, especially in his, your second term. Is that true?

CHENEY: No.

WALLACE: That story was wrong.

CHENEY: Right.

WALLACE: The report says that you disagreed with the President's decision to halt water boarding, you agreed with his decision to close the secret prisons, you disagreed with his decision to reach out to Iran and North Korea. Is that true?

CHENEY: Well, we had policy differences, no question about that, but to say that I was disappointed with the President is not the way it ought to be phrased. The fact of the matter is, he encouraged me to give him my view on a whole range of issues. I did.

Sometimes he agreed. Sometimes he did not. That was true from the very beginning of the Administration.

WALLACE: Did you feel that he went soft in the second term?

CHENEY: I wouldn't say that. I think you are going to have wait and read my book, Chris, for the definitive view.

WALLACE: It sounds like you are going to say something close to that?

CHENEY: I am not going to speculate on it. I am going to write a book that lays out my view of what we did. It will also cover a lot of years before I ever went to work for George Bush.

WALLACE: Will you open up in the book about areas where you disagreed --

CHENEY: Sure.

WALLACE: -- with the president?

CHENEY: Sure.

WALLACE: There is a question I have wanted to ask you for some period of time. Why didn't your Administration take out the Iranian nuclear program, given what a threat I know you believe it was, given the fact that you knew that Barack Obama favored, not only diplomatic engagement, but actually sitting down with the Iranians, why would you leave it to him to make this decision?

CHENEY: It was not my decision to make.

WALLACE: Would you have favored military action?

CHENEY: I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues.

WALLACE: Do you think that it was a mistake, while you were in power, while your administration was in power, not to go after the nuclear infrastructure of Iran?

CHENEY: I can't say that yet. We do not know how it is ultimately going to come out.

WALLACE: But you don't get the choice to make it 20/20 hindsight.

CHENEY: Well, I --

WALLACE: In 2007, 2008, was it a mistake not to take out their program?

CHENEY: I think it was very important that the military option be on the table. I thought that negotiations could not possibly succeed unless the Iranians really believed we were prepared to use military force. And to date, of course, they are still proceeding with their nuclear program and the matter has not yet been resolved.

We can speculate about what might have happened if we had followed a different course of action. As I say I was an advocate of a more robust policy than any of my colleagues, but I didn't make the decision.

WALLACE: Including the president?

CHENEY: The president made the decision and, obviously, we pursued the diplomatic avenues.

WALLACE: Do you think it was a mistake to let the opportunity when you guys were in power, go, knowing that here was Barack Obama and he was going to take a much different --

CHENEY: I am going to -- if I address that, I will address it in my book, Chris.

WALLACE: It is going to be a hell of a book.

CHENEY: It is going to be a great book.

WALLACE: Was it a mistake for Bill Clinton, with the blessing of the Administration, to go to North Korea to bring back those two reporters?

CHENEY: Well, obviously, you are concerned for the reporters and their circumstances, but I think if we look at it from a policy standpoint, it is a big reward for bad behavior on the part of the North Korean leadership. They are testing nuclear weapons.

They have been major proliferators of nuclear weapons technology. They built a reactor in the Syrian Desert very much like their own reactor for producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.They probably are the worst proliferators of nuclear technology any place in the world today.

And there ought to be a price for that. Instead, I think when the former President of the United States goes, meets with the leader and so forth, that we are rewarding their bad behavior. And I think it is a mistake.

WALLACE: You would not have done it.

CHENEY: No.

WALLACE: How concerned are you about the increase in violence in Iraq since we pulled out of the major population areas and also what do you make of the fact that the top Shiite parties have formed an alliance tilting towards Iran and leaving out Prime Minister Maliki?

CHENEY: Well, I am concerned about Iraq, obviously. I have been a strong supporter of our policies there from the very beginning. I think we made major, major efforts to take down Saddam Hussein's regime, establish a viable democracy in the heart of the Middle East. I think especially going through the surge strategy in '07 and '08, we achieved very significant results.

It is important that we not let that slip away. And we need to be concerned, I think, in these days now in the beginning of the new Administration, I would like to see them focus just as much on victory as they are focused on getting out. And I hope that they don't rush to the exit so fast, that we end up in a situation where all of those gains that were so hard won are lost.

WALLACE: Given the increase in violence, given some of these new issues, in terms of the political lay of the land, given President Obama's plan to pull all combat troops out by a year from now, the summer of 2010, how confidant are you that -- that Iraq, as a stable, moderate country, is going to make it?

CHENEY: I don't know. I don't know that anybody knows. I think it is very important that they have success from a political stand point. I think the Maliki government is doing better than it was at some points in the past. I hope that we see continued improvement in the Iraqi armed forces, security services.

But I think to have an absolute deadline by which you're going to withdraw, that's totally unconditioned to developments on the ground -- I think there's a danger there that you're going to let the drive to get out overwhelm the good sense of staying long enough to make certain the outcome is what we want.

WALLACE: Obviously, this weekend, the country is focused on the death of Ted Kennedy. What did you think of him?

CHENEY: Well, I -- personally, I liked him. In terms of policy, there's very little we agreed on. He was a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts. I was a conservative Republican from Wyoming. So there wasn't much that we had to work together on.

On the other hand, I admired the fact that he got into the arena as much as he did for most of his professional life, and was obviously a very active participant.

WALLACE: How are you adjusting to life out of power?

CHENEY: Well, this is the fourth time I've done it, Chris. So it's not my first rodeo, as we say. I'm enjoying private life. I just -- excuse me -- took my family on an Alaskan cruise for a week, all the kids and the grandkids. We've gotten to spend a great deal of time in Wyoming, which, as you can tell her in Jackson Hole, is one of the world's finer garden spots.

So I have, I think, adjusted with a minimal amount of conflict and difficulty. It's been pretty smooth.

WALLACE: What do you miss?

CHENEY: Oh, I'm a junky, I guess, all those years. I spent more than 40 years in Washington, and enjoyed, obviously, the people I worked with, wrestling with some of the problems we had to wrestle with. I enjoyed having the CIA show up on my doorstep every morning, six days a week, with the latest intelligence.

WALLACE: You miss that?

CHENEY: Sure.

WALLACE: Why?

CHENEY: Because it was fascinating. It was important stuff. It kept me plugged in with what was going on around the world. And as I say, I'm a junky from a public policy stand point. I went to Washington to stay 12 months and stayed 41 years.

I liked it. I thought it was important. And I will always be pleased that I had the opportunity to serve.

WALLACE: Do you miss having your hands on the levers of power?

CHENEY: No, I don't think of it in those terms.

WALLACE: But I mean being able to affect things. You obviously feel strongly about these issues.

CHENEY: Right.

WALLACE: Do you miss the fact that now you're just another man watching cable news?

CHENEY: No, and as I say, I've been there before. I left government after the first Nixon term and went to the private sector. I left after the Ford administration and ran for Congress. Then left after the secretary of defense and went to the private sector. So these are normal kinds of transitions that you've got to make in this business.

What I've always found is that there are compensating factors to living a private life, to having more freedom and time to do what I want, and to spend more time with the family, which is very important. Over the years, you know, I've sacrificed a lot in order to be able to do those things I've done in the public sector.

WALLACE: Well, we want to thank you for talking with us and including in your private life putting up with an interview from the likes of me.

CHENEY: It's all right. I enjoy your show, Chris.

WALLACE: Thank you very much, and all the best sir.

CHENEY: Good luck.

Afghanistan: The US Marches On (with 20,000 More Troops)....To Where?

Afghanistan: Forget the Election, Let’s Have Some More Troops

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UPDATE 1000 GMT: The Independent of London offers the "exclusive" that the US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, will ask for 20,000 more troops in his long-awaited report to President Obama.

Regular EA readers won't be surprised, as only last Sunday we featured the public-relations offensive by two Administration officials pointing towards an increase of 25,000 soldiers. The question: will the US press for some of the increase to come from NATO allies or will it provide all of the additional forces?
--

The post-election situation drags on in Afghanistan, with the result of the Presidential vote descending into a protracted delay amidst allegations of fraud. The electoral commission has now suspended daily briefings, and stories have emerged of a heated row between President Hamid Karzai and President Obama's envoy Richard Holbrooke, apparently over the attempt of the Karzai camp to alter the vote so the President would be re-elected in the first round.

Our suspicion has been that, for many in Washington, this political quagmire would merely be the backdrop (and indeed the pretext) for an intensified military campaign. Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation shares our fears. Particuarly notable in his account below is the large presence of Bruce Riedel, who helped design the Obama strategy of intervention in Afghanistan at the start of 2009.

Afghanistan Apocalypse

Yesterday afternoon at the Brookings Institution, four analysts portrayed a bleak and terrifying vision of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan in the wake of the presidential election. All four were hawkish, reflecting a growing consensus in the Washington establishment that the Afghanistan war is only just beginning.

Their conclusions: (1) A significant escalation of the war will be necessary to avoid utter defeat. (2) Even if tens of thousands of troops are added to the US occupation, it won't be possible to determine if the US/NATO effort is succeeding until eighteen months later. (3) Even if the United States turns the tide in Afghanistan, no significant drawdown of US forces will take place until five years have passed.

The experts at the panel were Bruce Riedel, a 30-year CIA veteran and adviser to four presidents, who chaired President Obama's Afghan task force; Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert and adviser to General David Petraeus; Tony Cordesman, a conservative military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Kim Kagan, head of the Institute for the Study of War.

Not a single panelist questioned the goals, purpose or objectives of the Afghan war. Not one said anything about a political solution to the war, about negotiations, or about diplomacy. Not one questioned the viability of an open-ended commitment to the war. And none of them had any doubts about the strategic necessity of defeating the Taliban and its allies. Although the growing political opposition to the war was referenced in passing -- more than half of Americans say the the war isn't worth fighting, and liberal-left members of Congress are beginning to raise objections -- the panel seemed to believe that President Obama can and must ignore politics and push to expand the war when General McChrystal, as expected, recommends an increase in the the level of US forces once again. O'Hanlon, a well-connected, ultra-hawkish Democrat who backed the war in Iraq, said that the chances that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will lead congressional opposition to the war in Afghanistan in 2009-2010 are zero. "Congress will not pull the rug out from under Barack Obama, before the mid-term elections," he asserted, calling the very idea "unthinkable" and "political suicide."

O'Hanlon, who had just returned from Afghanistan, acknowledged that McChrystal is "fully aware that, right now, America is not winning this war." But he gently scolded Admiral Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs, for saying that the war is "deteriorating." If Mullen goes around saying that in public, even after the addition of 21,000 US troops in 2009, he makes it harder to convince Americans that the war is winnable. O'Hanlon strongly favors adding yet more troops, but he didn't provide numbers on how many forces the US will need ultimately. If the United States can turn things around, "In four to five years we will be able to substantially downsize."

The bleakest account of the war came from Cordesman, Washington's resident Cassandra. He delivered a blistering assessment of the Bush administration's complete failure to pursue the Afghan war, with "almost no coherence in strategy" for seven years. President Bush, he said, didn't properly "resource" (i.e., fund) the war, kept troop levels far too low, and failed to build the Afghan National Army (ANA). In addition, he said, US intelligence was extremely poor. The Bush administration and the Pentagon lied about how the war was going, saying, for instance, that only 13 out of 364 Afghan districts were threatened by the Taliban, when if fact nearly half of the country was under siege. And he said that, even under McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry, a former military commander, coordination between the military command and the embassy is "extremely poor."

Cordesman warned that McChrystal and the NATO/ISAF command is under pressure from the White House and the National Security Council not to increase troops levels, and he warned that if "politically correct" limitations are imposed on the US war effort, "I believe we will lose this war." He blasted General James Jones, the national security adviser, for expressing White House opposition to additional troops during a meeting with McChrystal at which Bob Woodward of the Washington Post was present. Of the four panelists, Cordesman was the only one who suggested that Obama and the NSC might resist McChrystal's request for additional forces.

Riedel presented a series of alternative outcomes of the presidential election, which may or may not result in a second-round runoff election in October. He seemed gloomy about the overall election results, noting that overall turnout was held to 30 to 40 percent, and that in some provinces turnout would be far less, below 20 percent. In some areas, less than 5 percent of women voted at all, he said. And he said that President Karzai, if he wins, will emerge even more dependent than before on warlords. Indeed, amid charges of widespread fraud being leveled by leading opposition candidates, general apathy and disaffection about the vote from the majority Pashtun population, and effective Taliban-led intimidation, the election may not create any sense of legitimacy for the next government. (According to Cordesman, "Regardless of who wins, we will not have people capable of governing the country.")

But Riedel's more apocalyptic point came in response to a questioner who wondered why the war is important. If we lose in Afghanistan, or if we withdraw, it will trigger a victorious war dance throughout the Muslim world by radicals and militants, he said. Riedel portrayed the stakes in the war as nothing less than dealing a fatal blow to jihadism. "The triumph of jihadism, in driving NATO out of Afghanistan, will resonate throughout the Muslim world," he said, comparing it to the belief among many Al Qaeda and Taliban types that the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan in the 1980s led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nowhere did Riedel suggest that there is a middle ground between crushing the Taliban and an outright Taliban victory over the United States, say, by reaching a political solution brokered by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other outside parties with large sections of the Taliban leadership. Nor did any of the panelists suggest that it's possible to split Al Qaeda and the most extreme elements of the anti-Western forces in Afghanistan-Pakistan away from other Islamists, such as the Taliban's core leadership and guerrilla chieftains such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former US and CIA ally in the 1980s, who is now a key ally of the Taliban.

Martin Indyk, who runs foreign policy for Brookings, asked Riedel if reality, so far, clashed with the plan that he helped draw up for Obama earlier this year. No, said Riedel. He said that Obama had inherited a disaster in Afghanistan from the Bush administration."Trying to turn that around overnight is an illusion," he said. (He failed to note that in trying to turn it around, Obama is turning it in the wrong direction, i.e., toward escalation rather than de-escalation.) "Anyone who thinks that in 12 to 18 months we're going to be anywhere close to victory is living in a fantasy," Riedel said. He did leave open the possibility that the conflict is now unwinnable, and that the US escalation is "too little, too late." But, like the rest of the panelists, Riedel suggested that there is no alternative to victory.

Sadly, like Richard Holbrooke, who two weeks ago told a Washington audience that he can't define victory, none of the panelists bothered to explain what victory might look like either -- only that it will take a decade or more to get there.

Video & Transcript: Mullen, Eikenberry Sell Afghanistan War on "Meet the Press" (23 August)

Transcript and Analysis: Mullen, Eikenberry Sell the Afghanistan War on CNN (23 August)

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We commented earlier on the Obama Administration's double act selling the war in Afghanistan, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen and US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, on CNN. As disturbing as this appearance was, this one might be worse.

Like the CNN interview, this exchange started not with consideration of Afghanistan's political situation but with the question of how many troops the US should put into the country. And to set that up, host David Gregory asked a fatuous, leading question about weak-willed US public opinion to which Mullen invoked both Al Qa'eda and 9-11.

To give Gregory some credit, he did get to the serious issues of Afghanistan's political and economic development and whether the US was "nation-building". When he did, Mullen and Eikenberry floundered helplessly. Granted I am not a fan of the Obama policy, but even a supporter of the US effort should have concerns after this performance.

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DAVID GREGORY: first, in addition to waging political battles at home, the President is faced with two ongoing wars abroad.

This week Afghans went to the polls as Americans expressed fresh skepticism about the U.S. war there now entering its ninth year. And in Iraq, new threats of sectarian violence after bombers strike inside Baghdad's green zone. Two men charged with coordinating the U.S. military and diplomatic mission in that region join us now: Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and from Afghanistan this morning, our U.S. ambassador, retired Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry.

Welcome to both of you.

Let me start with you, Admiral Mullen on the question of U.S. resolve. This was a poll taken by The Washington Post and ABC News this week, and these were the results. Is the war in Afghanistan worth the fight? No, 51 percent. Has American--have the American people lost that will to fight this war?

ADM. MIKE MULLEN: Well, I'm, I'm a Vietnam veteran myself. I'm certainly aware of the criticality of support of the American people for, for this war and in, in fact, any war. And so certainly the numbers are of concern.

That said, the president's given me and the American military a mission, and, and that focuses on a new strategy, new leadership, and we're moving very much in that direction. I am very mindful and concerned about the threat that's there. The strategy really focuses on defeating al-Qaeda and their extremist allies. That's where the original 911 attacks came from, that region. They've now moved to Pakistan. Afghanistan is very vulnerable in terms of Taliban and extremists taking over again, and I don't think that threat's going to go away. They still plot against us, see us as somebody they want to, to, to kill in terms of as many American lives as possible. And in that regard, we're very focused on executing that mission.

MR. GREGORY: Well, let's talk about that focus. General McChrystal, our commander on the ground, is expected to release his report, his assessment of what's happening on the ground. Will he request of this president more troops to fight in Afghanistan?

ADM. MULLEN: Well, McChrystal's assessment will come in here in I think the next two weeks. And his guidance was go out as a new commander, put a new team together and come back and tell us exactly how you assess conditions on the ground, take into consideration the president's strategy. He's going to do that. The--his assessment will come in and won't speak specifically to resources. There's an expectation we'll deal with resources after that assessment.

MR. GREGORY: Right. Well, but Senator McCain is saying in an interview this morning it will deal with resources, that he'll come back with high, medium and, and low threat assessments in terms of how many more troops you need, whether you need 15,000, 25,000 or 45,000 additional troops. Will he come in with a specific troop request, and will that increase in troop request meet skepticism from the White House?

ADM. MULLEN: The assessment that he will submit here in the next couple of weeks won't specifically deal with requirements for additional resources. We'll deal with the--with whatever additional resources might be required subsequent to that in the normal process.

MR. GREGORY: But this question that Senator McCain raises, which is he's afraid that there's going to be skepticism in the White House about any request for more troops and that more troops are vital if you're going to carry out this mission, where do you fall down on that?

ADM. MULLEN: Well, I think when we look at the strategy the president's laid out, look what General McChrystal says he needs to--in order to carry out that strategy, my recommendation to the president will be based on getting the resource strategy matched absolutely correct. And so we'll see where that goes once the assessment is in here. And I've had this conversation with the president, who understands that whatever the mission is, it needs to be resourced correctly. That said, it'll be the initial assessment that will be important, and then the risks that are associated with that assessment, and then we'll figure out where we go from there.

MR. GREGORY: But can you carry out this mission with the troops you've got?

ADM. MULLEN: That's really something that we will evaluate over the next few weeks after we get the assessment from General McChrystal.

MR. GREGORY: Ambassador Eikenberry, let me bring you in here and talk about the elections this week. Already there are claims of irregularities and fraud, voter turnout much lower than expected in the south, particularly low among women. And we don't have a clear result yet of the election. To what extent does this election, this presidential election in Afghanistan highlight the challenges that the U.S. faces there?

MR. KARL EIKENBERRY: Well, David, let's talk about what we do know about the election. First of all, it's a very historic election. It's the first presidential provincial council election led by the Afghan people that's taken place in this country in over 30 years. And the second point, it's a very important election. This is an election in which, as in all democracies at this point in time now with the, with the presidential election, with the provincial council election, which the people are going to the polls and it's an opportunity them--for them to renew their ties with their government. And that's important to this process to remember. If we look back over the history of Afghanistan over the last 30 years, we have civil war, we have occupation, we've got a complete collapse of governance and rule of law which sets the conditions then for Afghanistan to be a state controlled by international terrorism. Those were the conditions that led to 11 September of 2001. So this election that's just been completed, yes, it's, it was a very difficult election, but it's an opportunity then for renewal of the trust in the bonds...

MR. GREGORY: All right. Well, let me...

MR. EIKENBERRY: ...between the people of Afghanistan and their government.

MR. GREGORY: Let me jump in here. There's the question of the Taliban. The Taliban is really enemy one for U.S. forces there. It's stronger, it's resurgent from the period after 9/11. What does this election show, the level of intimidation by the Taliban about the Taliban's strength and the challenge to U.S. forces?

MR. EIKENBERRY: Well, I think it shows, David, that there's great excitement within this country for the Afghans to regain control of their country, for sovereignty. We had a two-month extraordinary election campaign that we just got through, a very exciting time in which there was unprecedented political activity that occurred, TV debates, rallies throughout the country. It was a very civil kind of debate that occurred. And it was all national candidates, for the first time in Afghanistan's history crossing ethnic lines and campaigning around the country.

MR. GREGORY: I want to bring Admiral Mullen back in here. We're talking about the threat of the Taliban. And, you know, ultimately a lot of Americans are wondering--you see it in that poll--what it is we're fighting to do there. The president this week told Veterans of Foreign Wars Afghanistan is a war of necessity. But other people have said no, it's not, it's actually a war of choice. Richard Haass, who was around in the Bush administration when this war was started in Afghanistan, wrote this in The New York Times this week: "In the wake of 9/11, invading Afghanistan was a war of necessity. The U.S. needed to act in self-defense to oust the Taliban. There was no viable alternative. Now, however, with a friendly government in Kabul, is our military presence still a necessity?" My question: If the central mission was fighting al-Qaeda, are we fulfilling that central mission still?

ADM. MULLEN: Well, David, this is the war we're in. And in fact, the mission the president has given us is to defeat and disrupt al-Qaeda and its extremist allies. And that's very specific and that includes the Taliban, which has grown to be much more sophisticated in the last two to three years and is a much tougher enemy in that regard. And they really are linked. Across that border in Pakistan, they provide the safe haven for al-Qaeda. They also feed fighters into Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda would very much like to see Kabul become the capital that is was before, essentially run by extremists. So in that regard, the--it's very much linked. And again, it's the mission that the military has right now to focus--and General McChrystal is doing this--focus on the security for the people, focus on the Afghan people. And that's a significant change from where we were just a few months ago. And it is in that focus that both understands what they feel about their security, which is pretty bad right now and getting worse, and moving to a direction--moving in a direction that provides security so then we can develop governance, so then we can develop an economy and they can take over their own destiny.

MR. GREGORY: We're rebuilding this nation?

ADM. MULLEN: To a certain degree there is, there is some of that going on.

MR. GREGORY: Is that what the American people signed up for?

ADM. MULLEN: No, I'm--right now the American people signed up, I think, for support of getting at those who threaten us. And, and to the degree that, that the Afghan people's security and the ability to ensure that a safe haven doesn't recur in Afghanistan, there's focus on some degree of making sure security's OK, making sure governance moves in the right direction and developing an, an economy which will underpin their future.

MR. GREGORY: But there seems to be a fundamental problem here. You know, in the Vietnam era it was talk about mission creep; the idea of, you know, gradually surging up forces, having nation-building goals and, and running into challenges all along the way. You're not going to commit to this this morning, it doesn't seem, but the reality is that it appears to fulfill this mission--to beat the Taliban, which is stronger than it ever was, to also fight al-Qaeda--there needs to be more troops in addition to this goal of trying to secure the population.

ADM. MULLEN: The, the focus on the, the people certainly is going to come by, by way of having--create, creating security for them, so their future can be brighter than it is right now. But it isn't just that. I mean, part of the president's strategy is to bring in a, a significant civilian capacity. Ambassador Holbrooke was just there on his fifth or sixth trip, and he was both--in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. So this is a civilian military approach. It's a new strategy. It's the first one. And I recognize that, that we've been there over eight years, but I, I, I also want to say that this is the first time we've really resourced a strategy on both the civilian and military side. So in certain ways we're starting anew.

MR. GREGORY: The question for both of you is about exit strategy. This is what the president said back in March, so the American people know when this is going to come to an end. He said, "There's got to be an exit strategy. There's got to be a sense that it is not perpetual drift." And yet just a couple of weeks ago--you mentioned Richard Holbrook, envoy to the region. He was a forum here in Washington. He was asked how he would define success in Afghanistan. This is what he would say: "I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue--we'll know it when we see it." We'll know it when we see it? Is that supposed to provide solace to the American people that we're not getting into drift when it comes to an exit strategy?

ADM. MULLEN: Well, I've said from a military perspective I believe we've got to start to turn this thing around from a security standpoint in the next 12 to 18 months. And I think after that we'd have a better view of how long it's going to take and what we need to do. Again, we're just getting the pieces in place from the president's new strategy in March on the ground now both on the military side--we've put forces there and we will have--we will add more this year--and on the civilian side. So it's going to take us a while to understand that. I don't see this as a, a mission of endless drift. I think we know what to do, we've learned a lot of lessons from Iraq, focusing on the Afghan people. It's a counterinsurgency effort right now, it's not just a--what was a counterterrorism effort several years ago. And that's why we've got to focus on the Afghan people, their security and creating forces, Afghan forces to provide for their own security.

MR. GREGORY: Ambassador Eikenberry, you're a former military man as well. What's your gut tell you? How long is it going to take to succeed in Afghanistan?

MR. EIKENBERRY: David, let's talk about progress. What--and what we would see as progress is over the next several years that the Afghan national army and the Afghan national police are much more in front, much more capable and that they're able to provide for the security of their own population. That's a several year process and beyond. What else does progress look like? Progress looks like a government of Afghanistan that's able to attend much more to the needs of their people, to provide reasonable services to them, to provide security for them. And progress look like a region in which there's more cooperation. Can we see outlines of what progress might look like over the next several years consistent with our strategy, ready to partner with the next Afghan administration that emerges after the winner of this election has occurred? Yeah, sure we can.

MR. GREGORY: It's just interesting, Admiral Mullen, that he talks about progress and not victory. Is victory possible in Afghanistan?

ADM. MULLEN: I try to focus this on what it's going to take to succeed there given the mission that we've got, and I go and would just re-emphasize now just on top of the progress, it's the focus on the people and giving them a future that allows them to take care of their own country and doesn't create an environment in which al-Qaeda and its extremist allies can threaten us as they have and execute a threat as they did in the past.

MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you quickly about Iraq, the violence playing out this week in the green zone; 95 people killed, an attack on the foreign and finance ministry. This is Baghdad, where the Iraqis are now in control. You have warned about the threat of sectarian violence that could ultimately doom Iraq. What troubles you about what you saw this week?

ADM. MULLEN: Well, I, I, I still think that is probably the most significant threat is if sectarian violence breaks out in, in large measure. And so these attacks last week certainly are of great concern not just to me but General Odierno, Ambassador Hill and many others. And we're watching that very carefully. That has been addressed very quickly with Prime Minister Maliki and his leadership. In addition to that, I've been concerned about the politics of it all; in fact, resolving the issues particularly up north around Kirkuk. Those are probably the two biggest threats to the future security and progress. But I've also said we're leaving. I mean, we're, we're--in, in the next several months--they're going to have an election beginning next year. After that we're going to start a fairly rapid draw down of our forces. And so it's really important that the political and military leadership of Iraq take control and generate positive solutions for them as a country.

MR. GREGORY: Finally here, we are just days away from the eighth anniversary of 9/11. What is your assessment of al-Qaeda's capability of striking the U.S. again?

ADM. MULLEN: Still very capable, very focused on it, the leadership is. They also are able to both train and support and finance, and so that capability is still significant and, and one which we're very focused on making sure that doesn't happen again.

MR. GREGORY: All right, we're going to leave it there.

Ambassador Eikenberry in Afghanistan, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

And, Admiral Mullen, always nice to have a couple of San Fernando Valley guys together on a Sunday morning. Thank you very much.

ADM. MULLEN: Thank you, David.

Transcript and Analysis: Mullen, Eikenberry Sell the Afghanistan War on CNN (23 August)

Video & Transcript: Mullen, Eikenberry Sell Afghanistan War on "Meet the Press" (23 August)

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This may be one of the most depressing interviews I have read since the start of the Obama Administration. (And it will get worse later today --- I have seen clips from a similar performance on NBC's Meet the Press; we're waiting for the full video and transcript.) The White House, amidst the political complexity of this week's events in Afghanistan, put up two military men --- Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and the US Ambassor to Afghanistan, General Karl Eikenberry --- for set-up questions from John King.

The political knowledge in this exchange is almost vacant, with the platitudes about "democracy" (note Eikenberry's excited spin that he couldn't get the indelible ink off his finger) substituting for the serious issues about the election --- today, there are reports that the declaration of the vote may be delayed because of fraud allegations --- and the politics beyond it.

Instead the conversation turns to militarising the US involvement, with the question, "How many more troops?" And, of course, this is all rationalised by skipping over the Afghan people and referring to "Al Qa'eda" (who, I'll note for the record, are not in Afghanistan but in another country).

KING: This is the “State of the Union” report for Sunday, August 23rd.

In Afghanistan today, both President Hamid Karzai and his top challenger are claiming victory in last week’s election, raising tensions, even though it could be weeks or more before the official results are certified. It is an uncertain military situation, as well, with fighting between U.S. forces and the Taliban intensifying. And fresh indications President Obama could soon be asked to commit more American troops.

Here to talk about this and other global challenges are the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen , and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. He joins us from Kabul.

And Mr. Ambassador, let me start with you. There are complaints, escalating complaints this Sunday about fraud in the elections. On the threshold question of will this balloting be credible, what is your answer?

EIKENBERRY: Well, John, it was an extraordinary two months that we’ve been through, with this being a very historic election. Afghanistan, the first time in the past 30 years that the Afghan people have led an election for their president, for provincial councils, very intense campaign that occurred over the last two months, all new in Afghanistan. Presidential televised debates, campaign rallies. A very civil debate that occurred over this time.

The election itself, everyone knows how challenging it is in the country like Afghanistan to run an election. There’s an insurgency in parts of the country right now. It was an election in which over 6,000 voting stations were set up, crossing deserts and mountains, donkeys carrying ballots to the last polling stations of Afghanistan, and a very well-organized campaign. The Afghan-led independent electoral commission looks like it managed a pretty good process. There’s adjudication systems that have been up, an electoral complaints commission. There was a media complaints commission that was set up.

I got out myself and looked at some of the voting that was going on, and I can tell you, at least one part of the process, the indelible ink, over three days now I haven’t been able to get it off the finger.

Now, against all of that, where are we? Well, right now we’re waiting for the results of this election to come in. The electoral -- the independent electoral commission, they’re waiting for the tallies to be count from across the country. There’s been charges of fraud. The electoral complaints commission is taking those on right now.

We’re really not going to know, John, for several more weeks exactly where we do stand in this process.

We’re not sure exactly what the level of voter turnout was. Millions turned out to vote, but of course, Taliban intimidation, especially in southern Afghanistan, certainly limited those numbers. But for now, we don’t know, and it’s for us to wait and see and allow this process to move forward.

KING: Well, Admiral, jump in on that point. Wait and see, could be weeks, could be longer. It’s already a very tenuous political situation, a dangerous military situation. How worried are you that if you have complaints of fraud, you have a candidate from the north, one challenger, the president who’s from the south. Are you worried about ethnic tensions, ethnic violence escalating and complicating an already bad situation?

MULLEN: Well, this election was truly remarkable, and in terms of what Ambassador Eikenberry has laid out, in the face of what has been a growing insurgency, and certainly intimidation to a certain degree -- and we’ll see over the next few weeks how it actually plays out.

Our forces under the leadership of our new commander out there, General Stan McChrystal, were very focused in support of the Afghan security forces. And one of the highlights for me is that the Afghan security forces, the police and the army, provided security for these elections. And over 95 percent of the polling stations were open.

And so, we’ll keep that focus. And one of the possibilities, obviously, if there isn’t a majority winner here is a runoff. And so we’ll keep that focus and be able to keep that focus.

And at the same time, we’re aware of the insurgency. We’re addressing that, particularly in the south and the east. And so our combat leaders are very focused on that, as well, while General McChrystal shifts his focus to the security and the needs that the Afghan people have specifically for that security.

KING: Well, you mentioned General McChrystal. He is preparing a report to the president, in which many, especially members of the congressional delegation that just met with him, believe he’s going to ask for more troops.

Here’s what [Senator] Susan Collins said on her blog after meeting with both the ambassador and the general. She said, “Along with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and their aides, the general provided us with a detailed briefing. He begins with his chilling assessment that the situation in Afghanistan is serious and deteriorating.” She says, sir, she left that meeting with no doubt that he will ask for more troops. And there have been a number of options circulated. A low-risk 15,000 more; medium-risk 25,000 more; high-risk 45,000 more.

Senator John McCain out this morning saying that he is worried that that has been made public, because he thinks there’s political pressure, and that at best, then, you guys will split the difference and give 25,000 more troops. Pressure?

MULLEN: Well, I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I’ve said that over the last couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated. Their tactics just in my recent visits out there and talking with our troops certainly indicate that.

General McChrystal is about to wrap up his assessment, and he’ll come in with that assessment in detail, and I haven’t seen that, that...

KING: You have no doubt he’ll ask for more troops?

MULLEN: Actually, we’re not at a point yet where he’s made any decisions about asking for additional troops. His guidance from me and from the Secretary of Defense was to go out, assess where you are, and then tell us what you need. And we’ll get to that point. And I -- I want to, I guess, assure you or reassure you that he hasn’t asked for any additional troops up until this point in time.

KING: Mr. Ambassador, you’re also a retired general, so you’re a military man now in a diplomatic role. I want to read you something from Senator John Kerry , the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, in the context of rising doubts here in the United States about what is the mission in Afghanistan, not only in the Congress but with the American people. Senator Kerry says, “I’m very concerned about Afghanistan’s footprint. The breadth of the challenge that we face there, with police, with governance, corruption, narcotics, tribalism, other kinds of things may well be beyond the narrower definition the president gave the mission.”

Do you believe, sir, that the American people understand what the mission is in Afghanistan?

EIKENBERRY: John, there are extraordinary challenges that we face in carrying out this mission, but we need to go back and remember Afghanistan and how it looked on the 10th of September of 2001. At that time, this was a state that was controlled by international terrorism. And so, the president’s strategy, the administration’s strategy is clear. It’s to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al Qaeda.

Now, for what this means to us here in Afghanistan, to prevent the conditions that existed on the 10th of September in 2001, it means the hardening of the Afghan state, and that has a dimension to it of an Afghanistan where the government can provide for its own security with a capable army and a police force. It means the government upon which those security forces rest. It’s a government...

KING: Sir, I want to interrupt you. I want to interrupt you. I’m sorry to interrupt, but...

(CROSSTALK)

EIKENBERRY: ... services to the people.

KING: I just want to jump in, because there’s a credibility question that many people ask. And it may not be fair to you in the challenge of Afghanistan, but because of what happened in Iraq, people in Congress and the American people, certainly in my travels -- I was at Ft. Riley this past week -- they asked these questions.

I want to go back in time. In 2006, you were on this network when you were still in the military and you were asked about the situation in Afghanistan in 2006, and you said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EIKENBERRY: Things are getting better in Afghanistan in every dimension. If you look at it from the Al Qaida or the Taliban perspective, four and a half years ago, you ruled in Afghanistan. Now you’ve been pushed out of Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And that a year later, sir, you were back on this network, 2006 turned into a not so good year, but you were back the very next February and you sounded optimistic again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EIKENBERRY: I think as we’re now moving into 2007, we’re very well-postured for success. We see a very significant increase in the combat power of the Afghan national army, the police. President Karzai continues to improve governance. So I think we’re reasonably well-postured in 2007.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is it not fair now in 2009, we are 18 days from the eighth anniversary of 9/11 -- you mentioned the situation on September 10th -- is it not a fair question for the American people to say, where has all the money gone? And why has there not been more progress? And should they, I’m sorry, sir, believe optimistic statements from their government?

EIKENBERRY: Well, John, I don’t think my statement right now would be characterized as optimistic. I’m being -- I’m giving a candid assessment that, as Admiral Mullen said, we have a very difficult situation in parts of Afghanistan today.

What we do have for the first time, I believe, since 2002, we have a very clear strategy, and matched against that we have sufficient -- we have resources that are being mobilized. That’s in the security domain. That’s in terms of very (ph) importantly on the civilian side here within the United States embassy, and our mission.

Admiral Mullen talked about the military dimension for Afghanistan. It’s critical, but in and of itself, it’s not sufficient. This is not going to be won entirely on the battlefield here for us in Afghanistan. It’s going to require that the government of Afghanistan develops capability over the next several years. It’s going to require further work in helping to develop a sustainable economy.

There’s a regional diplomacy dimension to this. And I think that as we look ahead, we see what our goals and objectives are. We’re mobilizing sufficient resources for those, but I don’t want to understate the degree of challenges that we’re facing.

KING: I would like to ask the ambassador and the admiral to stand by. Much more with Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Eikenberry in just a moment. When we come back, we’ll head to the magic wall for a closer look at these global challenges.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen , and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Lieutenant General, retired, Karl Eikenberry.

Gentlemen, let’s continue the conversation. Here are the three leading candidates in Afghanistan -- President Karzai, Dr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani. I want to move on to a major challenge, and you have a new strategy for dealing with this, Admiral. Help me understand. Look at this, the numbers are stunning. In 2001, Afghanistan produced 185 metric tons of opium. In 2008, look how much that has gone up, 7,700, from 12 percent of the world’s poppy crop to 93 percent of the world’s poppy crop.

Do you have a new counter-narcotic strategy that allows you to target drug kingpins if you believe they are supporting the Taliban and the insurgency? Is that correct?

MULLEN: Actually, yes, and we’ve had that for many months, and specifically changed our rules of engagement so that kingpins, laboratories, individuals who support, transport, specifically, these products are also able to be both either captured or killed. But we’re just...

KING: How? How if there is a pro-U.S. government, how has that happened?

MULLEN: We’re -- I just think it’s something that has not been the focus of the Afghan government, specifically over the last seven or eight years.

I mean, some of the things we’re seeing right now in terms of this conflict and the challenge is really a very comprehensive addressal of all aspects of it. So yes, I’ve got -- and -- changed ROE that allows me to do this, but that’s just part of the counter- narcotics strategy. Because...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I’m sorry to interrupt, but if this has happened under President Karzai, do you have any reason to believe that if he’s reelected, that that will go down?

MULLEN: Well, I think it’s clearly something we’re going to have to keep a very close eye on and move in that direction.

There’s an agricultural strategy that goes across this, where they grow it. It wasn’t -- it was a few decades ago, but -- that Afghanistan actually produced enough food for itself, it exported food in this very rich agricultural valley.

Now, we’ve got to, I think, across our government and theirs focus on creating the infrastructure which allows them to produce the kind of products that they used to produce agriculturally.

KING: I want to look now, here is a glimpse at the U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. 62,000 now, and most expect, although you say the review is not complete, that number to keep going up. Ambassador, I want you to come in on this point here. 62,000 U.S. troops, about 35,000 from other nations, those NATO allies. Many of the NATO allies invested a modest number of troops to provide security through the elections. Mr. Ambassador, define through the elections. Are some of these 35,000 now going to leave that the elections are over? Or do you have commitments for them to stay through final results?

EIKENBERRY: John, they are committed. We’ll know on the 17th of September, that’s the target date, at least for the independent electoral commission of Afghanistan, Afghanistan-led, to give the final announcements on the election. If no candidate achieves 50 percent, then there’ll be a runoff among the top two contenders, and we would expect that that election will occur then perhaps six weeks later or about four weeks later in mid-October. So we could have a four to six weeks delay here in the whole process if we do go to a runoff. But we have commitments from the forces that are here to stay on if needed for a runoff.

KING: For a runoff. Would you like more NATO forces, sir? And just how deep is your frustration that our allies, given the increasing challenge, will not commit more? To you, Mr. Ambassador?

EIKENBERRY: John, that was for me?

KING: Yes, sir.

EIKENBERRY: John, the commitment that we’ve got from our NATO allies here is pretty extraordinary. We’ve got, as you had pointed out, 100,000 troops on the ground; about 40,000 of those are non-U.S. They’re from 40 different countries, 40 plus different countries, from all the countries of NATO. This is the most ambitious, the most difficult mission that NATO in its 60-year history has ever conducted.

And so, yes, we’re hoping for more progress with our allies, but if we look at where this alliance was 10 years ago and where they are today, far from Europe, inside of Afghanistan, I think we have to take stock of the extraordinary commitments that our European and Canadian allies have made.

KING: We are running short on time, but Admiral Mullen, a couple quick questions for you in closing. Here’s the U.S. troop level in Iraq, down now to in the mid-120,000. We were at about 140,000 at the beginning of the year. Horrific violence this past week. Many saying just what was to be expected. They knew the U.S. troops were coming out, that the insurgents, those who want to commit violence, waited. Are you concerned about what’s happening in the context of the Iraqi response and to whether you’ll be able to keep this timeline to keep pulling U.S. troops out?

MULLEN: Extremely concerned by the incidents last week. I think everybody was, and the key is whether this is an indicator of future sectarian violence. And certainly, many of us believe that one way that this can come unwound is through sectarian violence.

Our leadership’s focussed on it. I know the leadership in politically and militarily in Iraq is very focussed on that. We’ve got also a little longer-term focus through the elections in January, and then after that, you know, that slope that you see there on the right-hand side of your graph is going to continue pretty dramatically between March and August of next year. The message is that the Iraqi leadership really has to take control and ensure...

KING: Is there a risk -- is there a risk this stops?

MULLEN: There’s always a risk. We have not seen a lot of this really until last week. And we’ve seen some positive signs up north, where possibilities existed before, but it’s something we’re all very, very mindful of and watching very carefully. Not just us from here, but our troops on the ground there as well.

KING: I want to ask you lastly, sir, your impressions, reactions. The Scottish court released the gentleman who was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. He has gone back to Libya. There was a hero’s welcome on the ground in Libya despite a very strong message from the United States -- one, that they did not want him released, and two, that he should be put under house arrest in Libya. The FBI director says Libya is now -- that decision gives comfort to the terrorists, and obviously you saw the reaction in Libya.

There are proposed military sales to Libya on the table. As the gentleman who has to sign the orders sending men and women into combat around the world, what signal did the court send? And what have you seen out of Libya?

MULLEN: Well, this is obviously a political decision, which is out of my lane. But I mean, just personally, I was appalled by the decision.

KING: And if there are proposed Pentagon sales to Libya on the table, you’ll say no?

MULLEN: Well, we’ll deal with those down the road. It’s just where I am right now.

KING: All right, Admiral, I understand the restrictions you’re under there. I can tell by your face you’d like to say something a bit stronger. Admiral Mike Mullen , Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, thank you very much.

And up next, three U.S. senators from across the ideological spectrum debate whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and whether Congress hears your concerns about proposed health care changes. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: President Obama says the war in Afghanistan is not one of choice, but of necessity. Still some in Congress are concerned that there’s no endgame for the U.S. military mission. Let’s talk it over with the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Armed Services Committee member and independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Gentlemen, welcome. I want to get to Afghanistan in a minute, but I want to start where I ended with Admiral Mullen. Your reaction, the three of you involved so much in our international policy, to what happened, the Scottish court first releasing the gentleman convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

And then we can show our viewers, I hope, the hero’s welcome he received back in Libya after a direct message from the United States to put him under house arrest and to not do just this.

Senator Lugar, what should the United States do now in the context of, A, relations with Libya which had improved and, in fact, on the table were some proposed military sales.

LUGAR: Well, I think we ought to continue our relations with Libya, but we ought to condemn as strongly as possible this release. I think the president has indicated he felt it was obnoxious, I would certainly concur with that.

But I think it’s very important to notice that the President Gadhafi has a constituency in Libya, which I suppose he was appealing. And the rest of the world is now engaged in diplomatic relations with Libya.

KING: You were there, sir...

LIEBERMAN: Yes.

KING: ... on a congressional delegation. And you delivered this same message. That you hoped he was not released, but if he was, there should not be that welcome. What should the consequences be?

LIEBERMAN: That’s absolutely right. That’s exactly what we said to Colonel Gadhafi. He obviously didn’t get the message that he believed that Al Megrahi was convicted politically. But the fact is he was convicted in a court of law according to the rule of law. This release -- the Scottish justice secretary committed an act of gross injustice here. The suggestions that have followed both from Libya, Gadhafi himself, his son Saif, and from the head of the British Libyan Business Council, that there was an intermixing here of Megrahi’s fate with British interest in oil exploration in Libya, are shocking.

I don’t want to believe that they are true, but they are hanging so heavily in the air that I hope that our friends in Britain will convene an independent investigation of this action by the Scottish justice minister to release a mass murder.

With regard to Libya, we warned respectfully at that point, because we hoped Colonel Gadhafi would get our message that he could not expect relations with the United States, which have been good since after the Iraq War of 2003.

He has destroyed his WMD. He is cooperating in counterterrorism with us. But he could not expect them to go on normally if Megrahi was not only released, but greeted as a hero. And that has happened. So I would say suspension of arms sales, don’t expect President Obama to meet Gadhafi at the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.

This is a real setback for the anti-terrorist cause and takes our relations with Libya back to where they were for too long, a bad place.

KING: Do you agree with that assessment vis-a-vis Libya? And what do you believe was the motivation of releasing? Is it a humanitarian gesture, he has terminal cancer? Or do you believe there is something more suspicious?

CARDIN: Well, first, I think there should be consequences to those actions. So the terrorist showed no compassion for his victims. And to give him a compassionate release was wrong.

I think we also have to realize what impact this has on our war against terror. Here you see a terrorist being released after serving just eight years, a mass murder. I think it’s very serious and I think there should be consequences.

KING: And in terms of the motivation of the Scottish court? Do you share his questioning?

CARDIN: I think Senator Lieberman raises a very valid point. I think we need to know what this oil deal was all about and whether there was a compromise to the judicial system for commercial gain.

KING: All right. Let’s move on to Afghanistan and I want to ask a threshold question first, because we all lived through the Iraq debate. From a policy standpoint and from a political standpoint, it got pretty ugly here in the United States.

And, Senator Lugar, starting with you, has the president laid out to the American people a clear statement of the mission? Now, where we’re going, and what the endgame is?

LUGAR: In Afghanistan, is that a question?

KING: Yes.

LUGAR: No. And I think everyone waits for General McChrystal to give, really, the outline of where we’re headed, how many troops or whatever else is going to be required, and of course, as time goes by, the debate goes on.

The Washington Post had polling that indicated that a large number of Americans are losing faith in the mission. A majority of Democrats do not really favor continuing very strongly. Republicans still in favor of it. So I hope we don’t get into a partisan battle of that variety.

I think the president really has to face the fact that his own leadership here is critical. He really can’t just leave this to the Congress, to General McChrystal, and say, folks, sort of, discuss this, after the report comes in.

KING: Well, let me bring in Senator Cardin on that point. As the Democrat of the group here, 70 percent in that poll, Senator Lugar just referred to in The Washington Post poll, 70 percent of Democrats say this is a fight not worth fighting.

If General McChrystal says, I need more troops, will you vote for them?

CARDIN: Well, first, I think we have to see what he says. Clearly the president is defining our mission to go after the terrorists. There’s a lot of problems in Afghanistan. We didn’t choose this war, they attacked us. We need to make sure that Afghanistan and, quite frankly, the border with Pakistan is not a safe haven for terrorists.

That should be our objective. And we now need to know what do we need to do as far as resources to accomplish that mission?

KING: You were there and you met with the ambassador and you met with the general on this same international trip with Senator Collins, Senator McCain, Senator Graham. How many more troops is he going to need, sir?

LIEBERMAN: That we didn’t talk about in detail. But it’s very clear that General McChrystal is going to ask for more troops.

Incidentally, I think, John, that President Obama has been strong and clear in Afghanistan. Obviously there has been a lot else going on in Washington and in American politics.

LIEBERMAN: The recession, health care reform, et cetera, but the president came in and basically recommitted to what he had said during the campaign last year, that this was a war of necessity. That we were struck from Afghanistan when the Taliban was in charge on 9/11 ‘01. We can’t let the Taliban come back. This is as if we were in the end of the second world war, democracy was beginning to take route in Germany and the Nazis started an offensive to take the country back. That’s what the Taliban is doing. So right now, the president has put a new team in charge, and they’re good. General McChrystal, Ambassador Eikenberry, he’s committed to 21,000 more troops. They’re beginning to arrive. They’re making a difference, those marines, in southern Afghanistan under General Larry Nicholson, doing a great job in turning the tide.

KING: Do you see any political pressure on General McChrystal to ratchet down those numbers, to not ask for a significant number of more troops?

LIEBERMAN: I haven’t seen any. I sure hope there’s not. If there’s a lesson we should’ve learned from Iraq, some of the pressure that was put on our generals there not to ask for what they thought they needed to win meant that we lost a lot of lives, spent a lot of money. My own opinion coming back from Afghanistan with a new team, new strategy, we ought to take the option that General McChrystal gives us that has the least risk.

In other words, don’t dribble it out, don’t go for incrementalism. That’s a lesson we learned in Iraq. Frankly it’s a lesson we learned a long time ago in Vietnam that give our troops and our civilians there State Department, economic assistance, people, the support that they need as quickly as we can get it to them, and then demand that the Afghan government do the same. Raise the number of security forces that they have in the battle and produce a good government for their people.

KING: I want to move on domestic issues. Senator Lugar lastly on the international, how long do the American people need to be prepared for significant U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan?

LUGAR: Well, that’s the question the president will have to try to define much better. For example, we heard on your program this morning about the politics of the country, maybe taking several years to work out.

They have various other institutions in the economy, agriculture, the drug business and so forth. How many of these missions, leaving aside the Taliban and the al Qaeda being chased over to Pakistan, what have you. I think General McChrystal can’t answer all that. He can give some military guidance, but the political guidance of why Afghanistan should be reformed and how long we stay with it is a presidential, and it’s likely to last many, many years beyond this particular term.

KING: Many, many years, a sober assessment.

Gaza: "Moderate" Hamas Does a Balancing "War on Terror" Act

World, may we introduce you to the "moderate" Hamas?

During last Friday's prayers in Rafah, the leader of Junut Ansar Allah (Soldiers of Allah's Supporters), Abd al-Latif Musa, declared "the birth of an Islamic emirate in Gaza". There were his last words of him. Hamas attacked the mosque, killing 24 --- including six unarmed civilians –-- and injuring 125.

Now this may seem a curious way to become "moderate". However, with the Rafah mosque attack, Hamas was not only acting against a perceived insurgent threat. In the past, it has often been alleged that al-Qaeda militants are training and receiving support from Hamas. The Gazan leadership has always denied this but, with last Friday's operation, it offered a war against anti-American Islamist “terrorism”, distancing itself from “radicalism” and sending “positive” signals to Washington and Brussels.

Doing so, the Gazan organisation is striking a delicate balance. On the one hand, it is maintaining a low-profile vigilance against any anti-Western rhetoric that might give its opponents (read "Israel") ammunition for a public-relations assault. On the other, it is maintaining relations with Islamic groups, including some backed by Iran, to prevent any opening of space for challengers in Gaza.

Khaled Meshal, the political director of Hamas, said last week in an interview with Qatari newspaper al-Watan that the post-election turmoil in Iran would not endanger Tehran’s support for Hamas: "No doubt what is happening in Iran concerns and worries us, but we consider it to be an internal affair… But we are definitely not worried about the relationship with Iran or the support that Iran offers us.” Meshal's words took on new signficance after the provocative speech of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah on Friday: "Hezbollah is able to hit every city in Israel, and I repeat: if they hit Beirut, we will attack Tel Aviv.”

For, while Hezbollah might want to shake a fist at Israel right now, Hamas does not. So Meshal’s “worry” indicates a thin red line between Hamas and Tehran. Iran, for both domestic and regional reasons, is anxious to keep the heat on Tel Aviv, and it may be sending a message to Hamas to be less forthcoming towards an Israel-Palestine settlement. On the other hand, Meshal in particular has been attentive to sending signals to Washington that Hamas welcomes the US brokering of an agreement.

So Hamas finds itself manoeuvring both vis-a-vis external powers and against internal challenges. Flexibility becomes the keyword for strategy. But if that means Iran cannot be put to one side, it also means that "radicalism" is no longer an attractive label for Gaza's political leaders.

Welcome then to the new, moderate (if War-on-Terror-fighting) Hamas. But how will the world (read "United States") react?