Video and Transcript: Dick Cheney on "Face the Nation" (10 May)

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He's not going to give up, is he? The most secretive Vice President in US history continues to be the most talkative ex-VP, primarily because Dick Cheney wants to "win" on the torture issue. His latest grandstanding was on CBS Television's "Face the Nation":


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BOB SCHIEFFER: Mr. Vice President, thank you for being here. You’re obviously here because we invited you here and we appreciate that, but I want to ask you something. President Bush has done what people normally do when they leave the Oval Office -- he has remained mum. He said very little. At one point, he said that he thought President Obama deserved his silence.

But you have taken a very different tack, and I must say a very unusual tack for somebody just leaving the vice president’s office. You’ve been speaking out not just frequently, but often very pointedly. At one point you said, for example, the Obama administration has made this country less safe. That’s a very serious charge. Why have you taken this approach?

CHENEY: Well, Bob, first of all, it’s good to go back on the show.

SCHIEFFER: Thank you.

CHENEY: It’s nice to know that you’re still loved and are invited out in public sometimes.

The reason I’ve been speaking, and in effect what I’ve been doing is responding to press queries such as yours, is because I think the issues that are at stake here are so important. And, in effect, what we’ve seen happen with respect to the Obama administration as they came to power is they have moved to take down a lot of those policies we put in place that kept the nation safe for nearly eight years from a follow-on terrorist attack like 9/11. Dealing with prisoner interrogation, for example, or the terrorist surveillance program.

They campaigned against these policies across the country, and then they came in now, and they have tried, very hard, to undertake actions that I just fundamentally disagree with.

SCHIEFFER: Well, do you -- I mean, should we take that literally? You say that the administration has made this country more vulnerable to attacks here in the homeland.

CHENEY: That’s my belief, based upon the fact, Bob, that we put in place those policies after 9/11. On the morning of 9/12, if you will, there was a great deal we didn’t know about Al Qaida. There was the need to embark upon a new strategy with respect to treating this as a strategic threat to the United States. There was the possibility of Al Qaida terrorists in the midst of one of our own cities with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent.

It was a time of great concern, and we put in place some very good policies, and they worked, for eight years. Now we have an administration that’s come to power that has been critical of the programs, but not only that, there’s been talk about prosecuting the lawyers in the Justice Department who gave us the opinions that we operated in accordance with, or referring them to the Bar Association for disbarment or sanctions of some kind, or possibly cooperating with foreign governments that are interested in trying to prosecute American officials, those same officials who were responsible for defending this nation for the last eight years.

That whole complex of things is what I find deeply disturbing, and I think to the extent that those policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies or end them, terminate them, then I think it’s fair to argue -- and I do argue -- that that means in the future we’re not going to have the same safeguards we’ve had for the last eight years.

SCHIEFFER: Well, but why does that make the country less safe? You’re talking about -- you say you don’t think we ought to be going back and questioning those people, looking into some of these things. All right, I take your point on that, but how is that making the country less safe? How does that make the country more vulnerable to an attack in the future?

CHENEY: Well, at the heart of what we did with the terrorist surveillance program and the enhanced interrogation techniques for Al Qaida terrorists and so forth was collect information. It was about intelligence. It was about finding out what Al Qaida was going to do, what their capabilities and plans were. It was discovering all those things we needed in order to be able to go defeat Al Qaida.

And in effect, what’s happening here, when you get rid of enhanced interrogation techniques, for example, or the terrorist surveillance program, you reduce the intelligence flow to the intelligence community upon which we based those policies that were so successful.

So I think before they do that sort of thing, it’s important to sit down and find out what did we learn? Why did it work?

One of the things that I did six weeks ago was I made a request that two memos that I personally know of, written by the CIA, that lay out the successes of those policies and point out in considerable detail all of -- all that we were able to achieve by virtue of those policies, that those memos be released, be made public. The administration has released legal opinions out of the Office of Legal Counsel. They don’t have any qualms at all about putting things out that can be used to be critical of the Bush administration policies. But when you’ve got memos out there that show precisely how much was achieved and how lives were saved as a result of these policies, they won’t release those. At least, they haven’t yet.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you about that, because some people in the administration -- believe the attorney general says he does not know of such memos. Other people in the administration say, as a matter of fact, what we found out using these methods -- and I mean, let’s call things what they are -- waterboarding was one of the techniques that were used -- that they really didn’t get all that much from that. You say they did.

CHENEY: I say they did. Four former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency say they did, bipartisan basis.

Release the memos. And we can look and see for yourself what was produced.

The memos do exist. I have seen them. I had them in my files at one time. Now everything is part of the National Archives. I’m sure the agency has copies of those materials, and there’s a formal way you go through, once you’re a former official, a formal way you go through requesting declassification of something, and I started that process, as I say, six weeks ago. I haven’t heard anything from it yet. I assume...

SCHIEFFER: You have not -- they haven’t responded to you as yet?

CHENEY: That’s right. There’s been -- up until now, I’ve got a letter of notification saying they had started the process, but I haven’t seen anything by way of a result from this request for declassification. And if we’re going to have this debate, it ought to be a complete debate, and those memos ought to be out there for people to look at and journalists like yourself to evaluate in terms of what we were able to accomplish with these policies.

SCHIEFFER: Well, Mr. Vice President, let me ask you this. I mean, I’m not asking you to violate any rules of classification, but is there anything you can tell us specifically that those memos would tell us? I mean, some information we gleaned, some fact that we got that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise?

CHENEY: That’s what’s in those memos. It talks specifically about different attack planning that was under way and how it was stopped. It talks about how the volume of intelligence reports that were produced from that.

SCHIEFFER: Does it talk about planning for attacks or attacks that were actually stopped?

CHENEY: Well, I need to be careful here, Bob, because it’s still classified. The way to answer this is give us the memos. Put them out there. Release them to the press. Let everybody take a look and see.

What it shows is that overwhelmingly, the process we had in place produced from certain key individuals, such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, two of the three who were waterboarded, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the man who killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11, blew up the World Trade Center, attacked the Pentagon, tried to blow up the White House or the Capitol building. An evil, evil man that’s been in our custody since March of ‘03. He did not cooperate fully in terms of interrogations until after waterboarding. Once we went through that process, he produced vast quantities of invaluable information about Al Qaida.

SCHIEFFER: What do you say to those, Mr. Vice President, who say that when we employ these kinds of tactics, which are after all the tactics that the other side uses, that when we adopt their methods, that we’re weakening security, not enhancing security, because it sort of makes a mockery of what we tell the rest of the world?

CHENEY: Well, then you’d have to say that, in effect, we’re prepared to sacrifice American lives rather than run an intelligent interrogation program that would provide us the information we need to protect America.

The fact of the matter is, these techniques that we’re talking about are used on our own people. We -- in a program that in effect trains our people with respect to capture and evasion and so forth and escape, a lot of them go through these same exact procedures. Now...

SCHIEFFER: Do you -- is what you’re saying here is that we should do anything if we could get information?

CHENEY: No. Remember what happened here, Bob. We had captured these people. We had pursued interrogation in a normal way. We decided that we needed some enhanced techniques. So we went to the Justice Department. And the controversy has arisen over the opinions written by the Justice Department.

The reason we went to the Justice Department wasn’t because we felt we were going to take some kind of free hand assault on these people or that we were in the torture business. We weren’t. And specifically, what we got from the Office of Legal Counsel were legal memos that laid out what is appropriate and what’s not appropriate, in light of our international commitments.

CHENEY: If we had been about torture, we wouldn’t have wasted our time going to the Justice Department.

SCHIEFFER: How much did President Bush know specifically about the methods that were being used? We know that you-- and you have said-- that you approved this...

CHENEY: Right.

SCHIEFFER: ... somewhere down the line. Did President Bush know everything you knew?

CHENEY: I certainly, yes, have every reason to believe he knew -- he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it. I mean, this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.

SCHIEFFER: You said -- you said just a moment ago as you were talking about this, that -- you said that we have to realize what was at stake and we have to realize the circumstances. Do you have any regrets whatsoever about any of the methods that were taken? Any of the things that were used back in those days? Because there’s no question the country -- it was a different time. The country’s mood was different. We had just been -- something had happened here that had never happened before.

In retrospect, you -- years have passed. You’re now out of office. Do you think we should have done some things differently back then, or do you have any regrets about any of it?

CHENEY: No regrets. I think it was absolutely the right thing to do. I’m convinced, absolutely convinced, that we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives.

In the aftermath of 9/11, we had all of these questions about who Al Qaida was, where they were operating and so forth. We didn’t know nearly as much as we know today. We were faced with a very real possibility -- we had reporting that said Al Qaida is trying to acquire nuclear capabilities. We had the A.Q. Khan network out there, a black-market operator selling nuclear weapons technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran. We had the anthrax attack within a matter of weeks after 9/11. We had the kind of situation that meant that we were absolutely convinced, the country was convinced, that there was a very high likelihood of a follow-on attack, a mass casualty attack against the United States. No one then would have bet anything that you’re going to go eight years and not have another attack. And we know, in fact, that they did try other attacks, and that we were able to stop them.

Now, if you’d look at it from the perspective of a senior government official, somebody like myself, who stood up and took the oath of office on January 20th of ‘01 and raised their right hand and said we’re going to protect and defend the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, this was exactly, exactly what was needed to do it.

I think if you look at this intelligence program that when things are quieter, 20 or 30 years from now, you’ll be able to look back on this and say this is one of the great success stories of American intelligence. I think, in fact, what the men and women in the intelligence community and the lawyers in the Justice Department and the senior officials who approved this program did exactly the right thing. I think the charge that somehow there was something wrong done here or that this was torture in violation of U.S. statutes is just absolutely false.

SCHIEFFER: You -- you are speaking out. You say you obviously feel passionately about this. How far are you willing to take this approach? Are you willing to go back to the Congress and talk to people in Congress about this? There are all kinds of people talking about various kinds of investigations. Would you go back and talk to the Congress?

CHENEY: Certainly. I’ve made it very clear that I feel very strongly that what we did here was exactly the right thing to do. And if I don’t speak out, then where do we find ourselves, Bob? Then the critics have free run, and there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth. So it’s important -- it’s important that we...

SCHIEFFER: Senator Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was on this broadcast recently. And I said, do you intend to ask the former vice president to come up? And he said if he will testify under oath. Would you be willing to testify under oath?

CHENEY: I’d have to see what the circumstances are and what kind of precedent we were setting. But certainly I wouldn’t be out here today if I didn’t feel comfortable talking about what we’re doing publicly. I think it’s very, very important that we have a clear understanding that what happened here was an honorable approach to defending the nation, that there was nothing devious or deceitful or dishonest or illegal about what was done.

SCHIEFFER: All right. We’re going to take a little break here and come back and talk about this and some other things, in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHIEFFER: We’re back again with the former vice president, Dick Cheney .

Mr. Vice President, General Petraeus, our top military man out in that part of the world, said this morning he is confident that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are secure. But I want to ask you this, does the United States have enough information about the location of those weapons and the security of those weapons that we could take action should there be a collapse of Pakistan’s government or a civil war broke out?

CHENEY: Well, I wouldn’t want to speculate on that, Bob. I think the key thing from my perspective would be if General Petraeus, who is our commander in Centcom, covering that part of the world, knowing as he does how important that issue is, if he says they’re on top of it, I believe it.

SCHIEFFER: So how do you feel about what’s happening in Pakistan right now? Though, I mean, the Pakistani government continues to seem to have trouble sort of getting organized to fight the Taliban. Sometimes you wonder if they -- if they take the threat of the Taliban as seriously as we seem to take it in this country. Do you have faith that they can beat the Taliban in their country?

CHENEY: We had a problem, I’d say, a year or so ago, was one we worried about very much in the Bush administration, that you had in Pakistan Al Qaida, which had retreated there from Afghanistan. You had the Taliban coming back and forth across the border. And the feeling that the Pakistani government understood that the Al Qaida was a threat to the U.S. and that the Taliban were a threat to Afghanistan, but they didn’t believe they were threatened.

I think that is gone now. I think they understand full well that those radical Islamists, whatever their stripe in northwestern Pakistan, would love to see the government in Islamabad toppled. And I think they’re committed to do that. That’s a major step forward, just to have the government in Pakistan understand that they are as threatened, if not more so, than are the United States or Afghanistan.

SCHIEFFER: What about Afghanistan? President Karzai said recently that maybe we ought to stop some of the air attacks there because of civilian casualties. Jim Jones, the new national security adviser, said he did not foresee air attacks being stopped there. How is that war going, in your view? What are we doing that we should be doing and what are we doing -- or what is not happening that should be happening, in your analysis?

CHENEY: I think we have to get our heads around the concept that there’s not likely to be a point any time in the near future when you can say, oh, it’s all wrapped up, we can go home. I think that’s the wrong way to look at this conflict.

Afghanistan is a very, very difficult part of the world to operate in, from an economic standpoint, a geographical standpoint. It’s a very tough place to do business.

What happened, of course, was that it became a sanctuary for Al Qaida, and they used it to train terrorists to come to the United States and kill Americans.

We can’t allow that to happen. We can’t allow ourselves to go back to a situation where Afghanistan is out there operating -- there’s no U.S. presence, no foreign military presence -- until we’re convinced that the Afghans themselves can control all their sovereign territory. When that day happens, I think we’ll be happy to leave. But that’s how I would define success in Afghanistan, is it no longer constitutes a threat to the United States.

I think we have to be committed there for a long period of time. I was glad to see President Obama commit additional troops to Afghanistan. I think we need to do whatever we have to do there to be able to prevail.

Air strikes are an important part of it. And a lot of times, the air strikes do generate controversy, but oftentimes we found in the past that these strikes are engineered by the Taliban. For example, a suggestion in the most recent case is that they used grenades to kill a lot of civilians, not American bombs.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about Guantanamo. President Obama said it’s going to be closed within a year. It’s proved to be a little more complicated than perhaps some in the administration thought it was going to be. Now you’ve got Congress in a real uproar about if these people are brought to prisons in this country. We’ve had resolutions introduced up there on the Hill that unless the state legislature gives the go-ahead, you can’t put them into a prison any place in that particular state. But can we ask other countries to take these people back, Mr. Vice President? If we’re not willing to take them back in this country?

CHENEY: Well, we have asked other countries to take them back, and they’ve refused. I can remember a situation before we left office where we were trying to find a home for some Uighurs, who were generally believed not to be all that big a threat. They ended up in Albania, because Albania was the only country in the world that would take them.

What’s left -- we released hundreds already of the less threatening types. About 12 percent of them, nonetheless, went back into the fight as terrorists. The group that’s left, the 245 or so, these are the worst of the worst. This is the hard core. You’d have a recidivism rate out of this group of maybe 50 or 60 percent.

They want to get out because they want to kill more Americans. And you’re just going to find it very difficult to send them any place.

Now, as I say, there has been some talk on the part of the administration about putting them in the United States. I think that’s going to be a tough sell. I don’t know a single congressional district in this country that is going to say, gee, great, they’re sending us 20 Al Qaida terrorists.

It’s a graphic demonstration of why Guantanamo is important. We had to have a place, a facility, where we could capture these people and hold them until they were no longer a danger to the United States. If you bring them to the United States, they acquire all kinds of legal rights. And as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed said when we captured him, he said I’ll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer. That’s the kind of problem you’re going to have with these terrorists.

SCHIEFFER: Let’s talk quickly about your party, the Republican Party. A lot of controversy. Arlen Specter has left. He said there’s no room for moderates in the party anymore. You said last week the party should not moderate. But what are you going to do? I mean, you can purify the party to the point that it’s too small to ever get elected to anything. How do you broaden the appeal of your party, and yet do you think there’s a place for moderates?

CHENEY: Oh, sure. I think there is room for moderates in the Republican Party. I think partly it’s a semantic problem. I don’t think the party ought to move dramatically to the left, for example, in order to try to redefine its base.

We are what we are. We’re Republicans. We have certain things we believe in. And maintaining our loyalty and commitment to those principles is vital to our success.

I think there are some good efforts out there. Jeb Bush, I know, has been working on it. Eric Cantor , Mitt Romney, trying to find ways to appeal to a broader range of people. I don’t have any problem with that. I think that’s a good thing to do. But the suggestion our Democratic friends always make is somehow, you know, if you Republicans were just more like Democrats, you’d win elections. Well, I don’t buy that. I think we win elections when we have good solid conservative principles to run upon and base our policies on those principles.

SCHIEFFER: Colin Powell, Rush Limbaugh said the other day that the party would probably be better off if Colin Powell left and just became a Democrat. Colin Powell said Republicans would be better off if they didn’t have Rush Limbaugh out speaking for them. Where do you come down?

CHENEY: Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.

SCHIEFFER: So you think that he’s not a Republican?

CHENEY: I just noted he endorsed the Democratic candidate for president this time, Barack Obama . I assumed that that is some indication of his loyalty and his interest.

SCHIEFFER: And you said you would take Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell.

CHENEY: I would.

SCHIEFFER: All right.

CHENEY: Politically.

SCHIEFFER: Mr. Vice President, you promised some news. I think we probably made a little.

CHENEY: All right.

Video and Transcript: General Odierno Briefing on Iraq (8 May)

Related Post: US Troops Staying in Iraqi Cities Past June Deadline (and to 2024?)

Video of Odierno Briefing

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, good afternoon. How we doing today? I have about a five-minute opening statement that I'd like to make, and then obviously I'll open it up to any questions that you all might have.

What I'd like to start out by talking about is, first, we continue to see overall levels of violence at or near the lowest levels since the summer of 2003 inside of Iraq. And overall, from an overall perspective, security in Iraq remains improved.

Obviously, over the last few weeks, the Iraqi people have seen high-profile attacks that remind all of us that the situation still is fragile in some areas. While the number of attacks is low, it's obvious that the terrorists are intent -- are conducting high-profile suicide attacks designed to garner attention and spark sectarian discord within Iraq.

But I would emphasize that this is not 2006 or 2007. We have yet to see sectarian retribution.

All the political parties and government officials are appropriately disavowing the recent attacks. The capacity and capability of the Iraqi security forces is much improved. The Iraqi people understand and continue to reject attempts by al Qaeda and other elements to create a new cycle of sectarian violence.

We continue to see indications that Iraqis want to move forward, whether it is in the form of voting for their elected leaders, improving economic conditions, or normalizing relations with their regional partners and the wider international community.

As the government of Iraq gains capacity and capability, we continue to step further into the background. We are fully moving along with implementation of the security agreement. We've closed more than 50 installations in Iraq. We've returned security of the Green Zone to the government of Iraq. And we've turned over the Republican Palace, which served as the U.S. embassy, among many other examples.

The government of Iraq has assumed complete responsibility for paying the Sons of Iraq, a clear sign of its resolve to continue the important program. The government has budgeted over $300 million to ensure full payments in -- in calendar year '09. But perhaps even more important, the leadership has shown its determination to move the SOI members into the Iraqi security forces and other ministries. The Council of Ministers this month approved the integration of 80 percent of the Sons of Iraq into non-security ministries and 20 percent into the security ministries.

We are fully aware that the challenges are still in front of us, as Iraq continues to involve and improve the problem -- as the situation continues to involve and it continues to improve, the problem set actually becomes more complex as we move forward.

But we still see evidence that Iran is funding, training and equipping surrogates who are conducting disruptive operations within Iraq. While the level of Iranian interference is somewhat lessened, it is nevertheless not what Iraq should expect from a neighbor. We expect that Iraq will have a relationship with its neighbors, and Iran has had an opportunity to make that relationship a positive one based on respect for Iraq's sovereignty. It should be clear to Iranian leaders that the ratified security agreement, which Tehran has strongly opposed, and the recent provincial elections, which largely repudiated outside interference, that the Iraqi people demand respect.

Likewise, some elements of foreign fighters continue to traffic through Syria. This rate has also been reduced, but Syria also has the opportunity to improve its status with Iraq through actions that demonstrate a commitment to eliminating the use of its soil as a staging area for foreign fighters.

The economy in Iraq, as in much of the world, has taken some blows. The Iraqi economy is, of course, closely tied to the price of oil, and the reduced prices have affected the government's budget. And they will have to make some very difficult decisions between Iraqi security force modernization, service improvement and infrastructure investment over the next couple of years.

As you know, President Obama announced that, at the end of August in 2010, we will end combat operations and change our mission to one of an advisory and training role. We will maintain a force of about 35(,000) to 50,000 to ensure that we can achieve our new missions while providing sufficient force protection and still target -- and still be able to conduct counterterrorism missions.

According to the security agreement, all U.S. forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, but this doesn't mean that our relationship with Iraq will end. I remind everyone that we signed two agreements back in December. The second was the Strategic Framework Agreement, which is designed to ensure cooperation in many areas between the United States and the government of Iraq -- areas such as medical, cultural, scientific, economic and other endeavors that will strengthen the country and help our two countries enjoy a long, enduring friendship built on mutual respect as sovereign nations.

I remain hopeful that Iraq can achieve long-term stability and develop a common vision for the way ahead. An Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors, is able to defend and protect its people against internal and external threats, and is a respectful participant in the community of nations is achievable, but much work is still ahead.

With that, I'll be glad to take any of your questions.

Q General, what's your current opinion of whether the Iraqi security forces are going to be up to the task of assuming responsibility for the cities on deadline? And do you think there's any chance at this point that this deadline will slip?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, well, frankly, we're basically out of all the cities except for two, Baghdad and Mosul. We are on our way out of Baghdad. We've been slowly turning that over to the Iraqi security forces now for about three months, and I think they've made some pretty good progress.

We still have a major operation going inside of Mosul with all forces assisting and helping out. We expect that to end here within about 30 to 45 days, and then there'll be a decision to be made. I think if you ask the prime minister today, I think he would say that we will be out of the cities by the end of the 30th of June, and it is his decision.

But we'll continue to conduct assessments. I was just up there Saturday, and we conducted a joint assessment -- myself, the minister of defense, the minister of interior -- and we got a full brief from both Iraqi leaders as well as the U.S. leaders on an assessment of Mosul. And based on that assessment, there's some problems that we have to work through. But in fact, there's potential that they can handle the mission post starting on 1 July.

Q I want to follow up, though. Back on August -- April 12th, you were on CNN, and you said you wouldn't hesitate to recommend that the U.S. forces stay beyond June 30th if the violence levels continued. What's your current assessment there?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, I mean, again, we still have -- I mean, I would -- I just -- every day counts, and we still have another 45 days yet before the end of June. The recent operations there have had very good impact on Mosul. We still have some issues that we have to walk -- work through in Mosul, but I think we're on track. We should be in pretty good shape by the end of June.

Q The trend of high-profile attacks is not -- the extent is not such that you would recommend U.S. troops stay beyond June 30th?

GEN. ODIERNO: That's correct. That's correct. Yes, ma'am?

Q What's your best assessment of the number of U.S. troops that would stay behind as enablers in the cities after June 30th?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, again, what I don't want to do is -- I've left that to the local operational commanders to figure that out. But let me give you some broad guidelines that I've given everyone; is that we will continue to have liaison elements inside of all the joint security -- inside joint security stations, one that we've agreed to. We will continue to have advisory and transition teams embedded with Iraqi forces in order to provide them enablers. That will be determined, the size and how many -- I'm letting each local commander determine that, because that is something that they have to agree upon between the Iraqi security force leader and the U.S. leader. But those are the general guidelines that I've given the commanders, and they're working their way through that.

Q There's no number you're going to tell us about?

GEN. ODIERNO: There isn't a number. I mean -- I mean, I don't know what it is. And what I tell you today might be different 30 days from now, because they're working that out on the ground. And that's why I don't want to get into that.

Q But is there an order -- is there an order of magnitude? Is it hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, I -- you know, I would say -- no, I would say it's probably -- let me -- I would say it's probably about 20 percent of what it is now.

Q Based on what you said about Iran and Syria's growth, do you think that you need to coordinate your exit strategy with Damascus and Tehran by the end of 2011?

GEN. ODIERNO: No. What I think we need to do is we need the government -- what we're doing is we need to work with the government of Iraq. This is about Iraq. Iraq is a sovereign nation now. When we signed the security agreement, it was an agreement between us and them.

So as we leave in 2011, obviously we think -- what we want to see is the government of Iraq start to have discussions with the government of Syria and the government of Iran about how they should be acting as we leave and what help they need in order to protect their borders to keep some militant activity from coming in from either Syria or Iran.

Q General, a follow-up, sir. I know it's hard -- maybe it's hard to answer this question. How do you see Iraq after -- after the U.S. force leave?

GEN. ODIERNO: In 2011?

Q Yeah. How do you see the future?

GEN. ODIERNO: I think -- listen, I can't look into a crystal ball, but there's a couple things I will just say we -- I would ask you to look towards. One is, obviously, the national elections coming up. And I think we had very successful provincial elections. And I would say they were successful because the people voted on issues, they didn't vote on -- based on sectarian issues. They didn't vote based on -- based on potential religious standing. They voted on the issues that affected them every day.

It's going to be interesting to see how the national elections go, either in December or January, coming up. And I think how that goes, how the Iraqi people react to that, what the new government looks like, how does the government transition in the beginning of 2010 will have a lot to say with how the Iraqi government continues to improve and move forward, which prepares them for 2011.

So in my mind, it's much too early to be talking about. I think we're on the right path. I think we're on the right path that in -- at the end of 2011, the government of Iraq will be able to hold its own, will be able to stand up in the regional community, international community, as I look at it today.

If you ask me that a year from now, I might have a different opinion, but I think we're on track for that right now.

Q General, you mentioned before the cycle of sectarian violence. And I think that one kind of welcome development has been that Shi'ite groups thus far, despite the deaths of hundreds of civilians, have not yet responded. Are you seeing either a reemergence of traditional Shi'ite militias? Jaish al-Mahdi, Badr Brigades, are they reemerging? And if not, are you seeing any new groups that worry you that are sort of on the horizon that could be the source of reprisals?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, I think -- I think, again, in terms of reprisals, we have several indicators with that. And one of them is, in fact, the formation of militias. We have seen no formation of militias or any -- any movement to form militias, any talk of forming militias in order to go after sectarian violence. So that is a very positive sign.

I think part of that has to do with the basic improvement of governance at the provincial levels that -- based on the fact that we now have provincial governments that are very active, that help us with that problem, and as well as the national government, who's able to address some of these issues. I think that helps.

Now, that said, we watch it very closely because we know what we don't want is some event to cause all of a sudden a -- what I would call a snowball rolling down the hill that accumulates momentum and causes a significant amount of sectarian violence. But again, we don't see any signs of that right now, of all the indicators we look at.

Yes, ma'am.

Q You said that you'd seen less Iranian participation or interference. Can you characterize or quantify that? Do you mean in terms of EFPs --

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, I mean -- yeah, well -- yeah, first off, yesterday or the day before, we just uncovered a huge cache down in Amarah, which is near the Iranian border, of over 100 EFPs, over -- over hundreds of rocket rails, over hundreds of rocket systems that we all know came from Iran. So what we don't know is, did it come over six months ago, three months ago, or a year ago? But what we do know, there's still a lot of Iranian-supplied munitions and other things that are still in Iraq that can be and are being used, in some cases, against both the government of Iraq and U.S. forces.

What I would say is, I think following the -- there's two things that happened, that I think Iran is looking -- relooking at their strategy, and -- and I think they've adjusted a bit. Why? Because of two events. One was, I think, the signing of the agreement between the United States and the government of Iraq. And second was the results of the provincial elections, where any parties that were closely associated with Iran didn't do very well in the elections.

And so I think they've decided to take a look at their -- what -- what their policy need to be towards Iraq, and I think they're still working that now. And so we're watching closely. We're seeing what they're going to do. We continue to ask them to stop the training of surrogates inside of Iran. We continue to ask them it stop funding these surrogate groups inside of Iraq. And we also asked them it stop sending munitions into Iraq. So we'll see what happens.

Q But -- a follow -- you think it's more their political will than actions you're taking that's causing --

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, I mean, again, I think because of the progress we've made, and because of the success of the Iraqi security forces and the U.S. being able to stop some of this, is why they didn't do very well with the groups they backed in the provisional elections. So I think it's a whole combination of things.

I think they have not done very well, and so they're reassessing what they need to do in order to get more influence inside of Iraq.

Yes, sir.

Q Do you believe the Iraqis have Mr. al Baghdadi? And have they allowed you access to confirm the person they have is or is not him?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, they believe they have Omar al Baghdadi. They believe that, based on the intelligence they have, the statements that they have, the people that have talked to them, that be they have Omar al Baghdadi.

We have -- we have not yet had access to him in order to question him or ask him any questions, so I can't say that our intelligence would -- agrees with that. But it's not -- it's mainly because we have not had access.

So they clearly believe that they have him. I think I'll just leave it at that.

Q Why are they not letting you have access?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, I mean, I think -- I don't think it's that they're not allowing us to have access. I mean, I think, as protocols go, they want to have -- they want to have the access. They want to question him. They want to bring in -- they want to make sure -- they're bringing in people now who supposedly made statements. They want to question them. So I mean, they're just doing a very thorough job. I think once they're done, they will -- they will turn him over to us.

Q You have mentioned that the number of U.S. troops inside Iraqi cities would be roughly 20 percent of what it is now.

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah.

Q What is that number now?

GEN. ODIERNO: I don't know. I mean, listen, listen, I don't -- I don't know keep -- you -- I don't keep stats of how many soldiers we have in the cities. What I'm telling you is -- because it changes every day. It -- I mean, I could give you a number today; it will it be different tomorrow, it will be different the next day. Okay? First of all, I leave that up to my subordinate commanders to worry about that, okay?

So what I'm telling you is there's going to be about an 80 percent reduction of U.S. presence in the cities once we come out of the cities. And what we're going to be doing is non-combat operations. We're going to be in liaison cells. We are going to be in cells that can help provide enablers for them such as aviation, such as intelligence, such as other things. And if they need help, we have those elements there to say, if they request it, then we can bring in combat assistance to help them, okay?

Q Well, since I struck out, can I get a follow-up?

GEN. ODIERNO: Sure. (Laughter.)

Q Are you worried -- you had said that the recent attacks show someone -- I'm guessing al Qaeda -- is trying to spark sectarian violence. Are you also worried that disaffected Sunnis might be trying to target the Iraqi government because they feel Maliki is not doing enough on reconciliation?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, first off, we have looked at this very closely. The attacks are being conducted by al Qaeda. We have confirmed this. We have looked at it. We have looked at it every which way. There's no doubt in our mind that these attacks are being conducted by al Qaeda.

We, of course -- I think, because of some of the success that we've had -- that we've splintered al Qaeda, that we've splintered many of the Sunni insurgent groups -- that there might be some coalescing of these groups out of necessity.

And we're starting to see a little bit of that.

So I think, you know, I would say there's some coalescing of them at the local level because they've been fractured, because they have less capacity and capability. So out of survival, there's some cooperation that there might not have been before. But I think that's more out of our effectiveness that we've had against them than it is anything else.

Q There have been some unfortunate incidents where Iraqi security forces, partnered with U.S. forces, have actually killed some of their partners.

GEN. ODIERNO: Yes.

Q Is this a trend? How is that going to impact the future mission?

GEN. ODIERNO: It won't impact the future mission. I've been very satisfied with the investigation that the government of Iraq has conducted on this. The individuals involved have been detained. One was -- in the latest incident, one was killed on sight. The other one was detained -- and actually was detained heroically by an Iraqi policeman.

So I would just say these are individuals -- we know that there's still some individuals that have been able to infiltrate the Iraqi security forces, and that's what you're seeing here.

I've been very proud of the U.S. units and the fact that they have continued to work with their Iraqi security force partners; that they have not even thought about their concern about continuing to work with their partners; that they understand that these are individuals who make these decisions and that we have to be vigilant about every individual because there are individuals that have still infiltrated some of the Iraqi security forces.

Q Is that going to lead to a greater screening process in the future, or are those already in the security forces?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, you know, I mean, they're already there. I mean, this is about, you know, just making sure that we continue to screen everybody very hard, very well, at every one of our -- our combat outposts.

Q General, the Pentagon is preparing to release hundreds of photographs later this month, many of which reportedly depict the abuse of detainees by U.S. servicemembers in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Given the backlash from the Abu Ghraib photographs, what concerns might you have that it could undermine the U.S. mission in Iraq or actually even threaten U.S. soldiers?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, again, I think there's a couple of lessons in here.

One is -- first, I think we've learned that these incidents that did occur are not who we are and that's not what we stand for as a military. And I think that's important, to make sure we make that point.

That we have done. We continue to take corrective action. We've stood up Taskforce 134 over time, which is -- we didn't have that in the beginning; we've stood that up -- totally responsible for taking care of detainees. And we constantly are updating and improving and trying to react to anything.

We have more -- we have more transparent of a detainee system then, I would argue -- then anywhere else in the world.

We let anybody come into -- through our facilities who want to inspect them. We let -- we bring the Iraqi leaders into our facilities.

So what I take this for is that there were mistakes made. Frankly, it was not something I'm proud of -- in fact, I was ashamed of. It's something that I think, though, that we've been transparent about, and that we are continuing to fix the problem. And I think that's the important message, and that's the message that we continue to try to send to the Iraqis.

I cannot predict how they'll react to the photos yet, but we are -- we -- what we do is, we're reaching out to them. We're letting them know that they're going to be released. We're letting them know what we've done to make sure -- that we have tried to correct all of these problems, that we continue to correct -- that we continue to do investigations if there's some sort of -- any allegation of abuse. And we will continue to do that.

We've changed our manuals on how we do interrogations. We have rewritten them -- so this is -- what this is bringing to fore is, yes, we had a problem. We probably weren't prepared for what we faced back in 2003 and '4 initially. We've continued to try to improve how we do this. We constantly review it. We constantly look at -- we constantly try to improve it. And I think that's what the message that we have to send is.

Q Would you -- would you prefer that the photos not be released?

GEN. ODIERNO: It's not my decision. My job is to, whatever the decision is -- that I have to try to do whatever I can to make sure the impact on the ground is -- you know, is mitigated.

(Robert ?)?

Q Hopefully this won't come across like a totally frivolous question --

GEN. ODIERNO: Yes?

Q -- but I understand you have your own Facebook page now -- (laughter) -- and that you're somewhat of a fan of social networking in the military.

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah.

Q I wanted to ask you about that, seriously, because you are -- have such a young population -- social networking, what do you do for social networking? Do you Twitter?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, no, you know. (Laughter.)

Q And just talk about that for a minute.

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, if I could. First, I realized about, you know, six months ago, I didn't -- I didn't know what Facebook was. I mean, I know it's been in place for a while. My son was on -- my -- both of my sons were on Facebook. My daughter was on Facebook. They used to talk about it. They used to talk about -- so my thought was, this is where young people communicate. This is a place where young people get together, they pass information. So I thought -- and really thought maybe it would be a good idea if I tried to do this. And I do it for a number of reasons.

One is to try to put out some information that's not normally seen on the news or, you know -- and something to let them know, maybe, some personal things about me, what it's like to be in Iraq, what it's like to be the commander in Iraq. So that's kind of the intent.

You know, we're just starting out with this. You know, the -- it's been a pretty good response. I've been pretty happy with the response. I mean, I think we're -- somewhere between 4(,000) and 5,000 people have signed up. It grows every day. People keep joining. So it's an interest. We'll see how it goes.

I think it's important for us -- the one thing I've learned over the last six years is you have to understand this global media explosion that we're having in a variety of forms, and that we have to try to figure it out and how we play in that, because people are interested in what the military is doing, because we -- we do play an important role in our nation's security. We do play an important role in the world. And so that's part of the reason why I did it.

Twittering, if I could just -- I'm still not sure exactly what it is, but I would just say what I found is there are some operational security issues. (Laughter.) And so, you know, I'm not sure I can be twittering where I'm going and where I'm at, and, you know, so I try to be very, very careful about that.

So I think it's great for some people. I think somebody like me, it's probably not a good thing to -- to do. But we'll see. I mean, we'll continue to take a look at it. If we -- if we find there's an advantage, then maybe we'll think about it.

Q Well, can I just briefly follow up and ask you -- I mean, because you have so many -- tens of thousands of young people serving in Iraq, what's your view about operational security, about whether it's Facebook or blogging or Twittering, them amongst themselves, them with their friends back home, how do you control this sort of thing?

GEN. ODIERNO: Again -- yeah, well, we put out guidelines and guidance. I mean, and we have to trust, then, that they will abide by the guidelines and guidance. And, obviously, we can check on it.

But, listen, it's going to happen. And that's how they communicate today. So we've got to allow them to do that, but we have to put guidelines on what you can and what you can't talk about.

It always comes down to we just don't want them to put the force at risk. We don't want to put the mission at risk. And so we've tried to put guidelines out that talks about that.

So, you know, you don't talk about future operations, you don't kind of talk about things that might be sensitive, obviously classified things. But, you know, so -- and the soldiers get it for the most part. I mean, we have a few hits and misses once in a while, but they understand that. But you got to let them do it. I mean, that's the bottom line.

I mean, you know, one of my guidance now, as I go around, there's -- there's four things I require that every place has to have. It's they got to have at least two hot meals a day; they got to have air conditioning or heat, depending on the type of the year; they got to be able to take a shower; and they have to have access to the Internet. That's -- that's my requirement. And the reason that is is so they can talk back to their family and everything else, and that's important for them, especially on multiple rotations. And it makes a huge difference in their life if we let them do that, so you got to understand that as you go.

Yes, ma'am.

Q Admiral Mullen recently stated that Afghanistan he now considered the main effort and was going to issue potentially some guidance to that effect. Are you concerned that that will impact the prioritization of resources that you're getting, and that that will have any kind of impact on the Iraq mission --

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, well, of course. You know, as the commander on the ground there, you're always concerned about that. But that's my job. My job is to raise the issues, if we have any, and to let people know that I think maybe this might have a detrimental effect on what we're going to do. But the process that's been put in place allows me to do that, allows me to voice my opinion. I don't always get what I want, just like I don't think any commander ever gets what they want.

But -- so I understand that Afghanistan is now a higher priority, but I -- of course, we have, as of today, 134,000 soldiers in Iraq. And so, you know, that's still a fairly large number of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that are still conducting a very difficult mission. So it's my job to make sure that we have enough to make sure we can continue to meet our mission, and that's -- that's -- that's what I have to make sure.

Q Okay. Just to follow up a little bit --

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah.

Q -- on the enablers in particular, as the drawdown is carried out, what -- what are your major concerns about those elements that are going to be in high demand still in Iraq? You know, will some of them have to go, like, directly to Afghanistan? Or what ones are you most concerned about maintaining there?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, we go through a process of identifying certain ones that we know that we'll probably have to move from Iraq to Afghanistan to meet that priority. It also should coincide a little bit, some of it, with the reduction of our forces in Iraq. So we're trying to make it as close as possible.

There's about a six-month period that this is a little more difficult, and it's kind of between now and the end of the year. And so this is kind of the tough six months where we have to juggle, and everybody's trying to juggle some of these enablers to make sure that we have enough in Iraq, but there's enough in Afghanistan for them to start being prepared for the additional people coming in.

So I mean, but that's what we have to do. We have to -- we have to look at this very difficultly. We have to look at it very seriously. We have to look at it with a lot of specific information to make sure that we have what we need to continue forward in -- yeah -- allowing for Afghanistan to stand up. And we look at that every day.

Q Can you give us a couple of examples?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah. I mean, you know, aviation is one. I mean, you know, aviation is one that we always kind of look at. But I think we'll be okay. Some of our intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance systems we look at. But what's good is the amount of intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance is growing, so that will catch up and I think we'll be okay. So I mean, those are the kind of things.

Yes, ma'am.

Q General, you talked earlier about the -- that -- you said al Qaeda was responsible for the violence in an effort to restart the sectarian warfare. The most extraordinary tactic they launched, then, would be the attack on the shrine in Kadhimiya. Can you give us details about how they were able to launch that attack? And is there any evidence that they have been able to infiltrate the guards that protect the religious shrines in Iraq?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah. What they've done is -- first, they didn't get into the shrine, okay? It happened outside -- it happened outside the front and it happened outside the back of the shrine. So they didn't get into the shrine.

What happened is, though -- they are -- their tactics are going after -- they are trying to create the tactics where -- for example, around the Kadhimiya shrine, two of the bombers were females, who were very inconspicuous and were people that you wouldn't suspect the way they were acting to be suicide bombers. They are picking on vulnerable populations that would make it easier for them to infiltrate certain areas in order to conduct these suicide attacks.

So you know, it's not -- it's much more difficult for them to bring in a foreign fighter and have them dress up and do -- they're still able to do that once in a while, but it's much more difficult. So what they're trying to do is pick people who will be harder to detect, harder for people to figure out, in order to go in and do these kind of attacks.

And so -- but there has been no infiltration near the -- best I can tell -- near the Kadhimiya shrine that allowed them to do this. You know, there was -- there was one, I think, that was -- where there was a suicide attack -- that was in Rusafa -- where there was a female holding a child's hand when she detonated. You know, so that before was -- something was a sign; if they were with children, they were, you know, usually not a suicide bomber. You know, so they're going after the most vulnerable -- I mean, this is the mind-set of these individuals.

And all it does is, frankly, it turns the Iraqi people more and more against them. And so we'll see how that works out as a result.

Q Can I follow up?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah.

Q Are you seeing other tactics, other than using women? Are you seeing different kinds of -- different types of bombings? Any other change in tactics by al Qaeda in the last few months?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well -- no, no. We're seeing the use of teenagers and women. And teenagers because they're a vulnerable population to go after. Use of females -- we've seen a few in Mosul. A couple of the attacks were connected by Tunisian foreign fighters that came in, we think, through Syria. We actually detained the leader of the cell, so we're now learning more and more about it. So I mean, I think that's what we're seeing.

What we're finding, though, is actually the vests and the bombs are not as sophisticated as they were before. There are less sophistication. Although they're tragic and kill people, they were not as sophisticated or effective as they had been in the past. And I think that says a couple things: It's harder for them to do it. It's harder for them to get a hold of the things. It's becoming more difficult. But they're still able to do it, and that's what we still have to look at and stop.

Yeah.

Q Are you getting any indications that the al Qaeda cells that may have been laying low have been emboldened now that the U.S. has shifted its focus on Afghanistan?

GEN. ODIERNO: What you're seeing is -- no, we have not seen that on the ground. What we are seeing, though, is -- again, every time there's any incident, what you'll see is they'll attempt to start recruiting again on their Internet sites, on the various sites that they use to do this. You'll start seeing recruiting going up. You know, when we did -- they'll show the event and they'll say, come -- you know, we want you to come join the jihad or whatever. And so we're seeing a little bit of that. But we have not seen any increase at all in the cells.

What I would say is what I said earlier: because we fractured al Qaeda and we've fractured some of the insurgents, we're seeing some of that coalesce at the local level.

That's about it.

Q (Off mike) -- call -- at the -- when the British leave, there'll be U.S. troops and a few hundred Romanians and Australians. Why will it still be called Multi-National Force - Iraq?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, again, we will probably change the name in the future. We're working our way through that.

Q To U.S. Forces Iraq?

GEN. ODIERNO: Probably. But again, that's not been approved yet.

Q General -- well, you said -- things appear to be on track on be able to abide by the SOFA and draw U.S. forces out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Do you see that SOFA being renegotiated to permit some elements of the U.S. military to remain -- air support, for example, and protective services?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, I would just say I think it's too early for that. I mean, I think that's something that's down the road, that will have to be decided jointly between the United States and the government of Iraq. But I don't think now is the time to assess that.

Q Let me ask how you characterize the insurgency. Five years -- in '05, Vice President Cheney said it looks like, you know, their last throes. On April 7th, the secretary said he hoped that these high-profile attacks indicated the insurgency was in a last gasp.

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah. Yeah.

Q You said they've been fractured and they look like they're coalescing. What's an accurate depiction here? Last throes? Last gasp? I mean --

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, well, I don't -- I -- first off, I think there's always going to be -- whether we like it or not, there's always going to be some level of violence in Iraq, okay? So I think there'll always be some insurgent elements that are attempting -- whether they're supported by -- a number of different areas. So I will never say last throes, almost ready to end. I'll -- I won't say that. What I will say -- I -- what I will -- I won't say that the insurgency's in their last throes.

And it's not going to end, okay? There'll always be some sort of a low-level insurgency in Iraq for the next five, 10, 15 years. The issue is, what is the level of that insurgency? And can the Iraqis handle it with their own forces and with their government? That's the issue. What we're seeing now is -- as I would -- described it is, you have overall security improving in Iraq. You have normalization coming back. You see it in the streets. You see it in most places.

But what's happened now is, now it gets fractured once in a while by a high-profile attack that happens randomly, frankly. So, on a day-to-day basis, stores are open, all -- normal life's starting to come back. But it gets fractured by these high-profile attacks, for the most part.

Now, let me just go a little bit further. We're a long way -- there's still some more work that has to be done yet. And it mostly has to do -- along the political line, which will help, overall, create security.

And you have Kurd-Arab tensions. You have the Article 140 process. You have the disputed territories that we have to work through. That has to be worked through.

We've made some progress on Sunni accommodation, is what I call it, not yet reconciliation. We have to continue to move forward on that.

These are political issues that have to be resolved and continue to be resolved in Iraq. And as long as they keep working towards these -- and we believe they are -- we think that then the level of security will continue to improve and we think that by the end of 2011, they will be able to handle it themselves.

Go ahead.

Q Can you -- General, let me ask you, along the same lines, is there anything more specifically that the U.S. or Iraqi forces could do militarily about these high-profile attacks in the last couple --

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, there's always something to be done. I mean, we're trying to get inside of these cells. We're trying to understand where they're coming from. We're trying to understand who is behind them.
And we have been successful. We are picking people up. We have picked people up. We've picked up -- over the last three weeks, we've probably picked up about 200 individuals who we think had some either, you know, funding, supplying. So -- and we'll continue to do this.

I mean, so -- and what we have to be able to do is make it very, very difficult for them to move around and conduct these attacks. Because of the lack of sophistication, that shows they are having problems moving around and doing this. However, I want it to be where it's even difficult for them to move at all to conduct these attacks.

So we're working together to do this, and it's about sharing intelligence. You know, we are working very hard now really to increase the transparency between U.S. intelligence and government of Iraq intelligence. We're much better than we were six months ago, but we're trying to even get better than we were.

You know, their strength is the human intelligence. Our strength comes in other ways. And so we're trying to combine those together so we can work towards solving this problem.

Q As U.S. military attention and resources shift to Afghanistan, are you worried about a leadership deficit in Iraq, that the Army's best minds or up-and-comers won't want to go there? And do you have any mission envy yourself?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah -- no, I don't. I have enough to do in Iraq. You know, as I said earlier, Iraq is as -- I would argue Iraq is more complex right now than it's ever been. And it's a very -- and it has to do with -- success breeds more complexity. The security success breeds more difficult issues, because it allows the Iraqis to start dealing with some of these fundamental issues that we haven't dealt with. And I go back to the Arab-Kurd tensions. I go back to Sunni reconciliation. I go back to center (sic) government versus provincial government. Those are the more complex issues that we're now dealing with. And so I don't.

And I will tell you -- is, I've continued to be able to handpick the leaders that come over there. And so I feel very comfortable with all the people I have over there.

And you have Kurd-Arab tensions. You have the Article 140 process. You have the disputed territories that we have to work through. That has to be worked through.

We've made some progress on Sunni accommodation, is what I call it, not yet reconciliation. We have to continue to move forward on that.

These are political issues that have to be resolved and continue to be resolved in Iraq. And as long as they keep working towards these -- and we believe they are -- we think that then the level of security will continue to improve and we think that by the end of 2011, they will be able to handle it themselves.

Go ahead.

Q Can you -- General, let me ask you, along the same lines, is there anything more specifically that the U.S. or Iraqi forces could do militarily about these high-profile attacks in the last couple --

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, there's always something to be done. I mean, we're trying to get inside of these cells. We're trying to understand where they're coming from. We're trying to understand who is behind them.

And we have been successful. We are picking people up. We have picked people up. We've picked up -- over the last three weeks, we've probably picked up about 200 individuals who we think had some either, you know, funding, supplying. So -- and we'll continue to do this.

I mean, so -- and what we have to be able to do is make it very, very difficult for them to move around and conduct these attacks. Because of the lack of sophistication, that shows they are having problems moving around and doing this. However, I want it to be where it's even difficult for them to move at all to conduct these attacks.

So we're working together to do this, and it's about sharing intelligence. You know, we are working very hard now really to increase the transparency between U.S. intelligence and government of Iraq intelligence. We're much better than we were six months ago, but we're trying to even get better than we were.

You know, their strength is the human intelligence. Our strength comes in other ways. And so we're trying to combine those together so we can work towards solving this problem.

Q As U.S. military attention and resources shift to Afghanistan, are you worried about a leadership deficit in Iraq, that the Army's best minds or up-and-comers won't want to go there? And do you have any mission envy yourself?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah -- no, I don't. I have enough to do in Iraq. You know, as I said earlier, Iraq is as -- I would argue Iraq is more complex right now than it's ever been. And it's a very -- and it has to do with -- success breeds more complexity. The security success breeds more difficult issues, because it allows the Iraqis to start dealing with some of these fundamental issues that we haven't dealt with. And I go back to the Arab-Kurd tensions. I go back to Sunni reconciliation. I go back to center (sic) government versus provincial government. Those are the more complex issues that we're now dealing with. And so I don't.

And I will tell you -- is, I've continued to be able to handpick the leaders that come over there. And so I feel very comfortable with all the people I have over there.

And you have Kurd-Arab tensions. You have the Article 140 process. You have the disputed territories that we have to work through. That has to be worked through.

We've made some progress on Sunni accommodation, is what I call it, not yet reconciliation. We have to continue to move forward on that.

These are political issues that have to be resolved and continue to be resolved in Iraq. And as long as they keep working towards these -- and we believe they are -- we think that then the level of security will continue to improve and we think that by the end of 2011, they will be able to handle it themselves.

Go ahead.

Q Can you -- General, let me ask you, along the same lines, is there anything more specifically that the U.S. or Iraqi forces could do militarily about these high-profile attacks in the last couple --

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, there's always something to be done. I mean, we're trying to get inside of these cells. We're trying to understand where they're coming from. We're trying to understand who is behind them.

And we have been successful. We are picking people up. We have picked people up. We've picked up -- over the last three weeks, we've probably picked up about 200 individuals who we think had some either, you know, funding, supplying. So -- and we'll continue to do this.

I mean, so -- and what we have to be able to do is make it very, very difficult for them to move around and conduct these attacks. Because of the lack of sophistication, that shows they are having problems moving around and doing this. However, I want it to be where it's even difficult for them to move at all to conduct these attacks.

So we're working together to do this, and it's about sharing intelligence. You know, we are working very hard now really to increase the transparency between U.S. intelligence and government of Iraq intelligence. We're much better than we were six months ago, but we're trying to even get better than we were.

You know, their strength is the human intelligence. Our strength comes in other ways. And so we're trying to combine those together so we can work towards solving this problem.

Q As U.S. military attention and resources shift to Afghanistan, are you worried about a leadership deficit in Iraq, that the Army's best minds or up-and-comers won't want to go there? And do you have any mission envy yourself?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah -- no, I don't. I have enough to do in Iraq. You know, as I said earlier, Iraq is as -- I would argue Iraq is more complex right now than it's ever been. And it's a very -- and it has to do with -- success breeds more complexity. The security success breeds more difficult issues, because it allows the Iraqis to start dealing with some of these fundamental issues that we haven't dealt with. And I go back to the Arab-Kurd tensions. I go back to Sunni reconciliation. I go back to center (sic) government versus provincial government. Those are the more complex issues that we're now dealing with. And so I don't.

And I will tell you -- is, I've continued to be able to handpick the leaders that come over there. And so I feel very comfortable with all the people I have over there.

You know, our brigade commanders and division commanders are essentially selected. They're all the same, and we're still getting allocated. So, I mean, there is no problem with having the expertise. I have the expertise. I have people. I have people who have multiple, multiple rotations in Iraq. I have general officers who have multiple rotations. I have brigade commanders. So we have the expertise we need to do this. And you need that expertise because of the complexity I just talked about. The hardest thing for a military is to start stepping back and allowing the Iraqis to do it. And how do we best enable them to be successful? And that's what we're doing now. And that takes very sophisticated leadership at the lower levels up to the senior levels. And I'm seeing that on the ground.

Q General, historians have said that traditionally Arab armies have had problems because their non-commissioned officer corps is too weak compared to the officer corps. Has the Iraqi army been trained by U.S. soldiers to model after the U.S. Army in that regard?

GEN. ODIERNO: We have worked very hard. We have established professional development schools in all of their institutions to develop non-commissioned officers. They have made a little progress, but nowhere near enough progress yet. And it's not the development of the non-commissioned officer; it's about the officers buying into the role of the non-commissioned officer. And I think that's going to take a little bit -- while longer in the Iraqi military for them to do that.

Yes, sir?

Q General, just going back to staying on top of these high-profile attacks, are you concerned that -- you said you have 45 days left before your troops go behind the wall. Are you concerned that, once they are behind the wall, it's going to be harder to stay on top of -- on top of --

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, first, the troops coming out of the city, they're not going behind the wall. And that's an important point. I want to make that very clear, that we will have plenty of other missions that we have to do, and we will not be sitting behind the wall. We will be out assisting in areas outside of the cities that we have always called to be support zones and other areas, where we'll flood and work with the Iraqi security forces.

So, frankly, there's a potential that this could actually work, and increase. If the Iraqis are able to maintain in the cities, and we're able then to spend more of our time in the support zones outside of the cities, we actually could come up with actually a stronger method of going after these forces. But we have to wait and see.

Yes?

Q Sir, in the -- as a number of detainees are released throughout the year, are you seeing any greater levels of recidivism, with some of these people going back and to the insurgents? And among the 200 that you spoke about recently, are there any indications that they were --

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, I mean, we see some recidivism, but it's still very, very low. We have a very complex process that makes sure that we vet all of these individuals before they leave. But the ultimate issue, though, is if they cannot be prosecuted under Iraqi law, they have to be let go. And the Iraqis make that determination, not us.

We have a process in place that screens them for 70 days before they're released, where the Iraqis get to vet them to see if they have anything that they could charge them with or not. And if they can't be charged, they're released. So we have a very complex system to do that.

Are there some that get out there? And yes, there is, but it's a fairly small number.

Q Sir, you said, you know, violence will always be kind of a part of Iraq. Of course, violence is way down. At what point is "insurgency" the wrong word to be using there?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah. There's a -- it's a very -- it's a good question, very good question, by the way.

A lot of times, we struggle between insurgent activity and criminal activity now. There's still an insurgency out there. The intelligence tells us there is still an insurgency. It's lower -- it's less than it was, but there's still a bit of an insurgency. There also, though, is a criminal element to it. And I would argue there is some percentage of those attacks that you see there that is really criminal in nature that we might confuse with insurgent activity. It's hard to determine that sometimes.

You know, the other piece is what makes is difficult for us is, you know, we can't -- it's getting harder and harder to lump them into groups because what you have is you have people that just conduct things for money. So it depends on who's -- you know, they are just -- there are people who conduct violent acts just to get paid. And so sometimes they'll work for this group, sometimes they'll work for this group, sometimes they'll work for this group. They're just doing it because it's a way to make money. And that's why one of the most important things we're trying to do is going after the money -- is going after the finances of these insurgent groups. And we've been a little bit successful in that, but we still have a lot of work to do in that.

Yeah, Jim.

MODERATOR: Quickly, before we let the general go.

Q After June 30, will there be any U.S. military advisers embedded with Iraqi forces in the cities?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah.

Q So they will continue that role?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah. I mean, our plan is, in joint security stations, there'll be -- there'll be liaison officers and there'll be advisers -- adviser teams with the Iraqi security. Not all, but some. And it depends on the level of where they're at.

Yeah.

Q Earlier, you said there were still some issues to be worked out in Mosul. Explain -- walk us through some of what those are, what you meant, and what --

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, I mean, I'm not quite sure. You know, we're still clearing Mosul. We're still -- you know, we now have enough Iraqi security forces and U.S. forces where we're clearing through the city and establishing the Iraqi security forces as the primary security element inside of Mosul. And we're still in the process of doing that, and it's going to take us another 30 days to finish that. So once that's finished, that will give us a better idea of where we are in Mosul.

Q Those are house by house --

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah. I mean, it's neighborhood by neighborhood. Yeah, it's neighborhood by neighborhood. We've been doing it now for about 75 days.

Yeah.

Q I just had a follow-up on that.

I mean, I think we heard from the commander in the north that, even once they do move out, that they can come back at any time or would be coming back at the request of the Iraqi forces.

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, that's correct.

Q So that --

GEN. ODIERNO: As part of the security -- and that's exactly right. As part of the security agreement, they can ask us to come in at any time. And that's why we have the liaison elements with them and the advisers with them. So if -- if they get in trouble, they need help, we can come in.

Q And so, theoretically, they could be going back every day?

GEN. ODIERNO: They could be. But I think we'll have to put some -- what we have to do yet -- and we'll do this in the next 30 days or so -- is the government of Iraq will establish some ways of how we do this and what -- you know, who has to ask. Is it the local commander who asks, or is it the minister of defense, or is it the governor? That's what we have to work through yet. We're working through that now, but we haven't come to a resolution yet.

Q Just one more brief clarification involving airstrikes. Are Iraqi military -- would they be allowed to call in U.S. airstrikes? Or would that have to be done by the liaison and/or adviser?

GEN. ODIERNO: We would have to -- no, only -- we have to do that.

Q Okay.

GEN. ODIERNO: We would be standing right next to the Iraqi forces in order to do that, but yeah.

Q Trends on IED attacks, this is a different trend, obviously, over here --

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah.

Q -- but what's the trend on IED attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi forces?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, it shifts back and forth. Clearly, these are targeting civilians for the most part. The IEDs are -- we found is about a third/a third/a third, Iraqi security forces/U.S. forces/civilians. Now, with the civilians, sometimes it's difficult because you don't know if they're really trying to go after an Iraqi security force and end up hitting civilians, but we try to work through that. But we think it's -- it's roughly a third/a third/a third.

Q (Inaudible.)

GEN. ODIERNO: Oh, yeah. Yeah, if you look -- let me see. Let me get the -- the blue is IEDs, but that also includes the amount we have found and cleared. So what's not -- and we're about 50 percent. So we find about 50 percent of what's put out there.

Q And the (effects ?)? Can you give us --

GEN. ODIERNO: They're about the same. I mean, they're about the same I think about the last three months. You know, we either find one or one will explode every day.

Q They haven't gone up dramatically?

GEN. ODIERNO: No. No.

Okay, thank you, everybody. I appreciate all your time. Hopefully it was helpful to you. And I look forward to talking to you again. Thanks.

The Summit: Obama Fiddles, Afghanistan and Pakistan Burn

Latest Post: Afghanistan Civilian Deaths: US Military Un-Apologises
Related Post: Pepe Escobar on Obama-Bush in Afghanistan-Pakistan
Related Post: Dan Froomkin on Afghanistan and Pakistan

We're still working through the analysis of yesterday's "summit" between President Obama and his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari. Let's just say, however, that there wasn't much of significance.

Obama's misleading line of a united fight against "Al Qa'eda and its extremist allies" was more than enough for Helene Cooper of The New York Times, who has been passing on the Administration's line for weeks, while The Washington Post settled for "Joint Action Against Taliban Push in South Asia". There was nothing --- nothing --- of consequence regarding future US political and military measures, only the platitudes of American officials: "The focus was on ways that Afghanistan and Pakistan, both unstable and strategically vital, could work with each other and with the United States to fight the militants who plague both countries."

If there were any political payoff from the summit, it came not for Obama but for his guests. Afghanistan's Karzai is the big winner. Yesterday, The Washington Post was still putting out the old news, "Administration Is Keeping Ally at Arm's Length". In fact, Karzai's beaming appearance alongside Obama --- despite the US President's finger-wagging about the "commitment to confronting" the Al Qa'eda/extremist threat --- was confirmation of victory. The Afghan President has locked up his re-election in August and continued US aid, quite a result given Washington's hope earlier this year that Karzai could be booted out of office.

Pakistan's Zardari has less reason to be comfortable. The US Government continues to put out the noise that a coalition in Islamabad with Nawaz Sharif is on the way. Any let-up on the Pakistan "offensive" against the Taliban in areas like Buner or perceived concessions to local tribes could lead Washington to renew pressure on the President and, behind the scenes, push the Pakistan military to act beyond and despite him). Still, yesterday's surface impression was that Zardari has to be accepted as an "elected" leader, so he (and his PR machine, working with The Wall Street Journal) have a bit of breathing space.

No, if you want significance, it came not in Washington but back in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here are the articles that mattered: "Civilian Deaths Imperil Support for Afghan War", "In Pakistan, 'Great Rage, Great Fear'", and, this morning, "Afghans Protest over Farah Deaths".

The mass killing of civilians in Afghanistan's Farah Province --- there is still no clarity on the final death toll, with estimates of up to 130 dead --- will be this week's event to mark on the lengthening timeline of violence and muddle in the post-2001 conflict. And, in Pakistan, the most telling movement is not political discussions but the fleeing of hundreds of thousands from fighting between the Pakistani military and Taliban and from US airstrikes.

Two analyses landed on these key points today: Dan Froomkin in his blog for The Washington Post and Pepe Escobar for The Asia Times. Because both speak for and to our growing concern that summits and the battle by Karzai and Zardari for political survival are merely covering up an escalation in violence that accompanies the US "surge", we've reprinted them in separate entries.

Beyond the Summit: Pepe Escobar on Obama-Bush in Afghanistan-Pakistan

Latest Post: Obama Fiddles, Afghanistan and Pakistan Burn
Related Post: Dan Froomkin on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Reprinted from Asia Times Online:

Obama does his Bush impression

The "lasting commitment" Washington war-time summit/photo-op between United States President Barack Obama and the AfPak twins, "Af" President Hamid Karzai and "Pak" President Asif Ali Zardari was far from being an urgent meeting to discuss ways to prevent the end of civilization as we know it. It has been all about the meticulous rebranding of the Pentagon's "Long War".

In Obama's own words, the "lasting commitment" is above all to "defeat al-Qaeda". As an afterthought, the president added, "But also to support the democratically elected, sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan." To have George W Bush's man in Kabul and former premier Benazir Bhutto's widow defined as "sovereign", one would be excused for believing Bush is still in the White House.

In yet another deployment of his impeccable democratic credentials, Karzai has just picked as one of his vice presidential running mates none other than former Jamiat-e-Islami top commander and former first vice president Mohammad Fahim, a suspected drug warlord and armed militia-friendly veteran whom Human Rights Watch deplores as a systematic human-rights abuser. Faheem is Tajik; Karzai is Pashtun (from a minor tribe). Karzai badly needs the Tajiks to win a second presidential term in August.

Possibly moved by the obligatory "deep regret" expressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Karzai refrained from throwing a tantrum in Washington concerning the latest "precise" US air strike in ultra-remote Farah province in western Afghanistan which, according to local sources, may have incinerated over 100 Afghans, 70% of them women and children. Context is key: it was the inept, corrupt, dysfunctional Karzai administration - monopolized by warlords and bandits - which made so much easier the return of the Taliban in full force.

Obama's opium war

By now it's clear that the upcoming, Pentagon-enabled, summer surge in the "Af" section of Obama's war in AfPak will be deployed essentially as Obama's new opium war. In a spicy historic reversal, the British Empire (which practically annexed Afghanistan) wanted the Chinese to be hooked on its opium, while now the American empire wants Afghans to stop cultivating it.

The strategy boils down to devastating the Pashtun-cultivated poppy fields in southern Helmand province - the opium capital of the world. In practice, this will be yet another indiscriminate war against Pashtun peasants, who have been cultivating poppies for centuries. Needless to say, thousands will migrate to the anti-occupation rainbow coalition/motley crew branded as "Taliban".

Destroying the only source of income for scores of poor Afghans means, in Pentagon spin, "to cut off the Taliban's main source of money", which also happens to be the "main source of money" for a collection of wily, US-friendly warlords who will not resign themselves to being left blowing in the wind.

The strategy is also oblivious to the fact that the Taliban themselves receive scores of funding from pious Gulf petro-monarchy millionaires as well as from sections in Saudi Arabia - the same Saudi Arabia that Pentagon supremo Robert Gates is now actively courting to ... abandon the Taliban. Since the Obama inauguration in January, Washington's heavy pressure over Islamabad has been relentless: forget about your enemy India, we want you to fight "our" war against the Taliban and "al-Qaeda".

Thus, expect any Pashtun opium farmer or peasant who brandishes his ax, dagger, matchlock or rusty Lee-Enfield rifle at the ultra-high tech incoming US troops to be branded a "terrorist". Welcome to yet one more chapter of the indeed long Pentagon war against the world's poorest.

You're finished because I said so

As for the "Pak" component of AfPak, it is pure counter-insurgency (COIN). As such, His Master's Voice has got to be Central Command commander and surging General David "I'm always positioning myself for 2012" Petraeus.

Enter the Pentagon's relentless PR campaign. Last week, Gates warned the US Senate Appropriations Committee that without the approval of a US$400 million-worth Pakistan Counter-insurgency Capability Fund (itself part of a humongous, extra $83.5 billion Obama wants to continue prosecuting his wars), and under the "unique authority" of Petraeus, the Pakistani government itself could collapse. The State Department was in tune: Clinton said Pakistan might collapse within six months.

Anyone is excused for believing this tactic - just gimme the money and shut up - is still Bush "war on terror" territory; that's because it is (the same extraordinary powers, with the State Department duly bypassed, just as with the Bush administration). The final song, of course, remains the same: the Pentagon running the show, very tight with the Pakistani army.

For US domestic consumption purposes, Pentagon tactics are a mix of obfuscation and paranoia. For instance, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell says, about Pakistan, "This is not a war zone for the US military." But then Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - who's been to Pakistan twice in the past three weeks - says the Taliban in AfPak overall "threaten our national interests in the region and our safety here at home".

He was echoing both Clinton and Gates, who had said that the Taliban are an "existential threat" to Pakistan. Finally, Petraeus closes the scare tactics circle - stressing in a letter to the House Armed Services Committee that if the Pakistani Army does not prevail over the Taliban in two weeks, the Pakistani government may collapse.

That unveils the core of Pentagon's and David "COIN" Petraeus' thinking: they know that for long-term US designs what's best is yet another military dictatorship. Zardari's government is - rightfully - considered a sham (as Washington starts courting another dubious quantity, former premier Nawaz Sharif). Petraeus' "superior" man (his own word) couldn't be anyone but Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kiani.

And that's exactly how Obama put it in his 100-day press conference last week, stressing the "strong military-to-military consultation and cooperation" and reducing Zardari to smithereens ("very fragile" government, lacking "the capacity to deliver basic services" and without "the support and the loyalty of their people"). Judging by his body language, Obama must have repeated the same litany to Zardari yesterday, live in Washington.

The money quote still is Obama's appraisal of Pakistan: "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."

Pakistani "sovereignty" is a joke; Pakistan is now openly being run from Washington. "We want to respect their sovereignty" does not mean "we" actually will. Obama and the Pentagon - which for all practical purposes treat Pakistan as a pitiful colony - would only be (relatively) comfortable with a new Pakistani military dictatorship. The fact that Pakistani public opinion overwhelmingly abhors the Taliban as much as it abhors yet another military dictatorship (see the recent, massive street demonstrations in favor of the Supreme Court justices) is dismissed as irrelevant.

The Swat class struggle

In this complex neo-colonial scenario Pakistan's "Talibanization" - the current craze in Washington - looks and feels more like a diversionary scare tactic. (Please see "The Myth of Talibanistan", Asia Times Online, May 1, 2009.) On the same topic, a report on the Pakistani daily Dawn about the specter of Talibanization of Karachi shows it has more to do with ethnic turbulence between Pashtuns and the Urdu-speaking, Indian-origin majority than about Karachi Pashtuns embracing the Taliban way.

The original Obama administration AfPak strategy, as everyone remembers, was essentially a drone war in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) coupled with a surge in Afghanistan. But the best and the brightest in Washington did not factor in an opportunist Taliban counter-surge.

The wily Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM - Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law), led by Sufi Muhammad, managed to regiment Swat valley landless peasants to fight for their rights and "economic redistribution" against the usual wealthy, greedy, feudal landlords who happened to double as local politicians and government officials.

It's as if the very parochial Taliban had been paying attention to what goes on across South America ... Essentially, it was the appropriation of good old class struggle that led to the Taliban getting the upper hand. Islamabad was finally forced to agree on establishing Nizam-e-Adl (Islamic jurisprudence) in the Swat valley.

So what happened in Swat is that it moved beyond a - corrupt - state, and neo-colonial control. Washington's enemy suddenly swelled to part of the 1.3 million people in the area whose only means of protection are armed militias - what the West bundles up as "Taliban".

It's always crucial to remember that the "Taliban" have all sorts of agendas, from armed resistance to US occupation in Afghanistan to armed resistance to Pakistani army incursions. What they all want is basically the end of Washington's drone war, the end of Pakistan's support for the "war on terror" in AfPak, or at least for the inept, corrupt Pakistani state to leave them alone.

It's true that over the past few weeks Pakistani public opinion as a whole shot up to around 95% against the Taliban because Sufi Muhammad said democracy is an infidel thing; and because videos of Taliban floggings for the fist time were all over Pakistani media.

But the solution is obviously not a war in Swat. It would be, for instance, a concerted, long-term government policy to defuse the network of at least 45,000 madrassas (seminaries) with nearly 2 million students all over the country. And to defuse anti-democratic, sectarian outfits like Lashkar-e Toiba and Sipah-e Sahaba.

It won't happen. And Washington does not care. What matters for the Pentagon is that the minute any sectarian outfit or bandit gang decides to collude with the Pentagon, it's not "Taliban" anymore; it magically morphs into a "Concerned Local Citizens" outfit. By the same token any form of resistance to foreign interference or Predator hell from above bombing is inevitably branded "Taliban".

Left to its own devices, the Pentagon solution for Swat would probably be some form of ethnic cleansing. Predictably, what Obama and the Pentagon are in fact doing - part of their cozying up with the Pakistani army - is to side with the feudal landlords and force a return to the classic Pakistani status quo of immense social inequality. Thus virtually every local who has not become a refugee (as many as 5000,000 already did, leading to a huge humanitarian crisis) has been duly branded a "terrorist". Locals are caught between a rock (the Taliban) and a hard place (the US-supported Pakistani military).

The Pentagon does not do "collateral damage". The only consideration is the US Army becoming partially exposed in neighboring Afghanistan. After all, the key AfPak equation for the Pentagon is how to re-supply US troops involved in OCO ("overseas contingency operations").

The Swat tragedy is bound to get bloodier. As Steve Clemons from The Washington Note blog has learned in a conference in Doha, Obama and Petraeus are forcing the Pakistani army to crush Swat. Once again the imperial "fire on your own people" logic. Predictably, Zardari and the Pakistani army are still against it. But if they accept - that would be a tangible result from the Washington photo-op on Wednesday - the prize will be a lot of money and loads of precious helicopter gun ships.

Madmen on the loose

The Obama administration not only has rebranded the Bush "global war on terror" (GWOT) as the subtly Orwellian "overseas contingency operations" (OCO). The key component of OCO - the AfPak front - is now being actively rebranded, and sold, not as an American war but a Pakistani war.

Zardari plays his pitiful bit part; alongside Obama, the Pentagon and the State Department, he has been convincing Pakistani public opinion to fight Washington's OCO, defending the Predator bombing of Pashtun civilians in Pakistani land. It ain't easy: at least 20% of Pakistani army soldiers are Pashtun - now forced to fight their own Pashtun cousins.

As for the "Af" element of AfPak, the war against occupation in Afghanistan has "disappeared" from the narrative to the benefit of this Pakistani "holy war" against Talibanization. What has not disappeared, of course, is US bombing of Afghan peasants (with attached Hillary "regrets") plus the Predator war in FATA.

The question is: How far will the Obama, the Pentagon and Zardari collusion go in terms of wiping out any form of resistance to the US occupation of Afghanistan and the drone war against Pashtun peasants in FATA?

The relentless warnings on the collapse of Pakistan may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Were it to happen, the balkanization of Pakistan would do wonders for the Pentagon's long-term strategy in the "arc of instability".

From a Pentagon dream scenario point of view, the balkanization of Pakistan would mean dismantling a "Terrorist Central" capable of contaminating other parts of the Muslim world, from Indian Kashmir to the Central Asian "stans". It would "free" India from its enemy Pakistan so India can work very closely with Washington as an effective counter power to the relentless rise of China.

And most of all, this still has to do with the greatest prize - Balochistan, as we'll see in part 2 of this report on Friday. Desert Balochistan, in southwest Pakistan, is where Washington and Islamabad clash head on. From a Washington perspective, Balochistan has to be thrown into chaos. That's about the only way to stop the construction of the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which would traverses Balochistan.

In a dream Washington scenario of balkanization of Pakistan, the US could swiftly take over Balochistan's immense natural wealth, and promote the strategic port of Gwadar in Balochistan not to the benefit of the IPI pipeline, but the perennially troubled Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline - Caspian gas wealth flowing under US, and not Russian or Iranian, control.

As for the Taliban, whether in FATA or Swat or anywhere else, they are no threat to the US. Usman Khalid, secretary general of the Rifah party in Pakistan, has nailed it, "The population dread the Taliban-style rule but they dread being split into four countries and to go under Indian suzerainty even more. The Taliban appear to be the lesser evil just as they were in Afghanistan."

History once again does repeat itself as farce: in fact the only sticking point between the Taliban and Washington is still the same as in August 2001 - pipeline transit fees. Washington wouldn't give a damn about sharia law as long as the US could control pipelines crossing Afghanistan and Balochistan.

Yes, Pipelineistan rules. What's a few ragged Pashtun or Balochis in Washington's way when the New Great Game in Eurasia can offer so many opportunities?

Video and Transcript: Obama Remarks After Meeting Afghanistan's Karzai and Pakistan's Zardari (6 May)

Related Post: Obama Fiddles, Afghanistan-Pakistan Burn

President Obama made a statement of almost eight minutes after his meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari yesterday.

Nothing new here. Instead, Obama put out the simplistic rhetoric reducing local opposition and insurgency to "Al Qa'eda and its extremist allies", and he referred both to "civilian and military components" to support Pakistani and Afghan Governments and their people. No reference, of course, to the civilian casualties from US airstrikes, including the dozens killed in western Afghanistan on Tuesday; in fact, there was no mention at all of US drone and missile operations.

Perhaps the only interesting aspect of the statement was the subtle dynamic in Obama's references to Karzai and Zardari. They only got a name-check late in the statement, after the President focused on his own policies and officials: "I'm pleased that these two men -- elected leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan -- fully appreciate the seriousness of the threat that we face, and have reaffirmed their commitment to confronting it." Which translates as: OK, boys, we're not going to push you out of office, but you best be co-operating with us now.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqzrQV8Y_gc[/youtube]

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. We just finished an important trilateral meeting among the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And earlier today I was pleased to have wide ranging bilateral discussions with both President Karzai of Afghanistan and President Zardari of Pakistan.

We meet today as three sovereign nations joined by a common goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their ability to operate in either country in the future. And to achieve that goal, we must deny them the space to threaten the Pakistani, Afghan, or American people. And we must also advance security and opportunity, so that Pakistanis and Afghans can pursue the promise of a better life.

And within Pakistan, we must provide lasting support to democratic institutions, while helping the government confront the insurgents who are the single greatest threat to the Pakistani state. And we must do more than stand against those who would destroy Pakistan –- we must stand with those who want to build Pakistan.

And that is why I've asked Congress for sustained funding, to build schools and roads and hospitals. I want the Pakistani people to understand that America is not simply against terrorism -- we are on the side of their hopes and their aspirations, because we know that the future of Pakistan must be determined by the talent, innovation, and intelligence of its people.

I have long said that we cannot meet these challenges in isolation, nor delay the action, nor deny the resources necessary to get the job done. And that's why we have a comprehensive strategy for the region with civilian and military components, led by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and General David Petraeus. And for the first time, this strategy will be matched by the resources that it demands.

U.S. troops are serving courageously and capably in a vital mission in Afghanistan alongside our Afghan and international partners. But to combat an enemy that is on the offensive, we need more troops, training, and assistance. And that's why we are deploying 21,000 troops to Afghanistan and increasing our efforts to train Afghan security forces -- and I'm also pleased that our NATO allies and partners are providing resources to support our strategy.

And that is why we are helping Pakistan combat the insurgency within its borders -- including $400 million in immediate assistance that we are seeking from Congress, which will help the government as it steps up its efforts against the extremists.

And to advance security, opportunity, and justice for the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we are dramatically increasing our civilian support for both countries. We were pleased that these efforts were recently amplified through the $5.5 billion that was pledged for Pakistan at an international donors conference in Tokyo -- resources that will help meet the basic needs of the Pakistani people.

The road ahead will be difficult. There will be more violence, and there will be setbacks. But let me be clear: The United States has made a lasting commitment to defeat al Qaeda, but also to support the democratically elected sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. That commitment will not waiver. And that support will be sustained.

Every day, we see evidence of the future that al Qaeda and its allies offer. It's a future filled with violence and despair. It's a future without opportunity or hope. That's not what the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan want, and it's not what they deserve. The United States has a stake in the future of these two countries. We have learned, time and again, that our security is shared. It is a lesson that we learned most painfully on 9/11, and it is a lesson that we will not forget.

So we are here today in the midst of a great challenge. But no matter what happens, we will not be deterred. The aspirations of all our people -- for security, for opportunity and for justice -- are far more powerful than any enemy.

Those are the hopes that we hold in common for all of our children. So we will sustain our cooperation. And we will work for the day when our nations are linked not by a common enemy, but by a shared peace and prosperity, mutual interests and mutual respect, not only among governments but among our people.

I want to thank President Zardari and President Karzai for joining me here today. I look forward to continuing this close cooperation between our governments in the months and years ahead. Thank you very much, everybody.

Just over a month ago, I announced a new strategy to achieve these objectives after consultation with Pakistan, Afghanistan and our other friends and allies. Our strategy reflects a fundamental truth: The security of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the United States are linked. In the weeks that have followed, that truth has only been reinforced.

Al Qaeda and its allies have taken more lives in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and have continued to challenge the democratically-elected governments of the two Presidents standing here today. Meanwhile, al Qaeda plots against the American people -- and people around the world -- from their safe haven along the border.

I'm pleased that these two men -- elected leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan -- fully appreciate the seriousness of....

...the threat that we face, and have reaffirmed their commitment to confronting it. And I'm pleased that we have advanced unprecedented cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan on a bilateral basis -- and among Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States -- which will benefit all of our people.

Today's meeting is the second in the trilateral dialogues among our countries. And these meetings will coordinate our efforts in a broad range of areas, across all levels of government. To give you a sense of the scope of this effort, Secretary Clinton, Attorney General Holder, Secretary Vilsack, Director Panetta, Director Mueller, and Deputy Secretary Lew will all host separate meetings with their Pakistani and Afghan counterparts. And these trilateral meetings build on efforts being made in the region and in the United States, and they will continue on a regular basis.

Now there's much to be done. Along the border where insurgents often move freely, we must work together with a renewed sense of partnership to share intelligence, and to coordinate our efforts to isolate, target and take out our common enemy. But we must also meet the threat of extremism with a positive program of growth and opportunity.

And that's why my administration is working with members of Congress to create opportunity zones to spark development. That's why I'm proud that we've helped advance negotiations towards landmark transit-trade agreements to open Afghanistan and Pakistan borders to more commerce.

Within Afghanistan, we must help grow the economy, while developing alternatives to the drug trade by tapping the resilience and the ingenuity of the Afghan people. We must support free and open national elections later this fall, while helping to protect the hard-earned rights of all Afghans. And we must support the capacity of local governments and stand up to corruption that blocks progress. I also made it clear that the United States will work with our Afghan and international partners to make every effort to avoid civilian casualties as we help the Afghan government combat our common enemy.