Now It's Petraeus' War: US Replaces Top Commander in Afghanistan

GENERAL DAVID MCKIERNAN

Yesterday, I was speaking to British high school students when one asked, "What are President Obama's three greatest challenges today?" After putting the economy Number One and listing (but dismissing) Republican opposition as a potential Number Two, I said:

But I'm concerned that it will be Afghanistan and Pakistan that will bring him down. I think he's being overtaken by his own military, especially General David Petraeus [the head of US Central Command] and their ideas of "strategy".

Before I got home, the news came through: the Obama Adminstration had replaced the commander of NATO and US forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan.

My initial reaction was, OK, generals get replaced. They are moved to other military posts or return to Washington for a break from the field. Then, however, the details piled in. McKiernan had done only 11 months of a command tour that normally last 18 to 24 months. He had been ousted, even as the US is planning to pour more troops into a "crisis", and replaced with General Stanley McChrystal, the director of the military's Joint Staff and, before that, head of US Special Operations Forces in Iraq.

All of which pointed to the re-branding of the Afghanistan conflict. This is not Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' war. This is not President Obama's war.

This one has been claimed by David Petraeus.

Gates, announcing McKiernan's departure, was not shy about kicking the general out the door. McKiernan had "probably" had his career cut short because “a new approach was probably in our best interest”. He added, "Fresh eyes were needed."

So what were wrong with those eyes? After all, the commander was no lightweight: he had led US ground troops in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Pentagon officials piled on the criticism, "General McKiernan...had been removed primarily because he had brought too conventional an approach to the challenge." His honour was to be "the first general to be dismissed from command of a theater of combat since Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War".

In contrast, the officials noted that General McChrystal had led the American forces who captured Saddam Hussein and later killed insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq: "his success in using intelligence and firepower to track and kill insurgents, and his training in unconventional warfare that emphasizes the need to protect the population, made him the best choice for the command in Afghanistan".

Translation? McKiernan is a "big force" leader. His background is an officer in armoured units, and he led the calls in Iraq for a much larger ground force than that used to occupy the country. McChrystal, on the other hand, is able to organise and direct small, elite units that can strike quickly.

Make no mistake, however. As The New York Times politely frames it, "The change also reflects the influence of Gen. David H. Petraeus." Their emphasis is on a personal battle: Petraeus served under McKiernan in Iraq but eventually overtook him in rank and, again according to Pentagon officials, "the two men did not develop a bond after General Petraeus inherited General McKiernan as his Afghanistan commander".

More importantly, Petraeus is preparing his supposed strategy for victory. His reputation has been built on the mythical or real success of the Iraq "surge" from 2007. While that relied on an increase in US troops, it emphasized the deployment of specialist units to work with local Sunni militias while using Special Forces in "surgical" strikes against the bad guys. The big military idea is that the same approach can work in Afghanistan. Hook up with some of the local leaders and use airstrikes and covert operations to capture or kill key figures in the insurgency.

This is not solely a Petraeus notion. The White House spokesman was quick to say the President agreed with Secretary of Defense Gates and Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that “the implementation of a new strategy in Afghanistan called for new military leadership". And, perhaps ironically, Obama has played into Petraeus' hands. Even though he effectively approved the military's request for an additional 30,000 troops this years, the President's hesitation reinforced the idea that the US will have to succeed with smaller but mobile units rather than overwhelming force.

To call this a fantasy too far would be kind. Iraq, a country of 25 million, could not be pacified by US operations in 2003. (Indeed, if McKiernan wanted to strike back at his critics and the compliant media, he could note: his complaint that the American force for post-Saddam occupation is now generally accepted wisdom.) Now Petraeus is pursuing the same goal in a country of 75 million. He is doing so with a Karzai Government that is trying to establish some independence from Washington and with little apparent knowledge of the intricacies of Afghan politics. Even the symbolic of General McChrystal's record with US special operations has a downside: "He will be confronted with deep tensions over the conduct of Special Operations forces in Afghanistan, whose aggressive tactics are seen by Afghan officials as responsible for many of the American mistakes that have resulted in the deaths of civilians."

In the end, little of this may matter to Petraeus, who could be in a no-lose situation: if his strategy checks the insurgency, he gets the credit. If it does not, he can put the blame on political superiors who didn't give him enough troops or on an Afghan Government that is beyond redemption.

For now, it's David Petraeus' war. But the beauty of his strategic move --- not in Central Asia but in Washington --- is that he can always hand it back if it goes wrong.

Transcript: Gates-Mullen Briefing on US Command Change in Afghanistan

SEC. GATES: First, I would like to express my horror and deep regret over today's shooting incident at Camp Liberty in Iraq. I offer my sympathy and condolences to the families of those who were killed. We are still in the process of gathering information on exactly what happened, but if the preliminary reports are confirmed, such a tragic loss of life at the hands of our own forces is a cause for great and urgent concern, and I can assure you that it will get this department's highest-priority attention.

As you know, I just returned from a trip to Afghanistan, where I met with our troops and commanders in the field. My purpose in going was to see firsthand the preparations and plans under way to execute the president's strategy for the region, especially as significantly more American troops begin arriving in country. I thought it critically important to get a sense from the ground level what needs -- what the needs are, what the challenges are and what the solutions to some of the problems are.

As I have said many times before, very few of these problems can be solved by military means alone. And yet, from the military perspective, we can and must do better. We have not been able to fully resource our military effort in Afghanistan in recent years, but I believe, resources or no, that our mission there requires new thinking and new approaches from our military leaders. Today we have a new policy set by our new president. We have a new strategy, a new mission and a new ambassador. I believe that new military leadership also is needed.

After consultation with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commander of Central Command, and with the approval of the president, I have asked for the resignation of General David McKiernan. He will remain in command of both ISAF and U.S. Forces Afghanistan until such time as a relief can be nominated and confirmed.

I am today recommending to the president that Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal be nominated to replace General McKiernan as commander U.S. Forces Afghanistan.

I am also recommending that Lieutenant General David Rodriguez be assigned to the new position of deputy commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan. I have advised the secretary general of NATO and the minister of defense of Afghanistan of these prospective changes.

I made these decisions only after careful consideration of a great number of factors, including the advice of Admiral Mullen and General Petraeus. In the end, I believe my decisions are in the best interests of our national security and the success of our mission in Afghanistan. I urge the Senate to swiftly confirm Generals McChrystal and Rodriguez so they can begin their important work as soon as possible.

Let none of this detract from, nor cause us ever to forget, General McKiernan's long and distinguished career of military service. For decades, in peace and war, Dave McKiernan has led hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform with conviction, integrity and courage. He has dedicated his life to the preservation of the freedoms we in this nation enjoy. And on behalf of the Department of Defense and the nation, I thank him for his years of selfless service.

Pam.

Q (Off mike.) Are you worried at all that switching horses in midstream has an air of desperation, or that you -- that you -- what you saw on both of your recent trips there was worse than you had expected to see?

SEC. GATES: Well, let me start and then turn to Admiral Mullen.

I think that the -- as the statement suggested, that -- that with agreement on a new strategy and a new mission, and a new national approach and international approach in Afghanistan, that if there were to be a change, this is the right time to make the change, at a time when we are at the beginning of the implementation of a new strategy. And it is in that context that I emphasize that the focus here is simply on getting fresh thinking, fresh eyes on the problem, and in how we implement the strategy and the mission going forward.

ADM. MULLEN: In fact, for me, based on my recent trips, the opposite is true. In the time that I spent in RC East, I was very encouraged by the progress that we'd made and the depth of understanding of what the requirement was from our people on the military side to generate success.

Clearly that is not the case in the south, because we have not had the forces there, and putting them there this year is critically important. And I would only echo what the secretary said, from the standpoint of, with the new strategy, with the new team across the board, I felt it was very important for new leadership, and supported this decision completely.

Q Mr. Secretary?

Q Admiral Mullen? Mr. -- for both of you gentlemen, while you say you felt there needed to be fresh eyes, fresh thinking, General McKiernan, of course, has only been there for a period of months. He's yet to get the resources he asked the Obama administration for. The troops that he has asked for aren't even there yet.

So what specifically was he not doing that he -- you said you wanted fresh thinking, fresh eyes. Did he resist your ideas? Did he resist change? Was he uncooperative with the new thinking, the new way forward? What went wrong here?

SEC. GATES: Well, first of all, General McKiernan has been in Afghanistan, I think, 11 months. And -- first of all, I would say, nothing went wrong, and there was nothing specific.

It is -- it simply was my conviction, based on my consultations with Admiral Mullen and General Petraeus, that a fresh approach, a fresh look in the context of the new strategy, probably was in our best interest.

Q Mr. Secretary?

Q Admiral Mullen?

Q Admiral Mullen -- excuse me. Admiral Mullen, what -- why couldn't, in your mind -- you said you supported the recommendation; in your mind, why could General McKiernan no longer do the job?

ADM. MULLEN: Again, he's been there almost a year. And, in fact, under normal circumstances, he would have rotated somewhere between 18 and 24 months, depending on timing.

I have said that we must focus all of our effort in terms of making Afghanistan better.

There probably is no more critical ingredient than that -- than leadership. And again, along with all the other changes, it's time now. And that's why I made that recommendation.

Q Is it just loss of confidence? I haven't heard anything yet -- I'm so sorry -- about why you both think he couldn't do the job.

ADM. MULLEN: Well, I'm not going to say a whole lot more, other than the -- I thought there was a need for new leadership -- clearly we have in the two that the secretary -- the two officers that the secretary mentioned a rich experience level -- General Rodriguez in particular deep in Afghanistan, having been there before -- and that I think these two officers will bring a -- not just a renewed but a focus, which we really need in 2009, and I just didn't think that we could wait until 2010.

Q Mr. Secretary, having talked to people who are involved in all this, they say McKiernan was maybe too conventional, too "old Army" in his outlook, not nimble enough to deal with the complex counterinsurgency. And as the admiral mentioned, McChrystal has a lot more experience in Afghanistan. Could you just comment on some of that?

SEC GATES: Well, it's -- you know, I won't -- it's hard to say anything more than we've already said. I would -- Admiral Mullen just talked about the experience that -- in counterinsurgency that both General McChrystal and General Rodriguez have.

I would tell you that those who are speculating on the ingredients in this decision, if it's not Admiral Mullen or me or General Petraeus, has (sic) no inside information on our thinking.

Q So McKiernan just lacked a certain counterinsurgency experience or wasn't nimble enough on this?

SEC. GATES: I think what the admiral said is exactly where we are. It's time for new leadership and fresh eyes. Julian?

Q Secretary Gates, for you, talk to me a little bit more about why General McChrystal and his -- whether it's the Special Operations background came into your thinking.

And Admiral Mullen, if you would talk a little bit about the effort that General McChrystal has been doing for you in terms of how to resource the Afghanistan mission, what -- why you assigned him that, what his mission was in that.

SEC. GATES: I would simply say that both General McChrystal and General Rodriguez bring a unique skill set in counterinsurgency to these issues. And I think that they will provide the kind of new leadership and fresh thinking that the admiral and I have been talking about.

ADM. MULLEN: I just -- for both of them, as -- whenever you look for replacements -- I mean, whenever that occurs, you -- I took a broad range of inputs from military officers.

And McChrystal and Rodriguez rank -- outside this discussion, outside this change, McChrystal and Rodriguez have ranked, for the entire time that I've been chairman, at the top of the list. So we couldn't pick two better officers.

And then specifically, Julian, with respect to the -- the discussions and focus on getting the best people to Afghanistan, making sure that we resource that as rapidly and as thoroughly as possible, making sure that leaders who go there that -- have that experience so that our ramp-up time when we turn over is absolutely minimal -- all of that focuses on the importance of Afghanistan, and actually lessons that we learned from Iraq where some of our rotations would -- you know, we were starting over from an experience level. So it's how to do that and keep that focus and move as fast as we can from a resourcing people, training, expertise standpoint in Afghanistan.

Q Is this something you started thinking about some months ago? And could you also tell us what Ambassador Holbrooke's role might have been in this? And also, when -- did you just tell him today?

SEC. GATES: Ambassador Holbrooke?

Q (Off mike.)

SEC. GATES: No. I talked to him when I was in Afghanistan last week. The answer to part of your question is that Ambassador Holbrooke played no role in this.

Q He had no recommendation, had no thoughts about how --

SEC. GATES: I don't know whether he had any thoughts. He played no role in this.

Q You'd know. (Laughs.)

ADM. MULLEN: No, I mean, he had no role to -- in this at all.

Q Well, can you talk a little bit about how and when you started thinking about this? Is this some months ago? Is it --

ADM. MULLEN: General McKiernan was -- originally planned to be there between 18 and 24 months. So as far back as six or seven months ago, I was looking at his relief, potentially his relief, as well as General Odierno, who's due to leave sometime early in 2010. So there had been discussions about this over an extended period time. I think certainly for me it's been in the last several months, as we've focused heavily on Afghanistan and resourcing it and how we were going to move forward, that this issue -- that the specifics of this really came to bear and that -- that I concluded that it was time for a change, and made that recommendation to the secretary.

Q So is it fair to say that in terms of a -- unique skill sets, that General McChrystal -- for those who don't follow his career, he specializes in black -- commando special operations: the capturing of Saddam Hussein, the killing of Abu Zarqawi, the melding of intelligence and special-ops units in the -- during the surge. Is that what you're looking for from him in terms of Afghanistan -- replicating some of those successes in that terrain?

SEC. GATES: Well, let me say something and then invite the admiral. The way I look at this is as -- McChrystal and Rodriguez as a team. They each bring tremendous skills in a variety of areas that are very pertinent to the kind of fight that we have in Afghanistan. And it is their combined skill set that I think gives us some fresh opportunities looking forward.

ADM. MULLEN: And while General McChrystal has that background that you described, Tony, his background is much deeper and much broader than that. And I've been privileged to work with him over the better part of the last year and seen that, you know, the broadness and the depth that go far beyond just high-end special-operations skills. And I'm extremely confident that he will be able to carry out this mission in its fullness to include, obviously, those skills, but others as well.

Q Those kind of missions, though, to make this more a SOF-like fight?

ADM. MULLEN: I wouldn't be specific about what kind -- you know, exactly the kinds of missions we would increase specifically. But certainly his focus and his background, I think, are very relevant to our needs there. And then -- but it really is also the combination of he and Rodriguez which are so important.

Q Mr. Secretary, you've often said that you were worried about establishing too big a military footprint in Afghanistan. Yet General McKiernan, it seemed like every few months, was asking for more and more and higher levels of forces. Is that one of the areas that wasn't new-think, in your mind? And did you and General McKiernan have a difference there?

SEC. GATES: No, that had nothing to do with it, as far as I was concerned.

Q And about keeping the troop levels lower, you were talking, Admiral Mullen, about the lessons learned in Iraq. Wasn't that one of the lessons learned in Iraq, that we didn't have enough troops in Iraq initially?

ADM. MULLEN: Well, as I've looked at the analysis for what we need, certainly, in the immediate future, the troops we have in the east recently are -- have recently put in there, as well as those going in the south, those meet the needs that we see that we have right now. And I'm very comfortable that they will be able to provide the hold after the clear, which is where we've been short, particularly in the south.

Q Mr. Secretary, can you talk a bit -- now that these changes have been made at the very top, what follow-on changes may take place? I mean, for instance, as an organizational issue, will there be an RC South -- American commands in RC South paralleling RC East? And even in general terms, can you talk about on the ground, tactically, what we may see differently going forward in the months ahead that was not the case up until now?

SEC. GATES: Well, I don't know that I can speak very well to the strategy and tactics going forward. I don't expect there to be a change in the command rotation in RC South. The Dutch are in command now. They will be replaced for -- at the end of a year by the British, who will be in command for a year, and then we will take command in 2010.

And some of the additional troop levels that General McKiernan has asked for are, in fact, a two-star headquarters to support when the U.S. takes command of RC South in the fall of 2010, in November, I think. So I don't anticipate any change in that arrangement.

Q Can you talk even in general terms about what might take place differently on the ground, as far as the prosecution of the war?

SEC. GATES: No, I don't know.

ADM. MULLEN: I think -- I mean, in some ways, we're learning as we go here. I mean, we're -- what General McKiernan has recommended, in terms of the troops that are going there now, are the ones that we're resourcing.

But I'd also certainly want to hear from new leadership what their beliefs are once they get there, get on the ground and make some recommendations about how to move forward as rapidly as possible.

So I'm not aware of any changes. And I wouldn't speak to exactly how they're going to -- how they'd fight it, although I've been briefed, for instance, on, you know, how it's going to apply in the south here over the course of this year.
But certainly with new leadership, there will probably be some fresh views, which we will have very, very good discussions about.

Q Admiral, you said, we can and must do better. And so I'm surprised you don't have any more solid idea of how we need to do better.

ADM. MULLEN: I can't think of a more important decision than putting in new leadership, with respect to that, and then having the impact that is so critical.

Q Actually the secretary said, we must and can do better. Any thoughts on how?

SEC. GATES: Well, I think, that's the challenge that we give to the new leadership. How do we -- how do we do better? What new ideas do you have? What fresh thinking do you have? Are there different ways of accomplishing our goals? How can we be more effective? The admiral and I aren't the source of those ideas. General McChrystal and General Rodriguez are. And that's what we expect from them.

Q Let me ask it a different way. One of the criticisms of General McKiernan was that he hadn't implemented a joint campaign plan, essentially an implementation of the way the strategy would be used on the ground. When the new leadership gets there, do you have a sense that then they will provide new feedback that could change the Af-Pak strategy as we know it? And what might it be?

SEC. GATES: Well, I -- first of all, the new strategy is a strategy approved by the president. And it is a whole-of-government strategy. If there are any changes that they would recommend, it would be in the military part of that strategy.

Q Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Recently North Korea said that if South Korea participated in -- (inaudible) -- then North Korea will regard it as an act of war. What is your comment on this?

SEC. GATES: Well, I've been frankly surprised and disturbed by the kind of rhetoric coming out of North Korea in recent weeks. And I think that North Korea has effectively isolated itself internationally, even greater than was the case before, by some of this rhetoric. But that's what I think it is, rhetoric.

Q (Off mike) -- you can give us any more detail of the shooting in Iraq -- what you know about the soldier, whether he'd been on multiple deployments, whether he was seeking help for combat stress? Are there any details you can give us?

ADM. MULLEN: No, I don't -- I don't have a whole lot more than what -- than that which is already out there. Clearly, the tragedy occurred in a -- in a -- in a place where individuals were -- were seeking help. And I'd also like to certainly extend my condolences and thoughts and prayers to the families of those who were killed.

It does speak to me, though, about the need for us to redouble our efforts, the concern in terms of dealing with the stress, dealing with the whole issue of those kinds of things. And it also speaks to the issue of multiple deployments, you know, increasing dwell time, all those things that we're focused on to try to improve to relieve that stress. But I just don't have the specifics of this particular incident.

Q Mr. Secretary, where do we stand now on the bombings in western Afghanistan? A lot of blame was thrown each way -- senior Defense officials blaming the Taliban; Taliban blaming U.S., saying there was the use of white phosphorous. Where does that investigation stand? Is there any light you can shed on that?

SEC. GATES: Well, let me tell you what I think the status is and ask the admiral to correct me if I get it wrong.
My understanding is that General McKiernan has sent a general officer to Farah province to participate with the Afghan Ministries of Defense and Interior in an investigation of what happened. I also understand that General Petraeus is either considering or has already decided to send someone to Afghanistan from outside the country to investigate the tragedy.
(To Adm. Mullen.) Is that --

ADM. MULLEN: Yes, sir.

Q Do you have an update on how many civilians may have died?

SEC. GATES: No.

Q And have any payments been made to civilian families, as you suggested they would be done immediately last time you were in Afghanistan?

SEC. GATES: I don't -- I just don't know.

Q Clarification? Mr. Secretary, just a clarification. Does General McKiernan's resignation end his military career?

SEC. GATES: Probably.

Q Sir, can I follow up on that other issue of the bombing? You've expressed concern and frustration the military is unable to counter Taliban or al Qaeda propaganda. In this case, with the bombing in Afghanistan, it seems that they have -- they have a storyline, and the U.S. and McKiernan hinted at another narrative, that the Taliban had killed a bunch of people.
How, going forward, do you hope that that changes? And do you see the new leadership there kind of jumping in on that issue?

SEC. GATES: Well, one of the -- one of the disadvantages we have in these situations is that the Taliban don't tell the truth and they don't care what the truth is. And so when you're making it up, you can respond a lot faster than when you're trying to figure out what actually happened.

And we have -- and that has been a disadvantage for us on an ongoing basis. And we have to figure out how to get inside that strategic communications cycle to get in front of this issue. This is a principal strategic tactic of the Taliban, is the use -- is either provoking or exploiting civilian casualties.

And we have done a lot -- and I must say, General McKiernan has done a lot -- in recent months to try and reduce the level of civilian casualties. The fact of the matter is, civilian casualties since January in Afghanistan are down 40 percent over a year ago during the same period. And U.S., Afghan and ISAF casualties are up 75 percent during the same period.
So there is a tremendous effort going on on our part to try and avoid civilian casualties. But figuring out how to come out better on the strategic communications side of this is an ongoing challenge for us.

Q Is it more of the process, or is it just cultural resistance in the military to just come out and say the truth as soon as you know it?

SEC. GATES: Well, I think -- I'm not sure I would characterize it as a military cultural aspect. I think it's more an American characteristic to try and figure out what happened before you decide --

Q (Off mike) -- President Karzai came out over the weekend. He called upon the U.S. to stop using airstrikes and also to stop nighttime raids. Is that at all practical, do you think?

SEC. GATES: Well, I can't improve on General Jones' statement yesterday, that we can't fight this war with one hand tied behind us. But one of the things that General McKiernan has been working on and that I am confident that Generals McChrystal and Rodriguez will work on is how we can do better in this area.

Q Let me ask you about Swat Valley very quickly. We have seen now perhaps half-a-million Pakistanis displaced in their own country. You've given billions to Pakistan. You've urged them to engage in counterinsurgency. Is this kind of aerial and artillery bombardment the kind of -- with thousands displaced -- the kind of counterinsurgency strategy you wanted them to embark on?

ADM. MULLEN: Actually, I spoke in a continuing dialogue with General Kiyani. I spoke to him earlier today. He called me just to update me specifically. And I won't go into the -- into the details of that, but they actually have made considerable progress in recent weeks and in -- in ways that many of us -- many -- not many of us, but many would have not predicted.
Clearly, there is a concern for the refugees and taking care of that. I know that the prime minister has been out speaking to the need for the Pakistan people to support that. That's also an important strategic both shift and emphasis.
And then I guess I wouldn't get into the details of his planning or his execution, but he's certainly aware of the challenges in particular with respect to the IDPs and the need for his government and other NGOs to address that issue.

Q But are you satisfied with the strategy that you're seeing? Because there are now potentially hundreds of thousands of IDPs? Are you satisfied?

ADM. MULLEN: I think, at least historically in counterinsurgencies, particularly when you're in the -- in the aggressive -- when you -- when you start them, you do -- we do see lots of IDPs and have to address that. And certainly, we're all concerned about that. I know that it's -- that it's -- that concern is being addressed specifically by the Pakistani government as a priority.

SEC. GATES: Thank you all very much.

Transcript: David Petraeus on CNN's "State of the Union"

Related Post: David Petraeus on “Fox News Sunday”

JOHN KING: General Petraeus, welcome back to "State of the Union." I want to start with the offensive under way by the Pakistani military in Pakistan. It took a long time for you to convince Pakistan to get about this. And I'm starting at the map so I can pull out and show our viewers the area we're talking about, the Swat district up here, right in here.

Just a basic question for you, sir. This offensive has been under way for quite a bit of time now. How effective is it?

PETRAEUS: Well, let me say, I'm not sure I accept the characterization that you said. This is Pakistan's offensive, and it was galvanized by Taliban action, certainly not by American rhetoric or encouragement.

What has happened in this case is that the actions of the Taliban in breaking the agreement that was reached for Swat, and then moving into other districts of the Northwest Frontier province, these have served as a catalyst, really, for all of Pakistan. And you now see all of the Pakistani political leaders, including opposition figures, you see the Pakistani people and you see the Pakistani military determined to reverse this trend and to deal with the Taliban threat, ultimately, in Swat Valley.

KING: And how effective do you think it is being -- and let me ask in the context of -- this is a military offensive. They are going in there and bombing and pushing them out and attacking them, but I would not say this is out of the Petraeus counterinsurgency playbook. So do you worry at all that these gains will be short-term, not lasting?

PETRAEUS: Well, the true test in counterinsurgency -- and I can tell you that in our dialogue with Pakistani leaders this past week, there is a clear recognition of the concept of counterinsurgency operations, of employing all the tools of government, a whole of government approach. And over the past year, for example, there have been a number of actions that reflect the kind of, if you will, learning and adapting that our own forces have taken -- gone through in recent years as they have carried out operations in Bajaur and Mohmand and so forth. And this will be the challenge, I think, is to bring all of the assets of the government of Pakistan to bear to help their military as it goes in and conducts operations, which inevitably already have displaced citizens, and certainly will displace more of them over time.

KING: When you were here, sir, with Ambassador Holbrooke a few weeks back, both of you spoke openly about the trust deficit between the United States and the Pakistani government and the Pakistani military that has played out in recent years. After the conversations of the past week, how much of that has been repaired and still how much of it do you have?

PETRAEUS: Well, I think the conversations here were quite productive and positive. In fact, I think most participants assessed after the conduct of the trilateral meetings that not just the rhetoric, but even the substance exceeded expectations. So I think they're very helpful. I think they were truly unprecedented in the way that some of the individuals on either side had never even met each other before, and then we had good bilateral conversations with each of the leaders and their delegations as well.

But this is a process. It continues. The trust deficit, if you will, is something that stems back to us dropping Pakistan in the wake of the expulsion of the Soviets from Afghanistan. It lasted for years, and it will take months and years to reestablish the kind of trust and bonds and partnership that are necessary to move forward.

And of course, it's not just the United States. This is the entire world. And it is with a government that has been in office, the first really truly democratically elected Pakistani government in some time, elected just nine, 10 months ago.

KING: When you were here, you said that the United States would not go into Pakistan unless it saw something compelling. This has been a sensitive issue. As the Pakistani military has put pressure on the Taliban, have there been any occasions in the past few weeks where you have had targets of opportunity that have caused U.S. forces to go across the border?

PETRAEUS: No. And I think we have been unequivocal in saying that this is not about us putting combat boots on the ground. This is about us providing assistance, as we do numerous nations around the world. A bit more robust in this case, certainly, but we provide some training assistance, we provide ammunition, we provide spare parts, help with maintenance systems, processes. But a lot of these very similar to the kinds of security assistance programs that we have around the world, albeit this one more robust, and also in the form of the coalition support funds, significantly additional funding.

KING: As this focus now is on the Taliban, give me your assessment of Al Qaida. It has moved, essentially, its headquarters from Afghanistan into Pakistan. With all the focus on the Taliban right now, is this allowing Al Qaida a chance to regroup? And let me ask it in this context. If Al Qaida in Afghanistan was at a 10 in its operational capability on 9/11, how would you rate Al Qaida on that same scale now, as it is based in Pakistan?

PETRAEUS: I don't want to get into that kind of numerical ranking, but I think it's worth going back and looking at the history, of course. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, we expelled the Taliban and Al Qaida and the other elements of the so-called syndicate of extremists that had found sanctuaries and safe havens in Afghanistan. They eventually relocated into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and some of the other areas of the border regions.

But I think it's very important to note that those organizations, Al Qaida in particular, has sustained some very serious losses over the course of the last six to 10 months or so, and there is a considerable concern among those leaders because of the losses that they have sustained.

KING: I want you to listen to something that the Afghanistan president, Hamid Karzai, told our Wolf Blitzer a couple of days ago, when he put the question to him, are there still Al Qaida in your country? Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Are you saying there's no Al Qaida in Afghanistan right now?

HAMID KARZAI, PRESIDENT OF AFGHANISTAN: No Al Qaida based in Afghanistan.

BLITZER: So who are you fighting against?

KARZAI: That's the thing, that's why we say that the war on terrorism is not in the Afghan villages. That it's in the sanctuaries, it's in the financial support system to them, it's in the training grounds. And it's beyond Afghan borders. That has now been established by the U.S. administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: No Al Qaida at all in Afghanistan. Is that an exaggeration, General Petraeus, or is that true?

PETRAEUS: No, I would agree with that assessment. Certainly, Al Qaida and its affiliates. Again, remember that this is, as I mentioned earlier, a syndicate of extremist organizations, some of which are truly transnational extremists. In other words, don't just conduct attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and India, but even throughout the rest of the world, as we saw in the U.K. a couple of years ago. They do come in and out of Afghanistan, but the Al Qaida -- precise Al Qaida, if you will -- is not based, per se, in Afghanistan, although its elements and certainly its affiliates -- Baitullah Mehsud's group, commander Nazir Khaqani (ph) network and others, certainly do have enclaves and sanctuaries in certain parts of eastern Afghanistan. And then the Afghan Taliban, of course, has a number of districts in which it has its fighters and its shadow government, if you will, even.

But I think, no, I think that's an accurate assessment, and that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan -- that very, very mountainous, rugged terrain just east of the Afghan border and in the western part of Pakistan -- is the locus of the leadership of these organizations, although they do, again, go into Afghanistan, certainly, and conduct operations against our troops, and have tried, certainly, to threaten all the way to Kabul at various times.

KING: President Karzai was quite adamant in that interview with Wolf that he wants the air strikes to stop. He believes the air strikes are not taking out terrorist elements, and instead are killing civilians in his country and fomenting anti-American sentiment. Will the air strikes stop?

PETRAEUS: Well, he and I had a good conversation about this yesterday, actually, John. I thought it was important to discuss this with him. I heard that interview. There is no question, and we have all agreed for some time -- and General McKiernan, in fact, put out tactical guidance to this end, as did the Central Command headquarters -- that we have to be very, very sensitive that our tactical actions, our tactical employment in battles and so forth of close air support and other enablers does not undermine our strategic goals and objectives.

And we reaffirmed that in our conversation yesterday. We'll certainly relook this yet again in the wake of this latest incident, although as the joint press release that was put out by Afghan and U.S. authorities in Afghanistan after the initial investigation of the latest situation in Farah province in western Afghanistan affirmed that Taliban bears enormous blame for this latest incident by apparently forcing civilians to stay in houses from which they were engaging our forces with heavy-fire RPGs, and quite effective fire, as the term is used.

KING: General David Petraeus, thank you for your time this morning, sir, and best of luck to you.

PETRAEUS: Good to be with you, John. Thanks.

Video and Transcript: David Petraeus on "Fox News Sunday"

Related Post: David Petraeus on CNN’s “State of the Union”

The centrepiece of the Obama Administration's Afghanistan-Pakistan sales pitch this weekend is not one but two appearances by General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, who showed up on "Fox News Sunday" before moving to CNN for "State of the Union".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYnfhaYTFK8[/youtube]

CHRIS WALLACE: Joining us from U.S. Central Command in Florida is General David Petraeus, who oversees American military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.

And, General, welcome back to “FOX News Sunday.”

PETRAEUS: Good to be with you, Chris. Thanks.

WALLACE: General, let’s start with Pakistan. The military there has launched a new offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley. Is there any sign that this is different from earlier Pakistani military campaigns, which have not been effective?

PETRAEUS: There are a number of signs of difference, actually, Chris.

First of all, the actions of the Pakistani Taliban pushing below the Swat Valley into Dir and Buner seem to have galvanized all of Pakistan, not just the president and the prime minister, but also even the opposition leaders, virtually all the elements of the political spectrum and the people, in addition to, of course, the -- the military.

So there is a degree of unanimity that there must be swift and effective action taken against the Taliban in Pakistan.

And this is reflected also, as has been announced by the Pakistani leaders, the shift of forces from the eastern part of their country faced off against India to the North-West Frontier Province areas where the fighting is already ongoing and where more presumably will be conducted.

WALLACE: But the fact is that -- and I know you have been critical of this. A lot of military experts in the past -- the Pakistani army tends to fight the war that they would fight against the Indians, with heavy artillery, with air ships -- you know, with war planes fighting.

Do -- do you have the sense that they have the counterinsurgency strategy that makes you confident that they can beat the Taliban in the Swat Valley?

PETRAEUS: Well, we did have some good conversations this past week in Washington as part of the trilateral process that you’ve reported.

And during that, it was very clear in discussions with everyone, from President Zardari through the other members of the delegation that there’s an understanding that this does have to be a whole-of- government approach -- in other words, not just the military but all the rest of the elements of government supporting the military -- so that they can reestablish basic services, repair the damage that is inevitably done by the bombardment of these areas in which the Taliban are located, and to take care of the internally displaced persons.

And there’s an enormous effort ongoing in that regard, our State Department, other countries, all trying to help the U.N., which is the agency on the front lines there, trying to take care of these refugees that are streaming out of the Swat Valley.

WALLACE: General, you reportedly told top U.S. officials recently that the next two weeks were critical to determine the survival of the Pakistani government.

If we’re talking about something as existential as that, what are the chances that the Islamic radicals could get their hands on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal?

PETRAEUS: Well, first of all, the reports of what I said were a little bit more than what I actually said behind closed doors several weeks ago, at which time I said that, in fact, the next few weeks would be very important and, to a degree, pivotal in the future for Pakistan.

And I think that that has been proven accurate. Indeed, now the Pakistani government, military, people have all responded, and certainly the next few weeks will be very important in this effort to roll back, if you will, this existential threat, a true threat to Pakistan’s very existence that has been posed by the Pakistani Taliban.

With respect to the -- the nuclear weapons and -- and sites that are controlled by Pakistan, as President Obama mentioned the other day, we have confidence in their security procedures and elements and believe that the security of those sites is adequate.

WALLACE: But -- but to press the point, if I may, because, as you say, you are talking about an existential threat from Islamic radicals, can you assure the American people and the rest of the world that the U.S. will not allow those Pakistani nuclear weapons to get into the hands of Islamic radicals?

PETRAEUS: Well, this is not a U.S. assurance that matters. This is a Pakistani assurance. And also, by the way, I should point out, Chris, this is not a U.S. fight that Pakistan is carrying out at this point in -- in this effort.

This is a Pakistani fight, a Pakistani battle, with elements that, as we’ve mentioned, threaten the very existence of the Pakistani state.

WALLACE: You also said this week that Al Qaida has reemerged in northwestern Pakistan as a centrally organized operation capable of planning attacks in other countries.

Is Al Qaida back in business, sir?

PETRAEUS: Well, Al Qaida has been back in business for years, Chris. There is not an enormous revelation here. What I was merely saying was that the location of Al Qaida’s senior leadership is, indeed, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of that very rugged border region of western Pakistan just east of Afghanistan.

There’s no question that Al Qaida’s senior leadership has been there and has been in operation for years. We had to contend with its reach as it sought to facilitate the flow of foreign fighters, resources, explosives, leaders and expertise into Iraq, as you’ll recall, through Syria.

We see tentacles of Al Qaida that connect to Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, the elements Al-Shabab in Somalia, elements in north central Africa, and that strive to reach all the way, of course, into Europe and into the United States.

And of course, there were attacks a couple of years ago in the U.K. that reflected the reach of the transnational extremist elements of Al Qaida and the other movements in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

WALLACE: And -- and, General, do you believe that bin Laden and Zawahiri are still in charge of Al Qaida?

PETRAEUS: We do. Again, I don’t think anyone can give you any kind of accurate location for bin Laden or, frankly, for Zawahiri other than a general description of where that might be, but certainly, they surface periodically.

We see communications that they send out. And of course, they periodically send out videos in which they try to exhort people and to inspire individuals to carry out extremist activities.

WALLACE: General, let’s...

PETRAEUS: It’s important to note, by the way, Chris, that -- that these organizations, by the way, in the FATA have sustained some pretty significant losses over the course of the last six, eight, 10 months or so.

And there is a good deal of disruption that has taken place but, of course, that’s transitory in nature, and we’ll have to see how the security operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas -- different from, of course, the fight in the -- in the Swat and North- West Frontier Province areas go.

WALLACE: General, let’s turn to Afghanistan. It has been widely reported that as many as 147 civilians, Afghan civilians, were killed after U.S. air strikes in western Afghanistan. I know you’ve been investigating the circumstances and the responsibility for that. At this point, what do you know?

PETRAEUS: Well, in fact, I should note, first of all, that I had a very good conversation with President Karzai about this, about some statements, of course, that he’s made in recent days, and we’re going to have to work our way through this.

I would point everyone to -- and we sent you a copy, of course, of the joint press release -- again, put out by the Afghan and U.S. elements in Kabul yesterday after their initial investigating team came back, which clearly described the sequence of events that took place, with the Taliban moving into these villages, seeking to extort money from them, eventually killing three of the citizens in that area, then engaging the Afghan police who responded, which led to the governor of that province, Farah province, requesting help from the Afghan national army and coalition forces.

It was in that response that, of course, this very significant firefight broke out, battle, that ultimately resulted in the dropping of bombs which clearly killed Taliban and some civilians that it appears the Taliban forced to remain in houses from which the Taliban was engaging our forces.

Now, we are going to do a very thorough investigation of this. I’ve appointed a brigadier general with extensive experience in conventional and special operations who will go out to Afghanistan and look at it more broadly as well, to ensure that our forces are very well acquainted with in -- in carrying out the directives that General McKiernan has put out so that our tactical actions don’t undermine our strategic goals and objectives.

And that’s essentially the conversation that President Karzai and I had yesterday on this particular topic.

WALLACE: General, you also say that the Taliban is mounting a surge of its own to protect its safe havens in eastern Afghanistan. President Obama has announced that he’s going to send another 21,000 troops to the country.

Are you getting all the troops you need? And what kind of assurances are you getting from the president about his willingness to send more troops if necessary, his commitment to win in Afghanistan?

PETRAEUS: Well, I’d just state that every request for forces that -- that I’ve sent to the secretary of defense and that has gone to the president has been approved, and that carries all the requests through the course of this calendar year.

There are requests beyond that for which decisions don’t need to be made for a number of months, and I’m confident those decisions will be made at that point in time.

We have gone so far as to shift some forces that just -- we don’t have enough of in the inventory -- which, by the way, is why Secretary Gates’ budget addresses these kind of so-called enablers, the low- density, high-demand units -- to shift some of these from Iraq to Afghanistan, in fact, to ensure that -- that the infrastructure is established and that the kinds of forces that they need to enable this significant augmentation of our forces is made possible.

WALLACE: There is also growing violence in Iraq, amid signs that the Iraqi government is dropping some of the counterinsurgency tactics that you introduced into Iraq. Jobs programs in Sunni areas are -- are being ended. The Sunni “Awakening” -- these are Sunni forces that are fighting Sunni insurgents -- some of those units have not been paid for most of this year.

Are we giving back -- is the Iraqi government giving back some of the gains that we worked so hard to establish on the ground in Iraq?

PETRAEUS: Well, first of all, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the “Sons of Iraq,” these Sunni “Awakening” forces, have not been paid this year. There is drama and emotion with every single payday, but the vast majority of these “Sons of Iraq” have been paid during the pay periods.

There’s another one ongoing right now. Inevitably, names are lost, mixed up, or what have you. But over time, we feel quite comfortable with what the Iraqi government has done in taking care of these “Sons of Iraq” and on taking them all now onto their payroll rather than being on ours.

The level of violence, actually, has been roughly about the same for the last five or six months, which is quite significant. It has averaged between 10 and 15 attacks per day for that period, which equates to a level of violence not seen since the late summer of 2003 before the insurgency and well before the militia activities accumulated that led to, at one time, 160 attacks per day in Iraq in June of 2007. What we have seen and what is troubling, certainly, has been the incidence of sensational attacks, if you will, high-casualty-causing attacks. Particularly, we saw these in Baghdad a few weeks ago.

That did prompt a number of attacks with Iraqi conventional and special operations forces, together with our forces, to go after the reemerging networks of Al Qaida.

We should expect that Al Qaida will continue to try to reestablish itself in Iraq, even as the focus of Al Qaida’s senior leadership appears to have shifted away somewhat from support of the activities in Iraq.

WALLACE: I’ve got a couple of...

PETRAEUS: But we will see this periodically. There will be periodic upticks in that regard.

WALLACE: If I may, sir, we’ve got a couple of more questions I want to ask you, and we’re beginning to run out of time.

I want to follow up on this last point, because all U.S. combat troops are supposed to be out of Iraqi cities by the end of June of this year.

But General Odierno, the head of U.S. forces in Iraq, now says that 20 percent of our combat forces are going to stay behind in Baghdad and Mosul past that deadline. Why is that, sir?

PETRAEUS: Well, what we are in the process of doing and have been doing is withdrawing the bases of our combat forces from Iraq cities and large towns. That process has been ongoing. It’s gone smoothly. We still do have some of those bases in Baghdad and Mosul, but we think that they will be out.

What General Odierno was talking about were liaison elements, adviser elements, organizations that partner with Iraqi forces in the support of them, not in the conduct of our combat operations.

So certainly, there will be a presence, but there will not be the combat forces based in those cities as we have had in the past, and that is in accordance with the security agreement.

WALLACE: Finally, General, and we have about a minute left, let’s turn, finally, to Iran.

President Obama has made several efforts to reach out to the Iranian regime. Whether it’s its nuclear program or arming our enemies in Iraq, do you see any signs on the ground that the Iranian regime is moderating its behavior?

PETRAEUS: Well, I think there’s probably been some small reduction in the assistance provided to Shia extremists in Iraq, although that continues, and again, it’s very difficult to measure because sometimes you have to have some event that precipitates something to be able to determine how much is ongoing. Beyond that, we’ll have to see as the weeks and months proceed. My deputy just accompanied Ambassador Ross in a swing through the region. There clearly -- enormous concern out there about Iranian rhetoric and actions, but we need to see how these diplomatic initiatives might be able to moderate and produce some openness and transparency in Iran, particularly with respect, of course, to its nuclear programs.

WALLACE: General Petraeus, we want to thank you for giving us a tour of all your responsibilities in that part of the world. Thank you for joining us, and please come back, sir.

PETRAEUS: Thank you, Chris.

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

Latest Post: Video and Transcript of Dick Cheney on Fox News (12 May)
Related Post: Torture Now - Jon Stewart Takes on the New Dick Cheney

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":


Watch CBS Videos Online

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.