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.

Video and Transcript: National Security Advisor James Jones on "This Week" (10 May)

Video: National Security Advisor James Jones on "This Week"



The Obama Administration, trying to sell its foreign policy, especially on Afghanistan and Pakistan, is making a big effort to raise the profile of National Security Advisor James Jones. There were puff pieces in The New York Times and The Washington Post earlier this week, and Jones showed up on "This Week" on ABC Television this morning. Nothing much new in the interview, but interesting to see Jones being promoted alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.


GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Hello again, and happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms watching. We’re going to begin with a Sunday first.

General James Jones, welcome to THIS WEEK, your first appearance as national security adviser.

JONES: Exactly. Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You all had a busy week this week. The heads of Afghanistan and Pakistan came here to the United States to meet with the president -- to meet with the president’s entire team.

And you seemed to be on the same page, yet after the meetings, the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, said that all air strikes -- all American air strikes in Afghanistan must end. Will the U.S. comply with that demand?

JONES: Well, I think that we’re going to take a look at trying to make sure that we correct those things we can correct, but certainly to tie the hands of our commanders and say we’re not going to conduct air strikes, it would be imprudent.

That’s part of the combined arms package and so we probably would not do that. But we are going to take very seriously the -- and redouble our efforts to make sure that innocent civilians are not killed.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does President Karzai understand that you’re not going to comply with that demand? And what do you expect his reaction to be?

JONES: Well, I think he understands that we have to have the full complement of our offensive military power when we need it. We have to -- we can’t fight with one hand tied behind tied behind our back.

But on the other hand, we have to be careful to make sure that we don’t unnecessarily wound or kill innocent civilians. But the other side of the coin is that it -- what makes it difficult is the Taliban, of course, not playing by the same rules.

They’re using civilians as shields. So we have to take a look at this, make sure that our commanders understand the -- you know, the subtleties of the situation, the complexity of it, and do the right thing.

So it’s a difficult problem, but it’s not unsolvable.

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Karzai also said while he was here that he believes Osama bin Laden is alive. Yet President Zardari of Pakistan says he thinks bin Laden is dead.

What is the best U.S. intelligence right now?

JONES: I think the best intelligence is that we gauge our reaction based on what intelligence we have. And it is inconclusive. Secondly, we wait and see how long it has been before we’ve seen him actually make a statement, release a video, and make our judgments on that.

The truth is, I don’t think anybody knows for sure.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, let me ask you about that, because we saw some audio tapes from Osama bin Laden in both January and March of this year, and it’s my understanding that U.S. intelligence thought that those were authentic.

JONES: Mm-hmm.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what has changed since then to make the intelligence inconclusive?

JONES: Well, as of March, they thought it was authentic, but we don’t have any firm information that says that that has changed one way or the other. So I think we’ll just continue to press on and we’ll see what happens there.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What does your gut tell you?

JONES: I -- my gut -- I would like to know conclusively if that’s not the case. And I think we have that evidence.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does it matter any more if he’s dead or alive?

JONES: I think it matters symbolically to the movement, for sure. But it’s clear that that movement has been resilient in replacing their leaders as quickly as we are able to capture or eliminate them.

But I think symbolically it would be a very big thing if he weren’t.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you about Vice President Cheney, he has been something of a media tour lately. And the big point he is making is that the Obama administration actions, repealing some of the Bush administration counterterrorism policies, announcing you’re going to close Guantanamo, ending enhanced interrogation techniques are all putting America at risk of another attack.

Now that is a serious charge coming from a former vice president. What’s your response?

JONES: Well, I would take issue with some of those allegations. And I think, frankly, in the Bush administration there wasn’t complete agreement with the vice president on that score.

The truth of the matter is that the Obama administration inherited a situation at Guantanamo that was intolerable. There are only two people had been - who had entered a plea, they both had been released with time served. Hundreds of people went through Guantanamo and were released. Many of those are back on the battlefield right now waging war against us again.

The Obama administration has put a stop to that temporarily as you know. We do have some decision points coming up. The president is absolutely committed to making sure that we recognize the rule of law principle, we don’t make America less safe and that we continue to try to find the right balance in what could be a multi-layer approach.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to get to more on Guantanamo in a second but let me just press this one more time. The vice president, former vice president says the Obama administration is putting America at risk of another attack.

JONES: Oh, I don’t believe that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s clear enough. Let me ask you more about Guantanamo, then. Because the Congress has sent several more strong messages to the administration about Guantanamo this week. The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey, did not include the money for closing Guantanamo in his war spending bill and Republican leaders in the Congress have mounted a campaign against bringing any of the detainees from Guantanamo into the United States. Here’s Senator Kit Bond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, R-MO.: Whether these terrorists are coming to prison in Kansas or a halfway house in Missouri or any other state, I can tell you this. Americans don’t want these terrorists in their neighborhoods.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: In fact, the Republican leadership has introduced legislation called the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act which would require approval from both the governor and the state legislature of a state before any detainees can be brought in. What does the administration think of that legislation?

JONES: Well, the first think I would say about that is there has been no decision taken. This is an issue that we are - the president is studying but absent the final determination this is all speculation.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you have determined - you don’t know exactly how but because we’re asking other countries to take detainees, that we’re probably going to have to take some as well. Secretary Gates said that to the Congress this week.

JONES: We’re going to have to figure that out and those discussions are currently under way so it would be premature to comment on what the president might or might not do at this particular point.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But how about the legislation? They are saying before anyone comes back, a governor and a state legislature must approve. Do you have any problems with that?

JONES: Well, we’ll take that under advisement. These are near term subject that are currently being discussed and that is going to have to be one of the decision points and one of the discussions that we’ll have on this issue but it hasn’t been determined yet.

STEPHANOPOULOS: This - I’m just a little confused on that because Secretary Gates did say a couple of things when he testified this week. He did say that some would have to be brought into the United States. He said there’s this problem of 50 to 100 detainees who can’t be tried and can’t be released and we’re going to have to find a way. In fact, the Pentagon is looking into building a prison.

You’re saying now you’ve already made the threshold decision that some detainees are going to have to come to the United States.

JONES: Well, if you’re going to ask other to take some, you’re going to have to figure out how you’re going to have to do that and that’s where we are right now. No decision has been taken as to exactly how to do that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Because this has become so thorny - the president wants to close Guantanamo by the January deadline. Are you open to extending that deadline? This has turned out to be quite a difficult decision to implement.

JONES: Well, the - again, the very discussions on these issues and how to do this are currently on the table at the White House. We are coming up on the 20 May deadline for a decision so there will be some announcements made in the near future but no decision has been taken yet.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the president has not ruled out bringing back military commissions try them, either, correct?

JONES: I think the - all options are on the table. The president has said that at some point there may be a multi-layered approach that has to be developed in order to solve this problem but it’s clear that we want to maintain our values, we want to protect the judicial process and this president is not going to do anything that’s going to make American safe - less safe by bringing people into the country that is going to put ourselves at risk. That is simply not going to happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring up the issue of gays in the military. The president has said he wants to reform that policy, allow gays to serve openly in the military and actually a remarkable letter from the president was released this week to Lieutenant Sandy Tsao, who was a serviceperson who was discharged from the military because she’s a lesbian and there is this handwritten note I want to show our viewers right now from the president to Sandy in which he says, “Thanks for your wonderful and thoughtful letter.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It is because of outstanding Americans like you that I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete, partly because it needs congressional action, I intend to fulfill my commitment, Barack Obama .”

Now, this is in the Congress right now. Will take legislation to completely overturn but some of the president’s supporters like Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey say that what the president can do right now is issue an executive order to review the policy and order the military to stop investigation and prosecutions while that review is going on, while the Congress is considering this legislation. Will the president issue such an order?

JONES: Well, that is, of course, up to the president. And this issue is something that has been brought up during the campaign. We have had preliminary discussions with the leadership of the Pentagon, Secretary Gates, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, this is, as you know, George, better than most, this is an issue that is not going to be a light switch but more of a rheostat in terms of discussing it and building - having the discussions that have to be had with the military in order to make sure the good order and discipline of the military ...

STEPHANOPOULOS: And I understand that and this is a complicated issue.

JONES: So it’s a complicated issue. It will be teed up (ph) appropriately and it will be discussed in the way the president does things, which is be very deliberative, very thoughtful, seeking out all sides on the issue and trying to ...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if the president is against the policy, why not suspend prosecutions and investigations while that review continues?

JONES: Well, maybe that’s an option that eventually we’ll get to but we’re not there now.

STEPHANOPOULOS: A lot of your former colleagues in the military, a thousand flag and general officers including 50 four stars have written a letter to the president opposing any change in the policy, saying that their past experience as military leaders make them concerned about it. They think it’s going to have effect on morale, discipline, unit cohesion, what do you say to your former colleagues?

JONES: Well, I think - as I said, this is illustrated by the fact that this is a very sensitive issue and it has to be discussed over time and it has - all sides have to be heard. But I think most of us who have served in the military believe that the standards of conduct is what determines the good order and discipline. So as long as conduct by all members of the military is not detrimental to the good order and discipline, then you have cohesion in the ranks.

But there is ...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that gets to the heart of the problem. I mean, if you’re saying any kind of homosexual act is conduct ...

JONES: I’m saying that it applies - it has to be a uniform policy for all members of the military in order to function as a military has to function. We will have long discussions about this. It will be thoughtful. It will be deliberative. The president I know will reach out to fully understand both sides or all sides of the issue before he makes a decision.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it will be overturned.

JONES: I don’t know. We’ll have to - the president has said that he is in favor of that. We’ll just wait - we’ll have to wait and see - as a result of the deliberations and as a result of the - in the months and weeks ahead. We have a lot on our plate right now. It has to be teed up at the right time so - to do this the right way.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you one final question. Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel is coming to the United States next week. He will be here next Monday and the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz” reported on a telegram, reporting on a meeting between you and a European foreign minister.

Let me show you what that said. It said that, “according to this telegram you told the foreign minister, ‘The new administration will convince Israel to compromise on the Palestinian question. We will not push Israel under the wheels of a bus put we will be more forceful toward Israel than we have been under Bush.’ Jones is quoted in the telegram as saying that the U.S., E.U. and moderate Arab states must redefine a satisfactory end game solution.”

Does that mean you’re going to press Prime Minister Netanyahu to full accept a two-state solution?

JONES: I think it means that this administration is going to engage fully. That is to say, using all aspects of the interagency process to make sure that the security of Israel is not compromised, that the issue of Palestinian sovereignty also has its place at the table. There are many expectations around the world, in the Arab World and in the European community that we are at a moment where we can make progress with regard to the Middle East. It’s going to take American leadership and American involvement and I think the signal is going to be that all levels of our government we’re going to do everything we can to encourage this longstanding problem to gradually come to - show clear progress that we’re intent on ...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is there any way to make progress if Israel doesn’t say they’re clearly for a two state solution.

JONES: I think obviously Israel has said it’s for a two state solution, at least...

STEPHANOPOULOS: The prime minister hasn’t said that yet.

JONES: That was the position of the former government. And we understand Israel’s preoccupation with Iran as an existential threat. We agree with that.

And by the same token, there are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution. This is a very strategic issue. It’s extremely important. And we’re looking forward to having a good, constructive dialogue with our Israeli friends when they visit Washington in the next seven or eight days.

STEPHANOPOULOS: General Jones, thank you very much for your time this morning.

JONES: It’s my pleasure to be with you, thanks.

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":


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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.