Video and Transcript: Pakistan's Zardari and Afghanistan's Karzai on "Meet the Press" (10 May)

Days after their meetings with US officials, including President Obama, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai went through individual examinations on NBC's Meet the Press, hosted by David Gregory. We'll have analysis on Monday.

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DAVID GREGORY: First, the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  I sat down with both leaders earlier this week after their White House meetings.  Pakistan's President Zardari, in office for the last eight months, is the widower of slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.  I began by asking about the Taliban and whether he agrees with the Obama administration that the group represents an existential threat to his country.

MR. ASIF ALI ZARDARI:  No, I consider the philosophy of Taliban as threat to the world, not just to Pakistan and your country, but I feel it's a larger threat.

MR. GREGORY:  Existential threat to Pakistan?

MR. ZARDARI:  Pakistan, the whole world.  They start from the Horn of Africa and come down all the way to Pakistan.  They don't evolve from Pakistan and go up, they come down.

MR. GREGORY:  Do you consider the Taliban to be a bigger threat today than India?

MR. ZARDARI:  I consider it a different--they're--India's a country and Pakistan is a, a...(unintelligible)...we're, we're two states which in fact Pakistan stemmed out of the subcontinent out of India.  So it's a different relationship, it's a different context.

MR. GREGORY:  Is there a war with the Taliban inside Pakistan?

MR. ZARDARI:  There is a war, sir.

MR. GREGORY:  And is it America's war or Pakistan's war?

MR. ZARDARI:  It's a war of our existence.  We've been fighting this war much before they attacked 9/11.  They're kind of a cancer created by both of us, Pakistan and America and the world.  We got together, we created this cancer to fight the superpower and then we went away--rather, you went away without finding a cure for it.  And now we've both come together to find a cure for it, and we're looking for one.

MR. GREGORY:  When you speak like that, it doesn't sound as if you consider it Pakistan's war, you consider it America's responsibility.

MR. ZARDARI:  No, I think it's a joint responsibility.  I think it's the joint responsibilities of all the democracies of the world.  That's why we made this Friends of Democratic Pakistan, so we can bring most strength to the situation.  You've got to admit that you all have been trying to battle it for the last eight years.  The--all the...(unintelligible)...world powers have been trying to battle it for the last eight years in Afghanistan and nobody's come out of victorious yet.

MR. GREGORY:  And so you say there is a commitment on the part of Pakistan to fight the Taliban now.  How many troops, how many Pakistani troops do you now have in the western part of your country battling the Taliban?

MR. ZARDARI:  Three times the amount of troops you have battling them in Afghanistan.  That's 125,000 we have on ground.

MR. GREGORY:  And yet the administration--you have a military force of roughly 660--650,000 men.

MR. ZARDARI:  Oh.

MR. GREGORY:  Has the administration said to you there should be more fighting men in the west?

MR. ZARDARI:  There is a point of view that more men might improve the situation, but that's something that's still disputed by our military analysts.  We don't think that more--presence of more troops there--you must remember, 650-personnel strong army doesn't mean they're all infantry.  That's the fighting brigade of the infantry, that's the teeth of the army.  So they're not all infantry.  They're tank drivers, they're truck drivers, they're other--gunners, etc., etc.  So we have an infantry of 250,000, out of which 125,000 happens to be in those mountains.

MR. GREGORY:  So you have a sufficient number of troops fighting the Taliban.

MR. ZARDARI:  We think, we think they're sufficient.

MR. GREGORY:  You appeared on Capitol Hill this week, and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Howard Berman, said this, speaking of you.  He said, "He did not present a coherent strategy for the defeat of this insurgency.  I had a sense of what they're doing today," he said, "I did not have a sense of what they plan to do tomorrow." What's the strategy?

MR. ZARDARI:  So, well, he didn't even ask me, so that's OK.  But I'll tell you what I've got planned to do.  We, we've been loving...(unintelligible)...in, in America, my wife was loving, and we were of the view and always have been of the view that democracy is the answer to the problem.  Like somebody said, it may be--not be the best form of government, but it's the only form of government.  Now we've got democracy.  Democracy needs help.  It needs a little more help than we've been getting in the past. What the American public and people at large do not understand is for 10 years you have given $10 billion to a dictator, but you've given them for the war in these mountains.  So it's actually reimbursement for the money spent; after all, 125,000 troops moving in logistically, otherwise do cost.  So you've been paying back...(unintelligible)...into Pakistan for the expenses occurred as such.  But we need to support democracy.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

MR. ZARDARI:  We need to support the country, we need support--we need to support the systems.  And we've been involved for the last 30 years.  It's not 10 years.

MR. GREGORY:  But is that a strategy for cracking down on the Taliban insurgency?

MR. ZARDARI:  Sure it is.  Sure it is.  The stronger my institutions are, the more the youth I employ, the less fodder they have.  The more poverty goes down, the less fodder they have to recruit from.  That's the strategy.  What else can--what--there is no scientific theorem to that.  And if there was one, if you had a strategy, you would've done it in a, in 10 years.

MR. GREGORY:  But there's a military question, which is, is Pakistan capable of dealing with an insurgency, capable of mounting an effective counterinsurgency when the orientation of your military's primarily been to fight a big enemy to the east in India, predicated on the idea of some kind of deterrence?  Are you able to mount a counterinsurgency strategy at this point?

MR. ZARDARI:  Sir, we've been in this war for the last seven years.  But if you see the record of the one year that the democratic government of Pakistan, the PPP government and its allies has been there, we've done more to damage the infrastructure of the Talibans or the--or these miscreants, whatever you need to call them, than ever before.

MR. GREGORY:  And yet there are some who say that the strategy has not borne fruit.  You went in--so people understand, you went into an area north of Islamabad, the Swat Valley, and you essentially made a deal with the Taliban, which is they would put down their arms if Islamic law could be applied, could be implemented there.

MR. ZARDARI:  Incorrect.

MR. GREGORY:  Incorrect.  Tell me what's correct.

MR. ZARDARI:  The correct position is that we came up with the formula which was that there would be speedy justice there known as...(foreign language spoken).  Nothing to do with Sharia law.  It's been interpreted by--as Sharia law by them.  And then that didn't work.  But we had to get the population to be with us.  The population was fed up with them and was fed up with the fighting.  Some--the provincial government came up with this idea that let's go for a peace deal and let's get the people involved.  They tried it.  It hasn't worked.

MR. GREGORY:  But when you made this deal, when you actually signed this deal...

MR. ZARDARI:  The parliament signed on this deal.  The parliament recommended me--to me to sign.

MR. GREGORY:  Were you against it?

MR. ZARDARI:  I was--yes, I had a position against it.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.  Why?  Why did you think it was misguided?

MR. ZARDARI:  I thought that it won't work.

MR. GREGORY:  You think it was abdication to the Taliban?

MR. ZARDARI:  No, it's not abdication.  I thought that the Talibans are not rational people.  I don't think there's any good Talibans.  The world does, so that's a defensive opinion.

MR. GREGORY:  But so you think there's no negotiating with them.

MR. ZARDARI:  I don't think there should be a negotiating with them at the moment.  Maybe one day when there is enough, we've done enough.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

MR. ZARDARI:  Then always--there cannot only, only be war.  There has to be a--the parliament has come up with a strategy where there's the three D's: dialogue, deterrence and development.  So we have to go into dialogue by the will of the people, which we did.  It didn't work.  Now we've got to do the, the deterrence phase where we are fighting.  And then once we've calmed the situation down in--then we'll go to the development stage to give them the ownership, give them schools.

MR. GREGORY:  You have the fighting that's going on in Swat.  You have the Taliban insurgency there.  That insurgency has also spread into Punjab, to the state of Punjab.  I don't have to tell you, that's where half of Pakistan's population is.  And it has lead to some dire assessments by analysts who look at your country with a critical eye, including a former adviser to General David Petraeus who helped him with the insurgency in Iraq, and he said this: "We're now reaching the point where within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state," because the Taliban insurgency has so destabilized Pakistan.  Does he have that right?

MR. ZARDARI:  I think you--he's had other positions wrong before, so--and having said that, we have a threat, yes.  Is the state of Pakistan going to collapse?  No.  We are 180 million people.  The population is much, much more than the, the insurgents are.  But we do have a problem.  We have a problem because it's been there.  It was like I said, it was a monster created by all, all of us.  We got together and we didn't--we forgot to make a cure for it.

MR. GREGORY:  Can you survive politically?

MR. ZARDARI:  Of course.

MR. GREGORY:  Is it possible to defeat this insurgency without U.S. soldiers fighting by your side or at least training your soldiers in Pakistan?

MR. ZARDARI:  I think we need to find a strategy where the world gets together against this threat, because it's not Pakistan specific, it's not Afghanistan specific.  Like I said, it's all the way from the Horn of Africa. You've had attacks in Spain, you've had attacks in Britain, you've had attacks in America, you've had attacks in Africa, Saudi Arabia.  So I think the world needs to understand that this is the new challenge of the 21st century and this is the new war, and we've all got together.

MR. GREGORY:  The question a lot of people ask is are you--is Pakistan really committed to that war?  In The New York Times Dexter Filkins, who, who's reported from Afghanistan and Pakistan, writes this:  "Whose side is Pakistan really on?  ...  Little in Pakistan is what it appears.  For years, the survival of Pakistan's military and civilian leaders has depended on a double game:  assuring the United States that they were vigorously repressing Islamic militants--and in some cases actually doing so--while simultaneously tolerating and assisting the same militants.  From the anti-Soviet fighters of the 1980s and the Taliban of the 1990s to the homegrown militants of today, Pakistan's leaders have been both public enemies and private friends.  When the game works, it reaps great rewards:  billions in aid to boost the Pakistani economy and military and Islamist proxies to extend the government's reach into Afghanistan and India."

MR. ZARDARI:  I think it's an old concept, an old theory that he's talking about.  And what billions are you talking about?  Like I said, a billion dollar a year?  That's not even--altogether, this aid package is not even one tenth of what you gave AIG.  So let's face it; we need, in fact, much more help.  We are responsible, a responsible state.  We've brought democracy back, it's a young democracy.  Accept it, it was not me who was aiding the dictators of the past.

MR. GREGORY:  Is there a view, however, in Pakistan that the Taliban should be kept around for a rainy day, as it's been said, as a bulwark against Indian influence in neighboring Afghanistan?

MR. ZARDARI:  I don't think so.  I don't think so.

MR. GREGORY:  You don't think that was part of the past at all?

MR. ZARDARI:  I think in--it was part of your past and our past, and the ISI and the CIA created them together.  And I can find you 10 books and 10 philosophers and 10 write-ups on that, of what all you didn't do.

MR. GREGORY:  Fair argument, certainly, a lot of people would agree with you. But did the game change after 9/11 to a point where the U.S. decided to root out this threat and Pakistan was straddling both sides?

MR. ZARDARI:  You tell me.  I was imprisoned by the same dictator you were supporting.  You were supporting a dictator who...

MR. GREGORY:  You're speaking of General Musharraf.

MR. ZARDARI:  I'm speaking of General Musharraf.  In fact, I lost my wife on his watch and I has--I spent five years in his prison.

MR. GREGORY:  But, Mr. President, you know well that there is a widespread belief that your military and your intelligence services still have these same sympathies for the Taliban.

MR. ZARDARI:  I wouldn't agree with you.  I think General Musharraf may have had a mind-set that I--to run with the head and hunt with the hound.  But certainly not on our watch.  We don't have that thought process at all.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me ask you about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.  There's been a question about the security of that arsenal.  You've assured the world that those nuclear weapons are secure.  But I wonder why you're continuing to add to your stockpile, add to your arsenal at what is described as a pretty fast rate when there's so much instability in the country?

MR. ZARDARI:  That's, that's, that's not a fact.  It's a, it's a position that some people have taken.  We, we're not adding to our stockpile as such. Why do we need more?

MR. GREGORY:  So you're not adding to your nuclear arsenal at all?

MR. ZARDARI:  I don't think so, no.

MR. GREGORY:  You don't--do you know?

MR. ZARDARI:  Even if I did, I wasn't going to tell you.

MR. GREGORY:  There is a view that--in the intelligence community in this country that it does not know where all the nuclear weapons are within Pakistan.  Why not share that information so there could be a joint strategy to keep those weapons secure?

MR. ZARDARI:  Why don't you do the same with other countries yourself?  I think it's a sovereignty issue and we have a right to our own sovereignty. It's a sovereign country.

MR. GREGORY:  Who's in control of Pakistan, you or the military?

MR. ZARDARI:  I think the military is in control of their hemisphere and I'm in control of the whole country.

MR. GREGORY:  Can they overrule you?

MR. ZARDARI:  No.  I can overrule them.

MR. GREGORY:  Haven't they overruled you in the past?

MR. ZARDARI:  No.  We've gone to their position and they've come to our positions.

MR. GREGORY:  But you still have final say?

MR. ZARDARI:  The parliament has final say.  It's the parliament that forms government, and I am a product of the parliament.

MR. GREGORY:  But why is it when you wanted your intelligence chief to go to Mumbai you were overruled by your military?

MR. ZARDARI:  No, it was not overruled by the military.  They thought it was too, too soon.  And eventually we've offered for the intelligence chief to meet.

MR. GREGORY:  There's a lot of discussion about additional aid, as you've been talking about throughout our conversation, for Pakistan, $1.5 billion for five years, a total of $7.5 billion.  But as you know, there's discussion about putting some strings, some limits on that aid based on performance by Pakistan.  Do you disagree with that policy?

MR. ZARDARI:  I think it's doubting an ally before you go into action together.  If we are allies--and we, and we understand, it's an accepted position that you--we cannot work this problem out unless Pakistan, Afghanistan and America are on the same page.  How do you go and take an ally along by saying, "OK, I don't trust you," from the first day?  It's not a, a good position to be in.  So I feel that we shouldn't have any, any kind of conditionalities.  We should have a result, a result-oriented relationship where I should be given a time line and I'll give you all a time line so we can both give each other time lines and meet the time lines on, on the, on, on the positive.

MR. GREGORY:  In terms of U.S.-Pakikstani cooperation, there are drones that fire missiles and target Taliban and other extremists, al-Qaeda figures, within Pakistan.  Do you consider those to be effective?

MR. ZARDARI:  I would consider them to be very effective if they were part of my arsenal.  I've been asking for them, but I haven't got a positive answer as yet.  But I'm not giving up.

MR. GREGORY:  Where is Osama bin Laden?

MR. ZARDARI:  You all have been there for eight years, you tell me.  You lost him in Tora Bora, I didn't.  I was in prison.  In fact, my wife warned America about Osama bin Laden in '89.  She rung up senior Bush and asked, asked of him, "Are you destabilizing my government?" Because he paid the then opposition $10 million to do--overthrow the first woman elected in Islamic country.  So we knew that he was your operator.  And...

MR. GREGORY:  But you're not actively looking for him?

MR. ZARDARI:  I think the world is looking for him, and we are part of the world's lookout brigade.

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think he's alive or dead?

MR. ZARDARI:  I've said before that he--I don't think he's alive.

MR. GREGORY:  And you believe that.

MR. ZARDARI:  I have a strong feeling and I have sole reason to believe that, because I've asked my counterparts in the American intelligence agencies and they haven't heard of him since seven years.

MR. GREGORY:  Mr. President, thank you very much for your views and good luck with your work.

MR. ZARDARI:  Thank you, sir.

MR. GREGORY:  Coming next, seven years after 9/11 and the war rages on with the insurgent Taliban still controlling parts of Afghanistan.  Can the government regain control?  And the tough issue of civilian casualties due to U.S. air strikes.  Some harsh words from President Hamid Karzai.  Our exclusive interview from earlier this week is next.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY:  Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai after this brief commercial break.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY:  Mr. President, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

MR. HAMID KARZAI:  Happy to be here.

MR. GREGORY:  President Obama talked about the deterioration in Afghanistan during a speech back in March.  This is what he said.

(Videotape, March 27, 2009)

PRES. OBAMA:  The situation is increasingly perilous.  It's been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on. Insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Attacks against our troops, our NATO allies and the Afghan government have ridden--risen steadily. And most painfully, 2008 was the deadliest year of the war for American forces.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  So here we are seven years after the attacks of September 11th, 2001.  Another American president is committing troops to Afghanistan, 21,000 additional troops.  By this summer there'll be 68,000 U.S. troops.  My question:  Is it too little, too late?

MR. KARZAI:  Well, a very important question, indeed.  When we began in 2001 with the arrival of the international community in Afghanistan and the two--the Afghan people and the international community joining hands, we together defeated the Taliban and the terrorists and al-Qaeda in less than a month and a half.  Subsequent to that the Afghan people would, as we established the interim government, would come in large numbers, hundreds of them, to my office and ask for more international forces in the country, in their villages, in their towns, in their districts.  That didn't happen at that time.  So in that sense, the arrival of more forces is late.  It should've happened then, six years ago, and we should've paid attention then, six years ago, to the sanctuaries, to the training grounds, to the--those financing the terrorists.  It's a bit late.  But as we all know, it's never too late for a good thing to do.

MR. GREGORY:  With 21,000 additional troops, there's a question of what can be gained.  But the issue of civilian casualties as a result of U.S. air strikes, how much damage does that do to the U.S. effort?

MR. KARZAI:  A lot of damage.  This is something that I've been engaged with with our allies for at least six years now.

MR. GREGORY:  And you talked to President Obama about it.

MR. KARZAI:  Oh, very, very much.  For as least six years now, in different ways and different forms.  The Afghan people are allies of the United States. The Afghan people want this effort together to succeed.  The Afghan people see that the presence of the international community in Afghanistan brings us plenty of good things.  But Afghan people also want to have their children safe.  The Afghan people say we are fighting together with you, shoulder to shoulder against terrorism, that we are part of the struggle; that we are not--our homes, our villages are not places for terrorism and that they should be safe.  It's an important thing that America recognize that civilian casualties are the biggest concern of Afghanistan and a damage to the effort against terrorists.

MR. GREGORY:  When President Obama addressed the American people and announced more troops going to your country, he raised a very important question, which is what is America's purpose...

MR. KARZAI:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  ...in Afghanistan?  Dexter Filkins, veteran war correspondent, has covered Afghanistan and Pakistan thoroughly for The New York Times, writes in the current edition of The New Republic this, and he starts with a question:  "What can be won in Afghanistan?  Driving around the country, as I did recently, one is constantly overwhelmed by how little has been accomplished there.  In December 2001, the country lay in ruins.  Today, it is still pretty much the same place.  ...  Today, Taliban fighters move freely across the countryside, and in some places they have set up a shadow government.  ...  After eight years of neglect, the Afghanistan state is a weak and pathetic thing." Pretty strong words.  Why is that the case?

MR. KARZAI:  Very wrong words.

MR. GREGORY:  Wrong.  You say it's wrong.

MR. KARZAI:  Very wrong words.  Pretty strong, wrong words.  It isn't like that.  In 2001, Afghanistan did not have a single kilometer of paved road. Today Afghanistan has its ring road completed, nearly 3,000 kilometers and above.  Today we have many of the roads in the cities paved.  Today we have health services, which were only to about 9 percent of the Afghan population in 2002, reaching nearly 85 percent and over of the Afghan population.  The rural developing program of Afghanistan goes to more than half of Afghanistan's 40,000 villages.  In 2002, we had 4,000 students in Afghanistan universities and only three or four universities.  Today we have 75,000 students in Afghan universities, 14 public universities and, and many private universities.  In 2002, the 4,000 students that we had were all boys, men. Today, nearly 40 percent are girls of the 75,000.  Today we have thousands of Afghans studying abroad, at least 1,000 each year in India and hundreds in Europe and America.  We have experts return to Afghanistan.  I met with them three months ago.  The country is a lot better.

MR. GREGORY:  Back in 2003, this is what you said about the Taliban.  They were the ones who provided safe haven to al-Qaeda, these are the people that threatened both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  This is what you said back in June of 2003:  "I am not worried about the resurgence of the Taliban.  The Taliban movement as a movement is finished and is gone." Were you wrong about that?

MR. KARZAI:  I was not wrong about that.

MR. GREGORY:  But they're back.

MR. KARZAI:  I was, I--no.  It's--there's a difference.  The Taliban as a movement is gone from ruling Afghanistan.  They were the government in Afghanistan.  In 2001 they were the government.  Today they are not the government.  In 2002 they were threatening you.  Today they are not, from Afghanistan.  Yes, they are a threat in the form of the terrorism that they bring upon us, in the form of the violence that they bring upon us; not as an organized political force holding the government in Afghanistan.  That's not there.

MR. GREGORY:  Are they an existential threat to your leadership?

MR. KARZAI:  They're not an existential threat to Afghanistan's government. They are a threat to our, to our efforts towards more security, more progress, more reconstruction and a more peaceful life.  That threat they definitely are, and especially in parts of the country.  That's strongly there, yes.

MR. GREGORY:  The new administration has a slightly different strategy for trying to deal with the Taliban, and it has to do with operations on a tactical level, similar to what was done in Iraq, to try to turn some of these what might be called irreconcilables and bring them into the American fold.

MR. KARZAI:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  This is how the president described it back in that March speech.

(Videotape, March 27, 2009)

PRES. OBAMA:  There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban.  They must be met with force and they must be defeated.  But there are also those who've taken up arms because of coercion or simply for a price.  These Afghans must have the option to choose a different course.  And that's why we will work with local leaders, the Afghan government and international partners to have a reconciliation process in every province.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  Now, you have called that reconciliation process...

MR. KARZAI:  Yes.

MR. GREGORY:  ...unworkable.  Why do you believe that?

MR. KARZAI:  No.  I, I didn't call the reconciliation process unworkable. And by the way, I agree with President Obama's description of the elements of peacemaking with the Taliban.  Those Taliban who have been driven out of the country by fear or coercion or intimidation by our forces or the international forces, or by whatever other circumstances that they've found themselves compelled to leave the country and take guns against us are the ones that we want to reconcile with.  They are the sons of the soil, they must return.  To be very precise, those of the Taliban who are part of al-Qaeda or other terrorist networks, or those who are in the grip of, you know, intelligence services must not and cannot come to Afghanistan because they will continue to bring violence and destruction and, and, and damage to Afghanistan.  But those who have been driven out of fear or the other circumstances that I described earlier are welcome.  They're the sons of our soil, they're from our country and we want to reconcile with them.  And that's what President Obama was referring to.  What I was objecting to was the international forces directly engaging at local level with the Taliban commanders for reconciliation.  That is the job of the Afghan government.

MR. GREGORY:  Speaking about the Taliban and the defeat of the Taliban and al-Qaeda generally, do you have more confidence today in Pakistan's commitment to fighting and defeating the Taliban than you did under General Musharraf?

MR. KARZAI:  Definitely more, yes.  Definitely there is a recognition the Pakistani leadership and the democratically-elected leadership.  They see very much the same way things that, that, that--as we see; therefore, we have a lot more confidence there.  We had a very good meeting in Washington.  I hope that this will be taken into further steps, meaning implementation on the ground. I'm a lot more confident and a lot more hopeful.

MR. GREGORY:  You are running for re-election, and as you campaign you've had some pretty pointed messages.  You're critical of the United States for civilian casualties as a result of U.S. air raids.  You also were at a rally recently during which you were very clear and you said, "Look, I have made certain demands of the Americans, and if they do not provide additional aircraft, for instance, I'll go somewhere else and I'll get it." You appeared to threaten the administration, and I wonder whether your core political message is an anti-American message.

MR. KARZAI:  It is not.  It is very much a pro-American message.  So the Afghans do want this relationship with America to continue, but of course Afghanistan has a character of its own and an interest of its own and a demand upon our allies as well.  We are, we are your front line in the war on terrorism.  The Afghan people have given everything on a daily basis in the war on terrorism.  We have our police dying every day, at least five, six of them.  Our security forces...(unintelligible)...people.  Our villages are not where the terrorists are.  And that's what we kept telling the U.S. administration, that the war on terrorism is not in the Afghan villages, not in the Afghan homes.  Respect that.  Civilian casualties are undermining support in the Afghan people for the war on terrorism and for the, the, the relations with America.  How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?

MR. GREGORY:  And yet...

MR. KARZAI:  And, and, and that's a moral question as well.  We have to be morally on a much higher platform in our force to win the war on terrorism.

MR. GREGORY:  And do you worry, do you worry that the U.S. has not met that standard?

MR. KARZAI:  The U.S. has...

MR. GREGORY:  Have they not met their own moral standard?

MR. KARZAI:  The U.S., the U.S., the U.S. has not met that standard in Afghanistan.  The United States must stand on a much higher moral platform in order for us together to win this war.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me be clear about what you are saying.  Are you suggesting that the United States is waging an immoral war in Afghanistan?

MR. KARZAI:  No.  No.  It's not immoral war, it's the standard of morality that we are seeking which is also one that is being desired and spoken about in America.  In other words, are we the same as the terrorists, are we the same as the bad guys, or are we standing on a much higher moral, moral platform?  Are we better human beings or not?  We must definitely be better human beings in order for us to tell the people that, "Look, those guys are wrong and we are better." And we must show that in our practice, and that practice should be extreme care for civilians and their children and their homes and, and, for the civilians to see us completely distinct and separate from the terrorists.  So we have to be better.  My moral, moral platform has to be a lot higher, a lot more distinct and likeable than the terrorists and the bad guys.  That's what separates us.  Otherwise there'll be no difference, so why should the people care about us or--and not care about them?  Do you get my point?

MR. GREGORY:  And yet Secretary of Defense Gates has made the point that there has to be sustained commitment on the part of the Afghan people and the Afghan government.

MR. KARZAI:  And there is.

MR. GREGORY:  He says this:  "It's absolutely critical that the Afghans believe that this is their war.  it is their war against people who are trying to overthrow their government that they democratically elected." Do you think that's the view of your people?

MR. KARZAI:  That is absolutely the view of our people.  And that's why our people, even when they are bombed, even when they suffer, they still come to us.  They receive me in their midst when I go to, to offer my condolences. They receive the American soldiers, they receive the American officers when a, when an incident like that.  In Farah there was an incident of massive civilian casualties, and the U.S. military officials and the Afghan government went together to the population.  That means the people are still with us.  Had they been against us, they would have not received us, they would have not come to us.  But then, there is a limit to all of that.  Any society will, will, will get fed up with, with, with continued violence and continued casualties.  That is something very, very serious.  And I, and I have conveyed this to my friends in America in all humility and friendship, on behalf of the Afghan people, that Afghans are a straightforward, honest allies, believing in the cause that we have undertaken, and that's why we were able to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in less than a month and a half.  And if you continue to behave the way we are, we will lose that.  And that's, and that's a correct thing to do.

MR. GREGORY:  Before you go, just a couple of other issues.  One of the big issues fueling the insurgency in Afghanistan is the poppy crop, opium.  This is what you said on this program back in 2004.

(Videotape, June 13, 2004)

MR. KARZAI:  This production of, of, of poppies supports terrorism.  It criminalizes the economy.  It undermines institution building in Afghanistan. Afghanistan will have to destroy it for the sake of the Afghan people and also because of...(unintelligible).  We will succeed because we have to succeed.

(End of videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  And yet today 60 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product is poppy, it is opium.  It accounts for 93 percent of the world's production of opium.  That's not a very strong record.

MR. KARZAI:  It isn't, it isn't like that today.  When I was speaking, was it 2004, we had only--well, in 2005 we had only three provinces free of poppies in Afghanistan.  Today we have 22 provinces free of poppies in Afghanistan, either completely or mostly, you know, to, to a bigger extent.  Only one province in the country is producing poppies to the quantity that it can make 60 percent of Afghanistan's exports.  So Afghanistan has made progress in, in, in, in reducing poppies in Afghanistan, in eradicating and removing it from, from our, our culture.  But the money that is spent to eradicate poppies and to provide it with alternative livelihoods is something that we have a question about with our allies.

MR. GREGORY:  Finally, this spring you signed a law that makes it legal for Afghan men to rape their wives.  Now, you have said in the past month that you were reviewing that law.  Are you going to repeal it?

MR. KARZAI:  It has been reviewed.  When--there's so much that I can talk about in response to what is there.  It is not exactly as, as is printed in the, in the, in parts of the world media.  But when I heard of this, I called the minister of justice and he told me that there were problems in this law and that it will be--then I instructed the review and amendment of the law.  I called in the clergy in the country, the senior most who, who had a hand in drafting this law, and they'd redo the...(unintelligible)...amend it and redraft it, and even parts of the law removed.  I've already done that.  The minister of justice was with me about 10 days ago to give me the amended law that will be sent to the parliament.  So it's something that we have to do.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MR. KARZAI:  And we have to correct it, regardless of whether it's...

MR. GREGORY:  So how--just to be clear then, how are you correcting it?  What is permissible behavior?

MR. KARZAI:  But it's, it's, it's, it's--well, it's, it's, it's the--it's not my choice.  It has to go through a legal process and consultation and back to the parliament.  We are a democratic country.  We have a parliament that, that passes laws like that, that debates them and then sends them back to the concerned lobbies.

MR. GREGORY:  But, but are basic human rights part of your democratic values?

MR. KARZAI:  Absolutely.  Oh, absolutely.  Absolutely.

MR. GREGORY:  So, so raping of women is a crime in Afghanistan and will be a crime?

MR. KARZAI:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  A crime in Afghanistan, because our religion is extremely, extremely difficult on that.

MR. GREGORY:  So this particular area, the, the ability to rape your wife is something that will be repealed.

MR. KARZAI:  Rape has, rape has...

MR. GREGORY:  Is that--are you saying that unequivocally?

MR. KARZAI:  It is not, it is not in the law.  This--it's not in these very sharp words that are described in the Western media.  Even if it is milder than that, it is wrong and it will be repealed, it will be removed and the amendment will be made in this law.  So the Afghan people don't want that and the Afghan people are sensitive about it.  I assure you that has been done.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MR. KARZAI:  It's something that really embarrassed us when it came out.  We are a lot more aware a nation, a lot more culturally good nation than sometimes we are seen in, in, in the rest of the world.

MR. GREGORY:  So in democratic Afghanistan it is illegal for a man to rape his wife?

MR. KARZAI:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  Like hell.  Sure.

MR. GREGORY:  All right, Mr. President, thank you very much.  Good luck with your important work.

MR. KARZAI:  Thank you.

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.

The Summit: Obama Fiddles, Afghanistan and Pakistan Burn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Afghanistan Civilian Deaths: US Military Un-Apologises

Related Post: Obama Fiddles, Afghanistan and Pakistan Burn

Al Jazeera's headline this morning cleverly uses scare quotes: "US Military 'Confirms' Afghan Deaths".

The raised eyebrows over "confirm" are justified, however. While "a senior military official" told the press, in advance of a formal briefing on Friday, that, yes, US airstrikes had killed civilians, he was quick to shift responsibility.

According to CNN, the official said that the "buildings and compounds" hit by the U.S. had been "identified as areas from which insurgent fighters were firing on Afghan and coalition forces". The insurgents were holding residents in those buildings "as a means of causing civilian casualties". And, just for good measure and a good headline, he added that there was "separate intelligence that some civilians in a nearby area were killed with hand grenades by militants who then displayed the bodies".

Never mind that there was no evidence, in eyewitness accounts and from the International Committee of the Red Cross, who had officials on the scene, that the dead civilians were human shields. Never mind that tribal elders who contacted the ICRC made no reference to civilians held by insurgents in the bombed buildings, as they asked for help to deal with casualties.

Forget the possibility that American officials could say what, at this point, is the likely scenario. In the battle between Afghan insurgents and the Afghan military, there was crossfire. That crossfire included US bombs. And crossfire is not always accurate or discriminate. In war, stuff happens.

No, the "collateral damage" --- not to the innocent but to the US military --- must be limited. So Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will say, with a straight face, ""We regret any, even one, Afghan...innocent civilian casualty." The US senior official will frame the "real" issue, "The question now for investigators, the official said, is how much information was available at the time of the strikes about the potential presence of civilians and whether those in charge should have known civilians might be in the vicinity."

And that will do until the next incident.