Transcript of the Interview
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CHARLIE ROSE: General David Petraeus is here. He is commander of the
United States Central Command overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He’s also engaged in a campaign against Al Qaeda in the 20 Middle Eastern
and Central Asian countries under his purview. In 2007 as the top
commander in Iraq he led the surge of forces that stabilized that country.
He is well known for his cerebral approach to military campaigns and
military ideas. His ideas about counterinsurgency have come to define how
America fights its wars today.
With thousands of U.S. Marines fighting in southern Afghanistan and
Iraqis heading to the voting booth this weekend, we’re pleased to have
General Petraeus at this table for a conversation about where we are in the
world in terms of the places that we are engaged and men and women who are
serving under his leadership. So, welcome.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Great to be with you, Charlie.
CHARLIE ROSE: Where are we today and what’s the significance of this
election?
DAVID PETRAEUS: The outcome of this election will define the
subsequent four years for a country that is of enormous geostrategic
importance, that has incredible natural energy blessings. And if it goes
well -- touch wood -- can be a stabilizing element in the Middle East
fabric. If it doesn’t, could cause some real problems.
CHARLIE ROSE: What could cause it not to go well?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, first of all, let’s talk about what "going
well" would be in my mind. I think because what ideally you would see a
government that is representative of the people, of all the people of Iraq.
And, of course, it’s a quite a mosaic, as you know, because it’s different
ethnic groups, different sectarian groups. And then one that is also
responsive to all those people.
And that can resolve these lingering ethno-sectarian challenges, some
of which are quite substantial, in a way that allows that country to
continue the progress that, indeed, I think it has made since the surge.
It’s indisputable, I think, that there has been enormous progress in
security terms, even with the periodic horrific attacks that we’ve seen,
and we saw one today in Baqubah, tragically. And we watched the threat
stream actually leading up to the elections.
But we think security forces will be able to secure this election.
You’ll have as a result of 7, March the new parliament, the new council of
representatives.
And then you’ll have the next election, in a sense. And that will be
the cobbling together of a coalition that will have to be made up of not
just Shi’a -- the majority sect -- but also Sunni, and not just Arab but
also Kurd.
There’s no way you can get the number of votes required to select that
next prime minister, president, speaker of the council of representatives,
and probably a package deal that includes some key ministers, without
getting a cross-ethnic, cross-sectarian coalition of votes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you believe that the majority Shi’a are prepared to
accept the Sunnis into government in some kind of working collaboration and
partnership?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes. Yes, yes. Again, I think that the majority
Shi’a elements recognize they have to do this. Again, they don’t want to
return to the days of sectarian violence that caused such problems, that
really tore the fabric of society in Iraq in late 2006 and into 2007. No
one, I don’t think, wants to see a return to that.
Certainly there is a lot of wrangling over power and influence and who
gets to do what. But, again, some of that is Iraqi politics. It’s Iraq-
racy, we say sometimes, to describe the form of democracy that is at play
there.
CHARLIE ROSE: But you knew people in the Awakening and you in fact
played a role in getting them engage against Al Qaeda and to join in an
effort. Have they been treated well, and have their expectations been met
by the majority government?
DAVID PETRAEUS: I think you’d say by and large. Certainly it’s a
mix. There are some that you would certainly go to who would say that they
have not been sufficiently accommodated. On the other hand there are
others that will absolutely say that they have been, I think.
But having said that, again, this is not resolved. This next
government is the one that’s going to have to deal with these lingering
issues of what is the real role of Sunnis, some 20 percent or so of the
population, in a country they used to run, of course, under Saddam. What’s
the role of the Kurds? Again, 17 percent, 18 whatever percent of the
population.
And so what is this power-sharing arrangement? How do you divvy up
the oil proceeds, for example? How do you make -- what laws, again, will
govern as we go forward?
And by and large the Iraqis have grappled with these issues and they
have been able to achieve progress in a whole host of different areas, but
clearly there’s much more progress that needs to be made for the Iraqi
people to realize the enormous potential that their country has.
CHARLIE ROSE: Tell us about the potential. Tell us about their
geopolitical significance.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, of course, they sit between, on the one hand,
the Shi’a Iranian theocracy are now almost more of what some pundits call a
thug-ocracy because of the police aspect of it now in the wake of the
problems after the hijacked election.
And then the Sunni Arab world, of course, to their west, they sit on
the two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. They sit on top of the
third-largest proven oil reserves in the world and they haven’t done any
exploration for a couple of decades, so it’s possible they could have
actually more than Iran and maybe even as much as Saudi Arabia.
They are currently producing about 2.5 million barrels of oil a day,
exporting around two or so. That could ramp up literally to ten million
barrels per day as a result of the very large contracts.
CHARLIE ROSE: Will it put them second place in terms of production at
some point if you look at the reserves?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Absolutely, yes. Again, the potential is enormous.
They also have natural gas, they have the most sulfur in the world. And
because of it being the land of the two rivers they have enormous
agricultural potential. It used to be the breadbasket of the Middle East.
And they have human capital. This is a population that in the past
has been reasonably well educated, is entrepreneurial, will go out and
they’re go-getters. So the potential is enormous. But it’s enormous only
if the people continue to work together. As we used to say, it’s OK to
shout, just don’t shoot.
CHARLIE ROSE: The United States is committed to leave in 2011, yes?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes. It is committed to leave. And certainly one of
the decisions that this government will make as a sovereign Iraqi
government with the background now of having the security agreement with
the United States that we have honored every step of the way, and we’re
now, of course, headed from 96,000 on the ground down to about 50,000 by
the end of August.
And a mission change. The important change in August is that we will
change our mission officially. We will go into the advise-and-assist mode
rather than the combat mode, if you will, or the conduct of independent
operation, which, truthfully, we’ve been ramping down anyway. We’ve long
since gone to an arrest warrant-based system of actions, and so forth.
So that won’t be a huge shift, but it symbolically is a very, very
important shift.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is that departure in any way predicated on conditions
on the ground?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, we think the conditions will allow that, and
that is the bottom line.
CHARLIE ROSE: And if they don’t?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, we’re not yet -- again, that’s one of these
hypotheticals that we’re not going to go down the road of right now.
Obviously we get paid to think the what-ifs. But our what-if right now is
generally that we think that this is doable. We think it’s prudent, and
this policy has worked all the way along to this point.
There’s 700,000 or so Iraqi security force members at this point in
time. They generally have been securing the country. Again, this is a
country where the level of violence during, say, the late spring of 2007
was over 220 attacks per day. And that has been down below 20 almost all
of the periods since the last six months or so. In fact, below that in
some of the period of that time.
Yes, there have been periodic horrific attacks. Yes, there’s still Al
Qaeda in Iraq, there’s still Shi’a militia extremist elements, some of
those, again, supported by Iran. Yes, there’s always kinds of political
high drama and so forth.
But, yes, Iraq has continued to move this forward. And, again --
touch wood -- that’s obviously what everyone hopes to see in the wake of
the elections.
CHARLIE ROSE: And what’s the influence of Iran?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Significant. And, again -- but that’s, again,
somewhat understandable as well. What Iraqi leaders will tell you is that
they have concerns about it being too significant, but they will also point
out it has limited features, to use Ambassador Crocker’s term, that if it’s
too intrusive there is pushback.
They will say they can manage that, just as they’re going to manage --
someone said earlier who was asking me whose camp will Iraq be in at the
end of this? And my answer was they’ll be in Iraq’s camp.
They will have a -- they have to have a relationship with their
neighbor to the east. It’s a vastly larger country. They have to have
relationships with their Arab neighbors to the west. They want everyone to
be investing in their country, trading with them.
CHARLIE ROSE: When people ask that question, they want to know
whether Iran will somehow -- because they’re both Shi’a majorities, whether
Iran will in some way dominate events in any way in Iraq.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, it’s instructive to look at the history. Iran
really didn’t want to see a security agreement between Iraq and the United
States. That agreement was consummated. The elections of January, 2009,
by and large the parties most associated with Iran did not do well.
Iran is known -- the Iraqi leaders have announced that Iran was trying
to push together all of the Shi’a political parties into one coalition, and
that has not happened.
So, again, there are limits to its influence, even though it is,
without question, very substantial. And Iraq wants there to be this
relationship because, of course, the Shi’a religious pilgrims from Iran
have been the force that has really revitalized the economies of Najaf,
Karbala, and Kadhimiya, these three holy sites, three holy shrines for
Shi’a Islam and also up into Samarra, very, very important to the economy,
even as it’s very important for them to have relationships with their Arab
neighbors.
But very important, I think, also to know Iraq does not want to be, if
you will, the 51st state of Iran. No way. And let’s remember the history
there. Nine years of war, very, very tough, trench warfare. And that
memory has not gone away.
Iraq is very conscious of its Arab identity, to contrast with the
Persian identity, speaks Arabic, not Farsi, and so forth.
CHARLIE ROSE: You have said that, among all the countries in your
command that you are responsible for American engagement with, it has
perhaps the best democracy? Say that to me the way you say it.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, actually, someone asked us one time, and now we
then have turned around and asked others, folks like you. OK, here’s the
region -- 20 countries from -- we’ve got --
CHARLIE ROSE: Saudi Arabia to Jordan to Yemen to Egypt.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Pakistan in the east -- Egypt in the west, Pakistan
in the east, Kazakhstan in the north, Yemen in the south. Which is the
most democratic?
CHARLIE ROSE: Your answer is?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Arguably, arguably.
(LAUGHTER)
I mean, there’s some other contenders. There’s some that might say
Lebanon, but it’s got somewhat unique democracy, as you know, given the
system.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Pakistan certainly had elections.
CHARLIE ROSE: And given --
DAVID PETRAEUS: And then so, again, we’ll see how elections go on the
7th of March.
CHARLIE ROSE: OK, I hear that case. The lessons for Iraq that are
applicable to Afghanistan today are what?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, there’s a host of those.
And, actually, why don’t I try to paint the context, if you will, of
what we’ve tried to do in Afghanistan over the course of the last year,
because, indeed, we took what we learned in Iraq, and then we looked at
Afghanistan and said, gosh, you know, we know that we need these
organizations to carry out a comprehensive civil-military campaign plan in
Iraq, but we don’t have all of them in Afghanistan.
So we set about building the additional organizations and operational
level headquarters, information operations task force, reintegration,
reconciliation, and a host of others.
And then we obviously -- the secretary and others ensured that we had
the all-star team, General McChrystal on down in those positions, and now,
for example, the new U.N. special representative, Secretary General
Staffan de Mistura in Iraq, now he’s going to be in Afghanistan.
And, again, by the way, quite a few folks that did participate in this
effort. The individual who stood up the information operations task force
in Iraq, his reward is that he is now doing in the Afghanistan.
CHARLIE ROSE: But I remember President Obama said to General
McChrystal "I want you to have everything you want in terms of personnel,
in terms of -- not numbers of troops, but in terms of the best people in
the military to assist you in this effort."
DAVID PETRAEUS: And he has taken him at his word.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID PETRAEUS: Including picking people from the CentCom staff, the
joint staff, wherever they are. And we have willingly provided all this.
CHARLIE ROSE: So he got the --
DAVID PETRAEUS: He got the all-star team.
CHARLIE ROSE: The all-star team.
DAVID PETRAEUS: And that all-star team and with all the rest of us
has developed the concepts or refined the concepts of civil military
campaign, counterinsurgency guidance, a tactical directive to reduce
innocent civilian life lost in operations, all the rest of these,
reintegration guidance, and so on.
And then we have the final piece of that, and this, is of course, the
resources. And the final elements of that announced in the president’s
speech at West Point in early December. That’s the additional 30,000
military forces, a tripling of the civilian component of the effort, the
additional resources that enable adding 100,000 more Afghan national
security forces over the course of the next 20 months, and so forth.
So this is, in a sense, getting the inputs right for Afghanistan. And
now you’re seeing the initial output. And that is the initial operation of
a 12 to 18-month campaign plan that General McChrystal and his team have
sketched out together with the civil military effort, and that is the
operation in Marjah -- actually, in central Helmand because it’s a bit
larger than Marjah itself.
CHARLIE ROSE: Marjah is just the beginning.
DAVID PETRAEUS: It is. It is. So that’s the initial operation of
this campaign plan. That’s the first output, if you will, and still in the
very early stages. It’s still just a couple of weeks into it. And this
will stretch out, as I said, over the next 18 months or so.
And, of course, at the end of that we’re looking at that date that the
president announced as the point at which we begin --
CHARLIE ROSE: Begin?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Begin a conditions-based transition of some tasks to
Afghan security forces and begin this responsible drawdown.
CHARLIE ROSE: Why was it necessary to set a date?
DAVID PETRAEUS: I think the president was trying to convey two
messages, and I think they were equally important.
One is a message of substantially increased commitment. This is the
additional forces, civilians, money, and so on. And then there is also a
message of urgency. And I think that was important to send. That was not
just a domestic political audience device.
CHARLIE ROSE: It was an audience in Kabul.
DAVID PETRAEUS: This was an audience in Kabul. This was an audience
in some other areas that we’ve got to get on with this. It might be an
audience in uniform, that we’ve got get on with this.
And, in fact, as you know, it was published that there was a point in
time in the Situation Room toward the end of that when he looked down and
said "Dave, can’t we get these forces there quicker?" And we said "Yes,
sir, we’ll get them in there by the end of August." And we’re on track to
do that. We’re about 4,700 of that 30,000 additional force that he’s
directed there is on the ground.
CHARLIE ROSE: So you were able to get the people there that you need
to get there on a schedule that, a, you might not have expected beforehand
but is definitely able -- you’re able to do it now.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes, yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you will have facilities for them. All the kinds
of support --
DAVID PETRAEUS: And that’s the challenge. We’re using about every
wide body aircraft in the fleet, although there was actually some excess,
again, to be used for Haiti and some other operations.
But we’re really committing the logistical -- we call it "logistics
nation." I can tell you that logistics nation is really working this very,
very hard, because we went back and said, OK, what’s the critical path
here? What can you do to get this one moving faster? What about the
absorption rate? What about the routes in?
As you know, we now have a northern distribution network that goes
into Afghanistan. We don’t just bring forces through the Khyber pass and
through Quetta. We have this very substantial northern distribution
network down which we think 30 percent of the supplies and so forth will
enter Afghanistan over time.
CHARLIE ROSE: What happened during the review that convinced the
president to make the decisions that he did? Give us a sense not so much
inside the president’s mind, but that as well. What conclusions did most
people sitting at the table come to?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, I think, first of all, it was a very productive
process. And at the time it was, oh, gosh this is taking a long time. I
thought this was terrific, actually. I mean, this is a process where the
president himself -- and I think it was nine or ten engagements, some of
which were over two hours long, one I think approached three hours. That’s
a huge investment of time.
The result was, though, everyone really having a common understanding
of what the objectives were after really batting around these objectives
and asking are we asking something that’s beyond realization. Are we
really trying to create Switzerland in Afghanistan, this kind of thing.
So there was a refinement of objectives, there was a common
understanding of how best to achieve that. And I think at the end of the
day the president was convinced that the best way to achieve that was this
comprehensive civil military campaign plan that was laid out and that
required those additional resources.
CHARLIE ROSE: Before that he had to be convinced of two things.
Number one, that whatever the goal was, it was achievable, and secondly, it
was something that was in the American national interest sufficient to put
American men and women at risk.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes. Well, let’s never forget why we’re there.
CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly. That’s the question.
DAVID PETRAEUS: It is important to recall- and this was recalled a
number of different times.
If you will, the core objective in Afghanistan is to make sure that
that country does not once again become a sanctuary or safe haven for Al
Qaeda or other transnational extremists. Realizing that those 9/11 attacks
were planned in Kandahar, the initial turning of the attackers was in
eastern Afghanistan training camps before they moved to Germany and then on
to U.S. flight schools.
And that is, again, what shape this is whole context in which the
decision was made.
And then you have to come to grips with, OK, how do you prevent that
from happening? And that was what a lot of the debate was about. How do
you keep Afghanistan from becoming a sanctuary again? And the answer
basically was --
CHARLIE ROSE: Stop the Taliban.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Stop the Taliban and you help develop a country.
Again, it’s not going to be a western industrialized democracy any
time soon. But it’s a country that can have a central government that then
ties into traditional local organizing structures and can, again, keep out
these extremist, which it didn’t really -- the population, there’s no love
lost, as I think you know, for the Taliban. The people don’t want the
clock turned back a couple of centuries.
CHARLIE ROSE: Then why have they been successful? Fear?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, they’ve been successful because they
reconnected over time, over the years. They reestablished their
infrastructure in Afghanistan. They did, indeed, employ fear. They
employed money. They’re tied into the illegal narcotics industry.
And you have people who in some cases also can get fed up with
government that is predatory or corrupt. And so you have that issue very
much present as well, and that -- President Karzai has I think, quite
forthrightly acknowledged the challenges, announced his anti-corruption
plan, and some others. And, of course, now it’s seeing the results that
take place.
CHARLIE ROSE: Take your measure of Karzai for us.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, let’s recall the circumstances again, that he
comes into this country, really quite a heroic story when you think that he
came in with a handful of special forces and some intelligence elements at
really enormous risk when they entered southern Afghanistan at that time.
At one time -- I mean, there was even a rumor that they’d been
attacked and so forth. And then by popular acclaim is, again, first in a
sense anointed if he will by all of the different leaders and different
elements and is elected, and so on.
Candidly, last year’s election was not the kind of legitimate --
legitimizing event that we had hoped it would be. I think it’s accurate to
describe that that was a disappointment.
CHARLIE ROSE: But more importantly, what about events since the
election in terms of the kind of people he’s associated himself with, the
people he’s chosen for his cabinet, and his own insistence on certain
levels of control?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, I think if you look at the cabinet net
appointees, that by and large those cabinet appointees that he has
nominated and have been approved by the lower house are actually solid
figures.
And, again, those that we had the most respect for, for what it’s
worth, actually in the whole first trench of that process by and large. So
we’ll have to see how this moves on. I was just there last week, had a
good meeting with him together.
CHARLIE ROSE: So you feel good about him, you feel --
DAVID PETRAEUS: Look, he has -- his interest is Afghan interests at
heart, which is understandable. We have interests. What we have to do is
try to get these interests to converge as much as possible.
CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly. That’s my question. Do we have the same
interest that he does? Does the United States have the same interest that
Afghanistan does?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, I think, as with any country in the world,
there will be some divergences. The question is in this case can there be
sufficient convergence? And I think answer is yes. But, again, it remains
to be seen.
We have worked very hard, actually, to in a sense recognize that he is
the commander-in-chief of his armed forces and of this effort.
CHARLIE ROSE: And a country that they don’t like central control.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, indeed. But, again, he can operate.
Again, this is not an effort to impose a central government on a
country that has not had anything like this. This is an effort to help him
establish the level of central government that then can connect with local
organizing structures, local Shura councils, tribal elders, mullahs and so
forth.
So I don’t think there’s a degree of unrealism about that by any
means. You know, a dispute resolution doesn’t have to be tied to the
central court or their element, the Supreme Court. It can be traditional
local resolution mechanisms. At a certain point it will tie in. That’s
the key, I think.
By the way, for what it’s worth, there were some similarities with
that in Iraq as well. We worked initially with the tribal elements. We
got the tribal awakening, supported it. It began moving, and then we
figured out, OK, how are we going to get this to tie into the central
government.
CHARLIE ROSE: We’re prepared to negotiate with the Taliban? We’re
prepared to try to bring some of them on board? We’re prepared to pay them
to come to our side?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, there are two elements here. And we have to be
clear which they are.
CHARLIE ROSE: An idea you’re familiar with.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID PETRAEUS: I am. Money is ammunition at certain points in a
fight.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, I know.
DAVID PETRAEUS: There is "reconciliation" is the term for what the
Afghan government may do at some point with the highest level of Taliban
leadership.
CHARLIE ROSE: He is on record of saying that he and Mullah Omar are
both Afghans and that he would --
DAVID PETRAEUS: And he has conditions for doing that. And those are
not exactly conditions that converge in any way or shape with those that
Mullah Omar has announced.
So again that’s something that that is out there at a certain point,
perhaps, but that’s for the Afghan government to determine. It is not
something, I don’t think, that’s coming soon to a theater near us because
the pressure is not sufficient on the Taliban at this point in time to lead
them to do that.
But there’s another very important component, and that’s reintegration
of more local reconcilables. And that has actually been ongoing.
It’s been small numbers so far, although there has been a tribal
element in the regional command east area, the Shinwari tribe, that’s been
quite important, where that tribe has come together and said we want to get
rid of the Taliban, will you help us? And, oh, by the way, will you help
with us some reconstruction and some development in our area if we are able
to do that? And that has actually taken place.
We’ll see now how deep the roots go down, see what happens as the
going gets tough in the spring fighting season.
CHARLIE ROSE: One thing the president said that we’re not engaged in
nation building. On the other hand, the kinds of things we are doing are
trying to create a relationship and build up the civil society in
Afghanistan. Am I right or wrong?
DAVID PETRAEUS: I think what the president’s tried to convey is that,
again, we’re not trying to turn Afghanistan into Switzerland.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, or create a western-style democracy.
DAVID PETRAEUS: That’s right. He is absolutely aware of what he is
that we need do in the civil-military campaign, which obviously includes a
whole hosts of tasks beyond the security arena.
CHARLIE ROSE: And that was not new, because that’s a tentative
counterinsurgency.
DAVID PETRAEUS: It certainly is.
CHARLIE ROSE: That you defined and wrote about.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Absolutely, and which we had to practice in Iraq.
People have asked me, what were the strategic decisions you made the
Iraq? I said if you go all the way back to when I was a division commander
there, in the spring of 2003 I gathered all of our different commanders,
battalion brigade commanders, and said "Hey, fellas, we’re going to have do
some nation building,"
Because we’d sat in Kuwait. We were told, hey, guys, all you military
guys need do is get us to Baghdad and we’ll take it from there. And it
obviously didn’t quite turn out that way.
CHARLIE ROSE: Talk about the element of trust that’s necessary to
build with the Afghan people in order to be successful.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes, it’s a hugely important element, and that is why
General McChrystal has been so firm in trying to reduce loss of innocence.
CHARLIE ROSE: Civilian casualties from drones or whatever they might
be.
DAVID PETRAEUS: By the way, drone missile generally don’t result in
significant loss of innocent civilians.
CHARLIE ROSE: It’s not drones so much?
DAVID PETRAEUS: It is close air support, it’s big bombs.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
DAVID PETRAEUS: It is sometimes attack helicopters. It’s indirect
fire in various forms, multiple launch rocket systems and so forth. It’s
big ordnance. And we will drop big ordnance if necessary to ensure that
our soldiers don’t lose their lives.
But there are circumstances on occasion where we -- last spring, for
example, we had a great tactical victory. We killed several dozen Taliban.
OK, but we also killed a number of civilians. So what you have is a
tactical success that is a strategic setback. And you can’t have too many
of those.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because the Taliban will use that as a recruiting
thing?
DAVID PETRAEUS: The will. And the Afghan people will come to say
what is this all about? And, of course, President Karzai I think rightly
would raise those issues when they took place as well.
Now we’re in a situation we have been some of the recent incidents
that did take place during the Marjah offensive and some other operations.
But we’re in a position where the Taliban has caused vastly more civilian
deaths than have ISAF forces. And we’re going to hang that around their
neck over time, just as we were able to hang that around the neck of Al
Qaeda in Iraq.
CHARLIE ROSE: Also the success depends on not only the trust of the
Afghan people but also the Afghan police and the Afghan army.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Exactly.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is that happening? We’ve got a lot of good people over
there reporting from the ground, like Dexter Filkins of the "New York
times" and others, people you know.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: What’s the result? What do we know so far about the
goal?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, first of all, now, one of the initiatives, one
of these concepts, again, that was developed as part of getting the inputs
right was a considerably greater emphasis on partnering -- first of all on
training as well, and just to get the numbers of trainers that are
necessary, which we did not have, so that the basic training and then other
training courses are adequate, and then to partner with those forces that
are in the feel.
We didn’t have anywhere near the overlay. I mean we took an entire
brigade from the great 82nd airborne, for example, and regional command
south, and essentially broke it up to partner with all these different
elements out there.
That is beginning to build greater trust and confidence. But there
are certainly still issues out there.
And, again, with the local police in particular who are the most
vulnerable an insurgency, because they live in the neighborhood and their
families are susceptible to being murdered, intimidated, kidnapped, again,
you’ve got to get the level of violence down to a certain point so that
they can literally perform their job and survive.
CHARLIE ROSE: What’s interesting about what’s going on over there too
is Marjah you basically have cleared and you’re holding over a short period
of time so far.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes, it’s just a couple of weeks so far.
CHARLIE ROSE: But that’s going well?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes, it has been deliberate and methodical, and it’s
on track.
CHARLIE ROSE: That’s my question.
And you have announced that you’re going to over the next couple
months, and certainly perhaps by the end of this year, go to Kandahar.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Which is a big -- Kandahar is a huge target.
DAVID PETRAEUS: It is. Now, this will not be a clearance operation
like Marjah, though, where you don’t have in Kandahar what we had in
Marjah. Marjah was an enemy stronghold.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
DAVID PETRAEUS: It had all kinds of infrastructure, defensive
fortifications. The illegal narcotics industry was heavily developed in
there, lots of different labs of drugs, explosives, all the rest of this.
And by taking that away from the enemy -- even though some of them got
away because they knew we were coming -- but there’s a reason. We didn’t
want to destroy Marjah to save it. And if you end up in a big slugfest
then you will end up with enormous damage. You’ll have a huge number of
internally displaced persons, and that is not the objective if you are
trying first and foremost to secure the people.
Remember, again, that old saying that you don’t kill or capture your
way out of an industrial strength insurgency. It’s not to say you don’t
need do significant killing or capturing of prominent Taliban leaders and
others, and, indeed, we are ramping that aspect of the effort up as well
even as we are ramping up on the other end of the spectrum the
reintegration --
CHARLIE ROSE: That’s because you brought in special ops?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes. There are more of those --
CHARLIE ROSE: These are the people that General McChrystal was in
charge of in Iraq?
DAVID PETRAEUS: And also in Afghanistan.
CHARLIE ROSE: In Afghanistan.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes, throughout the theater. Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And they’re coming in and their job is to --
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, they’ve been in, but there’s an augmentation of
them.
CHARLIE ROSE: To find the Taliban leaders and kill them?
DAVID PETRAEUS: It is, yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And that’s going well?
DAVID PETRAEUS: You’ve read the newspapers lately.
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, I’m asking the general who’s in charge.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, it is. There’s been more progress in that
area.
And, you know, we’ve also worked very hard to improve the intelligence
capability and capacity, because, again, if you’re going to do, for
example, reintegration of local reconcilables, you have to figure out who
is actually reconcilable, and also, as importantly, who is irreconcilable,
because the irreconcilables at the end of the day will have to be killed,
captured, or run off.
CHARLIE ROSE: At the end of this year, in December, 2010, with only
six months to go before you begin the exit in six, seven months, tell me
what I should expect from you if I’m doing an interview at that time in
terms of the metrics that we measure whether this is going well.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, there should by then be an expansion of
security. So the number of districts that we would assess to have greater
security for the population should be increased, same for lines of
communication, same for the key border crossings on which there will be a
focus.
So those are the areas, if you will, in terms of the military effort
or the ground. Then also, of course, increase in the size and capability
and quality of the Afghan National Security Forces over time, and then also
progress in the local governance in those areas that have enjoyed greater
security.
CHARLIE ROSE: What’s the great risk here?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, I think the long pole in the tent here, and I
think almost always is the case in a counterinsurgency effort, is the host
nation ability to find the leaders who can be the battalion commanders, the
brigade commanders, the district governors, the local police chiefs, the
members of governmental structures that are all the way from Kabul out to
the province and district.
And this is particularly challenging in a country that has a 70
percent or more illiteracy rate. So you have this challenge of police who
can’t read the laws that they’re enforcing. You have soldiers who can’t
read the manuals, and so forth. And you have so you have --
CHARLIE ROSE: But the United States is carrying the brunt of the
attack.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, over time we want, obviously, to transition
this so that the Afghans are.
CHARLIE ROSE: But if you look at where we are today the Marines are
carrying the brunt of the attack, even though they’re accompanied by
Afghans.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes. But I would say again it is different because
there are far more Afghans accompanying the Marines in this. It’s not
quite the one-to-one that was the goal, but it is, oh, I don’t know one
Afghan to 1.2 or 1.3 American or Brits, because, again, the U.K. is very
much in this as well, and this is several large villages, cities, in this
which this central Helmand operation has been conducted, not just Marjah
where the Marines are but some others. And the British have played a very
big role in this as well.
CHARLIE ROSE: Pakistan -- what do you need to happen in Pakistan to
make this successful? And without it, it puts the results in jeopardy?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, let’s visit what’s happened in Pakistan and put
that in context, because it’s very important to note what’s taken place
over the last ten months.
It was about 10 months ago that the population in Pakistan, all the
people just about, the political leadership, including the opposition
figures and others and the clerics all recognized the threat posed by the
Pakistani Taliban to the very writ of governance, really to the very
existence of Pakistan as they knew it.
The Taliban had taken control of Swat valley in the northwest frontier
province. They were extending further and further out. And the people
looked that the and they looked at the pictures of the Taliban whipping
people and sawing heads off and so forth and said we don’t want to turn the
clock back several centuries or go back to the Middle Ages. We want to
continue to progress.
CHARLIE ROSE: Even though the ISI it’s said always had a very strong
relationship with the Taliban and view the Taliban in Afghanistan as a kind
of -- somehow a relationship.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, we funded it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Let’s go back to the days of the Soviets in
Afghanistan.
CHARLIE ROSE: The Mujahideen and all of that.
DAVID PETRAEUS: We funded the development of what became over time
certain elements of the Taliban.
But what I’m talking about right now are the elements in Pakistan.
Again, there are two different Talibans. There’s the Pakistani Taliban and
the Afghan Taliban. And although there are very close relationships,
they’re somewhat distinct in terms of what they were doing in Pakistan.
And the threat posed to Pakistan, to the very existence of the state
that came to be seen as the most pressing threat, even eclipsing the
traditional threat posed by India, always still out there certainly, but
was the Pakistani Taliban threat.
And so the army now with the support of the people, political leaders
and clerics, conducted very impressive operations in Swat valley. In fact,
last week I was in both lower Swat and upper Swat, and what they did again
was quite impressive counterinsurgency operations.
They cleared the area. They did the same thing in the other districts
of the Malikan division of the northwest frontier province. They’ve
subsequently done in the Bijur (ph) of the federally administered tribal
areas, eastern south Waziristan, and they’re working on --
CHARLIE ROSE: But are they prepared to go to north Waziristan?
DAVID PETRAEUS: They have been to north Waziristan. There’s a little
bit of popular misconception that they have not conducted operations. They
have conducted operations and they’ve continued.
Now, they haven’t done a clearance operation. They’re not going to do
what they call -- they have explicitly ruled out a steamroller operation,
and certainly they can’t do it until they consolidate some of the gains.
They’ve done a lot. They’ve taken significant losses frankly, the military
and the civilian population, too. And what they do to do is do some
transition.
Remember, it’s clear, hold, build, transfer.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
DAVID PETRAEUS: And they need to do some transfer. They’re working
on that. In fact, the police in Swat valley have come back to life,
they’re beginning. They’ll thin out. They’re not just going to all go
home. But the military, we saw the training going on up there in the upper
Swat valley for example in a foot and a half of snow.
CHARLIE ROSE: So the bottom line is you are satisfied with the
Pakistani effort and the Pakistani cooperation and the Pakistani effort to
wipe out the Taliban in Pakistan?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, I wouldn’t allow you to put words in my mouth.
What I would say is that Pakistan has made significant progress in its
fight against extremists threatening its existence.
And there is growing a growing recognition that the other extremist
elements, also in the federally administered tribal areas, have a symbiotic
relationship with the tribal areas threatening them, and over time they are
dealing with them as well.
But, again, look, we have a checkered past with Pakistan, and we need
to be up front about it and recognize it. We’ve walked away from that
country three different times, including after Charlie Wilson’s war, after
we established the Mujahideen. Our money, Saudi money, others joined
together, helped the ISI, indeed, form these elements which then went in
and through the Soviets out of Afghanistan with our weaponry, and then we
left, and they were holding the bag.
And so we have to continue to build the trust, the confidence that
we’re going to be a constant partner. Kerry Lugar helps. That’s $1.5
billion for each of the next five years. That’s a significant billion to
Pakistan, the $1.5 billion or so that we provide in foreign military
financing and coalition support funding and so forth.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do we have the same interest in Afghanistan that
Pakistan has?
DAVID PETRAEUS: We have a significant interest in Afghanistan in not
allowing Al Qaeda to reestablish safe havens. Pakistan has that same
interest.
But it also has an interest that is somewhat different than ours, and
this is their strategic depth and always has been for a country that’s very
narrow and has its historic enemy to its east.
So, again, we have to appreciate this. This is not unique, of course,
just to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and throughout the world we have
interest, they have interest. What we want to do is find the conversion
interest, understand where they are divergent, and try to make progress
together.
CHARLIE ROSE: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was captured in Pakistan.
DAVID PETRAEUS: As have several others.
CHARLIE ROSE: And killed, too.
DAVID PETRAEUS: In Afghanistan as well, as Vice President Joe Biden
announced the other day, in fact well over 10, 12 or so, as he said, his
words, senior extremist leaders killed in the federally administered tribal
areas.
CHARLIE ROSE: But here you have a man who was one of the -- was right
below Mullah Omar, Baradar. Have we interrogated him?
DAVID PETRAEUS: We’re not going to talk about intelligence
operations, I’m afraid.
CHARLIE ROSE: All right, because the Afghans have asked him to be and
I guess the United States have asked him to be sent to Afghanistan.
DAVID PETRAEUS: We have not.
CHARLIE ROSE: The Afghans have?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Again, trying to understand what’s going on in the
press and reality.
(LAUGHTER)
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
DAVID PETRAEUS: There has been, I think, at least a semiofficial if
not an official request by the minister of interior of the Afghanistan to
the minister of the interior of Pakistan.
CHARLIE ROSE: There is some speculation that somehow he may be used
in a way that will -- in terms of negotiating with other Taliban. Does
that have any resonance with you?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, as I mentioned earlier, the high-level
reconciliation piece I think is something that is going to take at least
months if not longer to develop. So we’ll see how that moves along. But
the fact he’s a very senior figure, very senior, and he is not in
circulation anymore.
CHARLIE ROSE: And evidently from what I read from the press perhaps
they got considerable intelligence from him, because they didn’t announce
the fact that they had him until he was in custody for several days.
DAVID PETRAEUS: As that great BBC show "House of Cards," the villain
used to say "You might say that, and I couldn’t possibly comment."
(LAUGHTER)
CHARLIE ROSE: All right. Well, I’ll assume that’s a yes.
But let me turn to Iran in the time that we have left, because I want
to talk about leadership at the end. Where are we with respect to Iran?
DAVID PETRAEUS: First of all, where we are is the international
community writ large, not just the United States. The whole international
community is transitioning to what the president has termed the "pressure
track," if you will.
CHARLIE ROSE: But not including China?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Spent a year -- well, again, we’ll see how this
evolves. There’s a lot of diplomacy ongoing, needless to say, some of it
undoubtedly right here in River City, the U.N. headquarters.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes.
DAVID PETRAEUS: But, again, that is proceeding.
This past year, of course, the United States and all the countries
engaged gave Iran every opportunity through diplomacy, extended the so-
called open hand, did have some talks, and, frankly, did not achieve
resolution of the differences and the very clear concerns that the IAEA
among others have expressed about the nuclear program and some other
Iranian activities as well, but the nuclear program being the primary
focus.
I think it is fair to argue, I think analysts will argue whether or
not there has been the final decision made by the Supreme Leader to develop
a nuclear weapon in Iran. But the fact is that’s not material yet, because
I think in general the components of that program have moved forward.
Now, they’ve not moved forward as fast as various times, they have
difficulties. They’ve got an old centrifuge. They’ve got all kinds of
issues there. But the IAEA has expressed serious reservations about some
of those activities and has expressed the international community --
CHARLIE ROSE: And the fact that they’ve been misled.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Yes, yes, in some cases, that’s right.
CHARLIE ROSE: So what do you make of the fact that they brought these
enriched fuel from underground to above ground?
DAVID PETRAEUS: It’s hard to say. I’m not sure what that signifies
frankly, very difficult.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because some people say it’s a signal to the Israelis,
"here it is."
DAVID PETRAEUS: You might say that.
(LAUGHTER)
I don’t think so.
CHARLIE ROSE: You don’t think that’s it?
DAVID PETRAEUS: I don’t know what the explanation is.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you think sanctions will work?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, this clearly has to be what everyone embarks on
trying to do.
Indeed, the concerns about what could happen in the region if you have
a nuclear-armed Iran, what that might result in in terms of proliferation
with other countries, how the relationships would change and so forth,
that’s serious stuff.
And we along with the international community owes it to the world to
do everything possible to show the seriousness of that concern so that Iran
takes a knee for a while in this effort and allows, again, normal
relationships to resume.
CHARLIE ROSE: That brings me to Yemen. So why have you been going to
Yemen so much?
DAVID PETRAEUS: For about two-and-a-half years, I’ve watched Yemen,
first from a position as a commander in Iraq, because we were trying to
find without are the foreign fighters coming from, where are the
facilitators of the effort that enables these extremists to move ultimately
to Damascus and then into Iraq?
At one time there were as many as 120 foreign fighters coming into
Iraq per month. That’s more recently been down under 10 from as a result
of the whole variety of different actions.
But Yemen came to live more and more prominently, especially as Saudi
Arabia really quite decisively defeated Al Qaeda on its homeland as the
other Gulf states did well, as we started making progress against Al Qaeda
in Iraq, and as more pressure was brought on Al Qaeda in the federally
administered tribal areas.
And so they had a situation there. It’s a rugged terrain, it’s tribal
in nature. It’s got a lot of remote locations, and it had individuals that
escaped from jail there in 2006, some of whom were Gitmo detainees, and who
reestablished Al Qaeda in Yemen, and then last year they were franchised,
if you will, by Al Qaeda senior leadership as Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
DAVID PETRAEUS: So we’ve been concerned about that for quite some
time. I went there first in late 2008, not long after becoming the central
command commander, again given that focus that we had. Again in 2009 in
the summer, which is where we were able to get a combined way forward on
this to help our Yemeni partners, particularly their special operations
forces, counterterrorist unit and others.
And so that when mid-December came around and we sue these threat
streams. They saw it, we saw it, there’s sharing again going on, that
those attacks could take place that took down two training camps, three or
four suicide bombers, the fourth one captured by Yemeni senior leaders and
some others, and operations have continued since then.
Obviously it did not disrupt Abdulmutallab, the would be Detroit
bomber who had left the country by that time, gone back to Africa, made two
stops there before going to London and flying to Detroit.
But that’s the situation there. It remains a significant concern as
do developments in Somalia, by the way, and some other places as well.
CHARLIE ROSE: Which suggests that Al Qaeda has metastasized too?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, what you have to do is keep the pressure on Al
Qaeda wherever it is, because I think in general we access that Al Qaeda
has been diminished over the course of the past year in the central command
area of responsibility, but clearly that it’s still is a very, very viable
enemy even in Iraq, diminished, but still able to carry out horrific
attacks on a periodic basis, still able to carry out a variety of different
violent activities, and some financing there as well.
So you’ve got to keep the pressure on wherever they are. And that’s,
indeed, what we’re endeavoring to do.
CHARLIE ROSE: Does the new attitude of the Pakistanis make more
likely the capture or killing of Usama bin Laden?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, what would make that more likely is some hard
intelligence. And I think it’s very well known that we haven’t had hard
intelligence on Usama bin Laden not just in month but in years.
CHARLIE ROSE: No hard intelligence from anywhere?
DAVID PETRAEUS: No. This is an individual --
CHARLIE ROSE: What does that say to you?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, it says that he has extraordinary operational
security, that he’s gone real deep, if you will, in terms of hiding from
the rest of mankind, basically, in very remote locations, presumably. And
that’s why it takes him four weeks or more just to get a simple message out
in the wake of the would be Detroit attack.
CHARLIE ROSE: Even there are some people who think he’s in some
Pakistani city.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Even though there are -- well, I don’t think so.
But, again, we don’t have hard intelligence, so, again, this is
speculation.
CHARLIE ROSE: You talk about, one, big ideas. You talk about
communication. And you talk about implementation.
DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, again, the job of a strategic leader in
particular, but I would argue any leader at any level whatsoever is to try
to get the big ideas right, to then communicate those ideas effectively to
the subordinate leaders and indeed throughout the breadth and depth of
one’s organization, then to oversee their implementation.
And then also another step, which would be to capture lessons that
need to be learned, best practices and also worst practices. And then
through the process of refining the big ideas, communicating the changes,
overseeing implementation of the refinements. You have this continuous
process ongoing.
This is why we say that the surge in Iraq, the real surge in Iraq, was
a surge of ideas, big ideas about counterinsurgency, about securing the
population by living with it, by living our values, being first with the
truth, promoting reconciliation, certainly going after the bad guys and all
of the rest of this.
But that was as important, probably more important than actually the
surge of forces, because the surge of forces enabled us to carry out those
big -- the surge of ideas without which, I think, we would not have
achieved with our Iraqi and coalition partners what was achieved, which is
at the very least a new sense of hope for the Iraqi people as they approach
the 7, March elections.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you make the point that big ideas don’t fall off
trees.
DAVID PETRAEUS: They don’t. You know, you’d like to sit under the
right tree and have it hit you on the head like Newton’s apple.
(LAUGHTER)
