CNN "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript

Interview

CROWLEY: Joining me now, two members of the committee that will be holding confirmation hearings for General Petraeus this week, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

Thank you, gentlemen, both. I want to start with some of the questions posed in the opening. Senator Chambliss, first to you, one of the things that caught me in the now very famous Rolling Stone article was a quote it included from Major General Bill Mayville. He is the deputy chief of staff of operations. And he had this to say about Afghanistan: "it's not going to look like a win, smell like a win, or taste like a win. This is going to end in an argument," talking about the U.S. effort in Afghanistan.

When does the U.S. look at this and say, there is no -- this seems to me to be the prelude to, there is no way to win this in any satisfactory way, when is it time to say, we have done what we can, we're leaving?

CHAMBLISS: Well, Candy, this is not a conventional war. There are different geographical areas that we are fighting the war in. And there are political issues that are far and away the most difficult that we've encountered probably in any conflict we have ever been in.

And if we win militarily -- and I think the opportunity is there to do that, I think General McChrystal was moving us in that direction and Petraeus will. But then on the other side, and what I think is probably a more significant and more difficult issue is that you have the most corrupt government that we have ever dealt with from a conflict standpoint.

And until you provide some stability and some confidence in the Afghan people about the way forward from a governing standpoint, then I think that statement probably has some truth to it, that we could win militarily, and still have a very ugly victory.

CROWLEY: And still lose.

And, Senator Reed, isn't that the problem, is that we -- the military doesn't seem to be the problem. We can send them in, they can do their job. The fact of the matter is that the Karzai government in Afghanistan does not seem to be living up to its half of the bargain.

And I was struck this morning by an article which talked about Hamid Karzai discussing with the Taliban and with Pakistan about power-sharing in Afghanistan against the very people who, in Afghanistan, were U.S. allies to begin with.

This is so convoluted at this point, it does not seem that there is a way out.

REED: Well, the most challenging aspect of this whole strategy is the civilian diplomatic aspects. As you point out, the military aspects are pretty clear-cut. We're going in and we're already making success in terms of disrupting the Taliban very effectively. There will be more actions in the south. But the real key is the diplomatic and political capacity of the Afghanis.

CROWLEY: And is that something the military ought to be doing? I mean...

REED: It's something that we all have to do. There is a role, but there is a significant role for our American advisers, for Ambassador Eikenberry, for others there. There is also a role for AID. There is a role to build capacity in the Afghani government, not just military capacity, but governmental capacity, delivering services...

CROWLEY: But they're not -- they're not doing that. Let me turn to Senator Chambliss. I mean, certainly in Marjah, which I want to talk about later, the Afghan government's ability to get services to people has been fairly weak, if not nonexistent.

And what do you think about our diplomatic effort? One of the things that Republicans are beginning to say now is, it's also time for a change in the civilian leadership here. They talk about Ambassador Eikenberry. They talk about Ambassador Holbrooke, saying that the civilian half of this equation has not done well and it's time to clear house.

CHAMBLISS: Well, I think that ought to be looked at. Right now, General Petraeus comes in with his team of military leaders. They have got to work hand-in-hand with the civilian side. So I think it's an opportunity for the president to take a look at it. Ambassador Holbrooke has a very strong record that can be looked back on, but the fact is, I don't think he even talks to Karzai now. Should somebody who is in a strong leadership position have an ongoing dialogue with the president of the country? I would say yes. And apparently that's not the case right now.

CROWLEY: Senator Reed, what do you...

CHAMBLISS: So I do think...

CROWLEY: Go ahead.

CHAMBLISS: I do think there is the opportunity for the president to look at both the military side and the civilian side because they have to work hand-in-hand if we are ever going to come to some stable government in Afghanistan.

CROWLEY: And, Ambassador Eikenberry is on record as not thinking Karzai is up to it. So it's a little hard for them to have a relationship. Is it time for him to go? Is it time for anyone to go? Do you have faith in this team?

REED: Well, first of all, General Petraeus will get on the ground. And he has been very effective in pulling together in Iraq not only the American effort but also the effort of the host country. And I think he will be equally successful in Afghanistan.

I think everyone recognizes, both the civilian side and military side, that there has to be a unified effort, there has to be a concentration on assisting the Afghanis. But ultimately this is going to be the Afghanis' effort.

People ask the question, well, how do we know when we win? Well, we'll know the same way we know in Iraq. That the burden of the battle is being borne by the local forces, not by American and NATO forces. That we will be able to withdraw our forces, not immediately, but we will be able to withdraw them.

We will be able to focus on regional counter-terrorism, not country-specific counterinsurgency. That's when we know we will win, just like we had known we were winning in Iraq.

CROWLEY: To the specific question, is U.S. Ambassador Eikenberry -- in Afghanistan, in Kabul, is he the best person for this job given a nonexistent relationship with the president of the country that we need to step forward?

REED: Well, I have been with Ambassador Eikenberry in the presence of President Karzai, and they have a relationship. They have -- communicate. Sometimes the ambassador has to tell things to President Karzai that he doesn't want to listen to, that he doesn't want to do. A lot of this criticism that Karzai doesn't do this, that Karzai won't take action, there has to be someone there that tells him -- that suggests to him, he is a sovereign, but to suggests to him that his best course of action for his country are certain steps.

So we have to have, I think, someone there willing to be firm, not offensive, but firm to the government of Afghanistan.

CROWLEY: So you think he's the right man in place?

REED: I think they have got a team now in place that can get the job done. I think that they all retain the confidence of the president and now they have to work together.

CROWLEY: OK. When we return, inching toward success in Marjah.

CROWLEY: When General David Petraeus takes over command in Afghanistan, his first, most urgent problem may be what the ousted commander, General Stanley McChrystal, famously called "a bleeding ulcer," the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand province.

Marjah was supposed to be the showpiece of the clear, hold and build strategy. The idea was to use the military to clear out the Taliban and then win the hearts of the community with better government services and a workable local power structure. Four months into the Marjah operation, Time magazine offers the assessment of a company commander on the Taliban presence in Marjah: "It depends on what your metric is for 'clear.' They're obviously not gone, and they're not going to be gone."

According to a report in The Washington Post, there have been more U.S. military deaths in Marjah this month than in the first month of the operation. Taliban intimidation of civilians is rampant.

But Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently testified that the gloom-and-doom reports are premature, that the Marjah effort just needs more time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT M. GATES: The reality is that the military operations in Marjah were successful, and -- and a place that had been controlled by the Taliban is no longer -- for two years or more -- is no longer controlled by the Taliban. Getting the -- getting the civilian coalition and Afghan forces in there, the civilian officials building the development programs is moving forward, but it is moving slower than we originally anticipated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: We'll address that with Senators Reed and Chambliss when we return.

CROWLEY: We are back with Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

Senator Chambliss, to you, Leon Panetta at the CIA is now assessing the strength of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and has said that, in some ways, the Taliban is weaker and in some ways, it's stronger. This doesn't seem to me to be a recipe for success.

CHAMBLISS: Well, you have to remember, though, that, with the different regions of Afghanistan, some areas are stronger from a tribal standpoint than others, and where we have those strong tribal regions, then the Taliban has the ability to come in, in the middle of the night, and intimidate and threaten people, and in a lot of instances kill people to demand their loyalty.

In those areas, the people have been hesitant to get on board with the American effort, the NATO effort. But there are other regions where we have gained ground. Marjah is one where, militarily, I would have to agree with what Secretary Gates said. He's right on, that we've done well military, but then, when you look at the civilian side, there are issues. There are very difficult issues.

So I would say that Leon's statement is probably pretty well correct, that in the areas where we have really concentrated militarily, we've done well. But you have to give up something when you do that, and certain other areas, the Taliban probably has gained in strength because they've moved troops there.

CROWLEY: Well, then, it sounds to me, Senator Reid, a little bit like whack-a-mole; we're over here; we can push them back militarily, but they pop up some place else.

And again, there's not that kind of civilian reinforcement that moves -- that has yet to move into Marjah and be successful, at any rate. And now we're talking about, well, in -- you know, next year at this time, we'll be preparing to remove some U.S. troops. And a lot of people don't think that's realistic.

REED: Well, first, the Taliban was able to reconstitute itself principally in the south, in Helmand province and Kandahar. And they developed intricate networks of governance, and essentially they were the power. We are, along with the Afghani forces, trying to take back those two provinces. It's a tough fight. We understood that. And it's a very difficult fight.

CROWLEY: Well, we didn't know it would be this tough to do the whole operation.

REED: Oh, I think -- I think the assumption was, and very clearly, General McChrystal, at that time, and Admiral Mullen and Secretary Gates were saying this was going to be a very difficult summer; we're going into the -- the home ground, if you will, of the Taliban. They've had years to reconstitute themselves. They are supported from safe havens in Pakistan. They have been running these areas for years now, and the idea we're going to walk in and they're going to run away, I think, was never contemplated. This is a tough fight, unfortunately.

And then we have to bring in the key component. You're absolutely right, is it's the Afghanis' fight. They have to prevail. They have to be in force down there. Afghani recruitment and retention for the army and police are beginning to show real progress. But it takes a while to take those troops, train them, get them in the fight and have them effective.

CROWLEY: Well, and there -- the Afghan troops are, A, not as willing to put their lives on the line as the U.S. troops are, that they have -- there's a high incidence of drug use. I mean, we may be getting more of them, but they haven't been an effective fighting force.

REED: They have not yet been an effective fighting force. Again, we are -- we have tried several times over the last almost eight years to train an Afghani national army. It's been fits and starts. It's failed. It's been resurrected. Now we're once again focusing, with some of our very best people, General Caldwell, who's leading the effort for NATO (inaudible) the United States is trying to develop an Afghani fighting force that is going to be capable.

We saw some of the same problems in Iraq, where we had fits and starts there. But they started with a much higher level. They had a professional military force that was reasonably well trained. We're not starting with that kind of benchmark in Afghanistan.

CROWLEY: Senator Chambliss, one of the other things that Director Panetta said was that, right now, he figures there are 50 to 100 Al Qaida operatives in Afghanistan. The whole reason we went into Afghanistan was that that's where Al Qaida was. They were being, obviously, protected by the Taliban. But Al Qaida was there. We wanted to break the back of Al Qaida in Afghanistan because of what happened on 9/11.

Now they're down to 50 to 100 people and we're in there with 94,000 troops. You see how people might look at that and go, why are we still there? What do we owe Afghanistan at this point?

CHAMBLISS: Well, what Jack just described is exactly the case, from the standpoint of having a safe haven in Pakistan. Leon Panetta is exactly right. The number of Al Qaida is fairly minimal right now. But they go back and forth across the border. And they are providing tactical information to the Taliban. They are working hand in hand with them. And we see a lot of Al Qaida presence, but we don't necessarily see individuals. And by that I mean from a training standpoint, from an operations standpoint, from a weapons standpoint, you are seeing a lot of influence, but you don't necessarily see a lot of Al Qaida individuals there. However if we left today, Candy, Afghanistan would be the same training ground for Al Qaida that we saw in 2000, and leading up to 2001.

CHAMBLISS: So that's why it's important that we continue the fight and that we continue until we prevail with respect to the elimination of Afghanistan as a training ground for those who want to kill and harm Americans.

CROWLEY: Let me in the final minutes we have, and I think these are three very sort of short yes or no questions to both of you, and first to Senator Reed. Do you have faith that Hamid Karzai is up to getting his country together enough for us to be able to begin to leave? REED: He is the elected president, the Democratic elected president. He has to succeed and we have to help him. That burden is at this point I think unknown. But we can't change courses. We've got to make sure that he does the job he is elected to do.

CROWLEY: So we hope so. Number two, do you think U.S. troops will begin to withdraw by next year at this time?

REED: I do. The withdrawal being subject to the commanders on the ground. It will not represent a significant, I think, complete pullout of American forces, but it will be as we are doing in Iraq, beginning to lower our presence and letting them take the fight.

CROWLEY: And finally, is it important anymore that we track down Osama bin Laden, who according to Director Panetta, we haven't seen since the early 2000s?

REED: I think it's important to keep on the pressure on Al Qaida wherever they are.

CROWLEY: Senator Chambliss, the same to you, do you believe Hamid Karzai is up to the job we need him to do?

CHAMBLISS: I think he is very weak, but he is the best we've got and he has been elected by the Afghan people, and we have an obligation to recognize that and respect that and support him.

CROWLEY: So another maybe. And number two, do you think U.S. forces will begin to withdraw this time next year?

CHAMBLISS: I think it's a huge mistake to even put that deadline out there, because the enemy is watching and you can rest assured that they will be looking to see if we in fact intend to begin pulling out come July 1 of 2011. And if that remains a hard and firm date, then you better believe they will sit back and allow us to start pulling out and then hit us with their full force.

CROWLEY: And finally, how important is it to find Osama bin Laden?

CHAMBLISS: Certainly from a symbolic standpoint, it's important that we find him and take him out, but, gosh, we have about eliminated his ability to provide any kind of assistance to Al Qaida. We have taken out once again his number three in rank of Al Qaida, and he was the operations guy. Whoever comes in next, certainly you might want to buy a life insurance policy on him. But getting bin Laden, getting Zawahiri are important, but what we really need to make sure we do is take out those folks who are providing the operation leadership on the ground, and we are doing that.

CROWLEY: Senator Saxby Chambliss, thank you so much. Senator Jack Reed, thank you as well. I appreciate it.

When we come back, the first verse of our political "State of the Union."

Source