backwards for long distances while you are carrying and doing things and getting out of people's way, and a lot of these tv cables are behind you and you can fall down and people will reach down and catch you. in that respect i would say humanity is present. >> in capturing democracy, do you ever get frustrated by how your images or used? i think as being a photographer and shooting icons, do you ever get -- want to see the beverly hills and the homeless man's photograph more out there than, say the shot of the capitol? >> well, that's a great question. one way to answer it is, would john lennon be irritated in the way he has heard his songs to -- "imagine" to sell new cars.

and i would say this same. when i actually have statistical data of what image of mine is the biggest seller of them all, the absolute biggest, now that is a big seller but not the biggest seller. the biggest seller, is right to my right. it is the american flag in a blue sky. go figure, consequently, in -- when i published a catalogue of my images and we started putting little dots, like when you travel on a giant map, and you go, okay. this shot sold three times, this sold nine times, this sold 12, this sold 187 times, what is that shot? the american flag in a blue sky. now, you would think that anybody could take the shot, however if you work in new york it is a rainy day, you need a shot of the american flag in

five minutes, that's where i come in, because my shot is the perfect shot of the american flag. no tears, no wrinkles, just perfect, flowing in the wind. and on a larger basis, if you really think about it, for a guy that presumably loves america, and he wants to photograph democracy, in some ways it just seems right that my biggest selling shot would be an american flag. now i wouldn't tell a european that. [laughter]. >> well, thank you very much. i appreciate it. [applause]. >> joseph sohm's photos have been published over 50,000 times in "national geographic," "time," "the new york times," the "washington post," and others. for more information, visit visionsofamerica.com.

from politics and propose bookstore in -- prose, thomas ricks talks about his book "the gamble" which looks at the change in military strategy in iraq since 2006 and the people who were responsible for it. the event is 50 minutes. >> good evening. i am barbara meade, one of this owners here at policy licks and prose and this evening i want to welcome tom rick, who was last here three years ago to talk about his then best-seller, "fiasco" which at that time was praised as an interim report on the war in iraq. tom is currently a special military correspondent for the "washington post," having accepted one of those "washington post" bailouts that keep going on until there will be no people left there to work, but, when he was at the post, he was there for nine years, as

their senior pentagon correspondent and before that 17 years at the "wall street journal" on the same beat. he has been in this business for a long time. tim ridden, reviewing this in -- reviewing "the gamble" in "the l.a. times" excuse me -- described it as gripping, and brilliantly reported. a book of critical importance that makes an indispensable contribution to our grasp of contemporary relations between our governments, military and civilian authorities and to our understanding of the pentagon's leadership. tom said fiasco was an interim report but actually now his second book, years later, is another interim report. he, i'm quoting from him here. the quiet consensus emerging

among people -- many people, who have served in iraq is that we will likely have american soldiers engaged in combat in iraq until at least 2015. which would put is now at about the mid point of conflict. and he says for him that is the best case scenario. in other words, again quoting him, the events for hitch the iraq war will be remembered probably have not happened yesterday. so, after you finish reading "gamble" i urge everybody to go to tom's blog on foreign policy, a -- ricks.foreignpolicy.com and keep up with his take on what is going on in contemporary events, here's tom to talk. [applause].

>> thank you very much. it really is a pleasure to be back here, politics and prose, one of my favorite bookstores and to those of you who are no related to me, thank you for coming out tonight! since most of the people here seem to be related or from my neighborhood or something! i want to begin my asking one question, are there any veterans here tonight, of iraq and afghanistan? thank you very much for your service, it is appreciated. [applause]. >> i also wanted to pointed out my mother and my brother are here. and my sister in law and nephew. and i think many friends of my mother and my brother and my wife is somewhere, i think, if she has gotten here from the other reading she was at. i want to begin by talking about things that people don't understand about the war in iraq. in this country right now, there are several of them, i think

three important ones. first, how hard the surge was. the six most difficult months of fighting in the the war. second, the surge failed. it is not commonly understood in this country. and third, the war is far from over. and in fact i think we are probably only halfway through it if we are lucky. let me explain those. first, how tough the scourge ur and people forget or never understood those six months when they moved in additional troops and moved them out into the neighborhoods, involved fighting every day to move out to actually retake baghdad from conservatives, militias an criminals. and david petraeus in my last interview with him was talk about that spring of 2007 and said, i look back on the it as, quote a horrific nightmare. what he meant by that was that

in february of 2007, there were 70 americans killed in action. 71 in march. 96 in april. 120 in may. and the whole time, no sign of an improvement in security. the soldiers had to fight their way into neighborhoods, one unit encountered 50 bowmambs as they moved from the big base into the neighborhood and this was the essence to have the surge. not the addition of troops, that was a consequence, of what the surge was really about. the surge was about trying to protect iraqi civilians. for years, the top american priority in -- and mission had been transition to iraqi control. turn the ball over to iraqi security forces. army and police and under generals petraeus and odierno they changed the top priority and said protect iraqis and how do you do that? you cannot live on a big base,

if you are on a big base and patrol a neighborhood an hour a day, guess what, the insurgency controls the other 23 hours of the day and intimidates anybody who cooperates with you and tells you things but if you are there, 24/7, you begin to protect people, you begin to understand them, and gets a sense of what is right and normal and what is not. around long enough and you'll learn arabic and recognize trucks that are from somewhere else, or even the neighborhood will point them out to you. in one battle, tar mia, there were 38 troops in and out post and one day it was attacked. at the end of the battle, 31 americans were either killed or wounded. two killed, 29 wounded. and hey held the out post, why? because one of the rules given them was nef give up any -- never give up any ground, and

they were taking the neighborhoods and moving out after surfaced the allies and a generation of potential allies was lost this way, in iraq. mayors, police chiefs, sexy councilmoney and people who came forward were either killed or intimidated or fled. i want to read one thing tonight, the sections of the book about what i call, the hardest spent, the mutual out into the city of baghdad to retake it in the spring of '07. moving american schools soldiers from big bases into new posts located in vacant school house, factories and apartment buildings, in baghdad's neighborhoods, was the hardest step. essentially, u.s. forces were sallying out to launch a counter-offensive to retake the city and first days were surprisingly violent, an average of almost 180 tanks action -- attacks a day on u.s. forces and that was the battle of baghdad, petraeus said, looking back, it was very very, difficult, very

very, hard. and during february, 2007, baghdad suffered an average of more than one car bomb attack a day. and between late january and late february, at least 8 u.s. helicopters were shot down. in march, the second surge unit the 4th brigade of the first infantry division began operations in western baghdad. once one soldier told a reporter he didn't expect the new approach to work. it is getting worse and worse, he said, they don't respect us anymore. they spit at us. they flow rocks at us, it wasn't like that before. in some shiite neighborhoods, in coming units were greeted by stacked loudspeakers, blaring the giants of muqtada al-sadr's militia. and sunni neighborhoods that were ethnically cleansed, soldiers often found piles of executed bodies in vacant houses with blood smeared on the walls. this is how the operations officer for ba tall yep operating in southwest baghdad recalled that time to a

researcher for the official center for army lessons learned and when we first moved into the ao, area of operations, it was house-to-house clearing and fighting most of the way and took months before we could drive more than halfway north, through the mull hull las, the neighborhoods, without hitting multiple ieds and taking fire. the first task was simply, surviving. our first two weeks were tough, lieutenant carlysle, a platoon leader, later said, we had to clear every day and we got hit every day, and he is shot in the thigh and hit by shrapnel in the face and arm and when baker company moved into the dora neighborhood they were greeted with constant enemy small-arms fire and ieds an rocket-propelled grenades and other attacks surprisingly coordinated, said the lieutenant, a platoon leader and baker company began the time by spending three nights using shovels, screwdrivers and tire

irons to remove 18 deep buried bombs, bombs big enough to blow a vehicle into the air. and began with almost no information from the people of the area who felt abused by iraqi police operating there. indeed, baker later would ban the most abusive of the police, the national police, from entering the neighborhood. despite being attacked constantly, baker company, 125 men, began conducting patrols around the clock. trying to be precise on the use of force. shooting the right guy teaches the enemy and population evil has consequences, said the captain, and the corollary is a poor shot, one that hits an innocent person, at least collateral damage -- or leads to collateral damage is worse than not shooting at all an thufs a major change in the -- this was a major change in the u.s. approach. in how they thought and operated. there was was not any -- there was a humility and a willingness to listen in the way the americans operated. it really came out, partly,

because -- developed, partly, because in the spring of 2007, president bush turned the war of to internal military dis dental and critics of the war and one reason, having robert gates as defense secretary, having him stay on made sense, because, in 2007 the transition to obama started in iraq. the people who were put in control of the war, petraeus, for example, was -- wrote a manual on counterinsurgency that amounted to a scathing critique of how the u.s. military operated in iraq for four years. and the u.s. ambassador out there, ryan crocker, reveals in my book that he essentially opposed the invasion of iraq. one thing that brings home, how different the new team was, was three advisors they brought in, to help them out, all of them foreigners. the first was david kill call lynn, an australian infantry man and anthropologist, the crocodile dundee of counterinsurgency, and he was

good at analyzing how sunni violence differeded from shiite vice and how they required different responses, for example, sunni violence happened in the day and shiite violence happened at night. and sunni violence happened in public places and mosques and marketplaces and violence -- done by shiites happened at night, by death squads and places where sunnis slept and you had to think about them differently. and he went out and coached american battalion brigade commanders about this. and second person was saudi oathman, a pacifist and palestinian-american, born in brazil and raised in jordan and id indicated by men nights, and 6'7", unusual or a palestinian, the first man ever to dunk a basketball in jordanian university competition. on 9/11 a taxi driver in new york city and said he felt appalled as an american, as a palestinian, and as an arab, and wanted to do something, and went to iraq, and became an interpreter and ran into the david petraeus and didn't know who he was, the guy in a t-shirt

and actually in a -- outside a la teen in mosul, and started arguing and talking to him and petraeus, said, i wanted him to work for me and winds up several years later, as petraeus's ambassador to the iraqi government. the third person was perhaps the most extraordinary, emma sky, a bird-like british woman, anti- american, anti-military, pacifist, expert in the middle east, fluent in arabic and hebrew. general raymond odierno who i hammered hard in fiasco, pointing out not just i but a lot of people felt he en flamed the core insurgency with brutal tactics and he gets hammered in fiasco and she reads it before she calls her up as an offer to be an advisor, and she said, okay, i'll be your advisor on one condition, the most unusual condition i heard in a job interview. she said, general, you need to understand the first time i see

you commit or condone a war crime i personally am reporting you to the war crimes tribunal in the hague and odierno, to his credit says, okay, and doesn't tell her the u.s. military and government do not subscribe to the war crimes tribunal. but she has strong will, voiced her opinions, one point, petraeus referred to her in meetings as odierno's insurgent. in 2007, talking became as important as fighting and listening as the most important aspect of talking and conversing. this really comes home in my favorite part of the book, the insurgent who loved titanic and began when captain sam cook. are you here, he is doing a master's degree in history now and is on ac disc duty but i thought he might be in d.c. this weekend. and sam is operating in the northern end of the sunni triangle and hears of a local

insurgent leader who is radicalized by abu ghraib the detainee abuse scandal and since abu ghraib implanted over 200 bombs against american convoys. now, a few years ago an american captain hearing of this would launch a raid to kill and capture him and send him off to abu ghraib. sam, a smart and unusual guy, his father was a professor of religion at northern ireland, sam invites the insurgent over for tea and this is not the u.s. military we have seen in iraq before. the guy comes in for tea and says, i'm curious, why didn't you arrest me and he said you are my guest and it would be an abuse of the rules of hospitality, let's talk and sam says, if i see you on the street i might shoot you, but let's talk. well, the other guy that the the same thing and found out larry, while they had the series of conversations, the other guy was circulating sam's photograph if they ever had to kill him. but they continued to talk and one day the insurgent says to him, america is the devil.

nothing good can come of america i think hate it. well, sam has been around iraq and listened a bit, and knows the most popular ring tone on iraqi cell phones this is theme from titanic. and sam says, you like titanic, didn't you? and he says, oh, yes. he says i cry every time, at the end, i watch id 7 times, and when -- it 7 times and when leo dicaprio slips into the water an kate winslett has to let him go, oh, my heart and they found this odd common ground and continued talking and after a few weeks more, the insurgent decides, okay i'll reconcile with the american and it doesn't hurt, the americans are also offering to put you on the payroll and out bid al qaeda and pay you more and sam said we are an economic superpower, let's use the power and we are more powerful than al qaeda. and he puts him on the payroll and he says, let me tell you a few things an conversations like this happen across iraq throughout '07-'08, let me tell

you, the insurgent would say, where i got my sniper rifle. from the iraqi major you are working with. let me tell you, why you never caught me, because every time you came to my part of town the iraqi police checkpoint called me. when you came to rouse me out of my house, we had a trap door built over a hole in the yard and trained the cow to sit on top of the trap door. and you americans would never push the cow because you are nice to animals. [laughter]. >> sam said it was like somebody turned on the lights for him. and revealed the entire network. of operation. and what was going on in iraq and it happened again and again. okay, so, that sense of the -- why do i say the insurgency failed, the last chunk i talk about before i get to your questions. the surge succeeded militarily. it failed politically. it improved security but failed to achieve its goal of leading

to a political break through in iraq and odierno says, political breathing space, we created in iraq was used by some leaders, maliki, to move backward into sectarian, hard line positions. none of the base of questions -- basic questions facing iraq before the surge were solved during the surge and that was the purpose, laid down by the president and the secretary of defense at the time. to create a breathing space in which a political break through could occur. the questions, number one, how to divide oil revenue among iraqis. what is this relationship between the kurds and sunnis and shiites. and whether to have a strong central government or loose confederation and what is this role of iran, which is big now, eastern is this big winner in the war so far. the status of the dispute in kirkuk and on and on, and -- none of these things have been addressed and solved and all might be solved violently. remains to be seen. the longer they go without being resolved the more likely

violence will be brought to bear. in iraq, political parties and militias are the same think. militias have political wings and political parties have armed wings. where are we now? now obama's war. i think he inherited the worst foreign policy situation that any president has ever taken on. what is really scary is that it isn't even his worst problem. that is amazing to me. so i think the first year of obama's war may be hard, and i'll concluded by talking about the three reasons, quickly, iraq has three rounds of elections this year, and the middle east, elections tend to be stabilizing. people say, what about the provincial elections last month, i say, remember the purple -- the elections a couple of years ago, and what followed, six months later, a small civil war. so we don't know what the consequences of elections are for several months. the general elections are going to come in december, probably, and will come just as there are

fewer american troops on the ground. when you have fewer american troops on the ground you have less of the glue, right now is holding iraq together and fewer eyes on iraqi officers to make sure they more or less follow basic dictates of civil rights for iraqis, that they behave and the fewer american troops you have in iraq the more likely you will see iraqi commanders revert to the ways of the saddam era, there are a lot of little saddam hussein's lift in iraq and unfortunately are people we have trained and armed not just the military police but the new insurgency, because in the insurgency when you put them on the payroll you didn't give them weapons but turned our backs when they went to get weapons caches and gave them money and helped them organize and the wears to the overnight, it is different and remember it has morphed several times, invasion, occupation, to insurgency, to a counter-offensive to the weird period we're in now but i think

americans will be fighting and dying in iraq even when obama leaves the white house and denortheastern know wants to see 25,000 troops inn and if that is true, president obama's legacy will be five years and ten months, longer than president bushes, it will be america's longest war and now you see why jon stewart calls me mr. sunshine and that takes care of my prepared remarks and would love to get to your questions, don't forget, you have to go to the micro phones and there is one here is there another set, ask your questions there and make sure you are legible or audible so c-span can hear you. >> thanks so much for a great lou d-- lucididy and believability and what consequences do you see if we withdraw totally from iraq,

let's say, starting next month. >> i don't know and nobody knows. that is a good question and i think of something said to me one day in baghdad, because you invade a country stupidly doesn't mean you americans should also leave it stupidly. and people like him and saudi oathman and emma sky would say the reason i'm here is because you people have been so clumsy and stupid i decided even though i was against the war i wanted to help you do a little bit better if only to save a few iraqi lives and all of them would worry that if we leaf the wrong way, you -- leave the wrong way you could wind up with a much larger more intensively war, a genocidal bloodbath launched against the sunnis with the kurds, again, in war, on various fronts. and that it could easily spread into a regional war. remember you already had the turks intervene several times against the kurds. over the last couple of years. remember also, iran, as i said, the big winner in the war so far

has pervasive influence in parts of iraq and i think their advisory program is a training and advisory program. and, i think that some of the people we thing of as our friends, the u.s. government thinks of as friends are actually much closer to iran than they are to the u.s., and in fact i am willing to bet, good money, that the iraqi government that winds up five, ten, 15 years from now and for the long run will be much closer to tehran, than it is to washington. iraq almost certainly will not be an american ally in the long run. so, who knows, it could get really ugly quickly and the question is how to avoid that and this is why i think we are stuck, not because i like the idea, but, because -- not because i think it is moral, i don't think there is any moral solution. it is all fruit of the poison tree and flows from the original

sin. i think there are very moral and less moral positions and the less moral position is to try to clean up the mess we avenue have created without leading to a bloodbath that kills millions of iraqis. thank you. >> thoughtful answer. thank you. >> i guess i was going to ask sort of the the same question -- i think you should send a copy of your book and maybe some of general petraeus's advisor to pakistan, that this is an approach that might work in the swat valley by the pakistan army, not by us. i guess my question is, who is the enemy now? and, is it our enemy? and a civil war would be terrible. but, we don't want to get caught in the middle of a civil war as we almost did. there are civil wars all over and one in northern ireland. there is one in sudan and one in congo, maybe this is a time,

maybe we should exchange for the u.n., is it our responsibility -- >> tack. >> you are stacking up too many questions and pate trace is the commander for the entire middle east and you will not see the recipe book applied but the attitude and let's talk to people. and let's stop hurting everybody who doesn't like us together and disaggregate them and, there is a law, this law of conservation of enemies, and dome don't make more enemies than you need have. [laughter]. >> this was something that really, the bush administration never took on. [laughter]. >> so i think you will see, petraeus apply that and let's try and find common ground. and one of the big surprises, petraeus, did, was, they sent people into the detainee camps where this insurgents were held in iraq and did a survey.

and the answers were surprising. 40%, i think of those surveyed, suspected insurgents not only were not religious extremists but did not attend mosque regularly, once a week. the majority of them said they planted bombs against americans for the money, not because their families were starving, but in order to buy small scale luxury items, dvd players an air conditioners and the like. generators, because there was not a lot of power in iraq. these were surprising answers. so, one thing they found, okay, doing it for the money, we can pay you. and they put the sunni insurgency on the payroll, another interesting aspect is, really the most surprising answer i ever got from patty trace in these embargoed interviews i did, i said, how did you sell president bush on the notion of putting the sunni insurgents on an american policy and that is a policy change and he said i didn't ask. [laughter]. >> and i said, general petraeus that is a huge shift in the war,

let's go to the enemy and say, what will it take here? how big a check and it was not a surrender by these guys, it wasn't even a cease-fire. in the sense they were allowed to keep their weapons and show up and keep operating:

my family lived there when i was young. loss of pakistan is al qaeda as a stream because you have is lost extremist nuclear-weapons come together. india is not plan to standby and at that happen. but there is a friend of mine who likes to cite it as hard to win a war in afghanistan when the enemy decides to write it in pakistan and that is the battle where we're at now. >> you need to give a briefing to give an overview to people on what went on the fierce winds, i had a half briefing and i would say we would start with a military helmet, but to an empty hat and file have engineers hard hat and i think i'm going to ask you year, when you think uc the

engineers are and have been the predominant have in iraq? >> i had to say it will be a shakes had here because when the iraqis solutions that is what you want when you want to move toward. we will see iraqis up front and the u.s. government tries to treat iraq as a sovereign government sort of at the same time is still an occupied country. when you have 145,000 foreign troops it can be completely sovereign government here and when you have a counter terror operations going on which we will have premiers you're going to be in combat and it's not going to be completely sovereign but the answer is what is the iraqis were iraqis that's in a filing get out of the country can match my second question is, here is my point, do you all me a drink? >> absolutely. [laughter] >> this is a word thing the american military started doing

in recent years. these coins purell is a third infantry division, fourth brigade so you're in the original invasion? >> [inaudible] >> wow, that goes back. thank you. >> the ongoing dynamic you can have stability without proper security and what is going on really is the extreme of civil disorder with have it so my questions really are, how you control the problems of governments that are corrupt and it is too easy to have all have it break loose with hit and run killers. the community is that settle disputes by killing and blowing up people, so how do you bring order out of this order? >> well, i think that is the theme of my book which you saw in the 2007. this war was going down in flames and iraq was going down

of plants in 2006. it was stunning to me. i was in baghdad and by the way washington post reporters do not live in the green zone. we had our little house in the city which u.s. military called the red zone which is the rest of iraq. [laughter] denniston meet in january and february 2006 how you american troops were visible. you could go all day along in baghdad and not see them. essentially we were stepping back in that these people have a civil war and i started one. 2006 was awful and when the u.s. military tried to assert control with two operations called together for they both failed so here you have a superpower trying simply to bring peace to one city. the capital of this country is invaded and not able to do so so it looks like it couldn't happen and what happened in 07 was a lot of neighborhoods got quieter. i used to count in january and february 06, 50 rounds a day of

fire around our house including heavy machine-gun fire that can go through walls. a couple of car bombs a day, explosions, mortar hits and one day our bureau chief. >> she said how was and i said i heard two car bombs, and she said, yes quiet day. but they did improve security and how they did it by moving in among the people. and that required more troops. corruption? on also worried about that, and it's a big mistake of americans to think we can tell other people not to be corrupt. [laughter] that's the way these societies have worked. in for hundreds of years. i think we should ban the term corruption and start using the term social lubrication. [laughter] police officer might have gotten a job by ping $10,000 raised by

his family for his extended clan and he is only making $400 a year. well, he's got to make that money back to pay back the plan. people have got investments. david: and i were talking and let's stop blaming the commanders for being corrupt and start blaming ourselves for failing to protect them and forcing them into his orval decisions where they have to give up to the insurgents or have their entire family executed. so i think, i used to worry about paul wolfowitz out of the world bank, the guy who brought to the iraq war will now wage an anti-corruption campaign and i didn't think that was the way to go. thank you. >> thank you, my question is about i'm particularly interested in your thoughts about how our volunteer military is doing and then how the officer corps is doing.

in regard to the older officer corps, what happened to the lessons learned in vietnam or are they not applicable or were there not lessons learned? >> our military as tired out. at 1 percent of american society has been going nonstop since 9/11. these guys have had multiple deployments. it is not unusual to become an army officer who has done a three years out of the last seven and iraq. i've come across privates who has been the majority of their time in the army in iraq. and it has changed the army a lot. the real bird and i think is borne by the thousands in the children. it really struck man couple years ago i was in the kindergarten just outside the gates of fort campbell, kentucky which is, of the 101st airborne division. i was talking to a kindergarten teacher about what it was like to have a class in which 18 of

the kids out of 23 had parents deploy. and she said i really came home to me when a one of the kids came running in and said in november 2003, says to the blackhawks collided over mosul. these are giving gardeners, kids can enormous burdens in usually is the wife at home caring that burden. we have no notion of how big a low that is. the one that worries me in all this is the mercenaries who come home. the so-called private security contractors but let's call it what it is. the military has developed a social safety net, warning signs, they are at least looking for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and try to help people and get people in a counseling, ways to help. because this whole population of people who were in discipline

and, much coming back without any social safety net, they are going to have a lot of ptsd and not a lot of people looking for them and those people worry me. thank you. >> how much time? >> we are not going to get to everybody in line, so lets people the kaptur but one question. >> want crags how can that be? this may not even be in your area of interest, but traveled warlords, tribal leaders. their role and the possible conflict between warlord tribal leaders and the central government and in a can of community based development both

in iraq and then transferring over to afghanistan pakistan. >> okay, i actually think this is something you're going to see petraeus as are doing in afghanistan as he did in iraq. reaching out and by the way petraeus had a ph.d. dissertation in princeton on the vietnam war and the use of force how america might have done things the release so he has thought about this. one thing you can do is not just try to do everything to the central government which places enormous burden on people who are just getting the government up and running and go out and talk to tribal leaders and regional leaders and it's especially true in afghanistan. when my family lived there we had to extend it to the suburbs. especially after dark -- we were told -- we were told not to drive it to canada after 5:00 p.m. so i think you'll see more reaching out and also there is a good balance to be achieved

if you empower tribal leaders. remember the taliban, canada post to tribal leaders so you have allowed corruption to occur in this kind of goes -- there is a great writer kiplinger's story and the district that gets into heineken balance out and travel it reverses the extremist. let's get to the next question. in. >> there is something of a paradox on trying to figure out and maybe you can help. what kind of conflict was in there and the transition between general casey and it petraeus because casey comes in and seems to understand and then he has to fight a counterinsurgency in a different way that pollute wanted and was it the wrong way to do it, but he is pulling back like to say in all five and 06 and we're not really doing much and are back in the fog and then my understanding is he's pretty

upset with petraeus and the idea of coming out with the surge. >> you're absolutely right. i was optimistic about casey at the end of the fiasco when i went back. >> which you saw was two things -- first thing casey and his commander i believe that american forces would only be an irritant, sand in the gear of iraq and i think that was true and if you're operating off of fog and wandering around in society like men in a dark room knocking things over but if you moved out of the neighborhoods and a better sense of what was happening on the ground you could start actually being glued to my giving protection to people, and no more false promises but actually been there. one of the most checking stories i heard that i put in the book, one platoon was talking about moving into a neighborhood in having to fight their way in and in the middle of this fire fight with the insurgents who didn't want them there was a platoon sergeant looked up and saw to

iraqis kids standing in the middle of a fire fight paralyzed with fear. he jumps up, grabs the kids and rose to a corner. the soldiers of later that's what we wanted, it didn't matter if we kill the insurgents, the neighborhood saw action in the sky risking his life to protect iraqis. nobody believed promises anymore because it had heard it years of america's promises and not come to fruition. this was action in the only thing people would believe anymore. casey didn't have an army that was ready to do that. casey was reared frustrated with the army, started up a counter insurgency a academy in iraq and when i ask people why they said because the army back in america is entering at. petraeus has a counterinsurgency manual and i think this was his great achievement in iraq, he forced this huge institution the u.s. army to operate differently and said this is the way we're going to do it in a lot of people were receptive but a lot warrant. i was struck by how of the

platoon level leader people were talking about protecting the iraqis and got it -- as we need to do and i think it was a huge difference. the last difference that struck me was the generational shift. when petraeus and odierno took over for this first time senior american commanders have combat experience in that war. the had commanded divisions and so did all the people around them, the guys who have been battalion and brigade commanders or running the war around petraeus and odierno. and that made a huge difference, these are people who knew the smell of the street, who knew that sometimes you'd be fighting people and sometimes talking to people, sometimes finding people you're talking to and sometimes not on the people you're fighting with the people your meeting in city council meetings and they understood that is the way it is. it in a way you have the changing of the american army. >> we have time for three more questions. >> what we roll this up three in a row and hit me with them.

>> i just wanted to serve my question with a complement. of someone who thinks about politics a lot and i've read about it in and wanted to be out of the iraq war since about 2003. reading your book i've learned additional things even though i thought i read everything and you did it make a very cogent and convincing argument that we are really needing to be there from may to a political standpoint for about the next decade. my question is, do you think that barack obama has read your book and has come to the same conclusion and if so, during the political campaign he had a pretty much convinced that he was going to get us out in 18 months and was a genuine then and has he changed his philosophy now? >> let me do this quickly, the obama people were asking for my book but it was embargoed. i think they probably read it now on the other hand, i'm in this think tank center for new american security and have a

people have gotten to the administration and i know they have read it because we talked about the book. obama campaign on getting combat troops in 16 months. that's not try to happen, first of all, and is also there's no cents a thing as non-combat troops, there is no pacifist wing of the u.s. military. [laughter] and, in fact, allen rather be in an infantry foot patrol in baghdad then transport troops convoy because they are the guys going to get bombed. i think obama talking about getting out quickly is not departing from bush but repeating bush's mistake, persistent on unwarranted optimism about this war and probably our biggest single problem. remember president bush didn't say i have a great idea let's spend 50 years stock in iraq and their original plan was to be done by september 2003. >> that was pure magical thinking, no basis for that at all, right? >> tell me about obama's

campaign promise. [laughter] we should get the next couple of questions then. >> how are you? i am tempted to ask about the efficacy of t vs torture in getting information but my real question is it the nature of warfare is changing as radically as you are saying into no longer have to have massive troops were about them gone through anything like that, how you sustain a defense industrial base to support this kind of warfare that you're talking about which is just radically different from the past? >> my answer is you don't need a defense industrial base [applause] submarines, f-22, you got a great military bending metal for another world war ii. what we didn't have was a military that you have to prevail in this sort of war and guess what, these are the more sightly -- likely source of wars

in the years to come here and so you have a great fighter aircraft. add only what i can do except fly run the sky and say there might be some insurgents, sex to you. [laughter] >> each person in there in line come to the microphone, ask a question and tom will put them all together and ask for one a grand finale. [laughter] >> i name is jack fishman a retired army general can i guess you are thank you for coming. [laughter] >> this book of yours just came out really is an example in the latent. work on the part of leadership, some leaders of the army and it your former book, a fiasco, was a demonstration of a lack of it. so we went into iraq with no

conception at post hostility and ferment and we didn't react very well after got there and it took a long time repeating the mistakes of economic 40 years earlier. suppose we had done it right which was been smart enough and for the red and not with our leadership who want to do iran. my question is is that in the armies of dna to do with ron? [laughter] >> i suspect you and i could have a good long conversation about this. >> i don't think it is. is it about time the american people rose up and said listen, army, we were relying on you to read the first time, get yourself together. >> out of love to see you write that piece for the washington post op-ed piece. by the way general cushman is one of her best generals out of the vietnam war. [applause] >> by the way my piece was

turned down by the washington post. >> i will posted on my blog if you submitted to me. i wish we had done it right, if general petraeus have been appointed in the spring of 2003 and said doing it right up and mosul was put him in charge but they do want to hurt people's feelings. [laughter] the lack of accountability is stunning to me as colonel paul said he is punished more than a general who loses a war. >> it is terrible having to follow a retired general. i also am a retired army officer but won't go into right here. [laughter] this whole situation has been brought home to me because my 20 year-old son deploys to afghanistan in october and when i want to ask you is, is afghanistan obama's greatest problem banks should we attempt to negotiate in separate telegram from al qaeda?

and how effective will nato be as part of the overall force? thank you. >> last question of the night. >> there have been reports from it david ignatius strategic forecasting and others asserting that the reduction in violence was do it at least in part to use a. negotiations between the bush administration and iran so i was wondering is that an assessment you agree with and to what extent you think iran retains the capacity to ramp up violence? >> on iran actually exchange petraeus told me and i can't tell if we have in the book or not -- so where the iraqi leader was telling petraeus that the and iranians are good and trustworthy and sp $0.1 in a moment and anchor them there so goddamn trustworthy you can tell them to stop on in my troops so i think they were exactly zero as private, the republic sometimes. on afghanistan question you guys

know what nato stands for? no action, talk only. [laughter] i would not expect anything of nato. we have stepped on a lot of toes with nato. you're answers are not going to be the reform forces anyway, it is clear to be working with indigenous forces, fighting local allies who understand the situation and finding common ground with them, it doesn't mean americanizing them. in mind mean actually saying, look, what are your equity is here? where can we help out in such a way to will stop killing us? there are ways of doing this. why the u.s. army through all this of overboard after vietnam, i don't know. maybe it is in the american dna to throw this stuff over board, but if we're going to start stupid worse every 30 years i hope to get better at doing it but i go back to their original san -- when you start pre-emptive war on false

premises and is very hard for anything good to happen. even if the people out there and i really think they were noble people a lot in the last couple years trying to do their best in a horrible situation that they knew was bad. digging america act of this all the george bush has put us and will last many years and, in fact, decades. sorry to be such a downer. thank you very much and i'll be signing books. [applause] >> thomas ricks is the washington post special military correspondent in a contributing editor at foreign policy magazine. he is a member of two pulitzer prize winning teams for national reporting. the author of "fiasco: the american military adventure in iraq", "making the corps", and "a soldier's duty". for more information on that thomas ricks visit ricks foreign-policy.com.

>> this summer booktv is asking what are you reading? >> cnn's wolf blitzer, what will you be reading this summer? >> i have some books i hope to read beginning with the emperor's new clothes, a book by richard bennett and is due to is a well-known washington lawyer and an old friend of mine. you is where much and all the many years ago and watergate and the 9/11 commission, the ever so close i want to get through this book because i think is good two have some good tutt story to tell about what is going on in washington and what has happened over the past decades. another book is by william cohen untitled house of cards. this is a book that basically tells the story of how the collapse on wall street. , what was going on. i've had it on my shelf and he's a really smart and i think -- i have read parts of it already but i really want to get through it as a result of what i've

heard directly from william cullen. there is a book coming out this summer entitled myths, allusions and peace: finding a new direction for america and the middle east by dennis ross, the longtime specialist eight middle east envoy working in the obama administration on iran among other subjects and david who is a fellow at the washington institute for near east policy. david and i go way back, we used to work together son interested in what these guys have to say about the arab-israeli conflict as both of them, there were covered and so long so that is another book i'm going to go through. another book is by david sanger of "the new york times" untitled and inheritance: the world obama confronts and the challenges to american power. having read him for years and "the new york times" i know it's a reporter he is and he has now put together was really an important book on what the president of the united states has basically inherited. he has been on my show, he is smart and i think this is going

to be in a prayer book and i will learn something reading this book. it finally the one fiction, piece of fiction i want to read this summer, i definitely want to read it the new book a mad desire to dance, because he is such a terrific writer and when he writes is so important. i was really moved by what he said a few weeks ago when he spoke openly about having lost his foundation, so much money in the bernard made off fiasco. he was so smart and has mitt -- lost millions but this is a book obviously that continues what he has been riding for some years about the holocaust so i want to get through this book if i can this summer. those other five books i plan on reading this summer and hope to get through them all and then start on some more. >> you are obviously a busy man, if we find you're reading where do you do your reading and find time to do it? >> i tried to read a little before i go to sleep at night, i

tried to read on weekends, just go out on my deck in the backyard and relax especially if the weather is good. whenever you can. i am a busy guy, don't have a whole lot of time to do fun rating but she made time and it's important and i really appreciate books. >> will blitzer, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> to seymour summer reading lists and other pro-gun information visit our web site at booktv.org. and presidential command, the late peter rodman looked at the relationship between u.s. presidents and the diplomatic, military and intelligence bureaucracies. a former secretary of state lawrence eagleburger and former undersecretary of defense for policy eric edelman talk about mr. rodman and his book.

the brookings institution in washington d.c. hosted the event, it is an hour and 45 minutes. >> we're going to get going here i am carlos, the vice president and director of the foreign-policy studies at brookings institution and it's a pleasure to welcome you to this event. where we want to pay tribute and take a look and analyze a scholarly work, and public policy workbook piatt peter rodman call presidential command. to do this today we have the benefit of two extra merrilee -- extraordinary individuals i'll introduce, secretary larry eagleburger and ambassador eric uelmen, both of whom have been tremendous leaders and our government over an extended part of their career, to individuals who have been career foreign service officers and distinguished themselves in the policy world.

well on the one hand, we are looking at peters but and the message he had in that book about the success of the lawyers of the president's and what makes them seem, i think it is also an opportunity to pay tribute to a unique individual peter rodman and his family as well. we have the benefit of having with us today his wife, his daughter, and i have had the benefit of meeting a good part of that family at one particular event. it is just a terrific group of people, extra merely engaging narrative one can imagine in part how peter rodman developed this incredible sense of humor and wit to that i think we all have come to appreciate in love. i want to set a couple of things and quote from a few distinguished individuals who delivered statements at a memorial service for peter several months ago, but there are some extraordinary statem