[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] host: welcome. i am an associate professor here at hofstra and i am pleased to be serving as moderator for this distinguished forum. a wars in iraq and afghanistan are arguably the most controversial and consequential decisions of the bush administration. the decision to go to war, how to get out of the wars, and related issues have not only dominated the bulk of president bush's time in office, but have also shaped current u.s. foreign-policy options in and around the regions. they will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. there is very little doubt that the wars in afghanistan and iraq will continue to be measures by which the legacy of the george w. bush foreign policy will be measured. with that in mind, the

conference organizers have brought together this outstanding panel of public servants, journalists, and scholars to examine the way the bush administration waged wars and the consequences of them. each of our panelists is extremely accomplished and i will try to keep the introductions relatively brief although that is hard with a group like this. as i go through, i would ask that you please hold your applause until i have introduced everyone and we can welcome them altogether. giving us perspectives from the administration, we first have thomas basilay, appearing on forms such as sirius xm radio.

for the bush administration in 2003 through 2004, he was a senior press advisor to the authority in iraq. he was a consultant for the republican national committee, presidential campaign, and prior to this service he was director of communications for the u.s. environmental protections agency in 2001 through 2003, and was part of the bush-cheney campaign. he is a hofstra alum as well graduating with a degree in political science and he was named the 2007 hofstra young alumnus. ambassador james nicholson is currently senior counsel at brownstein hyatt farber schreck counseling clients in health care, regulatory law international relations, oil and

gas, and alternative energy. from 2005 before this appointment he was u.s. ambassador to the holy seat during which he was knighted by john paul ii for his human rights. ambassador nichols has been the director of the new community development corporation commissioner and the commissioner on the defense advisory on women services. he was the chairman of the national committee from 2007 to 2001. lawrence wilkerson is distinguished adjunct profess or at the college of limb and mary. he served in the u.s. army from 1966 until 1997 excuse me. while in uniform.

he was a member of the faculty of the u.s. naval war college, special assistant to general colin powell when colonel powell was chiefs of staff. from 2001 until 2002 he was associate director of the state department policy planning staff. colonel wilkerson's last position was chief of staff for u.s. secretary of state co len powell from 2002 to 2005. so the journalists and scholars that we have present. first he was a journalist that served as an afghanistan correspondent for "the wall street journal" for "the christian science monitor" and reported in asia and middle east for several other publication. mr. napol has extensively

interviewed both sides of the afghanistan conflict. this is cited in his critically acclaimed book "no good men among the living: america, the taliban and the war through afghanistan eyes" which was a final list in the national book award and the helen bernlstein award and recipient of the ridnour prize. he was an inside fellow at the new america foundation. peter baker is the chief white house correspondent for the "new york times" and the cribbing writer for "new york times" magazine. he's covered three presidential times in his previous boggs "the washington post." he won a prize in the beckman memorial award for white house

coverage. he was the bureau chief for "the washington post" during the rise of vladimir putin. he's the author of "days of fire." which provides a comprehensive look in the bush administration from the election to the iraq war to the bush and chaney white house. he's serving as a distinguished conference scholar for this conference. and phyllis bennett is a director of the new internationalism project at the institute for policy studies in washington, d.c. and is a fellow of the trans national institute in amsterdam. she's been an ackvists in u.s. ish shoes an speaks widely as part of the global peace movement. she continues to serve as an advisory for several top

advisories in the middle east. she's the author of eight books including 2003 book, before an after u.s. war on on terror. and the 2005 book challenging empire how people governments and the u.n. define u.s. power. so please join me in welcoming this distinguished panel. [applause] so the format, we're going to have 10 to 12 minutes for each of our guests here. and then there will be a question an answer session and possibly in between a moderated discussion depending on how much time we have. so we will essentially go in the order that's listed in the program. so first mr. basile.

>> thank you paul, for that introduction. always great to be back at this campus. it was 18 years ago that i served on the student for the bush 41 conference and during the conversation i got to trail around john se knew new for denew new who happens to be the faster walker i'd ever encountered. and joe is following me around. and joe, i'm sorry you got stuck with me. but i really appreciate the invitation with dr. bose and the calico center not only as an abum us in administration but also an alumnus of this university. it's wonderful to see how the political discourse surrounding

the presidency affected so dramatically. it's good to see secretary nichols here with whom i was so fortunate to share a very wonderful and for me a very meaningful and emotional moment in american history when we were both able to attend president bush's meeting with john paul ii at the vatican in 2002. so it is good to see you sir. >> for my len yeah. the causes of war and the strategies associated with it were defined by particular margins involving a combination of resource and territorial acquisition therefore producing conflict population. and i suggest that for most people in paradigm continues to drive perceptions of war and war-making. i sub bhit the close of the cold war and the rise of the united states hegemony, the

breakdown of certain alliances that we witnessed in the rise of al-qaeda and the decision-making of the united states and the aftermath of 9/11 was a sharp departure from the usual war making paradigm. i feel that we are in a transitional phase as it relates to this country handling the military vat ji to account for this shift. the administration of george w. bush was the first administration to have to deal with this paradigm shift. during the bush presidency, the white house was faced with the challenge of facing the territorial and institutional impacts of war in the form of external forces such as terror groups embedding the governance of state actors. the viral nature of the radical islamic movement and the exploitation of governments of state actors of the new global

paradigm that had emerged after the end of the cold war. it was a historically complicated confluence of circumstances that led to both afghanistan and bush mission. the bushed a mintstration had to cope with the conflict of trying to fight mobile terrorist groups and dozens of countries while fighting traditional territorial balts rebillingd infrastructures an institutions in afghanistan that perhaps may not have existed. in the case of iraq projecting out the impact that state actors might have who may exploit and support the efforts of the terrorist enemy. we spent a great deal over the last decade and a half on whether we should are gone into afghanistan or whether we should have gone into iraq. the reasonable man test comes from the old chancellor report.

the president of the united states faced with the confluence of circumstances that i just described in a general sense buttress by specific intelligence act in a certain way. keeping in mind that saddam hussein had been declared a state sponsor of terrorism and regime change had been the poll soif the u.s. government since the cointon administration. i believe that president bush made the correct choice for military intervention in both of those circumstances. however, i believe the more relevant conversation for all of us remains once you make the decision to go to war what is the principle purpose or desired outzphom you have several choices. you can, one, you can remove saddam hussein and the taliban which i believe is a false choice. you can two, remove the leadership and grab some general and ex-patriot and

impose them basically trading one dictator with another. that's particularly for bush the moral and political argument fails there as well. or three, you could attempt to secure the done fri and build institutions that could support not what some people had suggested some things americans call style democracy but a pleuralistic and confluence structure. this historical gathering of maligned members in our corps have the responsibility to get the economy growing an establish security and a political framework that were established goal number three working together with an iraqi population that is more supportive that is generally accepted they tackled it with great commitment and their earths going unlargely unnoted

as the situation worsened due to sectarian violence and a white house that as the mission went on often failed to defend its own policy in iraq. president bush understood several key points very well. one, he believed that left unchecked it was likely that we stay with developed a nuclear weapons program. two, hughes sane had funded external terror groups and it was believed that he would be supporting other terror groups. three, the war on terrorism was a long-term global threat that involved dozens of groups. so closely aligned, some loosely aligned not only with each other but also state actors. and we're seeing this today as you see isis and ack tack and boko haram and anala shry y an

and all these folks are are network and a very powerful one at that. four he believes this is a general's long fight. and it would require long-term and aggressive engagement. and addressing the freedom deficit in the middle east and countrys that serve as incubators however long-term and complex that strategy might be was essential and in toward sharing a more peaceful world and further to end terrorism networks. where it fell short is how to fight them simultaneously. we weren't just protecting the territorial boundaries of a nation. we were trying to fight an insurgency while attempting to build new governments and social and political

institutions. on my first day in iraq i got off at the baghdad airport and i put on my vest. i put on my helmet. and i got on the bus to go to the compound. they said by the way the road is closed. the road between the road and the compound was closed because the army was not able to secure it. they call it the road of death. people were dying on it virtually every day. that was my first day and my hour by knew that we were going to do have man power issues that plagued the iraq army early on and were very real. the administration had a vision for a lighter fleet footed high-tech 21st century army. and that vision has merit.

but it was incompatible with the mission that we had at that particular time. for our part nearly every civilian and military liaison agreed from the outside that we needed to maintain overwhelming foresize in order to accomplish the mission. today, at the white house former john hopkins university professor and noted economists the newly elected president of afghanistan told the american people thank you for the work that have helped give them a shot to instead of being a burden to the world to actually have a shot at a free future. but we are clearly seeing the beginning of what the president called generation of process -- a generational process of development. in iraq despite poor intel regarding infrastructure,

military assets, essential services, mass looting the iraq mission realized not sufficiently promoted by the administration and not promoted by the media. it began within weeks of the promotion of the c.p.a. which enabled anybody by the rate of colonel to go to the army. but they were better trained, better equipped. the central bank was reopened. and the transition within the first six months. it took us two years in post world war ii germany. oil production increase. dozens of schools were we built, a constitution was developed which shiah, sunnis and kurds and turkman's on the table to create an election in

a degrading security environment. and let's not forget that more than eight million people voted in iraq's first election. perhaps most importantly al-qaeda and iraq had been decimated due one of the boldest foreign policy decisions in my opinion of the last half century made by george w. bush. delayed admittedly but necessary search. by the time bush left office the economy had increased in size several times over under its time under hughes sane. life expectancy had risen. and security forces had secured most of the forces due the training an ongoing assistance from the united states. despite the consequences of a precipitous withdraw of troops administered by the current administration and the insistence of both pears via cnn which left iraq all by defense fless the face of isis. we also recently just saw the

four peaceful transition of power between governments in iraq which is something that had never before been accomplished in the middle east with the exception of israel. none of these positives can negate the challenges that persist. but they can when added to the conversation give us a better understanding of the need and the ability to move nations toward a freer more pleuralistic construct. in my time in iraq i saw conviction of a people anxious to build a new nation. it overshadowed by a security situation that we were unprepared to address. as we look back there were many issues to be learned. few are certain that -- thank you. the world has changed. the changes we face and the challenges we face rather have

changed. but getting people chance to be free and to self-govern is the surest way to greater peace. i saw first half of authoritarian an oppression and the evil that sapped the soul of people and nations in regions in a way that we cannot fully appreciate here. and you haven't exerntsed the power of freedom until you talk to somebody who has never known it and they realize for the first time that participatory government isn't some abstract theory. it is real an it is works an is achievable with great effort and sacrifice. george w. bush did not buy into the bigotry that suggests that there are certain people in this world who do not deserve or are too unsophisticated or incapable of handling what we call freedom. i consider it an honor to have served him and i look forward

to a meaningful discussion tonight. thank you so much for your attention. [applause] >> good evening. i really appreciate here at -- being here at poster university participating in the panel with these distinguished people. and i appreciate what you're doing at hofstra with this conference on the george w. bush presidency. and we won't agree here on everything that is said, i'm sure. but i bet there's one thing about which we can agree and that is that whatever is said here tonight about the george w. bush presidency will look different to us in 20 years and different again 20 years after that. george w. bush's presidency must be declined by the etchts

of september 11, 2001 when the united states of america was viciously attacked by an enemy who's leader osama bin laden stated as far back as 1983 that the united states was the mortal enemy of islam an must be destroyed. a 9/11 president bush declared to the president of america an to the world that he would do whatever was necessary toe protect our country to keep it safe and to keep it free. this became the mantra of the g.w. bush presidency. president reagan had his mantra that was to bring down the soviet union and to shut down the cold war. so did president bush. his global war on terror kept us safe and kept us free. so let's start with that.

president bush foretold the kind of decisive leader he would be at his acceptance speech in august 2000 at the republican national convention in philadelphia. i remember it well because i was there and i was a chairman of convention as the chairman of the republican national committee. and then candidate bush said " if you give me your trust i will honor it. grant me a mandate i will use it. give me the opportunity to lead this nation and i will lead." little did he know then of the events that we befalls us a year later. but we found out soon after just what a leader we had. it started immediately at 9/11. the context is worth a reminer. the president was at a school in florida but immediately

authorized the shooting down of the civilian jet liner. the white house staff were told to evacuate. and evacuated in a hurry. the women were told to take off their shoes so they can run down the street. the reason was they thought a plane was about to slam into the white house. you have to think about when the last time the white house was evacuated under similar circumstances. the only time it comes to mind is when the british burned the building during the war of 1812. soon after the president went to new york city to game three of the world series to throw out the first pitch in a sense that was a small act. presidents throw pitches all the time. but in this case in new york, while the fires were still burning at the world trade center an when the entire nation was on edge about

another terrorism attack it was a big deal ha the president went of the ballpark and stood on the mound. he demonstrated that he was not afraid, afraid and the game and the business and life of this nation must go on. the president addressed the nation at a joint session of congress. he was in command and he was comforting on safety and patriotism. an interesting side note on that date which was september 20th 2001, the philadelphia flyers faced the new york rangers in an exhibition game. the teams played two periods. and the jumbotron switched to the president's speech. it was a live shot. when it was time to restart the game the third period, the jumbotron turned off the

president and turned back to the game. the response was overwhelming. people started booing and demanding that the president be put back on. for a moment americans tuned in and heard what the president's say. they never played the third period and they ended up in a draw. so i think we can stipulate that war defined president bush's presidency. presidential his tore yeah author schlessinger he said of all the crises war is the moat fateful. all of our best presidents were involved in a war either before or during their presidency saved thomas jefferson. he further opined that crisis helps though who can rise to it. and the association of war with

presidential greatness has its ominous aspects. let's start with afghanistan. even the pope support ud us going into afghanistan. i showed my credentials to the holy father on 9/13 of 2001 at the palace. and we had prepared remarks to help me prepare. the first thing we did was said a little prayer for the victims and then talked. and i -- by then was able to give him a brief of what we thought, you know, the derivatives of what had happened were -- and he said to me, he said ambassador nicholson we must stop those people who were killing in the name of god. an that was not a privilege

communication. so i was able to report that and put that out there and it really helped us in putting a coalition together to go into afghanistan. but the pope did see iraq differently. he expressed his opposition emphatically during his annual address in january of 2003. and he looked directly at me and said, no to war. war should only be a last resort. that was his affirmation to us. but it was not a surprise. it did set off our biggest challenge as the ambassador and our most robust endeavor to convince the holy father of the need to invade iraq who would

not go to our lead. i looked at them to come to rome and assist ne an educated effort both at the holy sea and in italy. the professors both posessing cherished over their apartment welcome which means they have wonderful bona fides with the pope. but they felt the same way we did. we held meeting and talked about the need as we saw it to go into iraq. but the pope continued to view this on presemp active. but despite these personal interventions in a session with the pope's personal emissary with the president cardinal

piolagi who went to see the president in the west wing in the white house for long encounter which i attended. the pope dispatched a french cardinal to talk to the people there will to see if they could get it. of course, neither were success ful but the president understood and often said that the pope was a man of peace and he had different responsibility. importantly, though, the pope never said it was immoral for us to go into iraq. and he really couldn't because it would be violative of the doctrine of the church which said there are evil forces an there are innocent people that are to be protected from those

evil forces and that does on occasion require, you know, the institution of war an violence. in fact, today in the train. ing up to new york i read a report from a distinguished writer for catholic news service suggesting that pope francis may indeed end up advocating the use of force against isis. so there are precedents for this. and we of course are unsuccessful as i've stated with pope john paul ii in trying to underwrite or affirm our endeavor to go iraq. as we all know in march, 2003 we entered iraq for the purpose of protecting our country and eradicating our threat possessed by saddam hussein.

the case had been made to our citizens to our friends, to the pope and to the world, really, and the facs as we saw them were that hughes sane was a threat. he had invaded kuwait and iran. he used weapons of mass destruction on his own people and on the iranians. he shot at our planes an ally planes. he was working evade international sanctions. he failed to comply with numerous u.n. resolutions that required him to prove that he had. he payed the families of sd bombers. he gave every indication that he maintained stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. he remained belligerent and violent and refused to adhere to international demands and was interested in supporting attacks on the united states.

he would unite with terrorisms and provide them with weapons of mass destruction and every material needed to attack american targets. of course, no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found. nonetheless he was a threat to peace. and due to his continued hostility to go to war, we chose war. hughes sane was toppled and iraq did catch a glimpse of freedom and democracy. their courageous partis passion in elections demonstrated their hunger and their appreciation for freedom. in fact, i will never forget just weeks after we went into iraq, the caldean catholic patriarch came to rome and asked if he could visit me.

i received him at my residence in rome and hevs the leader of about 850,000 cal deian catholics and for whole hughes sane sort of kept in a protected status, you know, in the dispute between the sunni and the shiah. they were kind of off to the side. they knew that this would probably be disassembled. he didn't walk. he ran up the steps to my residence where i was standing and thrust his hand and said thank you for coming to my country and freing us exhibiting that innate desire that man has for freedom and the euphoria that he exhibiting was exhilarating that that were

in as a result of this. but you know, one can debate the conduct of this war as many have and one can argue that we should not have dismissed the sunni baath party dominated army and the police forces. i think that would be a very legitimate thing. one could argue that we shifted too soon on nation building an democracy building in lieu of law and order building and infrastructure particularly law and order infrastructure. there were mistakes made certainly. abouo grab comes to mine. those were fair discussions as far as i'm concerned. but i will end the way i started which is to say again that president bush after we were invaded on 911 said he would do whatever is necessary to protect our country. he did. he kept americans safe for the next seven years as our

presidentons inspector for the u.n. concluded saddam wanted to recreate iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability after sanctions were removed and iraq's economy stabilized. i agree with those who say that had saddam done what we -- had done that we would have seen an arms race develop between iraq and iran and the sunni-shiah terrorist arms race with the possibilities of biologically, chemical or even nuclear weapons being in the hands of terrorist would have increased greatly. the possibilities of a dirty bomb being exploded in our country. the pressure on our friends like israel, kuwait, saudi arabia and the u.a. would be

greater today. and a result american people would be left safe as well. only time will tell about president bush. all i can say that he is looking better and better as the world becoming more and more dangerous. and we become more vulnerable to those who want to destroy us. what is a president's most important job? it's to keep us safe and he did it. thank you very much. [applause] >> yeah. ok. i'm going to take a little bit different tact. i'm going to try to look at or hope i have time to look at three similar episodes in what was my life after 9/11.

once the very chilling effects of that attack had sunk in and we had realized at the state department, i think it's safe to say throughout the government that the pro-funded di of what had happened to us and what kind of action we were going to present to the world. we sat down on the policy planning staff as did some other people in the state and we thought about it. one of the things that impressed us majorly was the phone calls, the letters if you will that were coming in, the tv scenes. it was a moment of incredible global solidarity. my god we even got a condolence message from fidel castro. the most influential paper in paris ran a headline, we're all

americans. it was a moment of incredible solidarity and my boss and his boss decided that one of the things we should try to do, remember we're the diplomats former soldiers but we're diplomats now was to captain lice on that moment of global solidarity not just for what we knew the president wanted to do with regard to afghanistan. but in so many other realms that we had problems. so we drew up a matrix and on that matrix were the missions and the countries and the people who would do it. in some cases like pakistan, it was the president of the united states and the secretary of state who would talk to the president mue sharif and the i.s.s. and so forth. in other countries it was our ambassador. donald rumsfeld wanted to get

back to philippines for example. saif was a terrorist group in the philippines that we could capitalize on. so we were going to try to talk with the philippine government and get u.s. forces back into the philippines in some significant sort of way. it was a huge task sheet that basically capitalized on this moment of global solidarity. iraq completely shattered that. the invasion of iraq and the run up to that shattered that global solidarity. shattered the diplomacy that was associated with it. shattered our hopes on the wings of that, if you will. but it also occasioned the second episode of disgust. no one knew better than former chairman of the joint chiefs of

staff colin powell and i was his special assistant at that time what we had done to the armed forces and what earlier was called the peace dividend. it wasn't president clinton who delivered it it was george h. w. bush. he delivered it because the congress of the united states demanded it. we cut the armed forces 25%. that was a huge cut, biggest cut since world war ii, really especially if you look at how we did it. bases and everything. bill clinton came with his secretary of defense and cut another 3%. what relevance does this have to this? powell was former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. and even though dick cheney told him that, he felt it was his responsibility saying we can't do two wars at the same

time. we destroyed that with the 28% cut. so we better finish afghanistan. no one's arguing with you about afghanistan. you better finish that before you do iraq otherwise you're going to negligent afghanistan which is what we proceeded to do. so we shattered the global solidarity and we went to iraq with too few forces in the first place because donald rumsfeld decided that that would be the amount we would send. some of that amount was based on the give and take with the military commander tommy franks who powell had told on two different occasions you have too few troops and whom the general told the congress we had too few troops for which, of course, he was release. you had too few troops to lead iraq and that would lead about 100,000 contractors that would

do the ultimate public function. and we're still living with it, ladies and gentlemen. still living with it. we haven't put it to rest yet. the other item that powell brought to the president's attention other than timing and foresize was legitimacy. legitimacy and the shape of the united nations, other allies other than britain and so forth. we went of the u.n. in november of 2002 and we got a 15-0 vote unanimous vote proving 14-41. again, we had sort of rezz recked a little bit of that global solidarity. but what that would say to others at the iaei that they could go and do their jobs. they could go and continue the inspections, but you can't

continue the inspections if you've already martialed 160,000-plus force and started them on their way. we call it in the military tip-fitting them. you've already started them. the excessive heat in iraq. so if you're doing this, you're probably going to have to cut the inspector short. if you're really intent on going to war, you're going to have to do it even without. that's the second point. third point, my boss got put out for the united states secure council to give the most species presentation on iraqi m.d. that anyone has ever been called on on in american government to rendure on the american council to the

american public and to international community. and powell showed afterwards it was very effective. why was i very effective in because it was colonel powell which had mother teresa poll ratings. he was 77% on the polls an she was about 80%. you're looking at the individual who went out to the c.i.a. and prepared colin powell for that presentation in terms of orchestrating all the analysts from 16 different intelligence agencies working daily and nightly with george tenet and frankly on three pillars of that presentation, mobile biological laboratories, existing stocks of chemical an biological weapons, a nuclear program and then a forth one which was tantamount to the

biggest lie of all formidable contacts between saddam hussein and al-qaeda. on one occasion powell grabbed me, put me down in a chair in the national intelligence council spaces where nowhere else was, closed the door. and he said take all that terrorist crap out. none of it is believable. take it out. i said boss, don't shout at me. we'll take it out. within 30 minutes, colonel powell told them about a high level operative who had been interrogating and revealed substantial contacts between the secret police and al-qaeda to the use of chemical and biological weapon, that was a total fabrication. he gave a presentation that he believed in that had been

orchestrated by carefully orchestrated plot, if you will between the vice president's office, the undersecretary of defense for policy in the defense department and the c.i.a. certain allies that were given to me by george tenet as gosspell. and he presented that to security council the american people in the national community to bring about a war that he had already seen destroy his strategy for exploiting the solidarity 9/11 has produced for good for diplomatic purposes and destroyed any hope of legitimacy and was based on false intelligence. it was not just an intelligence failure it was that too. but it was orchestration of that intelligence to make it present a picture that simply was not true. and there were people in that administration who knew that.

so those are my three similar events about this particular war and in that sense i think i'd say disastrous decision and a disastrous aftermath. we've already heard about that. we can go into detail about that. my time is up. not a good time for the united states of america. [applause] >> thank you very much. i'd like to pick up where you left off. interesting hearing the first two speakrers endoused in inducing the fits of nostalgia. back in 9/11 i viewed the world through the language that they employed. was living near the twin tower.

i had lost friends in the attacks. i believe that the war on terror was one that was against people who hated our way of life, people who hated freedom people who were hell-bent on destroying everything that we stood for and maybe some of that is true the thing about al-qaeda but what i learned very quickly it's much more complicated than that. i moved to afghanistan in 2008. i hit the road very soon after. i took a motor cycle i lived in villages and i got the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life. and what i learned in that -- in those trips is that those ideas -- really those mannequian ideas weren't very accurate. i pulled into a village after a few days of travel and meet a tribe out there that -- tribal chief out there.

and he had lived thrupe 30 years of war about 30 years of war. we got to talk about the american invasion. at one point i asked him, why do you think the invaded your country? and he knew about 9/11. but for him 9/11 was a far away occurrence the way a famine africa is for us. he looked at me and he said, the u.s. invaded our country because they hate our way of life. there was phrase for me. but i didn't necessarily agree with him. but he put it in this way which was talked about back in 2001 it was a watershed moment for me because it spurred me to investigate how afghans really view the war on terror and the american war particularly

afghans who were living in the south. so not living in those areas that were peaceful but living in the areas that there's constant fighting until this day. here's what i found. after 2001, al-qaeda had fled the country after the u.s. invasion. we know that. al-qaeda went to pakistan. eventually some of them regrouped in iraq. so after the 2001 invasion of afghanistan there were no al-qaeda in iraq -- in afghanistan, sorry. at the same time the taliban from the rank in file to the senior leadership quit. they surrendered in 2001. and in subsequent months every single -- most of them or every single one from the senior officials like the minister of

justice, the minister of defense all the way down to rank in file field commanders surrendered and tried to switch sides. the reason they tried to switch sides is not because they suddenly felt that they believed in the american ideals of freedom or they loved the united states but this is how war worked in afghanistan over the last two or three decade. if you go back to soviet occupation. when they left in 1989 a lot of the afghans who called themselves communist rebranded themselves as muja hadine because in a consulate where things can get so deadly you learned very quickly that you would switch sides depending on how the wind blew. there were a number of high

profile incidents that were covered at the press at the time, covered in the "new york times" and other places at which time they tried to cut a deal with the new officials and find a way to not be persecuted. as an example in early january of 2002, there were efforts to erase funds for the taliban by radical pakistani clerics. they were going to madrasa and trying to get donations in an effort to bring the taliban back on their feet. at the time the finance minister of the fanl regime he said publically to reporters please do not donate to us because we are defunct. please give your money elsewhere. as another example in january of 2002 the minister of defense along with minister of justice

and a number of other top officials publically cut a deal with the afghan governor and handed over truckloads of weapons in exchange for staying at home and living in that area. so you had a particular situation in january of 2002 where you had thousands of soldiers mostly special forces soldiers on the ground and in afghanistan but the taliban as a military movement was defunct. so in other words you had thousands of soldiers on the ground without an enemy to fight but we had a political mandate and that mandate was that we were here to fight a war on terror and you were either with us or against us. this world view categorized afghans into two categories. really doing away with all that make the reality in

afghanistan. this is a contradiction. how did it get resolved? the u.s. allied were the war lords local commander and strong men, had an effective the enemies of those war lords game enemy of the united states. there were no cell phone towers some of most of the intelligence is human intelligence not signal intelligence. so all of the intelligence is coming to the u.s. it was coming through local proxies, local war lords local commanders who had a very complicated history on the ground who had their own enemies who had their own riflery who is had their own hatchets to bury. and in effect their enemies became our enemies. and so the u.s. didn't go to afghanistan and create a

dictator or, you know, one of you refered to one of the options of the american policy. but what you did in afghanistan was create hundred drodse upon hundreds of small dictators in villages and in districts around the country men who were armed who were paid who were given contracts to the detriment of state building an nation building over the years. i'm going to give you an example of this which happened to a friend of mine in kandahar plo convince and he was somebody who lived across the street from me. he was like 80, 85 years old. he was an old fighter who fought against the soviets. but he was in retirement. and he would come sometimes to a bakery that he owned early in the morning, 4:00 or 5 a.m. he would knead dough. his name was sharaf houdine.

they showed up. and they asked for him. they said are you sharaf oudine. he said yes. we have information that you are a terrorist. and they arrest r arrested -- and they arrested him. they handed him over to u.s. special forces. there he had metal hooks inserted into his mouth. they september saying that he was a taliban mastermind and they were convinced that they had information from afghan war lords. he kept insisting that he was no a mastermind. soer chevpb lullly they turned him over to the militia men. these afghan militia men took him to a private jail in kandahar city, took him

downstairs and they hung him upside down to 18 to 20 hours a day. and they whipped him. he was hung with other people who these militia men watched extract intelligence from. one of them was awe famous one and he was whipped so much that he was eventually killed. saraf hue -- dine he realized that they were after money. if he were to pay he was given his freedom. the family delivered it to his captor and he was released. the problem is that once he demonstrated that he was able to pay for his release then he was a marked man. like hog work every few months he was arrested again. he was then transferred to

kandahar airfield who was accused of the mears mind. he was hung upside down and whipped until he could be paid again this charade went on for two or three years in 2005 until the commander of the u.n. was killed in a ss attack. and the -- major commander of the intelligence services that ran the militia that was torturing him he now lives in california. he was brought here and he had many family members who are american citizens. so this is -- this is the situation. i can repeat hundreds of stories like this. in fact, my books have hundreds of stories like that of people are caught on the war on terror. in fact, in afghanistan turned time-out be wars against local communities in which certain war lords and certain commanders were eliminating their enemy or using the united

states to gainl riches, to gain power. we live with that legacy today. i think the process cease that created the insurgency in afghanistan in 2002 and 2003 by 2004 the taliban had reconstructed itself as a fighting force and who was now based -- the leadership was based in afghanistan. and the level of opportunity existed and now was very hard to undo what was do and we're stilling with the consequences of that. when we think about legacy in the war in afghanistan an legacy of george w. -- we think about what that means on the ground and interrogate about why fighting continues in afghanistan today. thank you. [applause]

>> we've going to switch the order around. i'm not peter baker. i play him on tv. i'd like to thank hofstra and all of the staff for inviting me. i'm delighted to participate tonight. i want to start discussing george w. bush with a hero, a woman named diane nash. have people heard of diane nash? diane nash was a great hero of the civil rights movement. at the age of 18 or 19 she was the one who orchestrated the marriage in selma. and on the commemoration of the march of selma she was being honored of those many the front row of those who were going to commemorate that experience. at the last minute she said this she refused to marriage and he said "i refuse to march

because george bush marched. he was in the front row with her. i think the selma movement was about violence and peace, and democracy and george bush stands for the opposite for violence and war and stonal election and his administration had people tortured. so i thought this was not an appropriate event for him." . she was right. it was not an appropriate event for him. this is not an appropriate event for him either. i would think an appropriate event is to be on trail in the hague for war crimes. [applause] -- and when we look at war crimes it's important that we interrogate it more thoroughly than we sometimes do. both in my view, the wars in iraq and afghanistan were

illegal. in afghanistan the claim was made that this was a war for justice and for self-defense when in fact, it was about revenge and propaganda partly to prepare the way for the coming war in iraq which was the primary war. it was illegal because it was not self-defense. article 51 of the u.n. charter is very specific about what self-defense is and what is not. and a country has the absolute right of defense until the critical word "until" until the security council can meet and decide what to don that particular crisis. what the security council, if you remember, and those of you who don't remember i don't want to hear from you. the security council met within 24 hours of the attack on the trade center. the building was still smorleding.

diplomats had lost friends. it was a terrible event for those in new york and washington as well. they would have on that day passed anything the u.s. proposed. but the u.s. did not propose an endorsement of the use of force. it was a very specific decision not to do that, not because it wouldn't have passed. it would have passed unanimously and with great ferver as the resolution did. it call for a varietyy of things having to do with tracing the money and several other things but it was not a resolution to be taken under the terms of chapter seven the criteria in the u.n. charter that is the only basis for the use of force. and in that sense it was not self-defense and it did not meet the standard for self-defense in the united nations and under article six of the u.s. constitution treaties are part of the law of the land. treaties include the u.n.

charter. so that was clearly a violation. whether or not the president makes a decision, congress makes a decision doesn't determine whether international law has been violated. and in this case it was violated. in the question of iraq -- i would just say one other thing on the question of defense. the u.n. had scrambled a second plane that was about to crash into the towers that would have been a legitimate use of self-defense. going to war three weeks lateren -- later against a country on the other side of the world was not self-defense. for iraq it was weapons of mass destruction. of. it was the possibility of weapons. it was yellow cake uranium. it was all these things. well, as we know none of those

were true. it was a war fought for a host of other reasons. i'm motte going to get into those reasons that have to do with power, oil and other issue of resources and power. but i think that we do have to recognize that the region is more dangerous now because of the illegal wars waged by george wmple bush than would have been the -- by george w. bush than would have been the case. i think when we talk about war crimes it's also important that we distinguish -- the war crimes that have to do with how wars are carried out from other kinds of war crimes, the kind that has to do with how the war have to do with how the war was carried out on more common in much of our discourse so the issues of collective punishment, shock and awe, the massive

civilian deaths that were known that going to occur in the acts were carried out any way, thousands that were killed. a rendition, black sights of interrogation torture, all those things, the determination did some prisoners don't deserve the geneva convention the right of some later in the u.s. justice department to decide that some prisoners don't deserve to be treated under the terms of the geneva convention. all of these things were illegal. all of them were war crimes. there were specific war crimes that have to do with this it would violations of the geneva convention, article 33 that prohibits collective punishment article 29 says that a party to the conflict, the government of one side in that conflict is responsible for the treatment of people living under occupation regardless of what that carries out the government actions.

that goes the question of command responsibility. and the obligation of the commander, the commander-in-chief and all those up and down the chain of command to be responsible for that. lease on none of that. we saw all global accountability against three or four people in the abu ghraib scandal and nothing nothing above very few low ranking soldiers. article 47 of the geneva convention says people that are protected under the geneva convention cannot be denied protection by actions taken either by occupying force or the government that is in place those things like dissolving the military and sending home 300,000 former soldiers without a job or any way to support their family was a violation of the geneva convention. all of those i talked about in the context of international law but they are talked about a lot

as the legacy part of the legacy of the bush administration. what is not talked about very often is what justice jackson, a supreme court justice as you know and also served as chief prosecutor at the nuremberg trials called the supreme international crime which was of course not a violation of the geneva convention which didn't exist at that time. it was the crime of aggression, that was the fundamental crime. the supreme crime from which all the others stemmed. these were wars of aggression. they were not self-defense. they were in justice jackson's words the supreme international crime. they were grounded in the concept of u.s. exceptionalism,

american exceptionalism, something that has guided u.s. foreign policy from the first settlers on this land who took it as manifest destiny, their right to slaughter native people across this land to claim the land as their own, the we are different we are better we have a right to do whatever we want around the world, to take the world to work because we have been the victims of a terrorist attack. imagine if another country were in that situation. let's take an attack that actually did happen years earlier in 1976. cuba was the victim of a terrorist attack when terrorists put two bombs on a civilian airliner that crashed over the mediterranean, killed 73 people. among them the entire young cuban sensing king, several government officials and other civilians were on board. it was a clear act of terror.

one of the unknown masterminds of that terrorist attack was living for many years in miami. he was first charged at one point with an immigration violation and briefly put under house arrest but he was never jailed, he was never tried for the terrorist attack. what if cuba had decided that because they had been victims of a terrorist attack, a horrific terrorist attack that they now had the right to send groans to attack someone in miami or to take the world to war, to revenge that attack, would we have said that is their right they have been the subject of a terrible terrorist attack and therefore they have the right to go to work i don't think that would have been our response. the u.s. only allows itself to

violate international law with impunity and to demand that the world stand with it. that was the nature of this point of you are either with us or with the terrorists. it wasn't just about reclaiming the global solidarity that we saw during the first hours and the thursday's win the world said we are all americans now. it was about saying if you are not prepared to go to war with us, we will treat you as if you were terrorists and we will go to work against you. it was that kind of approach and it has to do with the notion we heard from george bush, it wasn't on september 11th. was on september 12th that changed the world, not september 11th. september 11th was a horrific crime against humanity. september 12th was the

announcement that the response to that horrific crime would be to take the world to war. what we heard was that the only show is we had was to go to war or let him get away with it. unfortunately too often hear the same argument now. wasn't true then and it isn't true known. there is never only the choice of war or nothing. there are always a host of alternatives and is our job as students, activists, diplomats, elected officials, to find those alternatives and that is what did happen. justice jackson said something else at the time of the nuremberg. he said and i quote him here if sects and violations are crimes they are crimes whether the united states goes them or whether germany does from. we are not prepared to laydown a

rule of criminal conduct against the this we would not be willing to have invoked against us. justice jackson was betrayed by george w. bush and his administration. it was in the context of that refusal to acknowledge the reality of international law and the views of the rest of the world. i know there are probably people here in the audience or listening long distance to don't believe international law has any role to play, who don't believe in international law. i would say for those of you in that position you might think about one thing, with the likes of the in the legitimacy of international law doesn't matter much but it does matter in this sense. it is how the rest of the world views our actions. it is how the other 197 countries around the world view what is we do bridget is through

that when of international law and international legitimacy or lack of legitimacy the other people judge actions and for that reason that the legacy of george w. rush is going to be that of a war criminal. [applause] >> great. can everybody cme? office in the madrid table here that may be metaphorical as well. what has transpired is fabulous. as a journalist, somebody who spends time in washington on these debates i very much enjoy hearing such a great diversity of points of view, a real range. i don't have much to add some libels a few words and we can continue this conversation

because bringing together people who have a vigorous and vibrant debate about these things from a stirring ringing defense of president bush and his actions only to a sharp indictment of what he has done here. i would say as a reporter i was in afghanistan in 2001 before any americans are arrived because i was based in moscow at the time and the more leeway in was a fruit as the costanza and i spent eight months in parts of the wars, and i went from there, six months in iraq when saddam hussein was still in charge and during the initial phase of that war and came back the second term of president bush said the

journalist had a chance, on both sides of this period. what was really on point is important to remember, how different it looks from different vantage points and how complicated these issues are whether you agree with secretary nicholson i don't mean to conflate because everyone is making a different argument but these are such, such -- they go beyond the easy conversation, as the afghan told them they invaded our country because they hated our way of life and it reminds me of my colleague tom rex, and anthony who were in baghdad in the early days after the fall of the saddam hussein government and decided to test this conundrum of different

perspectives. each of them rode along with american military procession through the city and was able, military correspondent road with american troops, and our arabic speaking fantastic amazing he passed away unfortunately. walked alongside and talk to the iraqis. and this event, very supportive listening to them speaking in arabic, bitterness that would fuel a lot of trouble to come. that sort of a disconnect has flavored this period in which we find solution that is easier for

president obama. if this were an obama conference this has evolved and change over time to take from coin. the first anti-war sentiment after the invasion of iraq and afghanistan before president obama, and attacked by the second term. in 2007 the israelis come to the white house and say we have intelligence suggesting syrians have nuclear facilities, and president bush gathers his team, the seam king he had in 2002-2003 when he was making the decision to go to war in iraq

and in 2002 he asked their opinion and they said yes, you should go or you are ready to go, even general powell in this end said i am sitting up at that point despite his misgivings he had expressed a potential that point and the president picks them all out of a room, the two of the making his fateful decision to come out when the president gives you the order to go, fast-forward to 2007, the question of what to do about syria, the president, the same people, the vice president asked his opinion in front of everybody else, not the two of them the vice president's said we should go ahead and bomb this one, you name down a red line, you should follow through on that and the president asked if anybody agree with the vice president and nobody's hand goes

up. from that point to 2003-2007 shows how much iraq and afghanistan began to weigh on even president bush. and they did not take military action in darfur to try to intervene in the genocide despite desires of some. by that point, was struggling to figure out what happened what had not worked. i don't think he regrets the decision. he would not say that out loud. i think he would defend it in strong terms on the same terms tom mentioned earlier and by the time he left office he himself was trying to figure out the appetite for military action, and instituted the multilateral

talks in iran, were accelerated by president obama pointing out this week in switzerland, diplomacy and north korea's nuclear program, tried in the second term for relations damage by europeans and some people out of guantanamo and with president obama this happens in this country, we go to war we often find situations where we take actions and end up the evolving overtime. lincoln and the suspension of habeas corpus, fdr, the internment of the japanese that is an important part of the overall story of how we have gone from there to hear where

president obama is still struggling with the same issues and choices that are in front of him whether come to isis iran, or ukraine or any number of different scenarios that confront how he chooses to respond, more to say on that, i would rather hear more, questions for everybody up here if you want to go through them. thank you very much. [applause] >> you summarize everything nicely. you are the moderator at this point. and critical issues have been exposed in different vantage points to open to the panel to be most productive. and then save some time for

audience questions that there's a lot to discuss here. issues of intelligence, the way wars were fought, ethical concerns for the war, these decisions. there's a lot on the table can be productively debated. if people want specific responses to each. we have panel discussions, what i was thinking first. peter, do you want to ask questions? >> tom phillips you guys can bring this into sharper relief. when you were in iraqi make the

argument of logical decisions that have been criticized with regard to the army and so forth and your argument if i remember correctly and stated correctly, you went under resources and didn't properly commit to what -- if you have other thoughts about what our understanding before the war of sunni versus shia if we understand what was there to be awakened would have made a difference or how was this inevitable. hi would ask talked about they didn't ask the security council after 9/11, a strike against afghanistan, let's just say they had had they asked, clearly

would have gone along. would have been wise or not wise to have proceeded with the war whether -- was an unwise to go in period despite the fact that osama bin laden's people were seen there? >> that is a lot to handle. intel going in, let's not forget secretary powell did go to langley for three days and sat there going through the intelligence as the caller mentioned that this is not just our intelligence, we had a number of intelligence services including russians and french and israeli. and when we went to the security council, they understood there was a strong likelihood that

saddam hussein had chemical and biological agents, as somebody who has been in saddam hussein's 300 rooms subterranean bunker which our most powerful weapons did not penetrate, i walked down in the dark with a flashlight and saw all the chemical bias suits and everything around there. high often speculate what was there, was there anything every there? what was he telling his leadership these regime elites have a very cloistered circle of people there's a lot of show, a lot of sort of mirages these authoritarian regimes have to

construct in order to continue to ag search authority of regime members and the larger public. clearly we might say that was an intelligence failure but there were others. i remember very clearly walking in and talking to be able, we had no idea it was this bad in terms of the degradation of the physical infrastructure. so much of the resources had gone into building up the military so much of the resources had been consolidated by the regime over a number of years that nothing much worked before the war and definitely didn't work after the more war after

the looting. you need a physical force to secure and maintain the infrastructure which was the first thing we did not do effectively. nature and source a vacuum and when you are dealing with a situation where you are going into a country, if there's a vacuum of force what you are going to see is people filling that void, that vacuum. that is where you saw the sectarian militias. it is important to remember in iraq that this was a nonsectarian country. a separation of mosque and state for many years. saddam hussein viewed himself as the islamic leader in the middle east, really since after the first gulf war when he was trying to reassert his own authority in the region and you

have intermarriage in iraq between sunnis and shia, they were all living in the same neighborhoods in baghdad. when i say that when you talk to the rank-and-file iraqis these people wanted to move on with their lives. they were not saying okay, this guy next door to me is shia let's go kill him. that was not part of the psyche of the country. i believe that as the insurgency and foreign fighters come in, you saw still love vast majority of iraqis want to get on with their life but then you saw the sectarian militias are to increase in power because they felt they could. they felt they had the opportunity because we didn't have enough people to adequately secure the infrastructure and in the streets. with respect to the army, this is the most talked about issue,

when you discuss the immediate aftermath i had benefit of sitting and speaking with rules slocum, deputy secretary of defense under president clinton who was over in iraq who was one of the architect of the strategy. and actually getting in the car and going out and visiting some of these military facilities or what was left of them and i know there are people on this panel who may say it is a lie and there was no truth to let but for when you have a conscript army that is poorly trained poorly yclept poorly paid and you have an officer corps that disintegrates above it the rest of the army disintegrates. you have no place to be let them, no place to feed them, no actual way to pay from becausethem

because of the infrastructure breakdown. in the first gulf war we took thousands of p a ws, this time around, the number was less the 1,000. these guys were sold poorly equipped, actually went to the plant where they were making their uniforms and helmets and their helmets were likely king you give to a 5-year-old kid, like hard plastic, so again all of this stuff was for show. they had big numbers but war all conscripts, they had an officer corps that is essentially patronage to them. of not very well-trained, not very well trained general officers, we had very little intelligence on the order of battle so in terms of finding these people, a senior level officers it would have been difficult for us to demand the

first thing bremer did was say there isn't an army to reconstitute. what we need is a professional fighting force. in order to secure this country and put ourselves out of the game of being the only forces secure the country we need a professional fighting force. within 60 days of his arrival, 16 days, not six months nadia, not two years, 60 days of his rival we had started training the first classes of the new iraqi army. remember, anybody up to the rank of colonel from the old army was able to apply and ultimately 80% of the new army were folks from the old army. you need to have the components including in ceos and officers and places to build these folks and feed the minorities are training people, i would like to add the we did try once.

nobody talks about this but we did try once to reconstitute an old division of the iraqi army and that was in 2014 in the battle of fallujah. the marines found a general from the old army who was actually half way decent he had some training he wasn't just a buddy of somebody and that is how he got his rank which was what went on in iraq. this guy was able to locate a core group of his in ceos and infantry and greens wanted to use them to go into the battle of volusia. so they did that and it was a complete disaster. it was a complete disaster to the point where half of those guys fought on the other side. i know this is an easy thing for folks to say this is a crazy idea, but somebody who actually saw the facilities, met with

these folks and saw the operation and how they tried to reconstitute these folks firsthand, there were certain very real reasons why check was done and why it was tried, we tried to remedy it as quickly as possible because we knew we had to. >> very briefly, i just heard one thing i absolutely agree with this regimees ted cruz mr groups of people around them. that was true of the white house. there were tons of people. many of the new more about iraq and anyone in the white house. they did not have access to the white house. i think fund the question of what was there, one thing we knew was true the feedstock for biological weapons had been sent to iraq in the 1980s. we knew that because they came

from the united states, they came from a small outfit outside washington where i live, the american culture collection, the 8 gcc and we all had the documents of this it had been revealed many years earlier and what is also true is the use of chemical weapons in the iran/iraq war was done with the help of the native states military who provided targeting information to saddam hussein's military because in that war, the u.s. was basically supporting both sides kind of hoping both sides would kill off a lot of young soldiers and destroyed a lot of resources on both sides, we weighed in more on the iraqi side because of was the weaker side so that was a given. the point about the destruction of how bad things where, again there was tons of information out there about what 12 years of crippling sanctions had done. after the iran/iraq war iraq had managed to rebuild quite well,

rebuild cities, the sanctions had destroyed not only the physical infrastructure but much of the social fabric of the country and this was, some of you will remember, the famous statement by madeleine albright is it when she is asked about the 500,000 children who died as a result of sanctions and her answer was we think the price is worth it. i always wanted to ask her she had two data, if it was your children would you still think the price was worth it? that was her answer. she didn't deny the figure, she didn't say it wasn't 500,000 children, she knew it was. she said we think the price is worth it. this is not a partisan issue. this goes between parties across the board. finally on the question you raised about if the security council had endorsed it there has always been i have written about this