although rural areas are home to the majority of the population. they lost representation because of this infringement and rule districts that tend to favor republicans gained extra representation because of how this prison system works. meanwhile public schools in many urban neighborhoods are more segregated today than they were before the civil rights movement. >> you can watch this and other programs online booktv.org. cspan, created by america's table television companies in rot two as a public service by your cable or satellite provider

>> "after words" is next on book tv. alberto gonzales discusses his time as attorney general and counsel to the president during the george w. bush administration. his new book is called true faith and allegiance, the story of service and sacrifice in war and peace and he is interviewed by brent kendall of the wall street journal. >> alberto gonzales, current law school dean, former attorney general and advisor to george w. bush. texas court supreme court justice and author of a new book , mm moore recounting his life both in texas and working for governor bush. he spent time here in washington, welcome. >> thank you, it's good to be here. >> let's start with why the book, why now, what motivated you to write it? i know several of your

colleagues have written books about their time there. what prompted the books? >> it's something i've been working on for many years. obviously there were several distractions that i met in the interim but coming up on the 15th anniversary would be a nice worker to hit. i was also motivated by the fact that there have been several memoirs written and people's perspectives have been out there and i thought it might be important to add mine for my son's sake. there's been a lot written and a lot said about me. some of it is true in some of it is not true and i wanted them to get my perspective about the events that shaped me and their life as well. >> it was certainly an action-packed time that you served in texas and here in washington. briefly before we get into some of that, the first part of your book come you talk about your unlikely past two service, both in texas and in washington and

law and politics were an acquired taste for you. i thought it would be nice if you could talk people through briefly where you came from and how you got yourself in this position to serve. >> sure. i grew up in texas, i grew up in a town called humble, texas and i grew grew up in a poor family. there were eight of us, the son of a construction worker who had a second grade education and my mom had a six grade education so we were pretty poor. we live in a small house in texas. you're right, the politics of the law were things that we didn't talk about or think about. my dream was to play centerfield for the san francisco giants. quite honestly when i graduated from high school, even though it is a good student, i didn't have much encouragement to go to

college so i enlisted in the air force and got stationed in alaska where i met a couple of air force academy graduates who saw something in me and encourage me to get an appointment with the academy and i did and then i left the academy because my eyesight failed and i wanted to be a fighter pilot so i had to transfer to law school and then i went to work in houston at a big law firm for 13 years and then i met george w. bush and that changed my life. >> let's talk about that. you were in private practice in use in the book, you got a little restless doing that and you slowly gravitated toward politics. what sort of i did you in that direction? what issues really motivated you? >> yes i was restless, i felt that i wasn't using my law degree, i didn't feel for filled so i got involved in

organizations in houston texas that focus primarily on education and hispanic issues. i really felt that i wanted to make more of a difference in the lives of other individuals and with a law degree in my experience working at a big firm, it set me up well to be involved in some very important events in houston and that's how i got to know george w. bush in 1994. >> you say you felt the republican party was a pretty natural fit for you, you said you didn't agree with everything the party stood for but you thought the party promoted truth as you saw it and better represented core hispanic values this is one of the themes that you return to several times in the book. i'm curious what is your view on that now that we have a heated and highly presidential contest that were still in the middle of.

are your views on the party, and given some of the things donald trump has set on immigration, have your views changed and how do you view how things are going now? >> i am a lifelong republican, and i still believe in the value of the republican party and the party isn't defined by one individual or the experiences of one individual. like some republicans, i have some concerns about our nominee, i'm have equal if not more concerned about the democratic nominee. my loyalty, my affection and respect for the party hasn't changed. i think we are still early in the presidential cycle, that's why were going to have a debate so we can become more educated about these two candidates. i want to see them stand side-by-side answering questions and i'll make up my mind as to who is best from my perspective, who is best for me and my family

and all voters should be the same. irrespective of the party, they should look at the person they believe would do the best job. >> at one point you quote a speech that president bush gave that said scared people build walls and confident people tear them down. >> i was commentary on the thinking of president bush. i think it's one of the reason why he was so effective in his outreach to the hispanic community. they believed in him. they viewed him, i think as a messenger for them with the right message in the right tone so it was really a commentary on president bush and his ability to reach out to the very diverse communities in this nation. >> i will ask you to talk briefly about how you met and got to know the governor and then president bush you clearly hit it off with right away.

i wanted to read one passage from the book here. you said he had an amazing command of important issues. in a face-to-face conversation it was nearly impossible not to like him. he looking back it wasn't about politics, you would've supported him if he had been a democrat. how to do to get to know each other and how did you forge this bond? >> i wife met him in 1988 when his father was running for president. i. i don't remember that meeting. what i do remember is in 1993 when he announced he was going to run against and richard was a popular incumbent governor and i was asked to set up a meeting so that he could meet them. i was happy to do that. i remember when he came and spoke, i really liked him, but i

really thought he had no chance to beat and richards but of course he proved me wrong. again, i really didn't know the man so two weeks after the election, i got a call from when my partner saying i just heard from the governor elect, he has, he has asked whether or not you would be interested in being his general counsel. two weeks later i go to austin and sit down with the governor and he asked questions of me and i asked about the job and at the end i asked, why me, you don't know me. for $75,000 in texas you could get a lot of people to do this job. he relayed the story that back in 1988 i went to washington and interviewed for a position in his father's administration. i ultimately declined, i was was offered a junior level position at hud but i wanted to stay and make partner at firm. the firm had never had a hispanic partner and i wanted to be the first part i thought by making partner it would give me more opportunities in the future so i said no to his father. fast-forward to austin and he told me you turn down my old man for a job and that's how you got on my radar screen. that's how we got to know each

other. we didn't know each other before then and i really believe that for george w. bush, the son of a president, my story resonated with him. a thicket took great pride that someone of my background could achieve things that i achieved and of course he was very instrumental in some of those achievements. >> before we turn to your service in washington, in texas you served as counsel and then you became secretary of state and then governor bush appointed you to the texas supreme court. there's a chapter in there when you talk about their service and it becomes a theme in this book, you are frustrated at the way democrats treated you during your service but you also expressed frustration in the way some conservatives treated you during your time. one of the early examples you cited was from your service on the texas supreme court and some of the cases you had to deal

with with abortion statute dealing with parental notification. can you. >> guest: those cases and why you felt like it was an issue that some felt unjustly or worse skeptical towards you? >> they passed a notification statute which allowed a minor female to get an abortion through a judicial bypass by going to a judge. if certain conditions were met, for example if she was mature and well-informed, if and telling her parents it would not be in her best interest and so there were three conditions laid out and it fell upon the court to try to interpret what did the legislature intended and passing the statute? again this was really not about abortion, it was a statutory construction case in terms of trying to discern what it is the

texas legislature intended when they created these exceptions to a minor having to notify her parent. as a parent, i would have wanted to be informed of this kind of decision so i wasn't crazy about the statute, but nonetheless the legislature had created these exceptions and i had to honor that decision by the legislature there was some tension among members of the court about how broad to interpret those exceptions. i think the fact that i did not interpret exception as broadly as some would like in the conservative wing, i think it hurt my standing in conservative circles. again, i don't support abortion and i believe in the rights of parents to know about the health of their daughters and the decisions made about a serious procedure like an abortion. from my perspective, it wasn't my role to judge and take that into account my job was to try

to understand and discern what it is that the legislature intended when they pass the statute. >> so we went to washington and president bush wins the election and you decide to join him. was that a difficult decision for pretty much a no-brainer when he wondered if you were asked if you would be joining him. >> i was very happy to be on the court, the great position to be in there was a lot of speculation during the campaign about who from texas might be going to washington. had several friends tell me you're for sure going to go but i was happy being on the court. in september i had a conversation who is heading up the transition and clay let me know that he was interested in me going to washington as the council.

i talked my wife rebecca about it and we both agreed that would be an opportunity we could not pass up. the remainder of the campaign, we watched watched carefully how the campaign went and knowing that the outcome would fundamentally alter the trajectory of our lives. when you ask if that was a hard decision, not really. when you have the opportunity to do work in the white house as a senior staffer for someone you know well and someone you respect and someone you believe will be good for the country, that made the decision quite easy. >> obviously you came to washington and the september 11 attack happened and not changed pretty much everything. we will get into that in detail. before we do, i want to touch on a few other items after you come to washington. being a texan and you knew president bush well but you weren't really part of the so-called washington establishment which you talk about several times in the book. you talk about one time early

on, again there was speculation that perhaps you would be a supreme court appointee someday. talk about a speech in which they booed you at one point in there also some very heated discussions with this administration on the supreme court case when the high court was looking at the university of michigan and affirmative action program. it took weeks, if not longer to work out what the administration issue was going to be in in the end you say you are satisfied with it but also felt like perhaps it may have damaged your standing somewhat. can you walk us through that? >> there was speculation about me going on the court. there are publications about public president bush wanting to

put a hispanic on the court for the first time and i was viewed as one of the leading contenders given my relationship with the president and my experience on the supreme texas supreme court. there was concern or skepticism and it was very visible about my credentials and my views about certain things like abortion because of the votes that i rendered but also because of my perceived role in the michigan affirmative action case. i think that perception out there was, i was supportive of quotas but that was just not true. i felt the university program and the law school program for both like quotas. they put too much emphasis on race and therefore it was unconstitutional and cannot be supported for that reason. for whatever reason, then narrative was that i was supporting michigan programs.

that just wasn't the case. in the end, what i promoted was what the president wanted. he did not want to be on record in opposing affirmative action. if the courts wanted to say that it could never be considered, his position was these are too much like quotas. >> he thought a middleground -- >> diversity was not a legitimate educational, the administration. [inaudible] we ended up with middleground readings from the supreme court and obviously we began taking these issues back before the

supreme court. obviously in the end, what are your thoughts on how the law has shaken out in that regard? >> quite frankly, this is where president bush was. i think his view was that it's probably okay given the circumstances to have that race as one consideration and the educational experience is enhanced. i have people of different backgrounds. obviously it's unfair. if there's so much consideration, that the overriding factor. where we are today think is something that president bush would support. i'm comfortable with it although i completely understand that many believe it's inappropriate to ever consider race as a factor under the constitution, but the supreme court, at least today, has disagreed with that position.

>> moving now to national security and the september 11 attacks, that immediately shifts the focus. it raised a whole host of legal issues that they hadn't often often had to confront and perhaps some never at all. can we dive into the first? let's talk about detainees after military operation started in afghanistan. there's a good bit in your book about the decision to house detainees and you said basically

it was the best of what we could do. obviously this is a complicated issue and you point out president obama still has not. >> i wonder if you could. >> guest: the decision-making process there as time has gone on and you've had more time to think about it, what your reflections are? >> it was a very difficult decision and we considered a number of options which are outlined in the book and we also concluded that the best option was guantánamo. that was a decision that was presented to the president and president bush accepted that recommendation. one thing that's very important to emphasize, he does not want to be the world's jailer. he wants guantanamo bay closed as well but we were never able to give an alternative. we had captured people that remained danger door had intelligence value and we had to keep them somewhere. we couldn't give a viable

alternative so when his term ended, the obama administration came in with that pledged to close guantanamo bay but he was never presented with a good option and for that reason it remains open today. it's a decision that both bush and president obama have struggled with because of the nature of these people and the nature of the war on terror. >> the decision to not find a way to house them here states that at the end of the day, was that legal consideration or political considerations as the primary driver? >> i would say both. politically we are talking about that we are still in 2001. new york is still smoldering from the attack and we just felt that politically that people would not stand for the

government bringing in these dangerous terrorist. we were unclear, the lawyers were unclear and without having the clarification of the court, we felt the safer course would be to house them at guantanamo bay. >> so the decision on where to house them, it was obviously heated an important decision regarding how to interrogate. some of these people were hardened terrorist and not likely to tell you information because you asked them. then the question becomes, how can you get them to divulge things they don't want to divulge and where exactly the line is between legal conduct an illegal conduct about the cia and the defense department. they did interrogations during this time and there are a lot of

difficult debates. you say, rightly or wrongly you become the public face for a lot of the doj recommendations there. can you walk us through what some of these debates were? >> let me begin by saying that former senator -- current senator check chuck schumer has said that there would be instances where he felt it would be appropriate to torture someone to get information if that person is about to go out to new york city with an attack in an hour or something. the other stances that we have an anti- tech torture statute and it says it would be unlawful to intentionally in inflict severe physical, mental pain or suffering. it doesn't outlaw specific techniques. i just quoted for you what the law says.

it was a job at the lawyers to try to take that language and provide guidelines for the interrogators at the cia. it took them about four months. there was a lot of debate and a lot of discussion about how much the law would allow. what most people don't understand is that when the united states entered into the convention against torture, we agreed to criminalize conduct that constituted torture. it also talks about cruel and inhumane treatment and that cruel and in the is different than torture. torture is the highest form of pain that can be inflicted on individual, meaning that we could do something that may be cruel, and may be inhumane but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's torture. that doesn't mean that you have violated the anti- torture statute. that was some context of what we had to deal with in trying to

provide guidance. i don't mean to try to commence anyone that what we did was not torture. many people have made up their minds and i get that. i understand that. i merely meant to describe in this book our effort to get it right. sometimes we get it right, maybe sometimes we didn't but we always tried her very best to follow the constitution and the laws passed by congress. >> at the end of the day, looking at international law, the administration decided that the bar under now international law was lower than you all thought it should be with some of the enhanced techniques. >> the bar that was lowered was in the definition of cruel and inhumane treatment. because there were certain european courts that determine

those words to be triggered if you put someone in a cell that had an open bathroom or someone who didn't have a window to the outside that would constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and that worried the congress. they took a reservation when the treaty was ratified that language would mean only that conduct that shocks the conscience of the circumstance. the united states did take a different position with respect to our real obligation as to what would constitute cruel and inhumane treatment. >> is in the book to protect the presidency and the decision not to inform some the details on enhanced interrogation techniques that were being contemplated and that were used. why is that? >> used have many conversation about my job with counsel and his job as chief of staff to keep things that might damage the presidency or the president out of the white house.

typically you want your cabinet to take the lead. quite frankly, take the heat on several controversial issues controversial issues. with respect to interrogation, both andy and i recognize that this will be controversial. what would really be important in the mind of the president would be whether or not if it's necessary and is it lawful. when i spoke to the president about this, he wanted to check if it was lawful and necessary. he could've asked at any time for that information and we would've been given it to him. simply knowing we are engaging in those context and that the interrogators at cia were were confident this was an individual, these were individuals that were of high

value and how their permission, it was information about an impending attack. with these parameters in place, the decision was made to go ahead and move forward with interrogation without providing the information of a specific detail to the president. >> used in the book, after the month of deliberation on what types of techniques were permissible, when the cia began the interrogation, you had mixed emotion about the process. can you talk us through that a little bit? >> sometimes in government you get involved in making decisions or giving advice on policy. sometimes you have questions or concerns about that policy. my job as a lawyer however was to not let my own moral views influence my legal interpretation of the law.

as a hispanic, from a border state i might have very strong policy views and i might convey those to the president but i would make it clear to them in the president may say i appreciate your views and i want to know what you think or he might say you can tell me what the lawyers but i was elected by the american people to decide what the policy is. :

provided legal basis both for you and the department after they became public. you know, they may have had some damage to the reputation and the department of. at the end of the day you feel like the interrogations were legal and vital to protecting the nation. is that a fair conclusion to draw from the buck? >> i think that there were others who testified under oath as to their effectiveness and their value and keeping america safe and in terms of whether or not they were lawful, i remember having conversations with the attorney general john ashcroft who assured me this has been reviewed by the senior

leadership of the department and so that was enough for me. was it an easy call, absolutely not. could've reasonable minds differ, absolutely and there was a debate about the justification for some of these techniques and again, i accepted that they were controversial. given the circumstances i stand by what the administration did. >> another one that comes through on this issue is you being frustrated with what you felt like was second guessing of the leadership at the time of security was that on the apex of the interrogation o were acrossn array of issues?

>> guest: i think it's important to ensure the executive branch offer advice consistent with their professional qualification as lawyers. i think sometimes people question the motivation. that can be dangerous because the criticism of lawyers will be investigated and prosecuted for the advice they've given is detrimental to doing the job in exercising their best judgment. and who is going to want to provide legal advice that they think is solid because for the fear they will be investigated and prosecuted the lawyers

disagree it's going to be critical. they will be investigated and prosecuted and that is a dangerous place to be as a country. >> after the attack they were concerned about for the countryy could do to prevent things like this from happening again. there are large chunks of the book that did go into this and if you could walk us through basically to explain the declassified portions that there were three baskets of information that the administration collected and used to try to better keep an

eye on potential terrorists to invest timduring this time and u could walk us through why they were important and then we will talk about the one that became a flashpoint for some of the officials. >> it took the u.s. government almost two months to clear this book precisely because of the chapters on this program so i want to be careful about what i say because the government still cares very much about this publicly in these activities. i don't want anything to compromise it. what we did and what we are currently doing. and because of that reason there may be portions of the book that are not as clear as i would like them to be.

because of the request by the government things became less clear so there may be portions that people read and say i don't quite understand what happened here. i can't say there were activities the president all surprised when related to the collection of phone conversations that were international and an intelligence officer one person believed they remember from al qaeda. that's the only program, the only basket that was publicly exposed by "the new york times" in december of 2006. everything else was classified for a number of years. the second is a collection of metadata into the third was e-mailed to you and all of that has been disclosed before this and publicly between the white house and the department of

justice had nothing to do with content collection so we were not listening in on innocent americans from coast -- phone calls. >> host: as i understand it, the metadata becomes a part of the disagreement and can you talk and spleen to people aboutt the metadata is. you needed to be looking more specifically at the communications involving the potential terrorists, right? >> guest: if you take your phone bill, assuming people can could still get telephone bills, it lists the calls you made and the date and time. the supreme court said there is no privacy in metadata.

there is no constitutional issue and whether or not are you violating a statute in the foreign intelligence surveillance act that outlines how certain electronic communications can be captured and can be collected by the government and that was the choice between the white house and the department of justice. i might mention this is a very important point. we were walking along and doing fine and then in march of 2004 he gets ill and goes to the hospital. the program is free authorized by the president every 45 days or so and in connection with wih that reauthorization is a signature by the attorney general saying there is no legal impediment to moving forward in the program and so, the program is about to expire. we are coming up on this 45 day

window and the general becomes sick so the duties with respect to the department of justice and the authorization in the program going forward calls to the deputy attorney. >> at this time that people at the office of legal counsel who had different opinions on legal justification for parts of the program and the earlier opinions provided. >> guest: but i will say is when i look back among the lawyers they have three primary sources one is expressed authority and the statutory authority when passed law to

tell the president you can do this and the third is the constitutional authority. some people believe it should be rather limited and others have the view of that authority as commanders in chief for example and so the agreement center on the differences of opinion on the scope of constitutional authority as commander in chief in a time of war. when general ashcroft was sick and in the hospital the attorney general was stepping into his shoes and there was some heated discussion between him and some others and the wall in the white house which led to you have a whole chapter on this called the infamous hospital.

you have a section in the book that says virtually every description has been inaccurate or skewed. so if you can tell us what might not have been portrayed correctly from your viewpoint >> viewpoint? viewpoint? >> guest: the deputy attorney and the new folks believed they had one activity general ashcroft signed off on and they cannot find a legal basis for it. president bush makes the decision he's going to accept the recommendation for the department of justice and shut it down but he wants to tell the congressional leadership that's what he's going to do.

they receive a briefing and advise the congressional leadership. they believe the president has the authority to do this, so we want your help. can we get legislation come and they all say no we can't give you legislation without compromising the existence of the program and they leave that meeting telling us to go forward. there was a consensus. after the meeting, we go to the residence and meet with the presidenpresident and tell him e meeting and there is a decision made that we should go to the hospital and inform general ashcroft of the meeting. the feeling is it would carry a great deal of weight with him and he would be persuaded to go on an additional 45 days until we get all this mess sorted out.

we already just had surgery and nonetheless on two occasions as we walked back to the rose garden and then while we were on the way to the hospital, we both talked about the concerns we have about the general not being confident and we didn't want to be accused of taking advantage of a sick man and we both agreed we would watch very carefully and if any of us got uncomfortable that he wouldn't ask anything of him. so we arrived at the hospital in a savior here to talk about something important and basically spoke for about ten minutes talking about his understanding of what the problem was and what he had been advised and ultimately he said it doesn't matter because i am no longer the attorney general and so at that point there was

additional conversation and we left without ever having asked the attorney general to do anything and without ever having the opportunity to tell the attorney general about the meeting with congressional leadership. so i get specific about this under oath and i've also testified to the inspector general. so what actually happened in the hospital room there is no basis to the question because again i'm testified under oath and we were there at the direction of the president and to inform the attorney general the meeting of the congressional leadership and asked whether or not he would be willing to go another 45 days, an activity that he had approved for another two and a half years and as soon as we learned he was a no longer the attorney general because of his illness. >> which you didn' you depend te time he went into the hospital room.

>> did not know and obviously when we got back to the white house and informed the president that the attorney general wasn't in command at the time of justice he was understandably very upset and so, you know, do i wish that incident had never happened, yes. i think it hurt us both professionally. to take advantage of a sick man it's just not true we went there with directions from the president and as soon as we learned he was no longer the attorney general we left. >> host: one of the things about the account that i find pretty remarkable is you said in a book that you are focused on general ashcroft and you didn't even realize that he was in the room at the time. >> guest: and i know that it's hard foishard for people to undd that it's true the room is dark and you are used to people being around the president and members

of the security detail. i focused like a laser. he was at his bedside and that is all that i focused on. i had no idea until i got back to the white house that jack goldsmith they were all in the room and quite frankly if i'd known that i would have stopped outside the hospital room but it just didn't happen. >> host: to be clear the administration wanted the justice department to sign off because they had previously said the president could go ahead with the justice department acquiescing but it was a dangerous path and at the end of the day the administration made some changes to accommodate.

>> it wasn't so much it might be politically dangerous i think it is always dangerous to ignore the department of justice. what was more important was our ability to continue this activity relies upon the cooperation of the third parties, the telecom carriers and without its signature from the department of justice is much more likely that they wouldn't continue to cooperate and that's why it was important to try to get a signature. going to general ashcroft is something that again it was an extraordinary act to visit somebody in the hospital but we were under extraordinary time and sure enough the next morning we all woke up here in america to the train bombings we had over 200 that have been killed so we were very worried about what was going on at the time and that's the reason we went to

the hospital. >> host: in the book i was under the impression that you were hard on the director in the book in clearing some of the testimony he gave a. and you say the way that it's been told you damaged your standing in the career. do you still have frustrations about this and do you feel like the director has done a disservice? >> guest: i honor the sacrifices to serve as the fbi director we simply had a difference of opinion. i had have a hard time understg given the circumstances.

all we were asking for is additional time to review the legal issues and this was the time of reporting. why not just wait for this since we knew general ashcroft would be recovered and he could weigh in. given the fact that he had authorized this for two and a half years it was hard to understand what was motivating the deputy attorney general. i had no reason to believe he acted in good faith. there was a passage. typically if you were going to go testify about something from

your previous service particularly on a very sensitive subjects like a hospital visit particularly if you have been a high-ranking official like the deputy attorney general you would notify the department of justice or the white house and it was disappointing to me and jim that he wouldn't have the courtesy to do that. i've read newspaper accounts but the concern was the way to try to do something to stop them. first of all i'm not sure we can do anything to stop him, but why would he try to stop them. no, to me that was foolish and felt more like the notion that we would try to do something to stop the testimony and that's why we were not told about it in advance. i just disagree with that. >> host: this shows you how remarkable the time it was that we are 45 minutes into the

discussion and haven't talked about iraq. there has been a spillover in the administration some of the decision to engage militarily, and what we thought we knew and what it turned out we didn't know later. but i wanted to focus for the purpose of store bought into the conversation is the debate about the legal authority for taking action in iraq. there is a discussion about the evolution of the anticipatory self-defense and then it's okay for a country to take military action against another one not necessarily when the threat of attack is imminent towards you and you talk about the debate on whether you literally need to be in a situation where the gun was caught by your anniversary or if you could take a broader view in terms of giving a potential heightened threat down the road if that was enough you could talk us briefly through the

debate and there is a section where seven to ten days before the military action starts the president is asking you what about my legal authorities after months of debate they are close to the run-up of military action those questions are still being asked which seemed a remarkable sort of thing. >> guest: not really. it's a reflection of the fact they wanted to abide by the international and domestic obligations, so i don't find that remarkable at all other than these were very difficult issues and we worked very hard to get them right. the lawyers worked many hours and a lot of disagreement about the legal authorities both domestically and internationally and ultimately we got the authorization to use military force so that gives the president the legal authority to

question what we wrestled with a log under the international law did we have the clear legal authority and the resolution constantly been the end but in e have of course several countries that joined us in this coalition and there was to take military action in iraq and i'm often asked i talk about this and about whether or not it is going into iraq a mistake and i think the problem we have here asking the question as all of us now ask that question with a 26 team mentality. we begin looking at the threat from iraq in 2002 within a year of the attacks. president bush was in the white house when the attacks happened and he didn't want a similar attack to happen when he was president of the united states and once we learned about iraq had a relationship with al qaeda and that the weapons of mass destruction might share those weapons with al qaeda than it

became a very serious issue in a matter. he wasn't going to allow another attack to happen again. sitting here today with a 2016 mindset, we can't appreciate the pressure and the way the president felt in 2002 and 2003 about a potential archive by getting weapons of mass destruction for saddam hussein so that's the thing that drove this. i don't think the mistake was going into iraq based on the information we had. the mistake that existed was in the intelligence and the degree of the weapons of mass destruction that saddam hussein had comin come and the relationp that saddam hussein had with al qaeda. that's where the mistake was. it wasn't the intelligence. >> host: to be clear on the legal side of things in regards to the international law, you were comfortable at the end of the day that the u.s. views in

terms of the longer-term threat from iraq were well supported to justify taking action as needed. >> guest: yes, but it wasn't just us and the lawyers in the united states advising the government, it was also the lawyers in the uk and throughout the world who joined the coalition, and i also have to concede i know there's a disagreement about this that there was not international legal authority to do this. there were lawyers in various countries that have a different view about that. >> host: we are getting close to the end of time. much is about the council i don't know if we can transition briefly the president asks you to go over the doj and obviously that ended up being a difficult time. we get about 350 pages into the book before we start discussing

some of the tenure and that ends up being dominated by discussions over the removal of several u.s. attorneys and all the things in the book that you sort of portray in areas where you feel like there's been a public misunderstanding this one seemed to be near the top of the list i wondered if you could briefly talk us through. you said there may have been some mistakes in the way of that whole issue handling and that nothing improper ever took place. >> guest: we did a terrible job communicating what we did and why. there is no question about that and i have to accept the blame for that but at the end of the day it was investigated by the congress and fully investigated by the general at the department of justice and there was nothing improper about the removals. the presiden president -- these appointments are very political.

they really are. and the removals are sometimes political. and that's okay so long as the removal is not in order to obstruct an ongoing investigation and a special prosecutor appointed by general casey, the inspector general and the congress as i just said look at this and concluded there was nothing improper about the removal. >> host: we get to 2007 and you take a beating from the democrats and the press on this issue and you weathered a good bit of that and there was the directors testimony and it got to the late summer 2007 and the decision was made that it got to the point you were having difficulty being effective at the doj and you reassigned and talked in the book about the

shock to the system after being involved all these years and in a few years afterwards that those were sort of in some ways difficult because i think you used the phrase radioactive in the book and some of the decisions you have to make. would you like to talk us through that tax >> guest: term came from some headhunters those were the terms that were used. it was a very tough time coming and it was going from 100 miles an hour to zero and all these oe issues, and all of a sudden to not be in the cabinet as the attorney general in the united states. it was a tough time trying to find meaningful legal work. i went to my old boss in houston and they said the time wasn't right. i talked to several firms around the country about joining them and i had a wall of degree. degree.

-a former supreme court justice, attorney general of the state, counsel to the president, and yet they felt the time was sent right was the phrase and i heard at the time just wasn't right so that was tough. the stories about me wanting to take advantage of john ashcroft in the hospital room and about my involvement in the decisions related to torture and about the improper firings of the u.s. attorneys and all these things combined created this image that i was radioactive and too much baggage and some folks telling me about clients balked at the fact they thought about hiring needme so that was tough for my family and i would just mention my family once. it's very important to understand how difficult these jobs are to the families in particular. i try not to read any of the negative press about me. my wife read every word and it

hurt her. still today at think it's fair to say she's bitter about some of the experiences and toward certain people and the way they mistreated me. public service shouldn't be that hard. >> host: do you feel like she has taken it harder in some ways then you have? >> guest: no question about it. mainly because she read it all and she knows how critical, how mean and how cool it was. this criticism. i knew i was being criticized, but i wasn't aware of some of the things being said. i wasn't aware i was being abandoned by certain so-called friends. she was. she kept aware of everything. early on she wanted me to leave but she knew i wanted to stay. president bush told me to hang in there. i knew that i had done nothing wrong. but instead of saying hang in

there, that's what i tried to do. it was hard to believe after going through all that criticism and finally we get to the point in late 2007 and the decision is made to president bush when i met with him in crawford that basically said they are going after you again on perjury. i don't want that t want that to you again. honestly i think he was tired of that and just didn't want me to go through that again. >> host: you say in the book one of the storylines in the post-administration people go back and say one of the lessons here is that roberto gonzales as attorney general was too close to president bush and one of the lessons is you can't have somebody in that role that close and strong of a personal tie to the president, and you rejected this. >> guest: i really did. having that kind of relationship gives you freedom and power to tell the president you cannot do