i don't mean hot warfare is going to take decades but dealing with that problem of terrorism is going to take decades. in what ways doesn't it apply. it's not conventional. this is -- each was unconventional and asymmetric. something that is quite different than what we're comfortable with and what the department of defense, for example, is basically organized, trained and equipped to do. in large measure. >> cadet mellon, first question from you, please. >> sir, you seem to make an argument for compassion against conservative and a larger federal government you said we cannot be libertarians and meet a large defense. what's wrong with a small federal government with a large defense. can't a libertarian have a large defense? >> i think you misquoted me. i don't think i said i favored a large government. >> you said that we couldn't be

libertarian because it wouldn't make sense, something along those lines. >> no. you're misquoting me. i said i think all of us, great many of us conservatives like the idea of a smaller government and less -- almost my precise words, less regulation, and less government involvement in our private lives. however, there are people in that category of libertarians who favor a more modest and smaller defense capability, and a more isolationist approach for the united states. and my point was i don't believe we can afford to be isolationists in this world. i think it would be a more dangerous world if the united states were less involved and contributing less to the peace and stability and had a weaker deterrent and less ability to

dissuade people from engaging in the kinds of adventures that they would avoid were the united states seen as capable, engaged and contributing to peace and stability. >> next question. mr. faus. >> earlier when you were speaking you mentioned -- >> this is not fair. he's got computers. he's sitting there reading. >> i can see it. cartoons. >> that's a relief. okay. >> earlier you mentioned that you said that it's a battle of ideas referring to the war on terror and similar to the soviet union. if that's the case then shouldn't we be worried less about going to war and preemptive strikes and those measures and working more on soft power and making and focusing inward on america itself so that way we'll be a country that people want to look up to and be like because we're suffering from a lot of say

maladies that make other countries say well, that doesn't seem to be working. >> well, you use more or less. i would recast and respond this way. diplomacy and military power go hand in hand. not military power necessarily to be used but to exist. and you can have a country without any military capability do all of the diplomacy it wants and not many people are going to listen. it seems to me that we have to recognize that soft power alone is not impressive and certainly military power alone without diplomacy is mindless. you need to use the two together. and i don't mean use the military power but have the military capability for your diplomacy to be persuasive. you don't see in the newspaper

day after day what i'm not going to mention countries but i could list probably 50, 60, 70, 80 country what is they think. why, because it's not relevant to us or to the world. it doesn't affect the world. what affects the world are countries that are factors, that are political and economic and mill tae militarily capable. the task is to have those two in close connection, and effective. and i think it would abmisunderstanding to assume that diplomacy alone can accomplish a great deal. i'll give you an example right now. it would not take a genius to have a status of forces agreement in iraq. we don't have one. diplomacy didn't get us one.

we can't have our forces in a country without a status of forces agreement of some kind in any continuing basis. now, i'm one who does not believe that this country has the ability to go around and nation build. i just -- i think each country is different, has its own culture, its own history, its own neighbors and experiences and they have to do that. what we can do and have done in places like korea and japan is create a circumstance so that they can build their countries. and they in the last analysis have to do that. the other thing about your question that worries me. is this. you say other countries don't respect us or something to that effect that people see problems with us, that's always been so. the country that is the biggest,

the most influential, the most economically powerful, whose movies or music or culture affect other countries is always going to be criticized. and i think the mistake is for americans to think that people who point their finger and say we're not perfect, are correct. we're not perfect. but the fact that every country doesn't love us or adprgree wit everything we do ought not to be surprising. there are few countries in the world like us. we're bound to have values that are different. and i happen to think the values we have are good ones. and let me give you an example. i have two titanium hips, and when i got them i had to have a therapist come to the house and make me move my legs in a way that would be good for the new titanium hip.

three days later i was finished. i knew how to do it and could do it myself. he said can i say something personal? i said sure. he said you know, i you americans appreciate your country. he said i come from nigeria, and if you go at 10 or 12 at night, to the grass outside the american embassy, you'll see people sleeping on the grass lined up trying to come to your country. why do they want to come to your country? your country is the land ever opportunity. your country is where people have an opportunity to improve their lives. and i think we ought to be careful believing these people who contend that america's what's wrong with the world. it isn't. america is not what's wrong with the world and if it were you weren't see people lined up all across this globe trying to come here and they are trying to come here. and with good reason. because it's a very special place. >> i'm going to shift gears for a second and ask you to take a

look at the current military state of affairs and afghanistan and i'm going to pick out a few other countries after that. start with afghanistan. can you sense what's going on there? >> no. i'm out of date. i've been out of the pentagon six years, i haven't talked to the military commanders, the recent military commanders, i've talked to enough people who have been in important jobs and thought they were current and weren't, and i'm not inclined to make the same mistake. i will say one thing. i described afghanistan as a country that's land locked, had a civil war, was occupied, was poor, illiterate, tribal. and what have they done? since 2001. placed in power karzai, not

because he was strong but because he didn't have his own militia, largely. the other war lords said gee, the meeting to decide about this, let's make him the temporary one. that's easier than making one of the more powerful war lords the temporary leader of the country. then they fashion a constitution, then they vote on the constitution. and then people who left afghanistan decade, two decades earlier start coming back, over a million refugees return to that country. the problem was you look around where there is a piece of construction going on what's happening is most of the people working there aren't afghans, because they are not literate. they don't have the people that are trained electricians and pipefitters and trained to do these things, so they have got a difficult situation, a whole generation of women who weren't allowed to go to school or to learn. so karzai's in there and here's

a country that's not known for having a strong central government. it's tribal. with open borders, with tough neighbors. and what do we do. well, unfortunately in my opinion, our government, leaders in our government started trashing karzai publicly. now, is he perfect, no. are we perfect, no. did he do everything we want, no. is there corruption in the government, yes. some place. is there corruption in our government, yeah, we have congressmen and governors go to the slammer. so with people started publicly pointing to the government and saying corruption even though i know of no evidence that says karzai's personally corrupt. second, they expect him to behave as a strong central government which the country has absolutely no history of. they publicly criticize him and weaken him. now, think of yourself as a

politici politician. if some outsider is pointing his finger at you and criticizing as mr. holbrook did, ambassador eikenberry did, vice president biden did, all publicly criticized karzai. our congress started doing it. what do you do? you defend yourself. that's what karzai's doing. he starts saying things back and it's tit for tat, this for that. what have we accomplished? what's happened to private diplomacy? and if you've got a problem with somebody go in and talk to them about it but you don't go out in front of his country and criticize him publicly and i think we have mishandled the karzai government, he is the elected leader of that country. does the country behave like we do, no. is he perfect, no. but is he the person that was selected by those people, yes. does he do a pretty good job, i think so. is at tough job?

he came to me once and said look. he said i've got a war lord that won't do what i want. and i want to be able to tell him that u.s. military power is going to support me if he doesn't do what i want. i said no way. i'm not going to have you throwing around u.s. military power. that's up to the american people. i went back to the national security council, had a big discussion. some felt yes, you should assure him that our military power will stand behind him. i said i don't think so. the president ended up agreeing. i went back to karzai, said here's the drill. you better start acting like mayor daly in chicago, find those war lords who want something, whether it's patronidge or they want the pot holes in the streets fixed and be political. work with them. and get them to do the things you want by using the power you have. which is not total. you don't have total power.

nobody does. and he said okay. and he tried and he did. he ended up bringing some of those people into the parliament and into his cabinet. and playing this off against that and being political. which is what a political leader has to do unless you're authoritarian. but i think publicly criticizing an elected official drives them away and forces him to say things that causes our congress to point with alarm, look what that man is saying about us and our country, isn't that terrible. well, why is he doing it? to defend himself politically in his country. now, that isn't the question you asked but that's the answers i decided i wanted to give. >> it's a good answer. how about the political state of affairs in iraq? any comment on that? >> sure. briefly. it's imperfect.

the country was used to sunni rule, the minority sect in the country. the kurds pulled away and kind of operated semiautonomously in the north. the shia has the largest population and had not been in the driver's seat. once you had an iraqi constitution drafted, an election under that constitution, the majority rule, the shias took over. there was a fight within the shia sects, elements, and in this recent election the man who got the most votes didn't get the job, alaw way. maliki got it. he was able to stay in. he has a very tough job. just as karzai has a very tough job. and it's easy to look at it from outside and say goodness, why don't they do this. why aren't they more like we

are. i have no idea how i would behave if i were in malakai's shoes. he has a big problem assuring the sunni element in the country and the kurds that it's in their interests to stay as part of that government and not break off and divide that country into pieces. he has a big job keeping the shia population, his group, from not asserting itself in a way that drives others away. he has a big job dealing with some elements in the shia group that are largely influenced by iran. some of those people. he has a big job trying to maintain security in a country where the iranian influence, military influence, and terrorist influence, and

political influence i should add, is a difficult situation. you know, some people criticize him for vacillation, others for failing to be assertive, some accuse him of being too assertive. and it's business as usual in politics. everyone's got an opinion, everyone is fussing at everyone else. i think that it's not clear to me how it will evolve in iraq. we keep reporting that people are being killed and it's true. we also keep reporting that in chicago and new york and cities around america people are being killed and they are. and it's a shame, it's heartbreaking when people are killed. but it is not -- that journey they are on is not going to be smooth. it's a tough one. and how it will come out i don't

know. all i know is that at some point they have to do it themselves and we can't do it for them. most of our people there don't speak the languages. we don't know the cultures. and -- i used to say it's kind of like helping a child learn to ride a bike. you run behind him holding the seat, and then you go to three fingers, two fingers, then one finger. you let go they might fall, and they might. you don't let go you're going to have a 40-year-old who can't ride a bike. you can't ride it for them. at some point they have to ride it. it is not a science, it's an art figuring out when you go from four fingers to three and three to two and two to one. i don't know the answers and i know i don't know the answers. >> egypt. >> big, important.

poorly handled by my standard. it's the -- i don't know what, 60 million people or something. kind of a big anchor in the arab world, the fountain of education for arabs all over that part of the world. with naser gone and sadat in they fashioned an arrangement with israel and sadat had the courage to go to israel and sign that and ended up getting killed by the muslim brotherhood eventually. mubarak came in, air force pilot. nothing against the air force pilots. he wasn't a navy pilot. but no one's perfect, right. air force pilot and he's been in there a long time. he could sit back and say gee, shouldn't he have moved faster

to move toward freer systems so that turmoil under him wouldn't have bubbled over so fast. and so furiously. where are we today? well, where we are is that he was thrown out, and the impression in the arab world is that if you're a friend of the united states don't count on the united states because the feeling is we threw him under the truck, that our government, our white house, said he's been there too long and so forth. that's the impression in the arab world which makes other friends of the united states step back and wonder gee, are they allies and friends or aren't they? along with the muslim brotherhood control i think 73% of the parliament. i could be wrong by 3 or 4% but

that's good enough for government work. what does that mean? you've got -- you have i'm going to guess, 60%, 70% of the men under 40 are probably unemployed in that country. all of us we see a revolution like that and you can't help but think isn't that fabulous. wonderful. these people who have been denied. they don't have the free political and economic systems where this have jobs and opportunities and the ability to do things. you look at what happened and who is in charge. it wasn't a bunch of young people looking for jobs. you have 73% are on the extreme side. in the parliament. what's the single most valuable thing right now i will submit is the u.s. military to military relationship with the egyptian

military. that's not what you're going to read in the newspaper. but i would submit that decades long interaction between our professional military, civilian control, talented, capable. when i went -- i was at naser's funeral. isn't that amazing. i was there with robert murphy t diplomat among warriors and john mccoy. we landed and there were sofr yet airplanes, tanks and soldiers all over that country. this is 1970 plus or minus something. we met with sadat who was the acting president, the vice president, and the briefing papers said he was a light weight. that masser didn't like to have strong vice presidents around him. this fellow won't last 15 minutes. sometimes i over state for emphasis. probably not exactly what the

paper said but something like that. we went independent an met and came away enormously impressed, a man of substance and guts and he looked at us in the eye and said look, i have no problems with the united states of america at all except israel. and within a year or two all of the soviet tanks and airplanes and artillery and soldiers were gone. gutsy move. you know, we look at the revolution and we think isn't that terrific. then it starts sorting out and you see it's not so terrific. why is that? the reason is you've got a whole bunch of people who are illiterate, you unemployed who -- and the way i look at it if you have three or for people coming down the elevator, three don't know what they want to do and one wants to go to the movie. they go to the movie.

and by golly in egypt right now the ones that know what they want is the muslim brotherhood and the salibas. they have 73% in the parliament. why, because they are tough, brutal, they know what they want. and the others are disorganized. haven't planned, aren't funded. so, when you see what's sweeping across that part of the world, you go in to mo racko you'll see head scarves, probably compared to five, ten years ago enormous change. towards that approach in their country. you look at libya, unclear where that's going to be. you look at tunisia, it's unclear where that's going to be and the problem is, as the

turmoil takes place the people who are best organized and know what they want are the people that probably are the least likely to move those countries toward free systems and egypt is important and they are vastly more important than any other pieces of it. >> you mentioned that libya and tunisia but you didn't mention syria. can you comment on syria? >> well, it's of a kind. here we've got the country that works closest with iran that contributes the most to terrorism acts against the united states and against the free countries that is causing the most difficulty in lebanon. s that a country that would be vastly better off if assad and this -- he is a member of the

alowite sect, a minority sect. one can say the world will be a better place if awe sad wasn't there. you can't say that. you don't know what you're getting. what are you replacing him with. if you're replacing him with the muslim brotherhood and hamas and his follow type people, extremists, then i mean, we're not their neighbors. israel's their neighbor. if you want to know the answer to that i'd ask the israelis. assad as bad as he is, as poor a neighbor he is replace him. i don't know the answer to that. it's hard for me to say that the world would not be a better place with assad gone because he and his father contributed to a lot of american deaths and terrorist acts around the world. but you know, who knows.

i asked an expert on the region not long ago and he said he's going to be in there longer than we think and less than he thinks. >> i saw your hand up. zm sir, you mentioned earlier -- >> are you going to ask an easier question? >> i promise. >> no computers. >> but you said defense spending used to be 10% of our gdp. today it's a mere 4.4%. >> something like, 4.67. >> with the looming budget deficit of i think it's 15 point something trillion now, you know, eventually going to hit crisis mode if it's not dealt with in a few years. how tough a sell is going to be that we need to maintain defense spending or we ought to even

increase it. >> they have already cut some $400 billion over the decade. they announced a second 500 billion so you're pushing a trillion. and you could not balance the budget. it isn't where the problem s. problem is in entitlements. if we've gone from 10% of gd foorks 4 plus percent going for defense, the idea that the defense department is the problem of the debt and the deficit is just gross misinformation. it isn't. is there waste in the department, sure, any big bureaucracy. if you want to do something in the department of defense. doyant know what we've got but between 800 and 900,000 civilian employees. we have 10,000 lawyers. in the department of defense. where's the gasp?

10,000 lawyers in the -- it's amaze -- it's kind of like gulliver. most of you probably never heard of gulliver. he was a great big guy and they put little threads over gulliver and no one thread bothered but in the aggregate he couldn't get up. the civilian employees a lot of wonderful employees, don't get me wrong. but if you want something done in the department of defense you go to a military person. why, because you can bring him in and send him away when the job's done f. he doesn't do a good job, get somebody else. the alternative is go to a contractor. sign a contract, bring him in. contract ends, he goes out. you can't do that with civilian employees, they are there forever. you can't hire them fast, can't fire them fast, you can't move them around. civilian managers have four, five, six, different systems.

they have to manage. in one department. it is the unions have control of the civilian population in that department to the point where people f they want something done, go to a military person or a contractor. now is that waste? you bet. there is waste in there. how much i don't know. is there other waste, of course. and there are billions that can be saved. my recollection is there is smog like while i was there about $12 billion. in the congressional add ons that were put in that we didn't want for things that had nothing to do with the department of defense. when i was there i decided to rebalance our forces. we still had air force capability in ice land. they were there to track the russian