important to go back. i tell you the book that i wrote about is the 2-5 and that battalion and that's the battalion that lieutenant karcher took over. . guest: it is a very important story for me to cover. many of those soldiers and marines are in afghanistan. host: the next call is from massachusetts.

caller: i heard recently on the website -- had an article about the treaty on the eve of world war i. the british and the french carved up the middle east. the problems of today -- the british lead us in there. they lied about wmds and the threat of saddam hussein. i do not think people were really afraid of him, except for the british and the united states. we have followed the british line. we should not be screwing around with these countries, like we have been doing. guest: i can just say that it

has been debated time and time again about saddam hussein. there is an article in "the washington post." it is a story about what saddam hussein said in his last interview, saying before he was as a -- before he was executed, saying that he was only afraid of the iranians and that is why he kept saying that he had weapons of mass destruction. in fact, he wanted the iranians to believe that because he was fearful of the iranians. it has been debated again and again. they never found weapons of mass destruction. that was a principal reason the bush administration said they were going into iraq. host: let me read one paragraph from this. it was obtained under the freedom of information act from the national security archive.

if you want to read more detail, you can find it there. the director of the archives says that there is no reason to keep the conversations secret. he said that he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a security agreement with the united states to protect iraq from threats from the region. this is on our independent line. go ahead, please. caller: thank you for c-span. you had an interview with vice president cheney. i thought he treated you terribly. was it not the time -- you ask him a very pointed question. his reply was, "so?"

in hindsight, it is probably a lot easier to understand what he meant now than he did then. guest: it was about a year ago. i was traveling with vice- president dick cheney. we had gone to iraq and then we had an interview set up. i asked him about a poll, saying that 2/3 of americans did not believe the iraq war was worth the sacrifice. and he looked at me and said, "so?" that interview got a lot of attention. i think, particularly coming at the end of the bush administration, having the vice president say that was quite stunning. host: let me move on to afghanistan. "the washington post" have a major story. thousands of fan out in afghanistan. the south in crucial test for

revised u.s. strategy. this is an area of the helmand region. there is a band of fertile land that produces some of the largest poppy crops in afghanistan. can you tell us more about the strategy? guest: we have four thousand marines going in there. this is a really big operation. the taliban has clearly taken over the opium trade. that finances a lot of the fighting. i think i heard an earlier caller talking about an interview they heard. it was probably with gretchen peters. she used to work for abc news. she has looked into the opium trade as financing these militant groups in the taliban in that region. that is what u.s. forces are going after. this is a huge area that a taliban controls. this is the first major offensive since the obama

administration has come in. i think what you're seeing now, when you see this -- i was struck when president obama talked about the new strategy in afghanistan. this is now his war. certainly, the iraq war is his as well, but the strategy -- there is a new strategy. it is his idea what failures or what successes happen are on his store -- are on his shoulders now. sending in marines in this area is a big step. i was also reading today and struck by this, the pakistani army is putting soldiers along its border with afghanistan. some of those taliban do not fully from the fighting there, which has been a huge problem in the past this is the first sign i have seen. the obama administration has said they want to look at these two countries together. you cannot solve one without the other. there is clearly some coordination here that is going

on. they have launched this operation. the pakistanis are preparing to keep those taliban militants there. it is good to hear that they are making the effort. host: this is a sidebar story with this headline, "no limit in place for pending request for troops in afghanistan." the nation's top military officer said yesterday that no limits have been placed on the number or types of troops the new u.s. commander in afghanistan can request as he seeks to carry out a counterinsurgency strategy there. let's go to another call. good morning, rick. caller: good morning. how are you? thank you for your fantastic reporting. guest: thank you for saying that. caller: you are fair and

balanced. i'm just joking. the iraq war, like it or not -- thomas friedman wrote a couple of weeks ago in a very important article. there is a globalization of this war, obviously this story was fantastic about the gentlemen you followed. i am getting ready to go to work here. you are just fantastic. both you and c-span are fantastic. the war is not perfect. there are curious things going on. all that yellowcake that was taken to canada. we have the right people in place.

i voted for mr. obama. i did because i thought he had a better look at the whole approach of it. democracy and peace is not perfect everywhere, not even in our country. look at lebanon recently. look at serious starting to open up look at iran. i told my girlfriend seven years ago that peace will come when the power of the feminine starts getting on the streets. was i right or wrong? that is the most powerful thing. was it in intervention? what do you think? was it in intervention, like an alcoholic? the power of women in that area of the world, giving them a

voice is so important to me. guest: we did a piece of on that recently on the power of women out protesting. i was in iran in september. it is remarkable to see, particularly these young woman commeen, so frustrated. you can see them on the streets, pushing them to the limits. to have a real powerful voice. i think that really has caught the world's attention. host: we want to play a piece of video for you. we're talking about all of these different countries in that region of the world. the chief of naval operations had what he described as an unusual event. they have a consultancy that is encouraging the navy to get out

and tell its story margaret we covered the resulting speech. here are some of his comments about how the military overall and the navy in particular restructuring itself to meet what they say are the threats of the future. >> the aircraft carrier abraham lincoln was quietly in port in hong kong. by saturday, she was providing 50,000 pounds of food and water a day to the tsunami-affected area in indonesia. that event also let us to adjust our strategy in a very significant way. as i said, we have been responding to disasters throughout our history. let's see what we can do proactively. we begin a series of humanitarian missions.

they have touched four hundred thousand patients from our ships. that is in south america, the pacific, and in africa. if you consider the four hundred 9000 patients, that is like going to the verizon center, packing the house, and then having doctors treat every single one of the people 20 times. that is not an insignificant contribution that our people are making. host: the admiral went on to explain that it is this approach that the military is moving more into humanitarian efforts to help prevent future conflicts. that is an example of it. would you comment on what you have learned about this approach? guest: they have seen this work, just exactly as he described in

the tsunami and the earthquake in pakistan, when the people see american soldiers or naval officers or airmen trying to help, that changes their attitude toward americans. you can go to some of these countries -- have been traveling to pakistan four years as well. for a long time, they blame americans for their problems, for the war in afghanistan, sending foreign fighters over the other side of the border. when they see americans trying to help in an earthquake, when they see them delivering humanitarian aid, it makes a real difference. it obviously will not go away overnight. they have drone a tax they do not like. -- attacks they do not like. it works strategically to reach

out to those nations. host: americans get a good value to applying the military in this fashion. guest: i have talked to some many sailors about the tsunami relief and the connection they made with people and the world seeing what americans did for those people in those countries in trying to help. you can just see -- if you are in those countries and you just see americans at war or you feel threatened -- threatened by americans or not help, it just makes a huge difference. host: good morning to you. caller: i just wanted to make a few comments about the reporter here who is talking. you make everything sound quite rosy to a certain extent. how about some real

investigative journalism to find out about when we are going to get out, what we are going to do with the bases, why it cost $800,000 to support one soldier over there, and what are 5000 people going to do in the embassies? guest: i would not say that i have painted a rosy picture over there. we have more than 130,000 troops over there. what are we going to do with the bases? i think some of those bases will remain. we have a status of forces agreement that says that we're out of there by the end of 2011. i think there will probably be some sort of residual force. that will be up to the iraqis. we're in an agreement with the iraqis. iraq is a sovereign nation. if they want us to stay longer, we will. the embassy is the end -- is enormous. it might be the biggest in the world. it is enormous. it is a compound. you also have camp victory,

which is an enormous u.s. military base on the outskirts of baghdad. i think eventually, they would like to turn that back to the iraqis. for now, they are still working out of there. this war is not over. you are correct. it is not over. it is still a long way to go. there could be some big fights ahead of us. we just do not know. host: this morning, "the new york times" has a report on the shifting american footprint in iraq. 59 battalions. september, 2007, the height of the surge moved up to 75 battalions. october, 2008, back to 55 battalions. in june, 2009, with growing and changing roles down to 45 battalions.

they moved to bases on the outskirts of neighborhoods in baghdad and other cities. american troops are moving to an advisory role. we're talking about american involvement in this region of the world. our next call is from irvine, ky. caller: i have to organize -- helped to organize the first gulf war. i think people realize now that was planned extremely well, extremely effective it did not cost of -- cost us hundreds of billions of dollars or leave the country into a major economic downturn. that being said, hindsight is 20/20. let's look at what went wrong

superfast. at that time, i had great intelligence contacts that provided information and that went on for several years where i could quickly contact the cia and the state department and directly, the white house, quickly. i think that was instrumental in keeping the clinton administration out of the middle east when they were ramping up wanting to go i saw saddam hussein has basically no more than the mayor of baghdad. i believe the weapons inspectors [unintelligible] however, i was an outsider during the bush and administration. they and their agenda to be a little bit tougher i think i

got intelligence to condoleezza rice prior to her taking the position. however, i still had difficulty getting information. i have extensive research on it. i no longer had my contacts at the cia. i did not have a working member of the white house. my senators gave me some really nice form letters, but they toed the line with the administration. host: may i interrupt you? what is your bottom line here? caller: the bottom line is, i would like to be a peacemaker between those who thought it was a good idea who went to war and

those who did not. there were some intelligence flaws in how to get that information. everybody was moving quickly. host: we have a lot of callers waiting. anything for that caller? guest: all i will say on the difference between the first and second wars is that -- it has been well documented and acknowledged that there were not enough troops to keep the peace after the initial invasion. host: there is another aspect to iraq that is happening now. that is the oilfields. bp-led group to be a test case. the real work for its british giant is just beginning. the project will be a test case for how western oil companies will be received in iraq.

we have a viewer by twitter who is very suspicious of all of this. coincidence? u.s. withdrawal from cities, first auction of oil, oil companies demand 10 more -- 10 times more than our record priest to. guest: i think this is a test case. i do not want to get into the timing of all of that, but it is certainly a test case. security will be part of that test data and how they get on with the iraqis because the oil is certainly something they have been looking at for years and years. host: when is your next reporting trip to the region? guest: i duties at the last minute or was something is happening. i imagine sometime in the fall. host: we have eight minutes left in our conversation -- in our conversation with martha raddatz.

caller: thank you for c-span. i have a few comments to make. actually, our precipitous withdrawal from somalia actually started this chain of events that led up to 9/11. they perceive us as weak. also, our casualties in the iraqi war actually amounted to about two days at omaha beach. one final point is, in afghanistan, why don't we just cut the mountain passes between afghanistan and pakistan, thereby getting rid of the

taliban's ability to operate on that alliance? guest: it would be very difficult to cut those passes. i cannot tell you how remote and hard to get to it is and how many ways out of their. if you try to do that, it is like sealing the border when everybody says we conceal the border. it is awfully hard to do. we certainly could not do it here, i do not think. in afghanistan and pakistan, it is tremendously difficult. they did not do it in iraq in the early days of the war. they said they thought they had the border sealed with syria. that did not happen. there are just too many ways across those borders. it is a very difficult tiger -- a very difficult problem. there is debate about pulling

out of somalia so quickly at looking weak. i think that has been well debated as well. that came after the horrible engagement there were many soldiers were killed. we were not prepared for that fight and we lost many soldiers that day. host: martha raddatz comes from a journalism family. we have about five minutes left with her. go ahead, please. caller: good morning. thank you for your objectivity and your voice. sometime ago, bob woodward was able to get a hold of information through the freedom of information act that showed the highest level of american intelligence met with high levels of iraq intelligence in

jordan and came away feeling convinced that there were no weapons of mass destruction in iraq. they reported this to the president. the president responded -- used the f-word. that was in december, 2002. between december, 2002, and march, 2003 when we went in, he yet condoleezza rice and dick cheney talked about the weapons of mass destruction. they sold that idea in spite of what they knew, to the congress and the american people. don't you think that that information suggest knowledge? guest: i think probably what the bush administration would tell

you was that there was other intelligence and that is what they tried to present to the american people. i stood at side the united nations the day: powell -- that colin powerll presented his case for weapons of mass destruction. the germans and french were skeptical of us going into iraq. it seemed like a lot of circumstantial evidence. even to me that day, it did not seem like particularly hard evidence. a lot of it was not new. there were questions asked about a lot of that evidence. you are exactly right. they talked about mushroom clouds. they talk about nuclear programs. i think that intelligence has been gone over again and again. i know that mr. woodward did a lot of reporting of that as well. guest: does abc have anyone on the ground with the marines in afghanistan?

host: yes. i think you know today, a soldier has gone missing from paktika province. the u.s. military says that the taliban is holding him. it is very unusual that a soldier would ever be by himself in an area like that. i think there are a lot of questions about this. the u.s. military has confirmed they are holding a soldier. that has nothing to do with the offensive with the marines in helman province. host: bid morning, dan and on our line for independents. caller: i have one question how many mercenaries are going to stay in iraq and afghanistan after the pullout? guest: by that, i suppose you mean independent contractors.

that is a really good question. i will tell you honestly, i do not know the answer to that question. i do not know the number of contractors. i do not know how they can do security without some of those contractors, particularly for embassy personnel, the ambassador -- that is usually contracted out. others are contracted out in terms of that. i think that is a really good question. i cannot have an answer for you. host: thank you so much for being here, martha raddatz. we look forward to your future reporting. she is joining us from abc studios here in washington. we're going to take a break and get some more news headlines. our final guest of the morning will be back to the u.s. economy. you will meet edward montgomery, the director of recovery for the obama administration office, although communities and workers. we will be right back.

>> defense secretary robert gates is replacing some members of a pentagon cogitative board. -- consultative board. new appointees include chuck zaghagel. spending by lawmakers on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995 and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the wall street journal. an analysis of 60,000 travel records show hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008. at a cost of about $13 million. that is a 50% jump since democrats took control of congress two years ago. "the washington post" is offering association executives what they are calling not