search happens certainly gave the president credit in saying that the search had turned it around and general petraeus and all the soldiers and marines who were over there worked very hard to turn that situation around. i agree, there is not much coverage now, and i think that is in fact because the security situation changed show -- so dramatically because of the search and you are not getting as much coverage. and you are also in many ways the same way the army has to get soldiers out of iraq to go into afghanistan, you are seeing a lot of news organizations switching their focus to afghanistan. but i would hardly say it is kumbaya not coverage if you saw my coverage -- certainly the situation now is still dangerous for u.s. troops. i feel very strongly about covering the u.s. military and showing what they are doing. . host: martha raddatz is an

author of a book called "a long way home" which made "the new york times" and "washington post" bestsellers trip. since the war began, how many trips have you made to iraq? trips have you made to iraq? guest: i've made 20. that's a lot of trips over there. it meant a lot to me to continue to go back. covering the last term of president bush i still wanted to go back to iraq because that was such an important story. and i could see from the ground changes that were made. i could see the difference between 2004 and 2006 when things were really, really terrible. and the difference since i was there a few months ago with lieutenant colonel karcher of the optimism that many of those soldiers had about the situation there. so to me it's always been 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. . in fact the original commander of the division, who i wrote about, he lost eight soldiers the first night he took command in 2004. that battalion commander is now a brigade commander. he has been in iraq three times. seeing the same soldiers over and over, year after year and the changes they have made, it is a very important story for me to cover. and, of course, many soldiers are against it. host: next comment from massachusetts, democrats line. >caller: i have all website. i wondered if i could give that out?

this has an article on the eve of the war. are you familiar with this? guest: i am sorry. i cannot help you with that. f 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 d 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 alsoet 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 that is not an insignificant host: the admiral went on to explain this approach, the old expression "jaw, jaw, jaw as opposed towar. war, war." could you comment on what you learned about this approach? guest: when the people see the needle soldiers or airmen trying to help, that changes the

attitude toward americans. you can go to these countries for years, and for a long time -- and still now, they blame americans for their problems. sending the fighters on the other side of the border. they say this is america's fault. when they see americans trying to help, when they see them doing humanitarian aid, it makes a real difference. it obviously will not go over -- it will not go away overnight. they do not like the americans intervening. the humanitarian has an effect beyond the immediate stop tactical support. it works strategically to reach out to those nations. host: so americans get a good value from having the military behavior in this fashion?

guest: they do. the connection is made with people. the world seeing what americans did, those people in those countries, 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: caller: good morning. i have one question -- how many of our allies are going to stay in iraq and afghanistan? guest: i suspect you mean independent contractors? caller: that is honestly are really good question. guest: