partisan issues going on in congress today. i do not know the vietnam is directly a part of those decisions. i think in terms of how veterans are treated in general, which is something we are all thinking about on memorial day, you can look back and see a shift in terms of the attention paid to them, as my father was talking about earlier. when veterans came back from vietnam, they were not treated very well at all. you do see a shift since september 11 especially. you think of the veterans coming back today. all of the attention paid in various ways, and yet, you still have a lot of issues going on with the v.a. and how they are treated. i do not know that the funding decisions now are tied to much to the legacy of vietnam. host: let's head to california where steve is waiting on the line for independent spirit good morning. caller: good morning.

i'm very happy to speak with you this morning. my question -- i have memories of the vietnam war from my preschool days until it ended. i was unable to be enlisted at the time. what about the ability of the u.n., even now, in the present days on the president's enactment of using such a body to enable peace? and to avoid conflicts that are not reported well. as i remember of my military service. that is my question. guest: it is a wonderful question. i wish it were asked time and time again. the relationship that everything

we go through in the nation these days relates to, on one side the grit of conflict, and on the other side, the feeling that we ought to spend more time and effort in pursuit of a peaceful resolution of the problem, rather than immediately retreat into a feeling that since we are the strongest nation on earth with our weapons, we will be able to get our way. this gets back to -- for me this is the central heart of the book and our problems -- it does not work that way. it's and we have not been proven to work that way. you can be the strongest nation on earth, and still not get your way. one of the things that infuriated lyndon johnson about vietnam, and i mentioned this before -- he would refer to what was a raggedy ass fourth rate

country. we talked about the vietnamese as these little people in black pajamas. in other words, we did not have any respect for them, and not respect the power of nationalism as a driving force in vietnam. we have to understand that now as a driving force in other parts of the world as well. we cannot continue to think through a narrow u.s. perspective. we entered the vietnam war -- we know that now -- largely in ignorance of what was going on. host: has the united states underestimated religious extremism? islamic extremism, in particular. guest: absolutely. we are trying to catch up with that ignorance too. the way that we catch up -- again, i have a feeling, i do not have know enough about this but i have a feeling that we

lean on the military to cobbler something that cannot be achieved with a gun. i do not know, by the way. i do not want people to think that i have an answer. i don't. i do know that the problem is out there, and it has to be addressed in a very serious way. are we addressing it congress? are we addressing of their? i do not think so. i do not hear any of these long deliberations, such as we had -- i remember 1966, senator fulbright had hearings about china, about vietnam. he tried to have, with legislative seminars, and introduction course to the american people on these countries. we did not know that much. what do we know today truly about iraq? about syria? about afghanistan? about you ran? -- about iran? we know what we hear on the

radio and see on the television. do we read books or listen to people who really do know? host: do you think the members of congress have to come in with opinions already formed. that there is no time for them given to learn about these topics, or change their opinion on a topic, if they do learn something. guest: not to me. i is the home run question. the answer to me is that they do not come in with deep knowledge of a subject. they come in with politically acceptable slogans. right now, for example, i read a story yesterday that many republicans running for the presidency right now are being pushed in the primary season toward a more extremist view that many of them do not have. they feel they have to adopt it. -- adopt, raapt, rather.

what i'm trying to explain is whether it is democrat or republican, we live in extremely public a world, and we have to give ourselves more time to understand things, rather than just deal with slogans. host: the book is "haunting legacy, vietnam and the american presidency from ford to obama." we are with the co-authors of that book, marvin and deborah kalb. henry is waiting in virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i was in vietnam in 1969 and 1970. when i had issues with ptsd, i was really messed up on the first combat but it was no such thing to the v.a. -- they kicked it to the curb.

i also had issues with brushes skin rashes. they did not do anything. now, they do give you a little benefit. my issue is that back then, when we first came back from be a non-, after being shot at and watching all this murder and stuff in vietnam, there was no treatment for us. i think they think that us vietnam veterans are old now and they want us to go off somewhere and die. host: do you want to jump in? guest: the caller raises an excellent point. i think that ptsd is something that has become more widely understood in recent years unfortunately, during the time that the caller and others were

coming back from vietnam, it was not understood and treated. today, i think there's a lot more understanding of it and what it can do to people, and the treatment that people need. people who serve in the military, and deal with other conditions ray survivors, and others, also suffer from ptsd. today, there are a lot more services for people. at that point, 40 has a 45 years ago, there was not the understanding. host: let's stay on the line for vietnam veterans. joe is waiting in your. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i cannot understand how you can win a war. you know, our friends go -- our troops go over there, and it is like racism. america's number one, korea is number two. you know.

vietnamese are number three. american blacks, number six. north vietnamese, number 10. vviet cong, number 10. the war in iraq is a sham. you know. host: help me out with a question. caller: you know -- our troops are not trained properly. you know. when they go to war its -- you cannot win a war without winning the people over. how do we do that properly? guest: i think that is a terrific question again. winning over the people is an issue that has been with us -- i remember from the oldest time in the cold war when there was a

contest between the united states and the soviet union. how are we going to win over the people of vietnam. the whole idea was that we would win their minds, and thereby their allegiance, and they would therefore be with the united states and not go communist. we have thoroughly tried that in many different countries. i think that joe has a point here. it is not simply going in to win a war. it is going in, in some way or another, to achieve an end result that is satisfactory to the interest of the united states. that is why you go to war. to think that you go to war without any knowledge of a country, or what is that drives these people, is very full hearty, and we could end up losing other woars as well if we do not use our brains here. host: another passage from the

book. in afghanistan, are we still at that point? guest: this president has tried to get out of afghanistan. what he has found is that you can desire from a political view in the united states that is the best course for the united states to get out of there, but, you get out, and you leave behind an enemy -- the taliban -- which is still there, still seeking somehow or another to overthrow the existing government to set up its own form of an islamic state. you know, i think about this, and i feel sorry for the

president. these issues are monumental, and complicated. there is no easy thing. if the president of the united states today word to say to the american people -- get on camera, and say ims sending 250,000 american troops to afghanistan because we have had enough of the taliban, and we will wipe them out. what with the american people say? i have a feeling they would save no, they have had enough. likewise, if you were to say, we will send 250,000 troops to iraq. we couldn't do it once before, let's see if we can do it now. as we go into another presidential campaign, the politics of the nation will drive everybody on both sides to say, wow, terrific idea. it is not different idea. you have to think through these things. i keep going back -- forgive me

-- the legacy of vietnam hangs over every presidential decision about going in or staying out. host: sharif is waiting in michigan. line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i have two questions. one. would we have won world war ii without the use of the atom bomb? number two before the governments getting involved in afghanistan -- host: help me out with the second question. caller: do the vietnam ghosts adequately harm our government before deciding to get involved in afghanistan and iraq? guest: i will start with the second question. it is a very thoughtful question. it is something that i think a lot of people have giving

consideration to. in the book, we do talk about that. george w. bush came in sort of wanting to do things differently from the way bill clinton had done them. bill clinton had been very cautious about boots on the ground. he had not wanted to do that. air war was ok, but not ground troops. he did ir1 kosovo, but not putting ground troops and in. then of course, september 11 happened. i think the combination of wanting to do things differently, and the fact that the u.s. had been attacked, and the attack had come from a base in afghanistan, that played a big role. if you think about iraq, you could see possibly that he was trying to continue something that his father had started with the gop gopher with iraq. -- with the gulf war with iraq.

i think ghost were haunting the -- ghosts were haunting the bush presidency, but maybe in a different way. bush headed to respond in a more muscular way to get in there and show the world what america was all about. maybe i will let you answer the first question. guest: i think world war ii was going in such a way that the u.s. victory was inevitable. the use of the atomic bomb shorten the war and made it directly obvious to the japanese that the war cannot continue and they would not win. sensible heads looking at the devastation of hiroshima and not as agasaki said, let's get out.

host: that comes up in your book, about pakistan and reactions from russia to vietnam. what russia was doing in afghanistan in 1980. guest: it is very interesting. for several years, we have not heard about uses of atomic power. president putin of russia has said in the last six-eight months, has started to talk about a funny way of the use of atomic power, as if he is threatening the rest of the world -- not necessarily with the use of atomic power, but with the statement because russia does have tremendous atomic power. host: sort of a reminder. guest: a reminder, and also building up his ego. however, the minute that you

begin to talk about atomic power, you are one step in the direction of using it. it is terrifying. i think that a number of people today applaud the president's effort to try to get iran not to have a nuclear bomb. there is a lot of argument about that, and very good argument but there is a large issue that sits above it all. if iiran were to get a weapon, almost certainly, saudi arabia would follow very quickly, and then all of the middle east would suddenly be atomized. that is not good. we have to find a way around it and out of it. host: frank has been waiting in norman, oklahoma. good morning. caller: thank you. just a quick comment.

i'm a retired air force veteran, retired in 2005. growing up with my dad, he is a vietnam veteran who served to towards -- two tours in vietnam. he always told me, never to touch him and wake him up. i always had to call his name. he always told me, not to touch him. he never talked much about his experiences, but one day out of the blue, he talked about his experience and about what happened to him during his time there. he always kept himself quiet and one day let it out. i was wondering if the author has any comments on the life experiences of those who have served. on the colin powell doctrine, he has used the vietnam legacy as a basic ideology for not going into the war, but go again with

all forces necessary to win the war. if that wasn't the case, then i think bush gave him the authorization to do that. i think we were successful with the overwhelming force, but that is a particular strategy that has not been used in subsequent encounters with afghanistan, is or isis. i was wondering, if we used that kind of approach that we used in world war ii, could we win the war because of the media coverage? host: i want to give our panel a chance to take it out. deborah kalb? guest: that is a very important question. the powell doctrine was definitely a result of the war. colin powell served two wars -- two tours in vietnam.

george w. bush authorized that and said, fine, we will give you what you need to get it done. we talk a lot in the book about how that was a successful use of u.s. military power, and it accomplish what it was supposed to call bush -- supposed to college. the other aspect of the powell doctrine was an exit strategy which they had. they administration, the bush and mr. asian, decided no, we will end it -- the bush administration, decided no, we will end it. it led to part two with george w. bush. we write in the book that it was successful and the right decision for them. host: marvin kalb just one or

two minutes left, by what you to address the immediate question about the caller brings up. if there was a war like world war ii, with the media and the public allow a war to be prosecuted like world war ii was with overwhelming force. guest: i would like to answer that with a 50 minute lecture, by note we did not have the time. we live now in a totally different environment. there has been a revolution of communications. the way that we communicate with one another is radically different from the way we communicated during world war ii. during world war ii, the press was on board. the press follow the line of the government because it more or less agreed with the government. we needed to knock off the nazis and finish the japanese imperialism. the press is not an adventurous

s organization. it does not seek to not be consistent more or less with what the american people want. at this point, we are in a time where, frankly, i do not even understand what changes are taking place. they are all over, it is the internet world, and it is all different. host: marvin deborah kalb co-authors o later, john of real clear markets on free market economies and pop culture. his book is "popular economics." you can join the conversation by

phone or on facebook or twitter. >> this summer, book tv will cover book festivals from around the country. this weekend, we are life at book expo america in new york city. in the beginning of june where live for the tribune including our three-hour live in depth program. and your phone calls. near the end of june watch for the annual roosevelt reading festival from the presidential library. in the middle of july we are live at the harlem book fair. with author interviews and panel discussions. at the beginning of september where live at the nation's capital for the national book festival celebrating its 15th year. it is a few of the events the summer on book tv. >> next, a look at u.s. war

policy during the presidency of george w. bush with journalists discussing the wars in iraq and afghanistan. speakers include james nicholson and new york times chief white house respondent peter baker. -- correspondent peter baker. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] host: welcome. i am an associate professor here at hofstra and i am pleased to be serving as moderator for this distinguished forum. a wars in iraq and afghanistan are arguably the most controversial and consequential

decisions of the bush administration. the decision to go to war, how to get out of the wars, and related issues have not only dominated the bulk of president bush's time in office, but have also shaped current u.s. foreign-policy options in and around the regions. they will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. there is very little doubt that the wars in afghanistan and iraq will continue to be measures by which the legacy of the george w. bush foreign policy will be measured. with that in mind, the conference organizers have brought together this outstanding panel of public servants, journalists, and scholars to examine the way the bush administration waged wars and the consequences of them. each of our panelists is extremely accomplished and i will try to keep the

introductions relatively brief although that is hard with a group like this. as i go through, i would ask that you please hold your applause until i have introduced everyone and we can welcome them altogether. giving us perspectives from the administration, we first have thomas basilay, appearing on forms such as sirius xm radio. for the bush administration in 2003 through 2004, he was a senior press advisor to the authority in iraq. he was a consultant for the republican national committee, presidential campaign, and prior to this service he was director of communications for the u.s. environmental protections agency

in 2001 through 2003, and was part of the bush-cheney campaign. he is a hofstra alum as well graduating with a degree in political science and he was named the 2007 hofstra young alumnus. ambassador james nicholson is currently senior counsel at brownstein hyatt farber schreck counseling clients in health care, regulatory law international relations, oil and gas, and alternative energy. from 2005 before this appointment he was u.s. ambassador to the holy seat during which he was knighted by john paul ii for his human rights. ambassador nichols has been the director of the new community

development corporation commissioner and the commissioner on the defense advisory on women services. he was the chairman of the national committee from 2007 to 2001. lawrence wilkerson is distinguished adjunct profess or at the college of limb and mary. he served in the u.s. army from 1966 until 1997 excuse me. while in uniform. he was a member of the faculty of the u.s. naval war college, special assistant to general colin powell when colonel powell was chiefs of staff. from 2001 until 2002 he was associate director of the state department policy planning staff. colonel wilkerson's last position was chief of staff for u.s. secretary of state co len

powell from 2002 to 2005. so the journalists and scholars that we have present. first he was a journalist that served as an afghanistan correspondent for "the wall street journal" for "the christian science monitor" and reported in asia and middle east for several other publication. mr. napol has extensively interviewed both sides of the afghanistan conflict. this is cited in his critically acclaimed book "no good men among the living: america, the taliban and the war through afghanistan eyes" which was a final list in the national book award and the helen bernlstein award and recipient of the

ridnour prize. he was an inside fellow at the new america foundation. peter baker is the chief white house correspondent for the "new york times" and the cribbing writer for "new york times" magazine. he's covered three presidential times in his previous boggs "the washington post." he won a prize in the beckman memorial award for white house coverage. he was the bureau chief for "the washington post" during the rise of vladimir putin. he's the author of "days of fire." which provides a comprehensive look in the bush administration from the election to the iraq war to the bush and chaney white house. he's serving as a distinguished

conference scholar for this conference. and phyllis bennett is a director of the new internationalism project at the institute for policy studies in washington, d.c. and is a fellow of the trans national institute in amsterdam. she's been an ackvists in u.s. ish shoes an speaks widely as part of the global peace movement. she continues to serve as an advisory for several top advisories in the middle east. she's the author of eight books including 2003 book, before an after u.s. war on on terror. and the 2005 book challenging empire how people governments and the u.n. define u.s. power.

so please join me in welcoming this distinguished panel. [applause] so the format, we're going to have 10 to 12 minutes for each of our guests here. and then there will be a question an answer session and possibly in between a moderated discussion depending on how much time we have. so we will essentially go in the order that's listed in the program. so first mr. basile. >> thank you paul, for that introduction. always great to be back at this campus. it was 18 years ago that i served on the student for the bush 41 conference and during the conversation i got to trail around john se knew new for

denew new who happens to be the faster walker i'd ever encountered. and joe is following me around. and joe, i'm sorry you got stuck with me. but i really appreciate the invitation with dr. bose and the calico center not only as an abum us in administration but also an alumnus of this university. it's wonderful to see how the political discourse surrounding the presidency affected so dramatically. it's good to see secretary nichols here with whom i was so fortunate to share a very wonderful and for me a very meaningful and emotional moment in american history when we were both able to attend president bush's meeting with john paul ii at the vatican in 2002. so it is good to see you sir. >> for my len yeah.

the causes of war and the strategies associated with it were defined by particular margins involving a combination of resource and territorial acquisition therefore producing conflict population. and i suggest that for most people in paradigm continues to drive perceptions of war and war-making. i sub bhit the close of the cold war and the rise of the united states hegemony, the breakdown of certain alliances that we witnessed in the rise of al-qaeda and the decision-making of the united states and the aftermath of 9/11 was a sharp departure from the usual war making paradigm. i feel that we are in a transitional phase as it relates to this country handling the military vat ji to account for this shift. the administration of george w.

bush was the first administration to have to deal with this paradigm shift. during the bush presidency, the white house was faced with the challenge of facing the territorial and institutional impacts of war in the form of external forces such as terror groups embedding the governance of state actors. the viral nature of the radical islamic movement and the exploitation of governments of state actors of the new global paradigm that had emerged after the end of the cold war. it was a historically complicated confluence of circumstances that led to both afghanistan and bush mission. the bushed a mintstration had to cope with the conflict of trying to fight mobile terrorist groups and dozens of countries while fighting traditional territorial balts rebillingd infrastructures an

institutions in afghanistan that perhaps may not have existed. in the case of iraq projecting out the impact that state actors might have who may exploit and support the efforts of the terrorist enemy. we spent a great deal over the last decade and a half on whether we should are gone into afghanistan or whether we should have gone into iraq. the reasonable man test comes from the old chancellor report. the president of the united states faced with the confluence of circumstances that i just described in a general sense buttress by specific intelligence act in a certain way. keeping in mind that saddam hussein had been declared a state sponsor of terrorism and regime change had been the poll soif the u.s. government since the cointon administration.

i believe that president bush made the correct choice for military intervention in both of those circumstances. however, i believe the more relevant conversation for all of us remains once you make the decision to go to war what is the principle purpose or desired outzphom you have several choices. you can, one, you can remove saddam hussein and the taliban which i believe is a false choice. you can two, remove the leadership and grab some general and ex-patriot and impose them basically trading one dictator with another. that's particularly for bush the moral and political argument fails there as well. or three, you could attempt to secure the done fri and build institutions that could support not what some people had suggested some things americans call style democracy but a pleuralistic and confluence

structure. this historical gathering of maligned members in our corps have the responsibility to get the economy growing an establish security and a political framework that were established goal number three working together with an iraqi population that is more supportive that is generally accepted they tackled it with great commitment and their earths going unlargely unnoted as the situation worsened due to sectarian violence and a white house that as the mission went on often failed to defend its own policy in iraq. president bush understood several key points very well. one, he believed that left unchecked it was likely that we stay with developed a nuclear weapons program.

two, hughes sane had funded external terror groups and it was believed that he would be supporting other terror groups. three, the war on terrorism was a long-term global threat that involved dozens of groups. so closely aligned, some loosely aligned not only with each other but also state actors. and we're seeing this today as you see isis and ack tack and boko haram and anala shry y an and all these folks are are network and a very powerful one at that. four he believes this is a general's long fight. and it would require long-term and aggressive engagement. and addressing the freedom deficit in the middle east and countrys that serve as incubators however long-term

and complex that strategy might be was essential and in toward sharing a more peaceful world and further to end terrorism networks. where it fell short is how to fight them simultaneously. we weren't just protecting the territorial boundaries of a nation. we were trying to fight an insurgency while attempting to build new governments and social and political institutions. on my first day in iraq i got off at the baghdad airport and i put on my vest. i put on my helmet. and i got on the bus to go to the compound. they said by the way the road is closed. the road between the road and the compound was closed because the army was not able to secure

it. they call it the road of death. people were dying on it virtually every day. that was my first day and my hour by knew that we were going to do have man power issues that plagued the iraq army early on and were very real. the administration had a vision for a lighter fleet footed high-tech 21st century army. and that vision has merit. but it was incompatible with the mission that we had at that particular time. for our part nearly every civilian and military liaison agreed from the outside that we needed to maintain overwhelming foresize in order to accomplish the mission. today, at the white house former john hopkins university professor and noted economists

the newly elected president of afghanistan told the american people thank you for the work that have helped give them a shot to instead of being a burden to the world to actually have a shot at a free future. but we are clearly seeing the beginning of what the president called generation of process -- a generational process of development. in iraq despite poor intel regarding infrastructure, military assets, essential services, mass looting the iraq mission realized not sufficiently promoted by the administration and not promoted by the media. it began within weeks of the promotion of the c.p.a. which enabled anybody by the rate of colonel to go to the army.

but they were better trained, better equipped. the central bank was reopened. and the transition within the first six months. it took us two years in post world war ii germany. oil production increase. dozens of schools were we built, a constitution was developed which shiah, sunnis and kurds and turkman's on the table to create an election in a degrading security environment. and let's not forget that more than eight million people voted in iraq's first election. perhaps most importantly al-qaeda and iraq had been decimated due one of the boldest foreign policy decisions in my opinion of the last half century made by george w. bush. delayed admittedly but

necessary search. by the time bush left office the economy had increased in size several times over under its time under hughes sane. life expectancy had risen. and security forces had secured most of the forces due the training an ongoing assistance from the united states. despite the consequences of a precipitous withdraw of troops administered by the current administration and the insistence of both pears via cnn which left iraq all by defense fless the face of isis. we also recently just saw the four peaceful transition of power between governments in iraq which is something that had never before been accomplished in the middle east with the exception of israel. none of these positives can negate the challenges that persist. but they can when added to the conversation give us a better understanding of the need and the ability to move nations toward a freer more

pleuralistic construct. in my time in iraq i saw conviction of a people anxious to build a new nation. it overshadowed by a security situation that we were unprepared to address. as we look back there were many issues to be learned. few are certain that -- thank you. the world has changed. the changes we face and the challenges we face rather have changed. but getting people chance to be free and to self-govern is the surest way to greater peace. i saw first half of authoritarian an oppression and the evil that sapped the soul of people and nations in regions in a way that we cannot fully appreciate here. and you haven't exerntsed the power of freedom until you talk to somebody who has never known

it and they realize for the first time that participatory government isn't some abstract theory. it is real an it is works an is achievable with great effort and sacrifice. george w. bush did not buy into the bigotry that suggests that there are certain people in this world who do not deserve or are too unsophisticated or incapable of handling what we call freedom. i consider it an honor to have served him and i look forward to a meaningful discussion tonight. thank you so much for your attention. [applause] >> good evening. i really appreciate here at -- being here at poster university participating in the panel with these distinguished people.

and i appreciate what you're doing at hofstra with this conference on the george w. bush presidency. and we won't agree here on everything that is said, i'm sure. but i bet there's one thing about which we can agree and that is that whatever is said here tonight about the george w. bush presidency will look different to us in 20 years and different again 20 years after that. george w. bush's presidency must be declined by the etchts of september 11, 2001 when the united states of america was viciously attacked by an enemy who's leader osama bin laden stated as far back as 1983 that the united states was the mortal enemy of islam an must be destroyed. a 9/11 president bush declared to the president of america an

to the world that he would do whatever was necessary toe protect our country to keep it safe and to keep it free. this became the mantra of the g.w. bush presidency. president reagan had his mantra that was to bring down the soviet union and to shut down the cold war. so did president bush. his global war on terror kept us safe and kept us free. so let's start with that. president bush foretold the kind of decisive leader he would be at his acceptance speech in august 2000 at the republican national convention in philadelphia. i remember it well because i was there and i was a chairman of convention as the chairman of the republican national committee. and then candidate bush said " if you give me your trust i

will honor it. grant me a mandate i will use it. give me the opportunity to lead this nation and i will lead." little did he know then of the events that we befalls us a year later. but we found out soon after just what a leader we had. it started immediately at 9/11. the context is worth a reminer. the president was at a school in florida but immediately authorized the shooting down of the civilian jet liner. the white house staff were told to evacuate. and evacuated in a hurry. the women were told to take off their shoes so they can run down the street. the reason was they thought a plane was about to slam into the white house. you have to think about when the last time the white house

was evacuated under similar circumstances. the only time it comes to mind is when the british burned the building during the war of 1812. soon after the president went to new york city to game three of the world series to throw out the first pitch in a sense that was a small act. presidents throw pitches all the time. but in this case in new york, while the fires were still burning at the world trade center an when the entire nation was on edge about another terrorism attack it was a big deal ha the president went of the ballpark and stood on the mound. he demonstrated that he was not afraid, that we should not be afraid and the game and the business and life of this nation must go on. the president addressed the nation at a joint session of congress. he was in command and he was

comforting on safety and patriotism. an interesting side note on that date which was september 20th 2001, the philadelphia flyers faced the new york rangers in an exhibition game. the teams played two periods. and the jumbotron switched to the president's speech. it was a live shot. when it was time to restart the game the third period, the jumbotron turned off the president and turned back to the game. the response was overwhelming. people started booing and demanding that the president be put back on. for a moment americans tuned in and heard what the president's say. they never played the third period and they ended up in a

draw. so i think we can stipulate that war defined president bush's presidency. presidential his tore yeah author schlessinger he said of all the crises war is the moat fateful. all of our best presidents were involved in a war either before or during their presidency saved thomas jefferson. he further opined that crisis helps though who can rise to it. and the association of war with presidential greatness has its ominous aspects. let's start with afghanistan. even the pope support ud us going into afghanistan. i showed my credentials to the holy father on 9/13 of 2001 at

the palace. and we had prepared remarks to help me prepare. the first thing we did was said a little prayer for the victims and then talked. and i -- by then was able to give him a brief of what we thought, you know, the derivatives of what had happened were -- and he said to me, he said ambassador nicholson we must stop those people who were killing in the name of god. an that was not a privilege communication. so i was able to report that and put that out there and it really helped us in putting a coalition together to go into afghanistan. but the pope did see iraq differently. he expressed his opposition emphatically during his annual address in january of 2003. and he looked directly at me and said, no to war.

war should only be a last resort. that was his affirmation to us. but it was not a surprise. it did set off our biggest challenge as the ambassador and our most robust endeavor to convince the holy father of the need to invade iraq who would not go to our lead. i looked at them to come to rome and assist ne an educated effort both at the holy sea and in italy. the professors both posessing cherished over their apartment welcome which means they have

wonderful bona fides with the pope. but they felt the same way we did. we held meeting and talked about the need as we saw it to go into iraq. but the pope continued to view this on presemp active. but despite these personal interventions in a session with the pope's personal emissary with the president cardinal piolagi who went to see the president in the west wing in the white house for long encounter which i attended. the pope dispatched a french cardinal to talk to the people there will to see if they could get it.

of course, neither were success ful but the president understood and often said that the pope was a man of peace and he had different responsibility. importantly, though, the pope never said it was immoral for us to go into iraq. and he really couldn't because it would be violative of the doctrine of the church which said there are evil forces an there are innocent people that are to be protected from those evil forces and that does on occasion require, you know, the institution of war an violence. in fact, today in the train. ing up to new york i read a report from a distinguished writer for catholic news service suggesting that pope francis may indeed end up

advocating the use of force against isis. so there are precedents for this. and we of course are unsuccessful as i've stated with pope john paul ii in trying to underwrite or affirm our endeavor to go iraq. as we all know in march, 2003 we entered iraq for the purpose of protecting our country and eradicating our threat possessed by saddam hussein. the case had been made to our citizens to our friends, to the pope and to the world, really, and the facs as we saw them were that hughes sane was a threat. he had invaded kuwait and iran. he used weapons of mass destruction on his own people and on the iranians. he shot at our planes an ally

planes. he was working evade international sanctions. he failed to comply with numerous u.n. resolutions that required him to prove that he had. he payed the families of sd bombers. he gave every indication that he maintained stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. he remained belligerent and violent and refused to adhere to international demands and was interested in supporting attacks on the united states. he would unite with terrorisms and provide them with weapons of mass destruction and every material needed to attack american targets. of course, no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found. nonetheless he was a threat to

peace. and due to his continued hostility to go to war, we chose war. hughes sane was toppled and iraq did catch a glimpse of freedom and democracy. their courageous partis passion in elections demonstrated their hunger and their appreciation for freedom. in fact, i will never forget just weeks after we went into iraq, the caldean catholic patriarch came to rome and asked if he could visit me. i received him at my residence in rome and hevs the leader of about 850,000 cal deian catholics and for whole hughes sane sort of kept in a protected status, you know, in the dispute between the sunni and the shiah. they were kind of off to the side. they knew that this would

probably be disassembled. he didn't walk. he ran up the steps to my residence where i was standing and thrust his hand and said thank you for coming to my country and freing us exhibiting that innate desire that man has for freedom and the euphoria that he exhibiting was exhilarating that that were in as a result of this. but you know, one can debate the conduct of this war as many have and one can argue that we should not have dismissed the sunni baath party dominated army and the police forces. i think that would be a very legitimate thing. one could argue that we shifted too soon on nation building an

democracy building in lieu of law and order building and infrastructure particularly law and order infrastructure. there were mistakes made certainly. abouo grab comes to mine. those were fair discussions as far as i'm concerned. but i will end the way i started which is to say again that president bush after we were invaded on 911 said he would do whatever is necessary to protect our country. he did. he kept americans safe for the next seven years as our president. was war necessary? was it worth it? did it matter? the final report of the chief weapons inspector for the u.n. concluded saddam wanted to recreate iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability after sanctions were removed and iraq's economy stabilized. i agree with those who say that

had saddam done what we -- had done that we would have seen an arms race develop between iraq and iran and the sunni-shiah terrorist arms race with the possibilities of biologically, chemical or even nuclear weapons being in the hands of terrorist would have increased greatly. the possibilities of a dirty bomb being exploded in our country. the pressure on our friends like israel, kuwait, saudi arabia and the u.a. would be greater today. and a result american people would be left safe as well. only time will tell about president bush. all i can say that he is looking better and better as the world becoming more and more dangerous. and we become more vulnerable to those who want to destroy us. what is a president's most important job?

it's to keep us safe and he did it. thank you very much. [applause] >> yeah. ok. i'm going to take a little bit different tact. i'm going to try to look at or hope i have time to look at three similar episodes in what was my life after 9/11. once the very chilling effects of that attack had sunk in and we had realized at the state department, i think it's safe to say throughout the government that the pro-funded di of what had happened to us and what kind of action we were going to present to the world. we sat down on the policy

planning staff as did some other people in the state and we thought about it. one of the things that impressed us majorly was the phone calls, the letters if you will that were coming in, the tv scenes. it was a moment of incredible global solidarity. my god we even got a condolence message from fidel castro. the most influential paper in paris ran a headline, we're all americans. it was a moment of incredible solidarity and my boss and his boss decided that one of the things we should try to do, remember we're the diplomats former soldiers but we're diplomats now was to captain lice on that moment of global solidarity not just for what we knew the president wanted to do with regard to afghanistan.

but in so many other realms that we had problems. so we drew up a matrix and on that matrix were the missions and the countries and the people who would do it. in some cases like pakistan, it was the president of the united states and the secretary of state who would talk to the president mue sharif and the i.s.s. and so forth. in other countries it was our ambassador. donald rumsfeld wanted to get back to philippines for example. saif was a terrorist group in the philippines that we could capitalize on. so we were going to try to talk with the philippine government and get u.s. forces back into the philippines in some significant sort of way. it was a huge task sheet that basically capitalized on this moment of global solidarity.

iraq completely shattered that. the invasion of iraq and the run up to that shattered that global solidarity. shattered the diplomacy that was associated with it. shattered our hopes on the wings of that, if you will. but it also occasioned the second episode of disgust. no one knew better than former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff colin powell and i was his special assistant at that time what we had done to the armed forces and what earlier was called the peace dividend. it wasn't president clinton who delivered it it was george h. w. bush. he delivered it because the

congress of the united states demanded it. we cut the armed forces 25%. that was a huge cut, biggest cut since world war ii, really especially if you look at how we did it. bases and everything. bill clinton came with his secretary of defense and cut another 3%. what relevance does this have to this? powell was former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. and even though dick cheney told him that, he felt it was his responsibility saying we can't do two wars at the same time. we destroyed that with the 28% cut. so we better finish afghanistan. no one's arguing with you about afghanistan. you better finish that before you do iraq otherwise you're going to negligent afghanistan which is what we proceeded to do. so we shattered the global solidarity and we went to iraq

with too few forces in the first place because donald rumsfeld decided that that would be the amount we would send. some of that amount was based on the give and take with the military commander tommy franks who powell had told on two different occasions you have too few troops and whom the general told the congress we had too few troops for which, of course, he was release. you had too few troops to lead iraq and that would lead about 100,000 contractors that would do the ultimate public function. and we're still living with it, ladies and gentlemen. still living with it. we haven't put it to rest yet. the other item that powell brought to the president's attention other than timing and foresize was legitimacy. legitimacy and the shape of the united nations, other allies other than britain and so

forth. we went of the u.n. in november of 2002 and we got a 15-0 vote unanimous vote proving 14-41. again, we had sort of rezz recked a little bit of that global solidarity. but what that would say to others at the iaei that they could go and do their jobs. they could go and continue the inspections, but you can't continue the inspections if you've already martialed 160,000-plus force and started them on their way. we call it in the military tip-fitting them. you've already started them. the excessive heat in iraq. so if you're doing this, you're probably going to have to cut the inspector short.

if you're really intent on going to war, you're going to have to do it even without. that's the second point. third point, my boss got put out for the united states secure council to give the most species presentation on iraqi m.d. that anyone has ever been called on on in american government to rendure on the american council to the american public and to international community. and powell showed afterwards it was very effective. why was i very effective in because it was colonel powell which had mother teresa poll ratings. he was 77% on the polls an she was about 80%. you're looking at the individual who went out to the

c.i.a. and prepared colin powell for that presentation in terms of orchestrating all the analysts from 16 different intelligence agencies working daily and nightly with george tenet and frankly on three pillars of that presentation, mobile biological laboratories, existing stocks of chemical an biological weapons, a nuclear program and then a forth one which was tantamount to the biggest lie of all formidable contacts between saddam hussein and al-qaeda. on one occasion powell grabbed me, put me down in a chair in the national intelligence council spaces where nowhere else was, closed the door. and he said take all that terrorist crap out. none of it is believable. take it out. i said boss, don't shout at me.

we'll take it out. within 30 minutes, colonel powell told them about a high level operative who had been interrogating and revealed substantial contacts between the secret police and al-qaeda to the use of chemical and biological weapon, that was a total fabrication. he gave a presentation that he believed in that had been orchestrated by carefully orchestrated plot, if you will between the vice president's office, the undersecretary of defense for policy in the defense department and the c.i.a. certain allies that were given to me by george tenet as gosspell. and he presented that to security council the american people in the national community to bring about a war

that he had already seen destroy his strategy for exploiting the solidarity 9/11 has produced for good for diplomatic purposes and destroyed any hope of legitimacy and was based on false intelligence. it was not just an intelligence failure it was that too. but it was orchestration of that intelligence to make it present a picture that simply was not true. and there were people in that administration who knew that. so those are my three similar events about this particular war and in that sense i think i'd say disastrous decision and a disastrous aftermath. we've already heard about that. we can go into detail about that. my time is up. not a good time for the united states of america.

[applause] >> thank you very much. i'd like to pick up where you left off. interesting hearing the first two speakrers endoused in inducing the fits of nostalgia. back in 9/11 i viewed the world through the language that they employed. was living near the twin tower. i had lost friends in the attacks. i believe that the war on terror was one that was against people who hated our way of life, people who hated freedom people who were hell-bent on destroying everything that we stood for and maybe some of that is true the thing about al-qaeda but what i learned very quickly it's much more complicated than that. i moved to afghanistan in 2008.

i hit the road very soon after. i took a motor cycle i lived in villages and i got the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life. and what i learned in that -- in those trips is that those ideas -- really those mannequian ideas weren't very accurate. i pulled into a village after a few days of travel and meet a tribe out there that -- tribal chief out there. and he had lived thrupe 30 years of war about 30 years of war. we got to talk about the american invasion. at one point i asked him, why do you think the invaded your country? and he knew about 9/11. but for him 9/11 was a far away occurrence the way a famine

africa is for us. he looked at me and he said, the u.s. invaded our country because they hate our way of life. there was phrase for me. but i didn't necessarily agree with him. but he put it in this way which was talked about back in 2001 it was a watershed moment for me because it spurred me to investigate how afghans really view the war on terror and the american war particularly afghans who were living in the south. so not living in those areas that were peaceful but living in the areas that there's constant fighting until this day. here's what i found. after 2001, al-qaeda had fled the country after the u.s. invasion. we know that. al-qaeda went to pakistan. eventually some of them regrouped in iraq. so after the 2001 invasion of

afghanistan there were no al-qaeda in iraq -- in afghanistan, sorry. at the same time the taliban from the rank in file to the senior leadership quit. they surrendered in 2001. and in subsequent months every single -- most of them or every single one from the senior officials like the minister of justice, the minister of defense all the way down to rank in file field commanders surrendered and tried to switch sides. the reason they tried to switch sides is not because they suddenly felt that they believed in the american ideals of freedom or they loved the united states but this is how war worked in afghanistan over

the last two or three decade. if you go back to soviet occupation. when they left in 1989 a lot of the afghans who called themselves communist rebranded themselves as muja hadine because in a consulate where things can get so deadly you learned very quickly that you would switch sides depending on how the wind blew. there were a number of high profile incidents that were covered at the press at the time, covered in the "new york times" and other places at which time they tried to cut a deal with the new officials and find a way to not be persecuted. as an example in early january of 2002, there were efforts to erase funds for the taliban by

radical pakistani clerics. they were going to madrasa and trying to get donations in an effort to bring the taliban back on their feet. at the time the finance minister of the fanl regime he said publically to reporters please do not donate to us because we are defunct. please give your money elsewhere. as another example in january of 2002 the minister of defense along with minister of justice and a number of other top officials publically cut a deal with the afghan governor and handed over truckloads of weapons in exchange for staying at home and living in that area. so you had a particular situation in january of 2002 where you had thousands of soldiers mostly special forces soldiers on the ground and in

afghanistan but the taliban as a military movement was defunct. so in other words you had thousands of soldiers on the ground without an enemy to fight but we had a political mandate and that mandate was that we were here to fight a war on terror and you were either with us or against us. this world view categorized afghans into two categories. really doing away with all that make the reality in afghanistan. this is a contradiction. how did it get resolved? the u.s. allied were the war lords local commander and strong men, had an effective the enemies of those war lords game enemy of the united states.

there were no cell phone towers some of most of the intelligence is human intelligence not signal intelligence. so all of the intelligence is coming to the u.s. it was coming through local proxies, local war lords local commanders who had a very complicated history on the ground who had their own enemies who had their own riflery who is had their own hatchets to bury. and in effect their enemies became our enemies. and so the u.s. didn't go to afghanistan and create a dictator or, you know, one of you refered to one of the options of the american policy. but what you did in afghanistan was create hundred drodse upon hundreds of small dictators in villages and in districts around the country men who were armed who were paid who were given contracts to the detriment of state building an

nation building over the years. i'm going to give you an example of this which happened to a friend of mine in kandahar plo convince and he was somebody who lived across the street from me. he was like 80, 85 years old. he was an old fighter who fought against the soviets. but he was in retirement. and he would come sometimes to a bakery that he owned early in the morning, 4:00 or 5 a.m. he would knead dough. his name was sharaf houdine. they showed up. and they asked for him. they said are you sharaf oudine. he said yes. we have information that you are a terrorist. and they arrest r arrested -- and they arrested him. they handed him over to u.s. special forces.

there he had metal hooks inserted into his mouth. they september saying that he was a taliban mastermind and they were convinced that they had information from afghan war lords. he kept insisting that he was no a mastermind. soer chevpb lullly they turned him over to the militia men. these afghan militia men took him to a private jail in kandahar city, took him downstairs and they hung him upside down to 18 to 20 hours a day. and they whipped him. he was hung with other people who these militia men watched extract intelligence from. one of them was awe famous one and he was whipped so much that he was eventually killed. saraf hue -- dine he realized

that they were after money. if he were to pay he was given his freedom. the family delivered it to his captor and he was released. the problem is that once he demonstrated that he was able to pay for his release then he was a marked man. like hog work every few months he was arrested again. he was then transferred to kandahar airfield who was accused of the mears mind. he was hung upside down and whipped until he could be paid again this charade went on for two or three years in 2005 until the commander of the u.n. was killed in a ss attack. and the -- major commander of the intelligence services that ran the militia that was

torturing him he now lives in california. he was brought here and he had many family members who are american citizens. so this is -- this is the situation. i can repeat hundreds of stories like this. in fact, my books have hundreds of stories like that of people are caught on the war on terror. in fact, in afghanistan turned time-out be wars against local communities in which certain war lords and certain commanders were eliminating their enemy or using the united states to gainl riches, to gain power. we live with that legacy today. i think the process cease that created the insurgency in afghanistan in 2002 and 2003 by 2004 the taliban had reconstructed itself as a fighting force and who was now based -- the leadership was based in afghanistan.

and the level of opportunity existed and now was very hard to undo what was do and we're stilling with the consequences of that. when we think about legacy in the war in afghanistan an legacy of george w. -- we think about what that means on the ground and interrogate about why fighting continues in afghanistan today. thank you. [applause] >> we've going to switch the order around. i'm not peter baker. i play him on tv. i'd like to thank hofstra and all of the staff for inviting me. i'm delighted to participate tonight. i want to start discussing george w. bush with a hero, a woman named diane nash.

have people heard of diane nash? diane nash was a great hero of the civil rights movement. at the age of 18 or 19 she was the one who orchestrated the marriage in selma. and on the commemoration of the march of selma she was being honored of those many the front row of those who were going to commemorate that experience. at the last minute she said this she refused to marriage and he said "i refuse to march because george bush marched. he was in the front row with her. i think the selma movement was about violence and peace, and democracy and george bush stands for the opposite for violence and war and stonal election and his administration had people tortured. so i thought this was not an appropriate event for him." . she was right. it was not an appropriate event

for him. this is not an appropriate event for him either. i would think an appropriate event is to be on trail in the hague for war crimes. [applause] -- and when we look at war crimes it's important that we interrogate it more thoroughly than we sometimes do. both in my view, the wars in iraq and afghanistan were illegal. in afghanistan the claim was made that this was a war for justice and for self-defense when in fact, it was about revenge and propaganda partly to prepare the way for the coming war in iraq which was the primary war. it was illegal because it was not self-defense. article 51 of the u.n. charter is very specific about what

self-defense is and what is not. and a country has the absolute right of defense until the critical word "until" until the security council can meet and decide what to don that particular crisis. what the security council, if you remember, and those of you who don't remember i don't want to hear from you. the security council met within 24 hours of the attack on the trade center. the building was still smorleding. diplomats had lost friends. it was a terrible event for those in new york and washington as well. they would have on that day passed anything the u.s. proposed. but the u.s. did not propose an endorsement of the use of force. it was a very specific decision not to do that, not because it wouldn't have passed. it would have passed unanimously and with great ferver as the resolution did.

it call for a varietyy of things having to do with tracing the money and several other things but it was not a resolution to be taken under the terms of chapter seven the criteria in the u.n. charter that is the only basis for the use of force. and in that sense it was not self-defense and it did not meet the standard for self-defense in the united nations and under article six of the u.s. constitution treaties are part of the law of the land. treaties include the u.n. charter. so that was clearly a violation. whether or not the president makes a decision, congress makes a decision doesn't determine whether international law has been violated. and in this case it was violated. in the question of iraq -- i would just say one other thing on the question of defense. the u.n. had scrambled a second plane that was about to crash

into the towers that would have been a legitimate use of self-defense. going to war three weeks lateren -- later against a country on the other side of the world was not self-defense. for iraq it was weapons of mass destruction. of. it was the possibility of weapons. it was yellow cake uranium. it was all these things. well, as we know none of those were true. it was a war fought for a host of other reasons. i'm motte going to get into those reasons that have to do with power, oil and other issue of resources and power. but i think that we do have to recognize that the region is more dangerous now because of the illegal wars waged by george wmple bush than would

have been the -- by george w. bush than would have been the case. i think when we talk about war crimes it's also important that we distinguish -- the war crimes that have to do with how wars are carried out from other kinds of war crimes, the kind that has to do with how the war was carried out are more common in much of our discourse so the issues of collective punishment, shock and awe the massive civilian deaths that were known that were going to occur and the acts were carried out anyway, the thousands that were killed. the rendition the black sights of torture all of those things. the determination that some prisoners somehow don't deserve the zeevea convention as though that the right of lawyers of the u.s. department of justice decide that some prisoners do

not deserve to be treated turned conditions of the geneva convention. all of them were war crimes. they have to do with specific things on the geneva convention. article 29 says that says that a party of the conflict the government of one side in that conflict is responsible for the treatment of people living under occupation regardless of who -- what agent of that government carries out the action. that goes to the question of command responsibility and the obligation otches the commander, the commander in chief and all those up and down the chain of commands to be responsible for that. we saw none of that. we saw low-level accountability against three or four people in the abu ghraib scandal and nothing -- nothing above very few very low ranking soldiers.

article 47 of the geneva convention says that people who are protected under the geneva convention cannot be denied protection by actions taken by the occupying force or by the government in place. so things like dissolving the military and sending home 300,000 former soldiers without a job was a violation of the gee nueva convention. all of those are talked about -- not nalls the conflict of international law but they're talked about a lot as the legacy -- as part of the legacy of the bush administration. what's not talked about very often is what justice jackson who was the supreme court justice as you all know and served as chief prosecutor. what justice jackson called a supreme international crime. which was of course, not a

violation of the geneva convention which didn't exist at that time. it was the crime of aggression. but that was the fundamental crime, the supreme crime from which all the others stem. and these were wars of aggression. they were the supreme international crime. they were grounded in the concept of american exceptionalism something that has guided u.s. forum policy from the first settlers on this land which took it as manifest destiny their right to slaulter the people to claim the lan of their own. that we are better. we have the right to take the world to war because we have

been the victims of a terrorist attack. imagine if another country were in that situation. let's take an attack that did happen years earlier in 197 . cuba was the victim of a terrorist attack when terrorists put two bombs on a civilian airliner that crashed over the mediterranean, killed 73 people. among them the entire young cuban sensing team, several government officials. it was a clear act of terror. one of the known master minds of that terrorist act luis posada cerreas waslying if more years in miami. he was first charged at one point where an immigration violation and was put on house arrest but he was never jailed, never tried for the terrorist attack. what if cuba had decided that because they had been victims of a terrorist attack that they

now have the right to send drones to attack him or someone else in miami or to take the world to war to revenge that attack? would we have said well, that's their right? they have been the suct of a terrible attack and therefore they have the right to go to war? i don't think that would have been our response. the u.s. only allowed itself to violate international law within impunity and to demand the world stand with it. that was the nature of this point of whether you're either with us or you're with the terrorists. it wasn't just amount reclaiming the global solidarity that we saw during those first hours and those first days when the world said we are all americans now. it was about to say if you are

not prepared to go to war with us we will treat you as if you were terrorists an we will go to war against you. it was that kind of mannequian approach. and it has to do with this notion that we heard from george bush. it wasn't on september 11. it was september 12, i would submit that changed the world. not september 11th. september 11th was a horrific crime, a crime against humanity. september 12th was the announcement that the response to that horrific crime would be to take the world to war. what we heard that the only choice we had was to either go to war or to let them get away with it. unfortunately, we hear that now. it wasn't true then. and it isn't true now. there is never only the choice of war or nothing.

there are always a host of alternatives and it's our jobs as students an activists, as elected officials to find those alternatives and that didn't happen. justice jackson said something else in at the time of numberburg and he said and i quote him here, if certain acts and violations are crimes, they are crime whether the united states does them or germany does them. we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct that we would not be willing to have invoked against us. justice jackson was betrayed by george w. bush and his administration. it was in the context of that refuse sal to -- refusal of international law. and i know there are people

here either in the audience or listening on -- long distance who don't believe international law doesn't have any role to play. i would say for those of you in that porks you might want to think of this, whether you want to accept the position of international law frankly doesn't matter. but it does matter in in sense it is how the rest of the world views our actions. it is about how theory 1 7 countries around the world view what we do. it is -- it is about how the rest of the 197 countries around the world world view what we do. it is for that reason that the legacy of george w. bush is going to be that of a war criminal. [applause] >> ok.

great. can everybody hear me? >> you can see i'm physically off the table and that may be metaphorical as well. i think what has been transpired here is fabulous actually. as a journalist as somebody who spends a lot of time in washington on these debates, i very much enjoy hearing such a great diversity of points of view a real range. and i don't have very much to add. i'll say a few words and we can continue this conversation because i think hofstra should be praised for bringing together people who can have a vigorous and vibrant debate about these things all the way from a stirring and wringing defense of george w. bush all the way to a pretty sharp indictment of what he's done here. i would say that as a reporter, i was in afghanistan in 2001 before any americans arrived because i was based in moscow

at the time and the only way through was there fagistan. i spent months in the time of war. i went from there to the middle east and spent about six months in iraq when saddam was still in scharge and during the initial phase of that war and came back to cover the second term of president bush. as a journalist, i had a chance to see a little bit from both sides of this period. one point is how different it looks from these different vantage point answered how complicated these issues are whether you agree with secretary nicholson or colonel basile, everybody is making different arguments but these are, in fact, such -- such --

they go beyond the easy conversation. and i mentioned that the afghans told them they invade our country because they hate our way of life and that reminds me of my colleague tom ricks and anthony shadi who were in baghdad in the early days after the fall of the saddam government and they decided to test -- in fact, this consider conundrum of the different perspectives. each of them rode along with an american military procession throughout the city. tom ricks who was our very, very able military correspondent rode with the american troops and anthony shadi who is our foreign correspondent and he's passed away unfortunately walked alongside and talked to the iraqis. and the troops came away from this event and talked to tom and said boy, they're waving at

us and they're happy and they seem happy to see us and very supportive. and shadid who was speaking to them in arabic heard anger and resentment that would fuel a lot of trouble to come. and i think that it's that sort of disconnect that has -- that has flavored this period in which we have tried to find solutions and it has not been a lot easier for president obama. phyllis would say a lot to say if this were an obama conference. this didn't -- this has evolved and changed over time as now two presidents have struggled to know what to take from it. i would argue the first anti-war phrase sentiments that

came when he took office. president bush took a different tact. anecdote stude out when they came to the white house who said we've got intelligence suggesting ha the syrians have nuclear facility and we think you should vomit and president bush gathers his team amidst the same team that he had in 2002, 2003 when he was making the decision to go to war in iraq. in 2002 they all more or less said, yes, we think you should go or you're ready to go. even -- even general powell in the end said i'm suiting up at that point despite his misgivings he had expressed up to that point. the president kicks them all out of the room. and it's him and president

chaney. flash por ward and this question about what to do with syria and the president has the same people in front of him. and the vice president is asked to give his opinion. the vice president said we should go ahead and bomb. you have laid down a red line on the issue of proliferation and you should follow through on that. the president asked if anybody agrees with the president and nobody's hand goes up. the path from that point from 2003 to 2007 shows how much iraq and afghanistan had gun to weigh on even president bush in his second term. he did not take military action against iran despite the urgings of some. he did not take military actions in darfur to try to intervene in the genocide despite desires of some. because he too by that point

was struggling to figure out what had happened, what had worked. i don't the he regrets hi decisions, at least he wouldn't say that out loud and he would defend it on strong terms on some of the terms that tom mentioned earlier. but by the time he left office he himself was trying to figure out what was the appetite for military action versus diplomacy. he has instituted that the millity lateral talks with iran basically continued and accelerated by president obama now playing thought week, in fact, in sit swer land he engaged in multilateral diplomacy on north korea's nuclear program and tried to repair the relations and began to least move some of the people in guantanamo and began a shift and accelerated with

president obama. and this is what happens in the country. we have national security crisis. go to war. we often find situation where is we take actions and we -- that end up evolving over time. lincoln and the suspension of hapes you corpus f.d.r. and the internment of the japanese. john adams and his position to act. i find all that to be an important part of the overall story of how we gotten frp there and here where president obama himself is still struggling with these very same issues and sees choices that he doesn't like in front of him whether come to isis, iran or ukraine or adding a number of different scenarios that confront them on how he chooses to respond. we have more to say on that i'd rather hear -- i have questions for everybody up here if you want to go through them.

thank you very much. [applause] >> actually you summarized everything really nicely and you're the moderator at this point. made my job easier. but i do think it's a good idea because so many issues have been exposed from different vantage points to open up with some questions back and forth would be most productive, in fact. and then we'll of course take some time for audience questions too. but there's a lot to discuss here. we have core differences on the need to the war, the different ways that it was fought. legality so there's a lieutenant on the table than could productively debated. so with that i guess i'll open it up if people want to have specific responses to each. >> can we hear from the audience?

>> certainly, but we have a panel of discussion was what i was thinking first in a sense. so actually, yes. peter do you want to answer a few questions. peter: i have a couple questions. i guess i'm curious -- tom and phyllis and maybe you guys can maybe bring this into sharper relief for us. tom, you were in iraq and you make the argument that a member made of a logical decisions that had been criticized afterwards with regard to the army and so forth. and your argument was if i remember correctly or stated correctly is that we went under resourced and we didn't -- we didn't properly commit to what was going to be necessary. i'm curious if you have other thoughts about what our

understanding of the war of sunni vs. shiah whether we understood the pot broiler that was there to be awakened. whether you think more resources would have made a difference. how is this inevitable. i would ask you -- talk about they didn't ask the security council immediately after 9/11 to authorize a strike against eaching. i guess i'm curious. are you saying -- let's just say they had. had they ask the council clearly would have gone along. do you think that would have been wise or not wise to have proceeded with the war? was the only question whether the u.n. authorized or was it unwise toe go in, period, despite that they seemed to have a sanctuary there? >> well, that's a lot to handle but thank you, peter i enjoyed your book. and i recommend i. peter: thanks. >> let's address these one at a

time. intel going in. let's not forget that secretary powell did go to langley for three days and you know really sat there and went through the intelligence. this is not just our intelligence. we had a number of different intelligence sources including french and the israelis. when we went to the security council we didn't gate veto. they also understood that there was a strong likelihood that saddam hussein had chemical and biological agents and that -- and somebody who's been in saddam's 300-room subterranean bunker which even our most powerful weapons did not penetrate, i walked down in the dark with a flashlight and saw all the chem bio gloves and

suits that you could buy. i often speculate what was there? was there anything ever there? was -- what was he telling hi leadership? these regime elites have a very sort of cloistered circle of people that they deal with ok? there's a lot of show. there's a lot of sort of -- there are a lot of mirages that these author tarne regimes have to construct in order to continue to exert authority over their regime members but then also the larger public. so, you know, i think that that's -- you know, clearly we can -- we might be able to say that that was an intelligence failure but there were also -- there were others. i remember very clearly walking in and talking to people and said look, we had no idea that it was this bad in term of the

degradation of the physical infrastructure some of much of the resources had gone up to building up the military. so much of the resources had been consolidated by the regime over a number of years that nothing worked -- nothing much worked before the war and definitely didn't work after the war, after the looting. so when we talk about resources an we talk about intel you have to maintain and overwhelming miss cal force in order to secure the secure and maintain the infrastructure. it's really the first thing that we did not do effectively. you know, nature, of course, is a vacuum. when you're dealing with the situation when you're going into a country, if there is a vacuum of -- of force then what you're going to see is people

filling that void, people filling that vacuum. and that's where you saw some of the sectarian militias. it's important to remember in iraq that this was a nonsectarian country. there was a separation of the state for many, many years. saddam viewed himself as this islamic leader in the middle east really since the -- after the first gulf war when he was trying to sor of reassert some of his authority in the region. and you had enter marriage in iraq between sunnis an shiah. you have sunni shiah and turkman who were living in the same numbers in baghdad. so when i say that you talk to rank in file iraqi these people wanted to move on with their lives. they were sot saying, ok. i'm going to -- this guy next do to him, he's a shiah. let's go kill him. that was not part of the psychy

of the country. and i believe that as the insurgency and the foreign fighters come in, you saw still the vast majority of iraqis still want to get on with their life but you saw the sectarian militias want to feel their power. they felt that opportunity because we didn't have enough people to adequately secure the infrastructure in the streets. with respect to the army and this is probably the most talked about issue. when you discuss the immediate aftermath, i have the benefit of actually sitting and speaking with walt slokham under president clinton who was over in iraq who was one of the architects of this strategy and actually getting in the car and going out and visiting some of

these military facilities or what was left of them. and there, i know there are people on this pa nell you have no place to feed them or it you have no way to pay them because of the infrastructure breakdown. you have to understand that unlike in the first gulf war where we took literally thousands of pows who are members of the fighting force in iraq this time around we took i believe less than 1000. these guys were so poorly equipped, they actually went to the plant where they were making their uniforms and helmets to

their helmets were like the things you give to a five-year-old kid. hard plastic. a lot of this stuff was for show. they had big numbers. they have an officer corps as it was essentially a patronage den of not very well trained generals, officers, and ncos. we had a very little intelligence at battle. fighting these officers would have been very difficult to do. the first thing they did was say, look there is not an army to really reconstitute. what we need is a professional fighting source. in order to secure this country and put ourselves in the game to secure the country, we need a professional fighting source trade within 60 days of his arrival, 60 days, not six months, not a year, not two years.

within 60 days of his arrival we started training the first classes of a new iraqi army. anybody up to the rank of colonel, from the old army was able to apply and 80% of the new army was folks from the new army. you need is have the components, including in ceos and officers and places to feed these folks to train. i would like to add that we did try once, no one talks about this, we did try once to actually reconstitute an old division of the iraqi army. that was in 2014 and the battle of falluja. the variance of found a general from the old army who was actually halfway decent on paper. he had training. he was not just a buddy of someone and that is how he got his rank.

the sky was able to locate a core group of his ncos in his infantry. the marines wanted to use him to go into falluja. they did that and it was a disaster. it was such a disaster to the point have of those guys ended up fighting on the other side. i know this is an easy thing for people to say, this was a crazy idea. someone who actually saw the facilities, met with these folks, and saw the operation and how they tried to reconstitute these folks firsthand. there were certain, very real reasons why that was done, and why we tried to remedy it as quickly as possible, because we knew we had to. >> brief