>> rose: welcome to the broadcast. night, two washington repoers take a look at the city, e obama administratio and the foer secretarof defense dold rumsfeld. woodward of the "washingnter bob post >> here ts very young, inexperienced president s put so mucon the tabl once i had somebody count it up and it s 131 major initiatives legiation,ajor appointmts majo ideas. the da this came to me, 131, on the front pe of my own newspaper, the "washgton st," president obama issd an executive order ying he was going to clean the chapeake bay. he is undertaking just about everything and all of those

things are le planes unlanded at t airport. they're circli and we n't know wt order they're going to land in, whether they're going to land at all. >> we conclude wi bradley aham, our "washiton post" ntagon corresponde talking about his book "by his own rule the ambition, successes and ultimate failures of donald rumsfeld." >> he was veryquick, whin hours after the attk, to focus on some kindf military action against ir. and even while planning proceeded too io afghanistan rufeld continued toargue thin the administration about wideng the fig at that point. going after terrorists or sponso of terrorism like iraq. >> rose: woodward a gram on washington next.

caioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios inew york ty, this is charlie rose. >>ose: bob woodward joins me tonight from washingn. he's an associedtor for the "whington post," he's considered one of the pre-eminent investitive journalists of our time and certainly the most famou his investigatn into the watergat coverup with fellow

"washington post" reporterarl bernstein earned h fame and the paper a pulitzer prize. he's since gone on to write numeus books about wasngton, including on the presidenc the supre court and the militar he recently accompanied natnal security advor jim joneso afghanistan and wrote abt the tr in the "post i am pleased to have him back on this broadcast. welcome. >> tnk you. >> i want to take the temperature of washington today as you see i. what a pros saying about the president far? >> they don't know and there's a lot of politics and a lot of rhetoric get thrown around on both sides. but i think peoe are kind of... if you're looking for what going on or what's t sense,and obviousl there's never reement, but it's kin of theshakespearean dilea is the king a good king a flawed king?

and people on both sides jus ar't sure. here's this very young inexperienced esident who's puso much on the table. once i hadubpoena count it up and it was 131 major fish itiatives, legislati, major pointments, major ideas. the day this came to me, 131, on the front page ofy own newspaper,he "washington po," president ama issued an executive ordesaying he was goin to clean up the chesapee bay. he is undertaking just about evything. and all of those things are like planes unlanded at the airport. they're circlingand weon't know wt order they're going to nd in, whether they're going to land all. >> rose:here are conventional wioms that are inollision. ronald reagan, for example, sd

"do a few big thingsell. make sure you get them estaished." heidn't necessari get them all accomplished, b he tried. f.d.r.ealized he had an urgency, so therefore he ted to get as much done as heould asasts he could. >> and clearlywhat's interesting abtobama is doing, he's very deice have. has a process about "wee got is problem, l's hear everyone out,et's do it." and then he decid there are all of those unlanded planes that i think people are... you ggest, waiting to see what haens, sing if they're collisions, crashes or if it's just some of theselanes disappeafrom the radar, whic is quite likely. >> rose: youaid once in a recent interviewhat you were searching for the cter of gravy about him. >> yes.

>> rose: whadoes that mean? >> that means what's ing to define him. first all,e's hado real crisis. he's inherited all the crises of the bush admistration as he says repeatedly "not of my making, this is not of my making." but he doesn't have or has not yet had his own crisis. and he'shen going to be defined that crisis. the first nine months of the bush administration i spent working on bush's ta cut thinking tt would be the center of gravity. of course, i was dea wrong and i still ve boxes o interews d notes if you everrun into anyone who wants torite aook out the bush tax cut, it's there. but i workedor months on it thking it was important, it' portant. but comped to 9/11which still definesur times and the problems omahas,ou know,

it... the bush tax cut probably is not going to go in the history bos. rose: you also wrote a pce th i tnk i'm right about this called "what obam could learn fo from bush" better or worse. d got a huge aunt of e-mail when it nt on line. >>eah, yeah. >> rose: what was that about? >> i was astonhed. it was about peopl being ang, saying gee, how come u criticize bush orsay these are e mistas bush made that obama can learn fm. and then lots of... about half of the peoe ying "oh that's a really good st. thatpplies not just to obama but just t anne undertaking a new office or a proje or a series of responsibilities." for insnce, one of the core

conclusions i reached was you ha to he a openebate in the national security council, on tse issues or in the onomic council on those issues. and it can't be justhummy. it can't bene ofhose things wher it's scripted. you really haveto get the issues out on theable. for instance, vice president cheneyad thes meeting.. lunches with president bush and woulwhisper in his ear "this is what i think you ought to do" and whether yo like or d't like cheney, he's agood vocate. and ey agreed that this was so confidtial they would never tell anyonncluding memrs of the national security council and the wte house staff, cabinet members, what cheney's recommendation was. it ver got tested in a forum. d whatush should havdone is gone innd said "okay, dick,

e vice president, has just recommended and arguedor this. ck, tell them what y think and now let'sdebate it." you can't have somody whpering oline in the leader's ear because. particularlyhen it's somebody who had the influee that cheney did, without testing some of those ideas. i ink, quite frankly, obama does that. i ink he has pretty open debateand if peopl sit there silent, he'll say "wha do you think? >> re: that'sxactly the point that bob gates made, in fact. he said, yo know, occasionay president obamwould not go around the room en in the latest stages when gates was there but that president oba wants tonow and will put everybody in the room on t spot >> and president bush, ase told me reptedly in interviews i d for t... i wrote four

books on him, he said "i'm a gut player, i'm not a textbook player." and i thk that's t way he de lots of hecisions, by gut. oh, i'll take the green one, that'shat i nt. around oma's much more alytical, much me methodical about it. no is that going to necearily lead to bette decisions? you would tend to think so. but, again, don't know. i... is a very unual moment. i wa saying to friends ofine just last night that it's like that summer befor 9/11 in an odd wawhere everyone thinks, well, the economy's going along, it's in trouble yes, but it ems to be going along. two rs seems to be going along. there's noominant story that... the supre court nomination of... i getting lots

of atntion. but really there's not much ntroversy there. , you know, maybe we're in a pre-11 and we'll have a cris or a very sious dining oblem for obama this fa. >> rose: who do you think... what do you tnk it's likely to be? you don't know. >> t you could look at and say "itmay be the failure of alth care refm" or "it may be afghanistan or it may be iran and something tha mig... maybe some unforeseen clas with china." whatever. >> yes now, talk toeople in the white house d they use the term "game changer. what's going to be a game changer?" certainly ahanistan, iraq, another terrort attack could be. alth care reform t workg itself out. i don't ow that that's necessarila crisis.

it would be kind , well, other esidents tried, itidn't work out,t didn'tork out enough. now, predent obama is iving th. but 's the ge changer and peoplen the white house realize. and i think this ivery important, that it's one of the most dangers times for the country. thoughhere seems to be a kind of, well, what's going to happen with these this since and no one knows, there's so my danger pointsut there: ira, north korea, the t wars, the whole financial crisis,he whole state of the economy. i think a politica game changer for president obama could turn out to be the unemploymt rate. it keeps going up. it'soing to, apparently, get to 10% or above10%. there'going to be an

expectation in the democratic party that democrac president can solve that problem. not get bs for everyone, but bring that number down. remeer ronald reagan used to call... talk about the miser index. and it was... a lot of it had to do with inflion. a lot of it had todo with th employment rate. is is an astronomical unemployment rate an the pn in the country, in those famies where people lose their jobs is almost somethg that we cat measure. and the political ramificatns can manest itself in the twep election, 2012 ection. >> i'm going t go back to bush for a anybody beuse what's

inresting to me-- and you alerted me to this idea in those ur books-- they talk a lot about a bunch of stuff as to how th were going to do it, but they never talked about-- cording to you should we do it? shld we go t war? >> particularly in iraq. that's what's so astonishing. and i wrote the second book "plan o attack," about how they made that decision. and a numbef people after the book came out, called me up and said "you kn, whas interesting abouthis book is the meeting ty didn have, which is the meeting to sit down and say okay, we've doneall this planning, we have mitary plans thatthey've updated and changed and thought they made better time and time again. now let's sit back and s should we it?" ere was a momentum, there was a sense of inevitability, there

was a see that it wa going be easy and no meeting, no discussion. i aed president bush "didou ask colin powl for his recommendation on war?" and president bu said "no, i didn't." >> rose: well, did coli powell do evything he could and shou have in order to make the presidenclear what his opinion on it was? >> well, e president saidi knew wt hehought." but when you get into the details and god isin the details here, powell's objections wereoiced very early and ey were in the context of, well let's csider the ramifications of this. if we invade iraq it will take althe oxygen o of the air in foren policy. it will dominate everying politilly. it was tn argument against war.

powell, you know, very strongly heltheelief that esidents decide onars, not generals .... >> rose: ordiplomats. >>ut i'mure that you f you got colin pell on sodium peathol, the truth serum he would ackwledge that his argumentgot diluted i the process and he probably should have been more aggreive in going to the esident and sayi "we reall haven't thought about the consequens this and the dn side and the planning. aree absolutely sure when present bushold colin powell that he decided on war wh the it was 12 minute meeting. >> rose: 12 mites? >> 12 minutes, head to head. and the president askedowell "will you be with me and powell kind of... i tnk

paused and then said "i'lle withou, mr. presint." >> rose: you have said on a program that y think george bush of all the pple writing memoirs will write the most interesting. >> yes, i think it may tually be a memoir that goes right to the heart of some of the questions we have abo the bush adnistration and bush. cause i know he's working on it, i've talked to people who are workg withhim and, you know, that's hope. i thk it's really importan that presints write go memoirs. we've had lots of predentsho have not written good memoirs. reagan's memoirwas a nothin burger. an i've... really argued to people w were involved in that process fo bush, "you' got to go out and talk to pple, you'veot tointerview people,

you've g to list the key unanswered questions a try to dress them." 's not just a nd of stream of consciousness o my thougs from the ranch in crawfor it really shoul be.... >> re: you have said, in fact, that al gore said that the public onl knows 1% what goes on at the white house. >> yeah. that's... he did say tt. i think he said... he wrot his memoir, re, he put hisemoir then they'd know 2% of what went on in the clinton white house >> ros meaning what? >> meaning that the trut doesn't come out. let me just give you an example that... something i've thought about two years ago when i was writing the last bush book. i went with my aistant brad dennis over to interview former secretary of defense robert

mcnamara, who' then 91 and asked him about. he was very opposed to the iraq war, t it rely was a long full morning inteiew about the vietn war. and mcnama, who recently died, this interview-- which m be his last interview he kept ying things, and it's all tad and he said "now don't put this i your notes, this is ofthe record. don't tell anyone. i don't want toe oted sayg this." this is a 91-year-old man. >> rose: that's unbelievable. >> yeah, exactly. he written his meaulpa in 1995, his book "in retroect." supposeally coming totly clean abt vietnam and his conclusion and then here in 2007 at the age of 91 with his lovelyife

sitting there, his second wif diana, goingthrough th and sayi "i don't want this kwn. i don't want to quoted. don'put this in ur notes. i don't nt this out." rose: tell me abo it. after the mov came out, earl marsh's movie ca out, i had both of them on this program and i tried... wewalked through it and he was saying l these things about his experience and afterlife and experien with spect to vietnam. i tried toet him to talk about iraq. and why he wasn't speaking out. did not want to do it. and it w just the same thing. >> b heree didn't want to do itbout his war vietn. rose: right. >> and i'm thiing, i ould puish this ierview or what to do witht. because, again, it's...and this is what makesou in this business ilined to go back to

people, to go ck, to peel it away that in the first, the seco, the ninth, the 0th terview, you still haven't gone deep enough. and thatou have to kin of just dig and dig and dig to fin out wt really happened. d it's not that people are lying or that tre's conscious deception. it's that th are proctiveof themlves, the people the work for or wh with and, most importtly, they think they're protecting their repution. but it may be to certain extent they are. but the job in our business is to get that at out. ani was just astonish. here bob mcnamara still hiding. >> rose: acce, access. i mean, canouo back and back

and back if y don't have access? >> well, of course if they won't let you in the door, you.... >> rose: can't do it. >> you c't do it. but, you know, you can do it. when i was working on the last bu book, there was aeneral that wouldn't talk me. i'd call, i'd leave messages, talk to pple who worked for him, n noanswer, just radio silence. so iound outhere he lived and add, so, the age of 64 or 63 , i went and knoed on his door, there's a perfect timeto knock on somebody's door if they're home and it'sbout 8:3 night because they've had dinner. if they don'thavelans maybe you can get to talk to m. >> rose: gay taleseas just on this pgram and we taped a show a few mutes before you came o in whh he wasery critic of washingt coverage saying there's too ch access.

in wasngton everybody parties with everybody, th go to t sa parties they scrat everybody's back and that that's not in the best interestf good journalism. >> or this is manhattan view of washington journalism. and, you know i d't go to parties with theseeople. maybe accidentally sometimes. i bynd largeon't go to many parties. you know, is just no so. but, you know, talk about access. how do do you find out what somebody did or tught unless you talk to them or unlessou get their dia ortheir documents? the is this sen that people have that somehow if you reprent somody's point of view, you're being spun or taken in. ll, you want to testit, you want to surround it with

reporting and look for notes and documeation and so forth. but i think it's kind a journastic felony not seek from somebodyhat theyid and why they did it and to ilude in your coverag during the watergate period carl bernstein and iould beat down the or of the whi house to get their reonse. and it wou oft be the white house said "ourources are lis." orhey had no comnt. but we would include that and sometimes include that at length. anso i don't know where this ideaomes that don't talk to people who are making the decisions. better to cove the administrationrom the outside. yes. the outside. and, yes, you're goingo talk to all kindf people and youe

gointo try to see if what people are saying is true, but you want to hear what they have to say. >> rose: how would you find your y to the obama administratio you talk to people? you mentioned i travel with general jones to afghanian a pakistan. you knoc on doors. you listen to people and you go back and back and try to undersnd whathey're doing. but believe me-- and i getti dizzy ying to figure outwhere the ceer of gravity is where the story is. ani, quiteonestly, am not sure so'm reporti half a doze stories and the o i'm rking on may be the... or all six of those may be the equivalent of the bush tax cut. >> rose:he other thing you've said about"all the president's men" theovie, which i found intesting, you asked peop about e impression of the

moe and what is so obvious is so much of i takes ple at night. cause that's where you get things de. by knockg on aoor at 8:30 p.m., not at 9 a.m inheir ofce. >> that's correct. sometimes can be in the daytime, somebodyt home or somedy coming to luncat my house wh doesn't hav.. "oh, i've got to go i've got to r outo the next appoint." and soorth. but, yea the nightis a... it cleanses people. puts the a more philosophil posture about at's going on and not justelivering the pattern d the storyline and the plicelations line that every instution,very individual puts out. >>ose: let's just tal about

interestg people. first,im jones. tell me wh you learned ant him in this trip. he w a man you kw, a m you inteiewed before, a man that's been a part of washingn as a mane officer and in varus commands. what did you geton this trip? >> that... i wrote a sty for a "washington post" out part of it. and st of what i wasdoing was for the book. >> ros what book? >> for the book on obama. and, you know, all of that may stay ithe filesecause the big story... t center of gravity will belsewhere. general jones was on a fact-finding missiono talk to people and to lk at thear in afghistan, look at what's going on in pakistan. and he delivered a messa and the message was "let's deal with the strategy in the afghanistan

r that we n with with v wh e troop level, it's now been approved, and not be thinking about more troops and, in fact, you will create a whiskey tango fox-trot moment for the president if y come until with more troop" and at was a veryclear messagthat the pengon and the generals nce the story came out made it clear,ell, theye going to askor what they want. jones made it clearhat wasn't absoluteestriction but he was carrying a message from the esident of the united states that it' already obama's war and he hesto do with the troop level weave there now an we're gng see. but that w an important message to deliver. >> rose: what does he think of hilly clinton? >> you know, i don't... did

not the a kind of what does h think of t cabin membe. peopleeported that the natial security council is kind of working and functioning we'll see. because threal test is n just eryday business. the re test is goi to be when there's cris. >> rose: ineasingly i hear from people of the president's relice on rahm enuel. >> rahm emanuel's as chieof staff is critical. david axeld from the cpaign is central to what's going on. there's a whole campaign team, advisors. they brought in nee tra dunn as the communications director. she's somebody experienced wh lots ofolitical campaigns. close advisorto tom daschle, form senator. bill bradley, the former senor and so forth. so there are all kinds of pele

and then there's what call the really important " factor in all of this, michelle obama a clearlnot somebody who's just going to sit on the sidelines as the presidency goes by. i suspect there is significant discussion in the white house residee between she and the president obvious the presidency and what hs dog and what the priorities shod be. what the decisions shou be. >> rose:more like billlinton and hillary clinton than others? >> yeah, i think so. i mean, she's a smart, engaged woman who h strong views, as i understand it. so that will be part of the peelin you know? trying toind out as much about that as ssible. >> rose: two oer institutions. number one, th congress. are you the ast bit interested in the congress? >> yes sure, i think the congss is....

rose: you've wtten about the supreme court, y've written about the presidency you've written about the military, you've writtenbout the c.i.a. >> and in all of those books and stors, congress plays a role. and sometime it's a big role sometimes it's a role mor on the sideline. but it'suite evident that the presidency nowas concentration of power,iven all of the problems and ws and the financial...ngoing financial difficulties and economic difficulty and that that's where the action i t, you know, congressan do all kinds of things. i think that they are a player in this, but if you want to describe the era, just like i de an attempt to describe the bush era, you've got to understand the psident.

you've got to understand how the president thinks, gsdvice, weighs it, makes decisions, who are e president listens to, who the president doesn't rlly lien to even if they're talkin because th's often the cas >>ose: yourassessment of bush. over the years, your sessment of him, your admirationfor him, yo judgment of him changed? >> well, you know people have talk about how he in the first book, respse the 9/11, going to war in afghastan, that's an acrate... fully accurate account of whatent on. there's some cricisms in the book about him. iting four books aut a president coemporaneously-- i've sd this before-- is like covering fou baseballgames. and anyoneho's cover four baseball games knows that a team can do gat in the first, mixed

in the sond andhen maybe blow the third and fourth. and you can't write about t four game-- which s not occurred when you're writing and covering the first game. >> re: you're reading "lessons in disaste" or you have, a book ally, about national secuty visors. >> gordon goldstein's book is terrif book. it's aut mcgeorge bundy, wh was thnational security advisor for john kennedy and then lyndo johnson for a couple ofears. and it's abo the vietnam war and e road to vietnam and ndy, who defended all the desions at the time and afterwards, in the '90s wanted to write a book, somewhat like mcnamara, and look bk at it. and goon goldstn was his asstant on this. an interviewed him and bundy

wrote some fragments and then died. and so he p all together and itas got... it's jt full of lessons about what a psident should don war and wt needs toe weied and really exains, i think as we as anything, why and how we got into vietnam and why no one kind of put the brakes on it. >>ose: take a look. try to answ this as myast question. one, i think you and others have said there a big stories we didn't see well. , those of us who do what you do, o do what i do, who are daily rerters for the "washington po" and the "new yo times," things at we didn't see. what mighte one ofhose stories that we are not focusg on enough?

>> (laughs) boy,hat's what i spend eve y working on. it's... you know, somebody was joki to me some time ago said "please don't do a ok on the agriculture department becau we'll have a famine." and, you know, who knows? maybe swin flu. maybe some other.... >> rose: pandemic. >> ...disease. pandem will be the story o the era. so you don'tnow. you try to cover them all. you try to get aense of what the president's agenda i, what he's working on. and wt his process is. and it's... you kw, it's trng to work on it everyday. but it reall is humbling becauseyou don't know the answers to the really g questions. >> rose: did the stories about

the salon the "washington post", a the publisher's house do damage the post? >> sure. it was a mistake. it's been acknowledged. theublisher and t editor have kd of... not kind of it's kind of aer no-excuses apology. they tried to explain how it happened and i thi they have an it never occurred. ere was no salon. no money changed hands. t it was someing thatnever should have been launched any mannershape, or form. and i think they know that and i think they lrned a great lesson from it. and on one of your shoes i member talking after i'd done one of the bush booksabout george tenet,he c.i.a. director going in and sayi "it's a sm dunkase we can makebout iraq hingweapons

of mas destruction. and that, obviously, wa a git stake and somebody afterwards sa... after iturned out to be a mistake, now george ten net's qualifiedo be c.i.a. director because he realizes how with goo intent what you think is good process you c make a git mistake. and i think thaatherine weymouththe young publishe of the "post" hasow made a mistake and in a visible one an embaassing one, and that now makes her qualified to be blisher of the "washington post." >>ose: interesting. the c.i.a., do you ink we're ju beginning? we've got... perhaps eric holder is gng to do investigation or appoint aspecial precutor. perhaps the congss is going to be looking into whether the ve president ld them not to disclose this to congrs

abouthis initiative to assassinate al qae. i mean, is that maybe, going to be a some point an emerging and converging story? >> it uld be. i wrote stories for the "washington post" aft 9/11, big headlinthat said "bush orders.i.a. to kil osama bin laden." and that, you know i don't think there was much secret out that. now, whether they were thinking as theseeams and so forth i thk is rather logical. t we'll see. u don't know what's hidden. you don' know what pple won't tell y or thathey don'tut in documen. i think there ould be inquiries orinvestigations into all the matters. they're important. but don't fd it surprising

that bh wanted to kill osama bin laden. turns out,s we know, bill clinton want to and aually tried to kill osama n lad. >> rose: and y also have ggested that if vice president t vice president was doing that he would havtold the president? the esident would have known? >> yeah. and i've... but, you know, we'll see. let's have an inquiry. suspt-- but sure could be dead wrong-- that that's old business abama's made it very clear that he wants to look ahead and even though congress is independent and the aorney general ha some inpendent authorities on this, i don't

thinwe're going to he big investigations on these matters. >> rose: tha you very much. >> tha you. >> rose: bob woodward. back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: bradley graham is he. was a reporr and edir at the "washington post" fomore than 5 yearss. he covered the military and foreign affas. recently publish a biography of foer defense secretary donald rumsfeld, it's called "by his o rules: the ambitions, successes and ultimate failures of donald rumsfeld." e book is based on hundreds interviews iluding eight with msfeld. i'm pleased to have bradley aham at this table again. thank you. >> nice to be here. >> rose: why rumsfeld? for several reasons. no matter how you feel about rumsfeld, you can't ny that he haseen the mt consequential as well ascontroversial secretary defense that we've had nce mcnara.

the rumsfeld story is just a wonderful washington story. it's a... the way i tell it is, it's framed as a kind o tragedy. here'somebody who had a whole career both in government and business ogreat success. he was pickedo be secretary of defense r the second time in his life, the only one who had a second st at the job, he was an experienced washington player a skilled veteran of bureaucrat maneuvering and yet he got a number of things very wrong. he left office ver sparaged and he became such aolitical liability to h president that the presidenwas compelledto ask rumsfeldo go. >> rose: and how did rumsfeld take that? >> think he saw that as coming, you know? he left the day after...e announcehis resignation the daafterhe congresonal elections november, 2006.

anas i write in the book, he and his wife yce had ancipated weeks before that if the republicans were to lose contl of congress, that rumsfeld would likely have to leave. what he didn't seem to know was exactly how it would be chorgraphed. thathe ax would fall onim immediatelafter the vote, the da after. bush had decided it turns out, before the vote to ha rumsfeld leave. but headn't sat with rumsfel and told rumsfeld exactly timi. >> rose: and, fact, bush had been urged to do i earlier and en at the end rsfeld had his supporrs, includingick chen. >> that was abt thenly supporter of real significance that rumsfe had. >> re: where was kl rov on this? >> karl rove had fored rufeld's removal months before. and so had a number of the other president's top aides.

by the time the endame rumsfeld had lostupport ofey members of congrs. he had lost support of very seor membersof the military. so cheney was about his only real supporter. >> rose: how did he become secretary ofefense when georg bush 43 i electedpresident. why him? >> that, of urse; was not a fore ordaid conclusion. rumsld had been involved somewhat in the bush campaign, although t two were not close. fact, rumsfeld hadome real tensions, a history of tensions with bush's dad. >> rose: bush's family, right. >> going bk to the nixon/ford years. rumsfeld wasn't bush' first chase for secretary of defee. former senator from inana, dan koets was. but that intview between bush and coates didn't goery well. so chey very quickly remmended rumsfeld tobe secretary of defense. sh met with rumsfeld once,

th clicked andbush picked him. >> rose: and now makethe asssment of donald rumsfel as secretary ofefense. >> you know, rumsfeld got off to a very difficult start. heook the job really with main mission to transform many t military. th was a msion basically handed to m by the president. and he went after it with characteristic zeal but also with characteristic gressiveness to the point whe within a fewmonths there are already rumors tha he would be possibly thefirst cabinet casualty. >> re: right. >> but this eablished a ttern for rumsfeld thrgh the re of histerm that are he had very difficult relations with the mitary, with congrs,

wi others in the.. the administraon. >> rose: wit secretary powell? >> with pell,ith condoleezza ce. and so there was repeated speculation througho hiss six years at various points that rumsld would t last. the ar though, of his time as secretary does have kind of up-andown upnd-down quality. becae just when it was being speculated in le summe of 2001 that he might he to go, 9/11 happened d the afghan war happened and rumsfeld's popularity suddenly surged. he was the star of the news conferences. he became the ce of the war. bush nicamed h rumstud. d it lood lake he was going to be cure. but, of course, the iraq r

came and his fortunes began falling. rose: okay, there are two things about tt. number one, did he want to after 9/11invade iraq? and did he mak that clear to the preside? >> heooked at the optn of attacking aq in some w. itasn't clear thait would ha ever evolved at that early stage to an invasion. t he was very quick, within hourafterhe attack, t focus on some kind of milary action against iraq. and even while the plaing proceeded to go into afghanistan rumsfeld continued to argue thin the administration about widening the fight at that point

and goiafter roous or onsors of terrorism like iraq. >> rose: others? he wanted to gointo other countries, too? >> sure, there was a whollist of... not nessarily invade otr countries but to target terrorist networks in differe places arod the world. >> re: like what other counies? you mean bomb them or what did he wt to do? >> he was more selective kinds of attacks usingpecial operations fors. and that also becam a fus of his efforts, which w to bf up the special opetions coand and fm these teams that tn.... >> re: they were ner very success... they were very ccessful in afghanistan >> initially, yeah. >> rose: the c.i.a. a special forces prevailed in kicking out the taliban. >> tt's right. >> ros it i said this about him. one is thahe wanted to get into iraq and get out fast. had no stomach for a w

beuse he had other hher agenda ems like transfoing the military. two, that he thought that th woulbe able to do that and so therefore had no understanding of t problems that came after the initi attack was very scessful. and therore he was caut unaware of wha to do. and that's when he said tuff happens. there's also the perception that he never understd afterthat the nare of the war and the counterinsurgency tactics that were necessary dn't believe in them, didn't understand them. and his stewardship of the war after that was incompete. which partf that is true? >> it's a true. and it's rely astonishing wn yogo backnd you loo at the reco how many strategi misjudents were made both in the pre-war planning and in the

immediate afterth of the vasion and tn in later years as the insurgency grew and took root and u.s. militarytruggled to deal with it and it's onef the eat paradoxes of rsfeld that i ite about in the book. because, you know, tre's a lot blame to go around. it wasn't just rumeld. some of his generals didn't quite get the conflict. also certainly others in the adminiration. the present, the vice president didn' allenge the sttegy, didn't challge rufeld enough. ere's a l of rponsibility here but rumsfeld o all of them had spent yearsarning people not go with t conventional wisdom. there was a favorite essay tha heoved t distribute to people

that is the preface t a bk on pearl harbor that war against confusing the unfamiliar with theimprobable. at warns against a poverty of expectations. and yet rumsfd until the runup to the ir war was not ableo anticipate enough of what might come after a then wa very slow after the iasion to entify the insgency and the threat that that posed a then todjust to it. he so very strangely did not provide sufficient strateg guidance to his genels. as write in the book- and is is about a ye intohe occupation already, when the generals are changed and gener orge casey goeso take command i bhdad. casewas given very few... nt to know instructions about th

kind of new countersurgency plans to craft. he basically hado invent , send it back to waington for a amp of approva >> re: abu ghraib. did he understand that? dihe see that's what it w and therefore how horrendo it was fo america's image? >>e still tohis day refuses to accept responsibility for what hpened at abu ghraib. i'm t sayinghat he knew what was going on beforand orhat he should bear direct reonsibility for that. but as an indendent panel who studied this-- tha he appointed-- found, rumsfeld does bear indirect resnsibility for what happened in the sense that failed to provide clear guidance for how trps should handle detainees in the field. he howev, maiains that the

mistreatment at abu ghrb and a number of other military facilities was really more the resultf either bad behavior by individualor inadequate supervision. >> rose: the relationship with cheney it ban with cheney working for rumsfeld. thend cheney was ve esident and rumsfd was secrary of defense. did the relationship change? who was the senior partner? >> tt's a very diffilt relationship to penetrate. >> rose: don'they have hous w out on chesapeake bay next to each other? >> oh, they do and there was a lot of contacthroughout that period. but if there were differences between them, ty managed to keep tm really pretty much known only to thewo of them. snoo soup what does he say whe yotalk to them? do he have a regrets? does hhave any guilt? >> he's struggling. he is still struggling with all

of that. on t questionf regrets, whh i pressedim on in my final interew, hewanted to dismisthe question. he said "that's a forite press question." d i think in pt he isn't sure himse what to think of everything that ppened to him. he's writing his own memoir, it's going t take him anotr ye or more. >>ose: but he had to gi you the outline of the defse he's going to mak of himself. well,'ve gottenits of it. on iraq, for instance, he did write an op-ediece that peared in t "new york tes" st fall in whh he argues that amongther things was in favorof the surgen iraq at the end. now by man other accounts rufeld was not in for of increasing troops in iraq. but as he sees it, his approach to iraq helped lay the basis for

then what finally succeededn iraq after he left. he did very interestingly admit a miste in o area, and tt is ithe area of detainees. anhe volunteered this. where he feels looking back that he left too much the shaping of th policy in the hands of the pentagon'seneral counsel a lawyers and didn't bring in enou policy people and other people. so it's an acknowledgment not of an ror in judgmen he hasn't gone that fa, but its a admission of aistake, at least in pcess. >> re: you think h's at peac or he's anguid? >> i ink at some lel he's still quite anguisd with how it all ended up. >> rose: "by his own rules, the admissions, successes, and ultimate failures of donald

rumsld" by bradley graham. >> thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> rose: tha you foroining us. e you next time. captiong sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access groupt wgbh accessgbh.org