>>el toç the broaas we bthisveninggain th afanistan an rige, chieforeign cresponnt r newsho po fretl fromfghaan. an 2ours,his outptes some othe incoming rnds were solose we could cracksoverhe. nowhey' putut ressive reorynd bahe tackers. eyalso called in morr fire i dot personalltheink uig, wiingts >> re: w n?r going wor >>ause i'veon t onhee paolds an ie seen t ahan st look the aikecans l

the mtis. wh do you w wh areoing h iqi came ruing out dpoke,an em,in elp usant eetopsgç na and sethi. so quo here." thfgha dantth a, ust ok a tman wa unl ey left ie ca i.e.d.'s on t road and say "get out of here." rose: also, our conversation with m cleland, he lost two arms a a leg inietnam. came home and came a united states senator and chief of the vetens administration. he talks about his experience and his views o afghanistan to want. >> we got into counterinrgency by accident. because we were there in afghanistan afr whom? after biladen and h cadre. they went across e untains into pakistan. they're not in afgnistan ymore! and we have shift our purpose and our politil and

military objective to going after al qda. t building our resources in afghanistan. pwhich i think is a dead d, that's vietn. >> rose: a pgram note. because of our focus on ghanistan this week, my interview th bryan rossnd with michael moore will be seen at a later time. tonight,ç richard engel and max cleland next. captioning sponsored by rose communicatis

from our studios in w york city, is is charlie rose. ç >> rose: we begin again this evening wi a focus on afghanistan because present obama is facg the mt critical foreign policyç decisn of his presidency. he met tay with his natial secuty team after talksith congressiol leaders yesterday, the presidensaid that he would not substantially reduce u.s. forces or shiftthe mission to just hunting terrorists. he als said he wante to dispense with thestraw man argunt that this is about either doubling do or leaving afghistan. some in congress and the administraon want to narrow r counterterror sategy. that approach would maintain the currentroop levels but step up strikes against al qda. generastanley mcchrystal, the top commander on t ground, has prosed a cnterinsurgency strategy thawould require up to 40,000 additional troops. this day marks eig years to the day when thefghan war

started in 2001. therefore i'm pleased to heç richard engel, chief foreign coespondent for nbc news, join me. he's reported onhe soldiers of viper company. they mand a remote base in one of afghanistan's mtviolent regions. here's aook at hisç documentary. the troops can see the taliban's muzzle flashes. >> we'veot two ements that are firing onviper 17rom the highround to their north and northwest,reak. >> reporter: powell callsin mortar and 2,000 pound bombs to stroy the talib position. the bbs and mortars are lling simultaneous on th of t mountai. but suddenlyit goes tragically wrong. americanortar hits the safe house where the soldiers are positioned. >> 266. >> it's adirect hit with terrible conquences for the

men ofestrepo. (screaming)ç we can hear their screams federal reserve a few hundred yards away. >> rose: i am pleased to have richard engel back at this table. welcome. >> thank you very much it's a pleasure toe here as always. >> rose: we'll talk about is documentary, this is silar to the placwhere the attack took place overhe week wednesday the death ofight, nine mine >> very similar tothat. this was an outnortheast is quite small inhe mountains. you have f you understand the battle, you have to derstand th geography. in the southit's flat and mostly desert and there ara lot of roads. so mine cansravel around in big vehicl and the killer are i.e.d.s, we're talking abt kandahar, helmand, southern afghanisn. they never see the taliban.

i was with a unit recently, three soldiers wer killed in theç th-period, the las 24 hours i was with tm, we didn't hear a shot we dn't see anybodynd you just have soldiers walking in eac other's footsteps to try and avd these i.e.d. the east, vy differentç terrain it's mountains, e hindu kush. so in der to protecthis area you ha these tin little lily pad like tposts mnedy sometimes as few as soldiers. i've seep one tinylittle advanc outpost that had four soldiersn them. i won't say where it is because i n't want to put anyon at risk. but they are manning a few tiny bases. and here you haveambush attacks you ve to taliban or other fighters. there's the hick canny network, that a strg group inthe area. hikani. and what happened this latest attack is 200 some have said

even morthan200 fightersç massednd then basically overran e base. >> ros and they had no option for reinforcement oranything el. >> this was not the first ti that a ltle outpost like this... and the u.s. militaryç nevelikes to say "overrun" because thers an emotional aspect to thatnd they n't wanto encourage copat attacks. i ow of at least three in the last year or so similarype incidents whe the... i thin you can say the security of this little base s been compromised where there wereights inside the our wire. now, three is not a lot, but three is still... is quite gnificant. >> does the sategy of havi those outpost... willit change? are eir recommendations om the miliry to chan that? >> there areany recommendations change that. and... includeing fromeneral mcchryal. he sa why bother having tse tiny outposts in t middle of no place defendi aalley where very few people livnd e original theory to having

outposted in valleys like tç one that was overrunor like the one feared in this documentary was that you would fight them in the mountains,fight the enemies. and theseoldiers callhem taliban but ty're all sort of different ghters. fight em in the mountns so they stay outpopulated areas. kind of like our national security straty. fight them over ther so we don't fighthem over here. the probm is we were ghting them over there in the mountains and fhting them in the cities and you can't resuppl them. a lot of these... it can take days on foot befor you get there beuse the mountains and valleys are so steep. theelicopters to come in have to get very close to the sides of the peaks, whe they can get shot at. this is what happened to the soviets. they draw the helicopters into thestight canyons and lleys anthen they shoot a the helicopters. so they're difficult tdefend, they're fficult to resuly. if there'san emergency, it' difficult to gedevac in and out. >> rose: in the winter they're freezing col and so tre are recommentions to try and... to remove some of these and fus on the

population centers andç basicay surrender terrain, surnder the mountain the no-man's-land, to the hard-liners. >> rose: what do the soldiers want >> the soldiers on a little base like this, they areç happy because th have a mission. and thr mission is vy clear. they're not sitting around sort of thinking about theirole in lifend in siety. they have a clear mission, they are thereo defendhe tpost an protect the person to their left and the right. so when there there, it's clea but the probm you'rehaving th the sdiers-- and ihink you're seeing is across the military-- is too ny deploymes. now their families are falli apart. the divoe rates are going up. suicide rates are going u i think thewant a break. when they're tre, they're focuse they're fighting. t then they need a little bit a break. >> rose: stretched too thin. strehed too thin. >>ou're asking a lot of... rticularly of some of tse officers who ef if you're

captain,ç major level, lieutent colonelevel, back,nother deployment, another deployment. i don't kn how many deploymes a marriage lasts but three? four? and thent's real hard after that. >> rose: you said to m as w walked in the studio "thgs are going badly even kabul." >> kal... kabul the oddest place. it feels conial now. you wa aroundnd kab you can gout, you can go to reaurants, there's ba, there's quite a unique expat community ere of aid workers andjournalists and mercenaries and "star wars" kind scenario and you see the.. someu.n. rkers or international aid agencies come in one of the reaurants. i was ju there. they come in with white sweaters carrying tennisackets with big s.u.v.s parked outde. and i'm thinking this i another area with colonialism all aga. siddiqui, could you bring the car around? and it's a very odd place. whereajust outside of kulç in

the wilderness to contue the colonialis model, the villages are burning and the nives are in revolt. so it's a situation where youç have a surreal existence in bul in the eye of e storm and in the res of the situation is... the restf the country is really falng under foot. >> rose: one argument that comes up regaress of which side you' in term n terms of sttegy is the one thingou do not want to be pererceived of is an occupier. >> well, youre an occupier. you cannot be perceiveds anything but an occupier. >> rose:he ahans pceive e united states as an occier and therefore resent thenited states prence or the nato presence? >> too much time has ssed. we would almo be better off starting froscratch but we can't art from scrch. eight years have psed. eight ars of broken promises, eight ars of watching the security suation get worse, eight years of suppoing corrupt war lords an@ç briing themo power,now tolerating

another very problematic election that just happened this summer. so there's n a lot of trust leftrom the iraqi people toward the americans.. >> rose: ira? >>ç afghan pple, excuse me. ople in the united states see to have forgotten aut the war in afanistan and areow waking up to it. in afghanistan they neve forgot about it they s the soldiers come, they saw them n doing ver much. >> rose: andso go deeper in rms of the hostility towards americans. >> there is not open htility. americans cod walk around kabu and. i walk around kabul and ha no problem. gog shopping and the's not hostility, you don't seerage in people eyes. there's a feeling that you didn't do anythin what's your point of being here? in th south an among the pashtun populion, that's... and guess you could ll the hard line air glass the south and east, yes, there's aeal nse of anger becaus that's a war zone. many people there have bn caught up actively inheç conflict. in kul there's ju a sense of

"ion't know what you'reoing herei don't know why you're still here after eight years. you didn't dany of the things youromised. u're a liar more than anç occupier." >> re: are they prepared to accept the tiban returning to power? >> no, no. absolutelyot. nobody wts the taliban. 6% of th people want the taliban to return to power, which is basally nobody. they don't, however see the liban as an imdiate threat. and this is the big difrence between iraq and afghanistan. the rge happened in iraq. and when i sayiraq" i really mean ira the surge happened t years ago in iq and it was... was a gamble but the idea of we're going protect e people in iq and we're going changehe counrinsurgency strategy. we'll protect e people, we'll let the pple taste what stability feel like and tastes like and then th'll like it and try and preserv it for themselves. that was theç theory an it worked because the was a civil war going onin afghastan...

inraq. there were peoe getting killed onhe streets of baghdad. we were stepping over bodies every single day. in afghanistanç there is no that situation. the taliban don botr most people. most of the tacks that are rried out on a daily basis are aimed at no forces a u.s. forces and afghan goverent forces. if y're an average pson living in the...in afghanistan, thealiban doesn't bother you. soor american fces to come in and sa "we are here to protect you," well what from what who? the taliban? wellthe taliban don't bother me. acally, sir, you,the american, are thone who's targeted so ifou could plea lee your house right now because your presenceere is puttg me at risk. >> rose: then i'm confused. what would they have the situation be? what do the afghans want the afghans would li a more stable government. they would want a more clean government, onehat's not so riddled in corruption.ç theyhink that the internatiol community-- u.s., nato-- has tolered a great

deal of couption. >>ose: are they right? >> yes, th are absolutely right. the corruptio piece of thisis enormous.ç and 's not just on the ahan si, by the way, it's on the contracting si, it's on e official side. eight years have passed. what has been accomplished? i thk something like$300 billion habeen spent. where did it go? >> rose:hat's the answer? where did it go? >> well, a lot of it got lost in ntracting. a lot it got lost in subcontracting. there are countless stories. there's ories of an arican arms supplier at was selling arms-- a this has been document-- weapons,.k.-47 rounds for exple, and there's lotsf stori like this, to the afghan nional my. the rounds tned out to be comi from china, where sold throug eastern europe, and the person rning this company was a basicay a adow company being ruout of the united states out oa small offic inç miami. and there were tens of milons

of dollars o contracts and they were selling faulty cnese ammunition channeled through eastern rope. and this isç just on of many stors. >> rose: lay out for us what mcchrystal's strategys. >> it ishe surge in iraq. e idea of we're going to give the people stality, let them taste stability d they're going to comend ask us for more. so we're going to defend t people and win heartsnd minds and we're ing to go out to the villages and say "we are here to help you. helps help you and aft enough stility sort of germites on the grnd, it will bloom into a stable country. that's the concept that's whatorked in aq cause-- as i was saying before-- thereas a civilwar in iraq. iraqis would come out into the streets and beg aricans for stability. "pase help us, i ju received a deathhreat under my door. i'm aç sunni and i've beenicked out of myeighborhood by shiites." that dynic isn't happening i afghanistan and that'shy i

ink this strategys going to face seris challenges. because the afghan people aren't asking for protection. so ifç the americans want to protect them more than the afghs want ourrotection, how do you pride it to them. rose: what's the altnative strategy that might work >>ell, think the idea of... whh is being floated around rit now, just sitting back on ur bases and dois a few laser pinpoin drone attacks against al qaeda leaders, tha sounds great, i don't knowow that wou possibly work on the ground. >> rose: well, some say one nsequence to that will be what general mcchrystal was worried about, it will turn t civilia population against youecause you cannot avoid civilian sualties. >> ros >> and youdon't know what you're hitting. and this is something mcchrystal knows about. this is what he did for a living he was alack ops guy. he specialize in killi... maybe at sounds vulgar, but heç specialized in targeting hi-valuetargets and elimining them with drones an with other things like that. that's what he did

and you don't think if he could do that no and not put his people at risk he wouldç dotha? he's t best person in t uned states who does this kind of opetion. and h says yo can' do it. you need to have the intelligence. you need to have the pple on the ground. you need to have eyes and ears close to the ground otherse just sittinon a base operating a joy stick you don't know who you're going to get. but didn't answer your question. >> rose: no. >> soi do... ithink... the other option is... so i'm not... i don't persally think the nation building... winning hearts and minds is ever going work. i really d't. >> rose: whyot? because i've gone out on the patrols and i've seen the afghans just look athe americans like they' martians. what do you want? wh are you doing he? in iraq, t iraqis cam rushing out and smoke many of them in english to u.s. troops sayin "help us. "help us. 0pwant to i" they wantedomething. so t americs said "okay, give us formation, we'll qd pro quo here." the afghans don't want anything

from the american tops. they just look at them and wait until thç leave and in some cases put i.e.d.s i the road anjust say "g out ofere." so that... i don't think there's going to be a connectn there. >> rose: so should we leave? >> i don't think you can lea righnow. you have troops... eventlly, yes. i thk you should definitely leave. but you have to forsome sort honorable exit. >> rose: how do you aieve an honorable exit? >> you may have in the sho term send in more troops. >> rose:'s the ly way, u think, to achieve an honorable exit? >>aybe. >> ros up to 40,000. >> maybe. they need reinforments. e taliban has mo me tumright no >> rose: why do ey have momeum? why are theyining? >> nato nato fled. 's really very, very sple. president obama sent in 20,000 troops. an again, geography. i wish we had a map. i'm maprazed. he sent in tse troops. so inthe east in the mouains you have u. troops in these littleutposts. the soh the desert, kaahar, you had american troops also,some brits a canadians. they were having a tough time.

20,000ç extra troop went in. they pusd down mostly into t soh, which is the taliban stronghold. so wt happened to the taliban mitants who were down there? they med to other places. particularly the west andthe north. e americans were in the east and the south, they moved further into the south they diersed into theest and the north where itaans and geans had been. anthe itian and german troops had been doin very, vy little. there e many, many rerts about germans an italians not aving their bases, not being pro active, not havinghe same mission. they were there as peacekeepers not as fighting war or a counterinsurgency. so the talan was able to spreadut into man other rts of t country and in some cas gain new recruitsç and they got bold and they got bolder and they got bolder. so now you're in a sittion where you have the taliban moved out o theirraditional areas of support into sme of the nato areasç and doinguite well.

and they'v got a taste f it and they'vegotten better. ght years have passed. >> rose: a they've t better eqpment. >> the equment's fine. rose: where ist coming from? >>ou can buy anything. a lot of eipment isgetting stolen as itomes in across the boarder fromakistan. the way works is it's almost like alind loery. you pay between $5,000 d $10,000 and you buy a container these coniners that have shped through contracrs again, middlemen, tt come through pakian andhe... you don't know whas in the container. maybe it opens up and it's contner full of toilet paper and then okay, bad choic you open it up andt's full of flak jkets and bullets, then y had a great deal. ort's full of equipment, sensitive equipment. so t smuggng routes are entifulnd thoseç convoy are.... >> rose: most of therug trade money goes to theal been? >> aot of it does. and there'a large number there. and it goes to the ruian mafia. st of the drugs are grown in thsouthç and then are exporte

through the north through t central aan republic and then by the russian must ve ya and th end up in europe, that's kind of the route of the heroin. >> rose: what's the potential of the afghan security forces? >> the ghan army is good. i've bn impressed withthem. was out with th on an indendent patrol, just me and e afghan army a few days ago. they were good. they knew at they were doing. the weapons we clean. they werin uniform. >> rose: arehere enough of them? >> no,here just aret any of them. they're barely... th told me in kabul theyeed five tis as many that was the problem. >> rose: has the.s. sold you that or the afghans? >> no, the afghan brigade commander. >> rose: how long wou it take them to get that point? >> maybe twoor three years. >> ros because thas central to mcchrystal's strategy. >>ç it is absolutely. the afghanroops that are there like i sai they're good. ere just aren't nearly enoug and the afghan police they need to probably start from scratc agai >> rose: whais your take on the sancary in pakistan?ç it's shrinking.

the pakistanis hav taken... and i don't think they're getting enough credifor it, frankly. the last several nths the pakistanis have been quite aggressive in pushin into particularly the northwest frontier province. >> rose: swat valley. >> the swat valley. once the saw talibant the gates of the cy, soto speak, and they g a lot of internatiol pressure, they acted. but they did act. now thers talk about pushing soutinto waziristan and coinuing that oensive. and... they killed masood. >> rose: the leader of the pakistani taliban. >> they' feeding themericans lot of intligence. there's a lot of transfer of intelligence going across that border machlt sood even at a local commander level. masood it's not just goingup general to genal. happened in.... >> rose: are they allç pashtun? >> on th side of the board? stly. 's a pashtun oblem. it's a pushtun belt. but inakistan you havether populatis but genelly it's the pashtunisç the. a lot of people in that country s the

war in ahanistan and pakistan see the war on terrorism and the war on alaeda as a war on the pashtuns. that's how they seeit. it's a nationali struggle. >> rose:o therefore they're... they doverything they can to support the that they think are nationalists, which are theipeople they know? thealiban? >> theborder is sort of artifial. people cro and many afghans... patuns have lived in afghanistan d lived in pakistan and acrs the bord or bac and forth. they consir it one cotry that's sort of been unand a half lly divided by the duran line. >> rose: t you believe e pakistanisre being serio out a new strategy to go after th sanctuaries anthe safe han and that they will be successf if they keep it up? >> i don't knoif they'll be successfulut they are being serious. i]'s much different than, say, in 2006hen they were finally signing des and giving them autonomy or even jt last year whenhey said, all righttake the swat valley, it' yours. no, you're seeing aç diffent approach. >> ros which is we are militarily goingo come in. >> we're not going to tolerate

it. >> rose: d you hear ch talk about al qda? >> this is something i hear more talk about her this distinction, well, we're going to not worrybout al qaeda and we're goi to... wee not going to worry about the taliban b focus on qaed >> rose: so-called biden ternative. i don't know what the difference is. >> rose: they're notne in the same, though. i'm asking. >> i've metal ba commands to who say to me we're all muslims we all have the same cause. it not that different. >> re: but the one thingthey say ishe talib has no gbal agenda. >> this taliban commander said he would lov to carry on an attack in new rkç if could. told me that. new york city specifically we're talking about. >> rose: he waa nativeafghan? >> nativafghan. >> rose: didn't come fro somewhere else? >> we smoke in air back, he stied at aç madrassa in pakian like many of them do and perhaps he had en influenc balaeda's

ideology. but the idea that this is just a... maybe taliban was a ovincial group in the original days of mullah or in kandahar, but it's not anymore. they have seen e world. they've been fightg international rces for a lon time >> rose: becau general jes has said that they don't see that the threat of al qaeda in afghanistan is... the taliban i growing but al qda they seem to mak a distinction >> yea well that's great. >> rose: you don't s it? i don't see it. >> rose: youhink taliban has bought into a more global... more glebl jihadist mind-set? >>hese are aificial distinctions these are distinctions me by someone who has to createç a powerpoi slide. those are talin, those are al eda. it'sot that... you don't have membershipard. the organations in north africahat ar suprting of suicide attackand would love to cay on attack elsewhere, al qaeda nnabes, well, if they nnabe, then theyind of are.

i don't know how you make these distinctions and the talib... i guess u could call it the afan branch of al qaedabut they've been intnationalized. >> rose: the president has said in the last couple of days... and secretary ges has saidhe same thing and sretary clinton has said the sam thing. "we are no having a conversation inashington about leavg afghanistan. we're tryingo develop a stragy so we can thenake decisionas to how we can best implement that straty and whether it's me troops, whher it's the sameevel of troops, we're not talking about writedown troo. >> think that' directed at pakistan.... >>ose: to say to the kistan... otherwise if they're talking abou leaving they would lose all support, iç assume, in termof the afgns, we better make up the taliban because the americans are lving. >> how do you tell the paktani we've been hammering them "you have to go fighthe talib, you ha to take theç fight t them. by the way, we're leaving." you n't really do tt. >>ose: because the pakistanis

were there for the taliba befo. >> well, t pakistanis nev saw the taliban as tremendous threat. it was a cool, it was a convenient tool to have influee in afghanistan it wasnly when they started tting the blowbac of people who were attacking in islamabad and carrying out attacks in ps and were almost at the gates of the city thatthey decided you know what? we can't ride ts tigernymore rose: are you pesmistic abt when you look at t siation on the ground and regardless of whether theydd a few more thousand troops or don't or subtract,0 or 10,000 troops, i don't hear fm u any sense that there's aç real chanc at progress. a re chance at anying that uld look le successs you had in rt in iraq after the surge. >> i think the ideç is the... s imposing a nation sta state on a state that never had one. if iraq s a central gornment wantedo be a country, iraqis felt that they were iraqis and

they were engag. afghanistan was... wasn't really a stngentral government most people... the central governnt never hamuch control ove the outer provinces. and the idea of trying to create some sort ofestern model tha isoing to rule afghanisn from the center i think is ultimately a failed proct. and that's perhaps why ifwe're trying to impose a natn state as w understand in the afghanistan throughorce of arms, carried out by tn uniform, mt of whom are non-muslim who don't spe the languagei don't see h y're goingo do it. >> rose: does your experience in iraq and now your experience in afghanistan and your experience in the regn and you speak arabicay to you that any strategy that says we're going to kill allç the taliban is a fail strad ji from the beginning because you cannot win at way because you dot have the reurces and you don'the support of the afghans to do that?

>> how are you going to... the taliban are part of th people. you can't distinguishetween the tw of them. the talibaname from the people. so how do you kill all the taliban. thtaliban are the people. so when n.g.s and u.s. troops come over there andsay "we're here to proteyou." well protect you fm what. "we're here to lerate your women." well, weind of don't want you to do th. rose: but they didn't le th taliban. >> they didn'tike the taliban but they don't want a bunch of foreigners w have not delivered on their promises telling em how to rule their lis. none of em want the taliban to come bacbut they don't want.... ,pstates woulday "wee here to keep the taliban from coming back." would thatesonate? >> yes, people would love that. >> rose: w don't they say th? >> peopleould love that. that's whey what they're trying to do. >> ros if youar[ general mcchrystalis that what he says? we're he to prevent theal bran from takinover? >> that is what he's tryi to sell but he has a probl. he has a majorroblem. he says "we are here t prevent

the liban from ting over. " grt, i love that. l the afghans lov it. but by the way, wh we're givi you as an alternatives th afghan goverent whh has en corruptnd brought in and has no credibility. >> rose:e have nothing we can show them. >> we have nhing to sell. >> rose: a they think we're corrupted by relationship wth karzai? >> they thi we were corrupted by... and by our action. eight years have passed and, you know, u go to afgn village and you can't tell t dierence. nothing s changed. >> rose: the documentary, the one-hour documentary is called "the tip of the spear" as iç said. it airs on sunda, october 11 at 8:00 p.m. o msn. gi me a qck sense. th was anpportunity where you spent a year in and out with a group of solers...ç >> it's aightly focusedstory. 's on one post, one gruf of soldie. t going in and out but ispent a lot of time with this one particar group of solers. we tcked them from when they first arrived to mid-deployment,

end ofeployment, we w them in fire fights, we saw them when a soldierwas killed from the unit, that hapned unfounately while we were on one of t patrols. we went and found at soldier's parents. we visitedth soldis once they returned and we see the progression of this un, how the men have changed over their... over e course of this 12-month in one ofhe most difficult plac you can imagine. rose: before we ave i want to show the second clip, this is a fire fight with the taliban, justo give you a sense ofwhat it's like in afghanist at this out post.ç >> sergeant christoer thompson is wearing a camera on his helmet. as he'srecording, so are we. a rarely seen perspectiveç, multiple simultaneous angles inside a fireight. suppress that area. >> suppress! >> reporter: >> t imageslook like a a

deo game, but it's deadly real. >> i going in. watch out, i'm going in. >> in 11months, ver company has been in more than 500 fire fights, average ofmore than one of the... >> cist almigy! >> ...everyday. w the experiencespaying off ey're faster, re precise and more lethal than when we first met them.ç >> ooting right there! >> fire! >> the soldiers have also learned to block out emion, focus, and maner their art rates and aenaline. theç soldiers fire rockets and grenades. >> w got eyes on. >> they call ir support an re than 40 mortars. the taliban are close. their re accurate.

they've gotten tter, too. they've beenaking incomg rounds froat least two positions this hill top. some of the rnds were bouncing right off these rocks around us. nothey're trying to putut as much fire as ty can to try and cut off the attackers. but the soldis fire so mu, ammunion is running w. >>low your rate offire. conserve that ammo! >> theroops think th kill three or four taliban fhters. >> cease-fire! ase-fire! >> and aer an hour,his fire fightç is over. >> rose: whato you fea most about in terms of your own peonal safety? >> um, actually, the fire fights aren't so bad. what worriese more is the co.th. it's the i.e.d.s. at lst if you're i afire fit there's some. younow it's coming, you can hear the rounds coming , you can look... you can hide behind a rock, the's something you ca that at least gives you the ilsion of control. inhe south, you lk around anyou don't know what you're

going to step on and thiss ch more uettling. it'sike being in iraq when you were... iraq was similar to southern afghanistan that it was i.e.d. fight and yowould sit in theack of a humvee and y would think, all right, is this humvee going to blow up? that's worse. the fire fights, you know, you get adrenaline, you're running around, you c hide behind something, that'sot as bad as sitting there waing. >> rose: there a te limit on how long you can d this? >> i don know. that's aathematical question. door, when does it open? i hope i can keep doing this for a long time. i do te precautions. i don't.... >>ose: are you based in beirut? where e you based? >> it'sç complicated now i'm spending almost all my time. not most all m time but the majority of my timin ghanistan. >> ros this one hour documentary isalled "tip of the spe" and it airs on sunday at 8:00.m. on msn. my thas, as always, to richa engel. thank u, my friend. good to see yo, as always. back ia moment, stay with us.

>> rose: max cleland is here. he is as you know a decorated vietnam wa veteran and a foer democratic senat from the great state of georgia. he was head of the veterans adnistration under president jimmy carder. in up, president oba appnted him secretary of the american battle monuments commissn. it manages all overseas memorials tomerican soldiers. he has a new book out, it's called "heart of a patriot: how i found urage to survive, vinam, walter rd, and karl rove." aughs) i am pleased to have x clend at this table.ç welcome. >> i'm glato be here. >> tell me w you decided to write this. >> i d it fore to come to terms with my life. secondly, i'm sharing it with others so tt they... especially tho that are unded in war and the families when they come back and try to

come to grips with life and find that is not woing out for them in ma ways that they don't give up. that they are able t live one more mute, one more day. because the good lord and the helpf friends wil timately cay us. god does provide. now, that's basically the sry. >> rose: t reason peopleome back and have difficulty becaus of the pchological or the physical?ç >> once you've been to war, you come back different. you come back different emotionally and spitually. you may not show it, you may have hden wounds. that's wha we're tryingo get at in many ws.ç we have aumber of pple wounded in ira and ahanistan. physicallyhey make it back but then emotionallyhey will never rget their war. d it will live them w them for the rest oftheir lives. >> rose: whais it they don't forget? the hoor of it? >> they n't forget the horror of it,hey don't forget the trau of it and it lives witn thr reptile memory, even

though they nt to forget it. i think you have to come to terms with your lif that you have lost sometng. if you lost limbs or part of yourody, is harder to, but you can deal withthat. it tougher to deal with the hidden wounds. and that iscoming to terms wit e fact that you went to war and yomade it back. yo survived. sometis that in and of itself is a hidden wnd. it called svival guilt. but basically it's whatç do i o now to pick u my life andove ? and that's the rea challenng question. a lot of veters can't answer that affirmativy. ey get into drugs, alcolism and ifou getç into th it may lead you to suice. so the res of suicide now are rates that w haven't seen since--ello-- the etnam war. >> rose: and there's more of th coming out of iq, i understand,ecause the capacity to saveeople on the battlefield is much eater than it's evebeen so people com

ba not dead but wounded because of the miraculous medica facilitie >> that happened with , too. except now wre sending youngsters back r their fourth tour and their fifth tour a so forth. you can't that to hum being. we have our u will haver inment in our all-vonteer force. d so at's one of t things we have to think about as we encounter e problems of afghanistan andç pistan. >> rose: so howould that affect a polital decision abouafghanistan? >>t means me in myopinion that you've go a swamp and you' got alligators andç normallye're taught if you're up to your rear end i alligators youorget your mission is to drain the swamp. our mission is not drain the swp. no congressional ahorization for that. but there's plenty powerful congressional auorization after/11, almost unimously inhe senate andouse, to go ter those who came aft us. th's the mission. you go after the alligators. that meansou focus on killing

or capturinosama bin laden, s terrorist cadre you protect pakistan's nuclear programand u go after the taliban leadership in pastan. it's pakistancentric at th int and that does not mean that it's a question of boots on the ground. it means it's a question of intelligence with ourato allies. it means it'sa question of using our technology inhe air and on the sea to go aft theç guys who ce after us. >> ros therefore you'r agait sending more tros? >> for the purpose of... to afghanistan for the puose of counterinsurgency. because that msion was never authorized. it was neverç authozed by the congress counterinsurncy never was. we got intoounterinsurgency by accident becae we were there in afghanistan after whom? after bin laden and his terrist cadre. they wen across the mountains into pakistan. they're no in afgnistan anymore! and so we have to shif our purpose and our political and military objective to going after alaeda. not buildingp our resoues in

afghanistan which i think a ad end, that's vietnam. rose: okay. it's vietnam to sendore trps in afghanistan to engage the talin? >> it is in a countinsurgency sense which you have a nctuary across the border. that i exaly what happen in vietnam. the sanctuaç wasin north vietnam, camdia, and ls. so i was part of 55,000 troopsn the groundin vietnam and what didhat get us? nothing.ç so you cannot send good money after bad into afghanistan fo the puose of unterinsurgency. that does mean you have to begin torain the ahans to take ov their own country anyou haveo refocus the american military o killing the alligato. >> rose:o it soundsike you were at one with vi president bin in terms of the ternatives. >> im. >> rose: go after al qaeda wherever they are. >> that's the focus. that is alsohe congressional

authorization. >> rose said to be vice esident biden's pla >> it is, ght. it's alsthe legal bis upon which a president cano this. any president. we certainly th president. >> rose: so y're saying if he wants send more troopso ghanistan to fight thealiban he does not have t legal basis to do it? >>ecauseounterinsurgency was never the mission.ç it was never particularly thorized because basically there are nolqaeda in the mountasf afghanist. maybe a hundrgd or . they're ally in pakistan in their sanctuaries. >> rose: syou can support pakistan's efforts to cle the border and to go after... >> evenf you had draf there would be riotsin the streets. the public is spent now, a spent bullet i terms ofour military bause we've en almost eight years now in iraq. and so the public is fed upwith all this and sondly the military is pretty much burd out. and s.. particularlthe army.

so where a you going toet 40,000 troops? u're going t have to ll every gornor thayou can't have your guard... your army reserve, your nationaluard a your airuard for five years or so because you've g to g into afghanistan. that ain't gon work. so you've got to go aer theç alligators wherever theare. right now the shifted from afghanistan to pakistan. they're moving into sud, into indesia, maybe the southern parof philippines. you've got to go ter them erever ty are. right now you build up afghanistan, thewill just go somewhere else >> rose: this question: the presidt is now engaged in intense debate and discussion. >> rhtfully so. >> rose:t the white house. wi membe of congrs, with mbers of the military and range academic exper. and milary experts. doou think before the president mas his decision there oughto be some way to have se kind of national debate about this decision which many peopl say will be the most important decision of his

presidency >> it is the most important decision of his esidency. >> rose: should there wi be a nationalebate? >> there is national debe. rose: well, is tre a national debe taking pce or is it taking place inside the white house? >> it's taking place inside the admistration and within the halls of congress. has nnd hit the floor yet of the use and senate. but the ment the president decides and says "th is our strategy," then the congress will deba it. except you have a commandern chiethat has already mad the judgment. i thio[ youhave to switch your strategy from counteriurgency afghanistan top counterterrorism in pakistan. >> rose: i hearyou. >> and it's not a questionf boots on the ground. >> rose: and u think general mcchrystal i simply wrong? >> no, think he shou be turned loose t do when general mcchrystal has been trned to do, d this is special operations and black operations. >> rose: which he did in iraq. >> in pakistan. >> rose: but he has a different mission now. i want to come back t thisbook "heart of a patriot: how i found the couragto surviveietnam." tell uwhat happened to you in vietnam.

>> well... well, i, in my own mind, ha gone throu rocket attacks and mortar tacks and things of the liken '67 and earlyxz68 thinking bically th the war inevitablyas going to be won by the united states, that the north vietnamese weren the ropesnd as well the. havec. but what theydid was build up theiranctuaries in and in those sanuaries moved out and attacked us in force called the tet offsive, whi rough us back on our heels. they marooned 5,000 marines a place call caisson. i was with the firstalvary division outside away and so we became the ld tloplt goin and rescuehe marine the marines with lieutenant jim jones moving down e road and , captain max cleland, in the r with the first air calvary

division mov into the kay son in early april. when it was obvious our battalion was going to bak the ege i was sent to a hill to set upç a ray site since i was the communications officer. so i got off the radio relay team. what i do not know is that one of the youngenç who hajust shown up icountry had loosened the pins on all his gnades on hiweb gear and he was a lking bomb. i don't think anybod else knew that. he got off to theground, dropped onof the grenades, i s live. i do n know it was live. as the chper turned around and lift off, i had my m-16 i my left hand, flak vest, i reaed downith my right hand to get it. within five inches of the grenade it went off. i should be dead. but i was so close tothe grenade th the flash burns sear my flesh.

so i l there on th ground smokg, but i wasn't bleeding to death, actually, i was hurting massively, but my right arm wablown off, my right leg was blown off and myç left leg was blown offso badly that within an hour was amputated. so then a ash much like the guys and gals that get hurt in iraq and afgnistan with i.e.d.s now, i lostç a part my body that i had dependedon all my life, mywo legs and i right arm, because was right-handed. so was lucky to survive that. yog men came to myaid and so forth. i spent a yeaand a half in military and v. hospitals to come back to an absolutely uncertn future. no job offers, no future. i said no girlfriend,o future, car, no money, whatever. now's a great time run for the state senate. so i d. politi was my outlet became my outlet andy way of coping wi things. when i lost in 2002, ient

downhillig time, wse than ever my worst nightmare aer vietnam. >> rose: but don't go that ft. you go toalter reed hoital.ç you come out of that andou go into the state sate in georgi w's your mental attitude then? i was a little s.o.b., as matter of fact t8you know, i thought i kind of knew everying. i met jimmy carter who tri to put forward a reorganizatn of state government, wch i suppord. that how i became a carter supporter earl on. ando i ran for lieutent governorn '74 and lostut i didn't lose evything. i didn't lose my r, i didn't lose my hses, i was ling with my pares.... >> rose: ling with the bod d body you had cong out of vietm. >> right. and so by that time i had given up my limbs and i was in a wheelchair. son 1976 whe jimmy carter won appointed me head of the v.a.

then i was able to sin my teeth in all the issues tt we're now talkin about-- presidtd is, t center ogram which i yes. p.t.s.d., vet ceerç ogram which is i created in 1980 and all the hidden wounds of war. >> rose: then you went to georgia and ran r senate. >> jimmy carter lost and i ran suessfully for secretary of state, was secretaryf state for 12ç years. then sam nunn dided to retire, so said boy, , boy, this was my shot. i was elected narrowly a thought i wod be the next sam nunn, th next dick russell of the united states nate. sought membershion the arm services committee bause that's what i was ierested in, king care of the troops. >> ros tradition of georgia senato. that's right. and for six years, you kw, i gave it my best shot. >> rose: a that was a happy time foyou? >> the itial part was a happy time. then came the whole clinton impeachment and allhat monica lewinsky sff. then the election of2000 in which my fellow vieam vetera al ge lost to bush an my life

started going downhi from there. >> rose: sgoing dnhill... n terms of your success or going downhill iother u1v: >> in ter of bush and karl rove and all those gs coming afte me. because i was up in002. >> re: so the titleays "how i found the coage toç survive vietna walter reed and kl rove." >> that's righ >> rose: what dikarl rove d to you? >> bacally karl rove flipped he wasn't the only o, but he was the leaduy thatflipped modern american polics from putting your bes foot fward in terms of getting the voters to like yound suppt you to themphasis of a campaign becoming driving the opposition's negatis up. even if ty had served in the american military. now, the reason i thin that rove and those guys went after mcca first in south carolin where me and four others in the senate who wervietnam veterans wrote a letter iis defenseo

my mpaign in 2002 where my hussn and osama bin laden to kerry being swift boated in 2004. that wasart and parcel of driving the opposition's negatives up even if they serveç in the american military because on his side bush and his tional guard service really was highquestionable and cheney nev served at all. so he ought, i'm sure, tt a good offense i theest defense. but basically heent across the ne. >> ros how did he go across the line? >> that kind of politicsegan to chalnge legitate service. >> rose: what did ty say abt you inhat campai? >> that i terms ofhe levision ad they indicated that somehow i s not able to defend this nation when i had given what had giv and the other guy had nev served at all. now, that was crazy. >> rose: so theyuestioned your patriosm? >> yeah, absolutely. because they mphed me and my

imagelong with osama b ladç and saddam husse. and that was crazy. i had nothing to do with those people. as a matteof fact, i had voted for...he congressionalç resoluon to go after bin laden and i voted to invade iraqdue the fact that cheney and others had said there were weaponof mass destruction maybe even nuclear weapons there. so i bought off o all that stufand i regret and will regret to e end of my days the vote on the ir war resolution. but they came after me because i was occupying a democratic se in what theyhought ought to be a reblican seat. now,hat they did w go across the line. they challenged andndercut and ed about military service legitimate military servi of mccain, me, and kerry. so thas where they crossed the line. u can say about me or kry or

mccain anything you nt to say, t don'tç challenge our service, n't take it away. >> rose:nd how di you take the defeat? >> i went down in my life worse than any time i ever went down in my fe. i cameoç a pnt where i dn't want to live. i never trd to cmit suici, but i didn't want to liv anyme. becaeasically the way that i coped with msive injuries coming back fromy war was through litics, public service. public service ime. i'm not arivate secr guy, never will b it jt is not going to happen. i'm a puic service guy. so when i lost, had the powerful fling that the people of grgia had turned their back one. that was my family in many ways. i'm an only child and nowmy mother's gone, have my fatr. but the people of geora were in effect my family. that who i served. when they turned their back on me and ved for somebodyç else,

when the nation was at risk in many ways, who had never serve in the milary and the campaign of which liedbout me and basically my ability t defend the countryç that was too much. so i los everything that i had put togeth, to incde a personal relationsp with my fee i don't know s, and i went down big time. and forears cried aut it, sobbed about itnd found myself back in walter reed 40 years later in p.t.s.d. inic dealing wi all of ts. >> rose: and how did you come out of it? >> only by the grace of god and the he of good frnds who patiently workedith mend coseled me for at least period of three yes or more. i we to weekly therapy at walter reed. i did meet with som ghan and iraq terans althoug they inspirede more than m inspiring them& and i looked dow.. i would

look down the hall and i would say this ia flashback. this is 40 years earlier. this is vietnato me. and was very difficult to go back to walter reed but i hadço and then i wnd up in a12-step group on tuesday night whi is has been very meaningful to then i got on some medicion whh i did wanto get on and then i began to come ound. >> rose: max clela, the book "heart of a paiot, how i found the couragto surviveietnam, walter reed and kar rove." at are you doing with the battlefield monumes thing? >> in june 3, this year, president obam appointed me a secretary of the amecan battle monuments commission which runs the 24 cemetery ace broad. which commemores the service and saifice ofver 200,000 ericans who've lost their lives primarilyn world war i and wor war ii. >> rose: thank you for coming. >> tha you, charlie. >> ros max cleland thanyou forç joining us, see you next time

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