after that, nomination hearing for james clapper. >> this week we welcome carl levin. senator, thank you for being with us. let me introduce our two questioners, pentagon correspondent. covers nuret for "national journal." and we'll start with you. >> senator, i wanted to ask you how you would define victory in afghanistan, what you think that will look like and how much time do you think congress and the american people will give president obama before patience runs out? >> victory to me is success, not victory -- it's not something which is going to be kind of a signed thing at the end of a war. it's going to be a gradual, hopefully we'll know when success will be achieved but won't happen at a particular moment in time. success will be marked by the ability of an afghan government to have security and be able to retain security inside of its own borders and to provide the necessary means for its own people to have a life, which has got some hope economically, whether it's improved governance over what it is now. i won't say it's a democracy of western europe, but mo

after a conversation with senator carl levin, who is back with -- from afghanistan. we talked about the policy on the ground and the domestic debate at home. what did you learn? >> what i found most interesting were his expectations for 2011 when u.s. troops are expected to leave. he did not talk about democracy flourishing. he described a good enough situation where the fifth afghanistan government can hang on until they can take control of their country. we are not talking about leaving a country behind that is really in tact, and i think the expectations are so much lower than perhaps 2001 and half 2002 when we started the war, and people thought we were going to bring democracy to afghanistan, and we realize the complexities are so overwhelming, so just -- to juxtapose what we saw, i find that interesting. >> of the domestic front, patience is driven in part by resources on the debate about federal spending, what did you take away from the description of the process of? >> i defer to him. he is an expert in process. it was very clear in this town that it has been

senator carl levin, chairman of the armed services committee. they held this news briefing on capitol hill. this is 40 minutes. >> senator jack reed and i visited pakistan and afghanistan for three days last week and returned home yesterday. we met with key leaders, including the prime minister, and key provincial governors, and with the general who is the commander of their 11th corps, which is the pakistan army corps, which has done a significant fighting in the swat valley,. in afghanistan, we met with general petraeus and ambassador eikenberry, with president karzai, with the defense secretary, and with the new chief of staff of the afghan army, with the minister of the interior, mr. kan, we also went to kandahar and met with the commanding general, general carter. he is a british general but he is the isaf commander. we met with the governor of kandahar province and the mayor of kandahar city. then our last major meeting was with the corps commander of the 205th afghan corps. i will come back to him. i was last in afghanistan last january.

it quotes senator carl levin, and he says that "talking about returning from afghanistan as a result of u.s. efforts, the national army, he says, is respected by the people, and the taliban is despised." senator levin is our guest on "newsmakers" this morning. guest: what is significant about the offensive or effort which will begin, which is going to begin by the end of july, the beginning of august, is not only is it an effort going right into the heart of the taliban, it will loosen their grip. does that mean it will not come back at night? no. does that mean there will not be any ied's? no. exploding, asd's there are in kabul. the afghan government is in control of kabul. it will be must -- much more in control after this effort is made than it is now. what i point to as perhaps the most important part of this is that the afghan army is not going to only be there as partners with us and other coalition forces. it will be in the lead. those words are very significant. they are significant to the american people and to the afghan people. you will notice, in the kabul conference dec

getting 900 pages of internal documents about goldman sachs would have been nil, so thanks to carl levin'sommittee we got those documents and it shows a lot of things that are really unpleasant including profane emails and bad behavior and goldman released love emails with a girlfriend -- it shows about the poor ethic on wall street and that's i think what the american public is reacting negatively to. >> charlie: i'll come back to that point. why did the s.e.c. make this deal? >> it came out hours after the monumental financial regulation package was pushed through congress. the s.e.c. needed shock and awe, it was laid low after the madoff debacle, they needed to go out and kneecap someone. they took on the biggest. if you're going to do it would you go after b of a or citi, some players laid low by tarp? no, you go after goldman from the signaling perspective. take the obverse of that, what happens come christmas time and you are sitting at the sorkin dinner and brisket is being served and is your mom going to bring up goldman sachs? no. goldman sachs is no longer going to be a household

. >> after a conversation with senator carl levin, we talked about policy on the ground and the domestic debate at home. what did you learn from the senator? >> what i found to be the most interesting were his expectations when the troops are expected to leave in 2011. he described a good enough scenario where the afghanistan government can hang on until they can build up their own troops and take control of their country. we aren't talking about leaving a country behind that is really in tact. i think the expectations are so much lower than perhaps 2001 and 2002 when we started this war and people thought we were going to bring democracy to afghanistan and women were going to be free and the complexities are overwhelmingly. to construction ta possess to 2002, i found it interesting. >> the patience is driven in part by resources, both blood and treasure as we refer to it. on the debate here at home on federal spending, what did you take away from the senator's description of the process? does he have it about right? >> i think so. i defer to him. he is an expert with process and he has