just as karzai has a very tough job. and it's easy to look at it from outside and say goodness, why don't they do this. why aren't they more like we are. i have no idea how i would behave if i were in malakai's shoes. he has a big problem assuring the sunni element in the country and the kurds that it's in their interests to stay as part of that government and not break off and divide that country into pieces. he has a big job keeping the shia population, his group, from not asserting itself in a way that drives others away. he has a big job dealing with some elements in the shia group that are largely influenced by iran. some of those people. he has a big job trying to maintain security in a country where the iranian influence, military influence, and terrorist influence, and political influence i should add, is a difficult situation. you know, some people criticize him for vacillation, others for failing to be assertive, some accuse him of being too assertive. and it's business as usual in politics. everyone's got an o

a, will karzai stay, b, will nate toe go, and three, who is responsible? i thought he's being problematic but you know what, these three questions are the three questions everybody in the region is asking. will karzai stay, will nate toept go and who is going to be responsible. let me come to these questions. this is the question behind all the cooperation you're getting in central asiaen 0 the ndn and, et cetera. the questions is there. so the first problem is whoo? i'd like to add two more to the problems that this person from us beck stan mentioned. first of all, obviously, there is no confidence in the region. there's -- this is a region where there is very little confidence among the corrupts. but does that mean that we have to solve all the problems of confidence around the region before we solve the problem of afghanistan? this heart of asia. there is the problem of the kashmir, the rushal central asia problem, the iran saudi arabia problem, do we solve everything before we solve afghanistan or do we have a process going at the same time? we have a

iran has a lot of influence in kabul with the karzai government as well and various other actors. usually eiran's presence and influence and activities in afghanistan is portrayed as negatively especially in the u.s. press and media and, indeed, iran is doing things that can be considered to be negative. but i think essentially iran's policy in afghanistan is a balancing act, meaning that iran is doing certain things to help stabilize afghanistan and actually promote u.s. interests indirectly and at the same time iran is doing things that undermine afghanistan's ability and stability. so i think on the surface iran is pursuing contradictory objectives. why is this? the main issue in terms of iranian policy in afghanistan is the nuclear crisis with iran and iran's rivalry with the united states and its allies. iran views afghanistan through this competition with the united states. and as tensions with the united states increase over the nuclear program, there will be fallback in afghanistan. and i think this just goes to show that u.s. policy toward iran in terms of containing and

karzai met u.s. defense secretary leon panetta last month after the shooting rampage. karzai called for the handover of security to be completed earlier than the current plan of 2014. but some observers are skeptic that afghanistan's military and police forces are ready. calling for a quicker handover of security control is a gamble and the stakes for the karzai government are high. >>> and that will wrap up our bulletin. i'm patchari raksawong in bangkok. >>> the head of the united nations is urging north korean leaders to think twice about their next move. secretary-general ban ki-moon spoke about the latest international concern that the reclusive nation will go ahead with nuclear test as a follow-up to its failed missile launch last week. ban says north korean authorities should instead focus on helping their citizens get access to the basics. >> i renew my call to authorities to improve confidence with neighboring countries and improve the lives of its people who face a serious food and nutrition needs. >> north korean space officials launched a missile on april 1

i'll ask while secretary of state hillary clinton went along with karzai's demand. and terrifying al qaeda attacks revealed. the mastermind, an american. we want to welcome our viewers around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> mitt romney's primary sweep this week sounded the death nell for newt gingrich's campaign and the romney versus obama battle for the rouwhite house has shif up a gear. our national political reporter is following this. jim, what are you seeing now? >> with the republican race now over, there are only two men left standing, president obama and mitt romney and they're already throwing hard punches, even though it's only april. president obama's visit with college students in iowa may have been about financial aid but it was one more sign that school is in session in the race for the white house. >> some suggest that students like you have to pay more so we can help bring down the deficit. th think about that. >> the president has been doing his reelection homework basically ever since he got in office. from february

congressman who criticized hamid karzai is asked to stay out of afghanistan.tary of state hillary clinton went along with karzai's outrageous demand. >>> and the father of a 10-year-old boy with autism says his son was humiliated and tormented by his own teacher and he's posting disturbing audiotapes on the internet to prove it. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer and you're in i'm wolf blitzer and you're in "the situation room." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> ever since the u.s. secret service prostitution scandal exploded, u.s. officials have been promising a thorough investigation, but today we were told that the pentagon's review of 12 military members linked to the scandal have been slow and sketchy and unacceptable. our senior congressional correspondent dana bash. senators held a public hearing on this scandal, as you know, you were there. there was also a private briefing as well. what are you learning? >> reporter: well, you know that infamous night in cartagena, colombia was two weeks

karzai met u.s. defense secretary leon panetta last month after the shooting rampage. karzai called for the handover of security to be completed earlier than the current plan of 2014. but some observers are skeptical that afghanistan's military and police forces are ready. calling for a quicker handover of security control is a gamble and the stakes for the karzai government are high. and that will wrap up our bulletin. i'm patchari raksawong in bangkok. >>> emergency officials in japan are showing for the first time how they prepare for chemical terrorist attacks. ground self-defense forces personnel granted nhk access to their annual training program for police, firefighters and coast guard officers. the gsdf chemical school is in saitama, north of tokyo. some 40 police officers, firefighters and coast guard members from across the nation took part in the training session. they put on protective gear and masks, detected chemicals using equipment or special equipment and clean contaminated vehicles. japanese authorities learned to prepare for the worst in 1995, member

"a," will karzai stay? "b," will nato go? and, who is responsible? i thought he was being problematic. those three questions are the three questions everybody in the region is asking. will karzai stay? will nato go? and who is going to be responsible? so let me come to these questions. this is also the question behind all the cooperation you are getting in central asia, et cetera. the questions are there. so the first problem is what? i would like to add two more to the problems this person from uzbekistan mentioned. obviously there is no confidence in the region. it's a region where there is little confidence among the countries. but does that mean that we have to solve all the problems of confidence around the region before we solve the problem of afghanistan? this part of asia which means there is the problem of the kashmir, there is the russia problem, there is the iran problem. do we solve everything before we solve afghanistan, or do we actually have a process going at the same time when we actually have the principle of nonintervention and con

i'm not sure exactly why karzai, president karzai is saying this is some kind of an intelligence failure. the taliban have been saying for quite while tha 're going to have a spring offensive. just as the united states and the nato allies and other coalition forces here have said they're going to have their own spring and summer campaign against the insurgency and the taliban. >> brown: as to the attack itself, how were the insurgents able, first, to get into the city and to get into that couple of strongholds and then, second, to hold on for so long? >> well, i mean, it's not that difficult to slip into kabul. none of them had heavy weaponry. we're talking about suicide vests which are easily coealed. we're talking about rocket- propelled grenades. we're talking about small arms, ak-47s. kabul falls under the responsibility of the afghan national security forces. it is not under the responsibility of nato or the united states. they managed to infiltrate. they got into these locations. did they do anything? they didn't do much. no one was killed at any of those locations. they didn't man

regarding the karzai thing and the whole issue of night raids, karzai is always going to talk at us as if he's the kingpin here and he runs the show and yet we are pumping the money, which is the only reason that we are still in there. he doesn't want us out because we are funding everything in their country. as far as the security. he knows that. if we back out then it would all be on him and the afghan people. as crooked as the government is, things would go south real fast. the afghan issue is a real joke. i never heard anybody make a good argument as to when or why we would leave when everyone says stabilization. yet there's no way to stabilize it. you said afghanistan and iran are -- iraq were two different animals. i agree. at least iraq had oil and a way to stabilize itself. a way to make income. where afghanistan doesn't. on top of that we are wasting all these american lives over there and providing all the security so china can go in there and take advantage of all the mineral rights in that country. it is amazing what china is doing there. host: mr. wilder. guest: very good

i think in his dealings with karzai he just realized that anytime he brought eikenberry, karzai would be, they carry all. almost irrational. suite did stop bring him. petraeus maintain a good relationship with eikenberry. they were not best friends. when you speak to the staff, you understand there's a little bit of tension and so forth. i didn't really write about this in the book, except to say that when petraeus left the rose garden that they he found that he was taking the job, he was writing notes, and one of the first people i want to call after hollywood ryan crocker from his former partner in iraq. and he did call crocker and crocker was interested in joining him. and so they made a lot of calls to the white house and around washington to try to get crocker the right way to have this dynamic duo who had worked so well together. and hobbies he crocker didn't get there until a year later, but you wondered we did have made a difference. i don't know. no more questions? spent because were in politics and prose i have to ask about future possibilities. do you think there's any role

president karzai saying that nato intelligence failures are to blame for this embarrassing reprieve. but afghan troops were celebrating when they finally regained control. >> if they come back again, we will be more than ready to give them a strong answer as we did yesterday. in one day, we have rappelled all 66 of them who came here. >> on every floor, we saw the corpses of dead insurgents, evidence of how fierce the battle had been. >> there is a general feeling that they did a lot better this time than in the past. but need a backup was still a central. and we understand from afghan security sources that british special forces were also here in this building, and they played a decisive role in bringing things to an end. once the fighting was over, americans were on the scene, gathering evidence. what worries afghans is if insurgents can do this when nato troops are still here, what will happen when they leave? bbc news, kabul. >> a very worrying weekend in afghanistan. you were watching "bbc world news america." -- you are watching "bbc world news america." still to come -- americ

every month karzai writes a letter to a leader in afghanistan. if pakistan is a state involved its own pastuns in afghan reconciliation, that would be a tremendous break through. but we shouldn't forget about the hard-core innovate strategic military analysis which i think is not entirely wrong because pakistanis it look at an afghanistan where the americans are now rapidly training hundreds of thousands of armed men, and i think people in islamabad have very strong doubts about the sustainability of that military. just consider that in recent times, afghanistan has like a regular military -- a regular police force, but it also has a lot of irregular forces like just the whole, all the security guards have now been turned no into what is called the afghan protection force, 20,000, 30,000 people with guns and pakistan has seen that these these people, i mean then kind of military force can easily turn into militias and then of course, pakistan has to deal with it, but this should not give pakistan and i centive to invest in only in some kind of mi

if karzai would resign a year early. but in meeting with my friends who have talked to some of karzai's circle, they point out , do you in america not understand, when this president karzai says he's looking at resigning a year early, it's not because he is some big hearted, wonderful, democracy-loving person. if he loved democracy, he'd let us elect our governors, he'd let us elect our mayors. but he wants to appoint them and he's not ready to give up power. but the afghan constitution apparently says that if you served two terms, you cannot run for a third term. so this president karzai is looking at a way, when perhaps if he's resigned a year early, then he could argue, i didn't serve two terms. i served one year short of two terms. therefore i can run for a third term and being as how the president of afghanistan appoints the governor the mayor the chiefs of police, so many of the positions of power in afghanistan, it's quite conceivable that he could ensure that he got elected again next time if he ran a third time

did the karzai government is doing extremely well. it is a system. >> how does it work? the money comes from the congress. the military controls a lot. we are on a short location. six months a year everybody has a to do list. this is among the top things. the have to spend your budget are you cannot get more. it is a lot about spend, spend, spend. yet six months to add a line to your resonate. we do not really track what the outcomes are. we track the input. we cannot ask how many are still live a year later. the big question we do not ask is what is the impact on the insurgency? have we had an impact? that is this a system that is hard to find. >> how does our arrogance show up in? >> we think we can spend a specialist in for three months and he can do it. we know it is the right thing to do. we do not often ask the afghans what they want. we think we are rich. we are always right. >> what is your attitude before you went to afghanistan? were you against the war or for it? >> i do not think i exactly knew. i knew the mission was to bind the people to the karzai governme

karzai wants the money in writing because he doesn't trust that the u.s.or the long haul or that congress won't pull the rug on funding the afghan military to the tune of $4 billion a year with shrinking budgets. one senior u.s. defense official tells me quote we do not expect that document to include any pacific financial commitment, shep. >> shepard: the vast majority of americans tell pollsters that they want this war over. the same is true in australia. now we know the australians are pulling out a year early? >> in fact, 12 months early. they were supposed to be out like the rest of nativity toe at the end of 2014. now we understand it's 2013. here is the prime minister of australia earlier today. >> i am now confident chicago will recognize mid 2013 as a key milestone in the international strategy. a crucial point when the international forces will be able to move to a supporting role across all of afghanistan. >> nato will meet in chicago in mid may, shep, to hammer out the details. you'll remember they had been saying nato troops would stay until t

and provide the kind of security that both the american was need for withdrawal and karzai would need for the future. then we have the problem of the afghan elections which are coming up in 2014. >> yeah. >> what happens there. how you can have elections as the americans are leaving. will you stay on for the-- to cover the elections, to protect the elections or will the americans leave before the elections? so and then what really worries me even more deeply is the economy. there is no self-sustaining economy in the country. and you know, the economy right now is dependent on servicing 150,000 foreign troops. once these foreign troops leave, the tens of thinks of afghans who have been working for these foreign troops are going to be rendered jobless, basically. and you know n 10, 11 years in afghanistan, the west has not really built a self-sustaining economy. >> rose: why do you think it went wrong? >> well,-- . >> rose: because we were distracted by iraq. was it because we had the wrong strategy. was it because afghanistan is always the way afghanistan is? >> no i think two strategi

karzai has denounced the conduct of the u.s. soldiers describing it as inhumane and provocative. he says the only way to prevent such acts from being repeated by foreign forces in afghanistan is an accelerated and full transition of security responsibilities to afghan forces. >>> newly released video purportedly shows taliban fighters just before they launch a series of coordinated attacks on kabul earlier this week. speaking to the camera, the militants say attackers are retaliation for recent attacks by -- acts by u.s. soldiers in afghanistan. >> they have burned our holy koran so we will take the revenge for those children and womens who they killed in kandahar. >> the taliban posted the video footage online along with photographs of some 30 men who carried out the attacks. they are presumed to have died during the fighting. one man in the video warns there will be more attacks. he says many of his fellow militants will rise up to get revenge for the actions of the u.s. military. >>> analysts say the taliban is trying to win support among the afghan people by stressing that th

this morning afghan president hamid karzai called photos showing u.s.ers posing with the bodies of taliban suicide bombers inhuman. msnbc's richard lui has been looking into all of this. the fourth soldier scandal to come to light in four months. it really is raising some new worries, richard, about the withdrawal plan. >> chris, 18 photos from 2010 were e-mailed to the "l.a. times." this is one of two published yesterday. u.s. soldiers posing with severed legs from a suicide bomber. the pentagon asked the "l.a. times" not to publish those pictures. >> that behavior that was depicted in those photos absolutely violates both our regulations and, more importantly, our core values. this is not who we are. >> the paper's editor said in a web chat yesterday, quote, our job is to publish information that our readers need to make informed decisions. we have a particular duty to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the american mission in afghanistan, end quote. adding to the uproar, a new scandal a month. in january, alleged video surfacing of u

president karzai is calling it a huge intelligence failure by both nato and afghan security forces. the insurgents were able to repeat the same tactics they used to lay siege to the american embassy last year, again, just a short distance away. afghan security forces eventually brought things under control here and under the -- hear and that the parliament. it was an afghan-led -- under control here and at the parliament. it was an afghan-led operation. nato backup was still essential. behind the scenes and directly in the fighting. >> enter north reporting from kabul. you're watching "bbc world news america." still to come from a welding mean -- still to come, welcoming a new leader at the world bank. is he fit for the top post? a row has broken out within the iraqi government over the building of an oil pipeline through the ancient city of babylon. the ministry of tourism has taken the ministry of oil to court. we report from babylon. >> these crumbling bricks were once part of a magnificent palace, just a fraction of the once-sprawling city of babylon. the iraqi into equities off

karzai said an intelligence failure allowed the insurgents to enter the capital kabul. he said nato should have detected the taliban's movements. >>> people in japan's northeast are focused on overcoming the challenges of the 2011 disaster, but it won't be easy. they have to rebuild homes, businesses, entire communities. we'll show you their struggles and their successes on "the road ahead" every wednesday at 1:00 p.m. japan time here on "newsline." >>> people forceto evacuate after the fukushima daiichi accident can now visit part of the no-go zone, but they still face challenges as they try to resume life in their hometowns. the central government lifted entry restrictions for the 20 kilometer evacuation zone covering kawauchi village and tamura city this month. the government added minamisoma city to the list. residents can visit most of the city but not to high radiation areas deemed unsafe for extended periods of time. overnight stays are not yet allowed. resident yoshikazu takeuchi went to his home with his wife and his mother. after the evacuation, takeuchi ran h

president karzai saying that nato intelligence failures are to blame for this embarrassing reprieve. but afghan troops were celebrating when they finally regained control. >> if they come back again, we will be more than ready to give them a strong answer as we did yesterday. in one day, we have rappelled all 66 of them who came here. >> on every floor, we saw the corpses of dead insurgents, evidence of how fierce the battle had been. >> there is a general feeling that they did a lot better this time than in the past. but need a backup was still a central. and we understand from afghan security sources that british special forces were also here in this building, and they played a decisive role in bringing things to an end. once the fighting was over, americans were on the scene, gathering evidence. what worries afghans is if insurgents can do this when nato troops are still here, what will happen when they leave? bbc news, kabul. >> a very worrying weekend in afghanistan. you were watching "bbc world news america." -- you are watching "bbc world news america." still to come -- americ

the government of president hamid karzai has dispatched its foreign minister to qatar as part of efforts to advance peace talks with the taliban. qatar is the location of the taliban's office giving the nation certain influence over the militant group. nhk world reports. >> reporter: foreign minister will meet tuesday with his counterpart and ask for cooperation in resuming negotiations with the taliban. a spokesperson on sunday stressed that the views of the afghan government must be reflected in the negotiations. >> translator: the process of talks with the taliban in qatar must be one that is approved by the afghan government. >> reporter: the taliban have refused to hold talks with the karzai government. calling it a puppet of the americans. that makes it hard to get peace talks off the ground. the united states has said it's desirable for the afghan government to take the lead in talks with the taliban. the obama administration headed talks with the taliban to try to persuade the group to stop terrorist activities and fighting in afghanistan. but the taliban announced it was suspend

. >>> turning now to the situation in afghanistan, the government of president hamid karzai dispatched its foreign minister to qatar, as part of efforts to advance peace talks with the taliban. qatar is the location of the taliban's liaison office, giving the nation certain influence over the militant group. nhk world's hideki yui reports. >> reporter: foreign minister zalmay rasool will meet tuesday with his counterpart and ask for cooperation in resuming negotiations with the taliban. a spokesperson on sunday stressed that the views of the afghan government must be reflected in negotiations. >> translator: the process of talks with the taliban in qatar must be one that is approved by the afghan government. >> reporter: the taliban have refused to hold talks with the karzai government, calling it a puppet of the americans. that makes it hard to get peace talks off the ground. the united states had said it's desirable for the afghan government to take the lead in talks with the taliban. the obama administration held talks with the taliban to try to pass with the group to stop terrorist

and karzai is invested in those powers. there's not a regional balance to it or a parliamentary balance to it. it seems to me that focussing on the structure of governance, to provide for more pluralistic and representative afghanistan is something we ought to invest an awful lot of time and attention. if karzai honors the pledge he will not run again in 2014, there's a real opportunity to bring forward a generation of political leadership and put in place structure and practices that will make it a lot better than that is. their loss of faith in their government is a huge impediment to our capacity to carry out our strategy. a second risk that i think i see, and here's the second place i differ with tony. it does look to me like afghanistan does actually have the potential to revert to the 2001 afghanistan. if we apply the end game the obama administration applied in iraq, i think that's. >> just a recipe for an afghanistan that reinforces the al qaeda narrative. this is their big victory. ten years they achieved nothing,

hamid karzai is openly condemning the photos, calling them, quote, disgusting. karzai warned similar incidents have sparked violent protests that have left dozens dead, including american military members. he also used the opportunity to call for an accelerated transfer of security responsibilities to afghan forces. >>> in iraq today, more than 30 people are dead, more than 100 hurt in a series of blasts across baghdad and some of its northern cities. officials say extremists launched more than 20 attacks in just an hour and 15 minutes. they say the attacks resemble those carried out by al qaeda. >>> back in the u.s., a somber ceremony in the u.s. today marks the 17th anniversary of the oklahoma city bombing. back in 1995, an explosive truck blew up in front of the building. two men were convicted for the attack. >>> another tragedy also being remembered today, 19 years ago government agencies ended a 51-day siege at the branch davidian compound in texas in '93. it resulted in the deaths of four federal agents and six cult followers, including its leader, david

captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> brown: afghan president karzai blamed intelligence failures by nato and his own nation for the weekend's coordinated 18-hour assault by insurgents on four cities. good evening. i'm jeffrey brown. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the newshour tonight, we get the latest on the deadly violence from patrick quinn of the associated press in kabul. >> brown: then, two takes on internet security: we look at google's street view project, as the f.c.c. accuses the tech giant of collecting personal data without permission and failing to cooperate with its investigation. >> suarez: and from southern california, tom bearden reports on a government-funded laboratory working on ways to prevent and defeat cyber attacks. >> usa scientists are trying to bring the power of science to cyber security. >> brown: ps, margaret warner examines the scandal that sent 11 of president obama's secret service detail home from the latin american summit in colombia after allegedly soliciting prostitutes. >> suarez: and as the pulitzer prizes for arts and journalism

this is true of president karzai who told me so. it's true of his most fervent critics who say they don't understand what we intend after 2015 but they have to survive. we have a transition policy beginning to come into focus. the fact remains at this point our intentions post 2014 are not very dleer. our messaging is rather mixed. what does it mean for the pakistanis? they're looking at a strategic situation where they believe we will leave prematurely and the process we have undertaken will collapse and leave to civil war. what does this do? creates hedging behavior. you tighten your ties with the colleagues if if you're not going to run. you think there may be a civil war whether you've got your colleagues as battalion or brigade commanders where they're stationed in the country and that takes precedence over professionalism because you're going to have to fight with them to survive. so there are hedging behaviors. you want to find with the taliban but you think you might be leaving? if you think negotiations are a rapid alternat

hamid karzai saying the iasf, the u.s.ecurity force will have to answer hard questions why it did not know it was coming as well as afghan security forces. the militants, however, 32 of them killed, lasting into the early hours of this morning when the final ones were taken out with the help of uh-60 black hawk helicopters from the u.s. military here, targeting the one building the remaining militants were holed themselves up. i was talking to a official short while ago, there are holes in intel here. no intel service at all could possibly detect every single threat. it happened before and he says it will happen again. we understand that as many as 10, mostly special operations forces belonging to the u.s. military were injured specifically at one attack outside of kabul, actually in the city of. >> law bad in a forward operating base. we believe many of those have since returned to duty. a few others are returned to duty. rick, back to you. rick: dominic di-natale, streaming live for us. thanks. jenna: kt mcfarland, fox n

we think karzai was wrong.d have done a better job in how they handled it, but at the same time we did not want our actions to prevent this agreement from being signed and i want to give cowed owes to ryan crocker who went to hell and back to get this agreement signed and he did a wonderful job negotiating terms. >> we're out of time. >> quick political question. why haven't you endorsed mitt romney? >> i said we would be backing our party's nominee, and i will happily do that. >> what i'm doing is working behind the scenes bringing together all factions of our party. don't forget, when there was the dust up between hillary rodham clinton ask barack obama there were 18 million women who had backed hill row clint and wanted no part of backing barack obama. it took time to get them to come over. i'm working behind the scenes to get together the tea party and evangelicals to come together with the conservatives and back the nominee. >> he's the leader of the republicans right now, mitt romney, right? >> uh-huh. mi

there's a limit to how far you can go with karzai, and getting friend began with the u.s. because ultimately you're left with the fact that afghan taliban is sitting in pakistan. so we cannot move forward decisively in this region for the -- unless pakistan is prepared to offer a program for deradicalization on both the afghan and india front. >> thank you. mark, i want to turn. the notion of the aim needs to be to end the war before the united states leaves. when i was there in october, my sense was that if the goal is a peaceful stable afghanistan, it's going to take a long time, and it is not something that can be accomplished between now and 2014. but i'd like to comment on mr. rashid's suggestion and then ask in the context of this, there has been an announcement in the last, over the weekend, that, in fact, there is now integral on the issue of night raids, which has been standing in the way of a strategic partnership agreement between the united states and afghanistan. is that strategic partnership agreement now liable to be concluded, and what will it say about a p

karzai is still as corrupt as ever.iban seem to have free roam of the nation. >> the funny thing you could say karzai is right. it was a big success to the afghanistan security forces. what is true two three four, five years ago they couldn't have done that. that's nice. the question is this something like the tent offensive. the insurgents failed. they wanted to kill some diplomats and they wanted more chaos, and in that sense they didn't succeed, but maybe that's not what happens. what matters is they have shown the afghan people that they're not going away. the american claims that they are decimated are false. the war will continue until they achieve their on objectives. >> the second half is what struck me as more important. maybe they did not achieve the objective of pure chaos, but they or organized a wide offensive and made the statement we're here, we're not going away and we'll strike at will. that raises the question what is our objective? how do we define success in afghanistan? >> once upon a time we define