we begin this evening with general ray odierno, the u.s. army, chief of staff. >> i am talking about preventing conflict so for me, one of the things we do is we provide that ability to prevent conflict and what it is is about deterrence and so it is about having, ensuring people think you have the capability, air and naval, land, to conduct operations that would maybe make them think about what they are doing, and as we move to the future we need to make sure we don't lose that ability to deter and make sure it is still something that the president has as an option. iit certainly shouldn't be the first option and i think no president would say it is but i think it is certainly one you want to sustain. i think that's what we are trying to do now is try to sustain that capability. >> we conclude this evening with julian fellowes who created downton abbey. >> but as the show continues, you realize that what these two groups have in common is far more than what separates, and so when we go through the war, when we have these different elements

. >> ray odierno is here.e is a four-star general and the 38th chief of he is best in known for a moment in the 2000 surge and capture of saddam hussein 10 years ago. i am pleased to welcome general odierno. >> thank you. it is great to be here. >> take me back to that moment, and what that meant. >> at the time it was important. we had been looking for him for about six months. we started in june of 2003. we figured out early on that we were going about it the wrong way in the beginning. we have the cards and the faces on the cards. and we thought they were somehow related. we realize the award. it had a lot to do with family, worked with.e we started to put the puzzle together. we probably did 30-40 raids thinking we were close. finally, on december 13, we got him. we got a good lead. i remember getting a call that number one.red at the time it was important. we went in and toppled his regime. with him so out there, it was a question of what that would mean. it was important for us to capture, to make sure t

joining us now is army chief of staff general ray odierno. you had a big award last night.cause the military has absorbed body blow after body blow in budget cuts. first off, if the budget is accepted as the agreement came forward as we understand it last night, instead of having a pentagon cut of five or six $2 billion, now it's at a budget of 527 billion. now you get to hold at $527 billion. how do you feel about that? >> it's helpful because one of the problems we had were up front cuts were so high that it caused us to get out of balance with readiness, modernization and end strength. this will help a little bit in that way. helping us invest a little more in readiness. >> let's talk about what you absorbed. secretary of defense gates says i'm gog do a preemptive cut so you don't have to. how much did he cut then? >> so secretary gates did about between 250 and 300 billion. then we had a $400 billion cut. almost $500 billion cut with the budget talk. another is 500 billion from sequestration. >> how has the military been affected? >> because of how fast we've had to do