MR. GREGORY:
...and I don't want to get into that, that level right now. I want to move on to some other topics, including a huge one, which is
Afghanistan
.
Senator
Durbin
, when are we going to get a decision from the senator? And has he taken too long to announce the strategy? The president, we're talking about, of course.
SEN. DURBIN:
No, I want him to take the time that's necessary. I think the president is trying to reassess the overall strategy, as he should. Many of us believe that we've missed an opportunity in
Afghanistan
by diverting our attention to
Iraq
. I was one of 23 who voted against that war. I think that was a serious mistake. It has cost us many lives and great treasure. But equally important, it has diverted our attention from the task at hand, those responsible for 9/11,
al-Qaeda
and their
Taliban
allies. I want the president to take the time to get it right, and I think he should. And I don't know when that's coming, but I'm going to defer to the president's decision, working with his secretary of defense, secretary of state and the generals in the field.
MR. GREGORY:
Senator Lieberman
,
Ike Skelton
, which is the chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee
, supports
General McChrystal
's policy of, of additional forces. He said this about the endgame, the
exit strategy
: "When the area has been stabilized... then it's time to go home." Is that the obligation for the
United States
, that
Afghanistan
must be stabilized before we leave?
SEN. LIEBERMAN:
Yeah. Yeah, that's our goal, and, and it's our goal for good reason. As Senator
Durbin
just said, we were attacked on 9/11 from
Afghanistan
. If we leave
Afghanistan
with less than success as a, as a country that can govern itself and protect itself, it's going to have a terrible destabilizing effect on the rest of the region. So I don't like it when people say we have no long-term interests in
Afghanistan
or we're looking for an
exit strategy
. We, we, we have -- we don't want to have a long-term interest in having our military there long term, but we have real long-term interests in this place being stabilized. And...
MR. GREGORY:
How long will it take?
SEN. LIEBERMAN:
I don't know. We didn't know when we adopted the surge in
Iraq
. But the surge in
Iraq
, the additional troops following the same strategy that
General McChrystal
wants to apply here in
Afghanistan
worked in about a year. I think we have the same potential to turn this tide and set back the
Islamist extremists
who are our enemies in this war that we're in.
“ ”