>>>
in kabul.
>>
all right, meredith, thank you very much. we are back here at
camp eggers
in kabul,
afghanistan
. i mentioned earlier that i flew here overnight with
secretary of defense robert gates
, who told me that shortly before he left for
afghanistan
, he signed the deployment orders for the first 17,000 of the eventual 30,000 troops that will be a part of
president obama
's surge strategy here. many of those are marines. they'll head to the
southern provinces
of helmand and kandahar, where much of the insurgency is taking place. i sat down with secretary gates in a
conference room
aboard his military jet, and i started by asking him what he needs to accomplish on the ground here during this trip to pave the way for those troops that are arriving to be successful.
>>
one of the things that i'll clearly be talking to president karzai and the afghan
minister of defense
about is accelerating the growth of their
security forces
, both their army and police and really
security forces
at every level down to the local level. we cannot succeed here, ultimately, unless the afghan
security forces
are expanded and trained, get some experience in combat with us, and then gradually are able to take over responsibility for the security of their own country.
>>
let me go back, then to this idea of the training of the
security forces
. it's my understanding now they have roughly 180,000 between the army and the
security forces
, the police. you'd like to see that number at 400,000. what i found disturbing by several estimates was they have a loss rate of about 25%. so, they're either dying or deserting or just up and quitting. how is that going to work? i mean, it's like filling your car tank with gas but you keep losing a quarter of the tank every year.
>>
there are a couple of problems that need to be addressed. one is, we have found that the army and the police in
afghanistan
are actually more poorly paid than the
taliban
they're fighting, of all things. and so, one thing we can address almost immediately is increasing the pay of the police and the army. one of the problems that we've had and that they've had is that particularly those that are sent in to areas where there's a lot of combat, there aren't enough of them to rotate. and so, they basically are sent there to fight until they either desert or are killed or wounded.
>>
but is that 400,000 number realistic? can you accomplish that in two years?
>>
well, i think what the president has said -- you know, maybe that's an aspirational goal, but what we need are annual goals. so, the goal for the army is to go from about 96,000 right now to 134,000 at the end of
2010
. so, let's get to 134,000 instead of looking immediately to the 240,000 ultimate size of the army or the people have talked about, general mcchrystal has talked about. let's talk about getting to 134,000 first.
>>
the reporting in the last couple of days has been that you and other people at the pentagon were not at all in favor of this exit timetable. is this plan that you're being put in charge of putting into effect right now, is this the best possible plan? is it the plan you wanted?
>>
in terms of lighting a fire under the
afghan government
to get on with recruiting the size forces they need and getting them trained and getting them into the field, i don't know a better way to do that than what we have. by the same token, in terms of an assertion, of providing confidence of our commitment, i think that the conditions-based way of approaching the drawdowns after july
2011
is also exactly the right way.
>>
every single expert i talk to, mr. secretary, said, without great improvement in our ability to fight in that
border region
between
pakistan
and
afghanistan
, and even across the border in
pakistan
, the afghan solution doesn't work. have the
pakistanis
given you any indication that they're willing to change the
rules of engagement
and give us more access to those areas, not with drones, but with people on the ground to go in and get the people we want to get?
>>
no. i do think that more importantly is what the
pakistanis
are doing on their side of the border. and you know, if somebody had said a year ago that we would see the
pakistani army
in
south waziristan
, as long as you have pressure on both sides of that border, even if it's not perfectly aligned, it creates huge opportunities. i mean, we're already getting information that
al qaeda
has been -- that certain people in
al qaeda
have been forced out of
south waziristan
, that they're being told they should go to
afghanistan
. so, if we could get
al qaeda
coming back into
afghanistan
where we could go after them, that's fine, but i think there is pressure on both sides of the border, and i think that the more terrible things happen, such as this tragedy at rawalpindi and the mosque, the more the
pakistanis
understand that these people are an existential threat to
pakistan
itself, and they will begin to do more and more on the border.
>>
in terms of the
taliban
, clearly, there are members of the
taliban
that are going to have to be hunted down and killed, but there are other aspects of the
taliban
that, it's my understanding, you'd like to make a part of the dynamic in the future of
afghanistan
. what incentives can you provide and can the
afghan government
provide to make those people a part of the solution as opposed to the problem?
>>
the intelligence that's available to us suggests that there is a substantial number of the
foot soldiers
in the
taliban
in particular who have joined the
taliban
either to get money or because they've been intimidated. so, the way you bring them over -- first of all, you have to break the momentum. they have to begin to understand they're not on the winning side, they're on the losing side. and then they have to have some kind of a job to go to where they will be paid, can support their families. so, that's why the
economic development
part of this and the agricultural part of the president's strategy is so important.
>>
how do you think the
american people
will feel after eight years of a conflict and the loss of life and the huge financial expense of this war, to view the
taliban
as partners in some way down the road?
>>
well, the
taliban
are a part of the political fabric of
afghanistan
at this point at some level, but there is a parallel to iraq. i mean, when we had the turn in anbar, in iraq, we knew that we were reconciling with people who had
american blood
on their hands. but at the end of the day, that's how this kind of a conflict always ends in some kind of a political accommodation.
>>
everything you say is dissected these days. you said something else in an interview over the weekend that i think got a lot of attention, and that is that at this date you were asked if we have good intelligence or credible intelligence on
osama bin laden
, and you're smiling, but when you said we haven't had credible intelligence -- and i believe your expression was, "in years."
>>
i'm now celebrating my third anniversary and i haven't seen any.
>>
i think that probably is going to surprise a lot of people. it's the most infamous terrorist in the world. his resume includes events that have taken so many american lives, and i guess the question is, why don't we have better intelligence on his whereabouts?
>>
well, because he has sought refuge in what is essentially ungoverned space, where the
pakistani government
has not had a presence of any kind or of any substantial kind in years, if ever, and where he has the protection of local tribes, and it's incredibly rough terrain. and the truth of the matter is, somebody who is smart and who is cautious can elude people for many years. i mean, look at the unabomber in the
united states
. 17 years or something that guy eluded the fbi, and that was inside our own country. so, if you have a lot of help, as he does, you certainly are able to do that.
>>
that was secretary
robert gates
on our flight over here to
afghanistan
overnight aboard his military jet, which is fascinating
“ ”