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From WGBH in Boston this is the Emily Rooney show. It's Thursday December 22nd 2011 and Emily Rooney just days after the departure of American troops the violence in Iraq begins anew. A series of coordinated attacks across Baghdad today have left 60 people dead and 200 more injured. With the political climate in such rapid decline can we really claim the war was worth the price paid. And should the U.S. and the international community at large assist direct through its recovery and reconstruction. This hour we'll hear from all sides of the spectrum on the Iraq war. Where we stand now. And a little later we'll switch gears and be joined by the Boston Pops Keith Lockhart here to get us into the holiday spirit. It's all coming up on the Emily Rooney show. After the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Barbara Klein. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell

is calling on the GOP led House to follow the Senate's lead and pass a short term extension of the payroll tax cut set to expire December thirty first. But House Speaker John Boehner is showing no signs of budging. Two month extension only perpetuates the uncertainty that too many employers already have in dealing with the economy and what's coming out of Washington. Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer says that position's only going to hurt American workers who will have to pay more taxes if the cuts expire. The stakes are too high to be arguing about politics and precious in a phone call today President Obama promised Boehner he'll immediately work on a full year agreement once the House passes the Senate's two month extension. But House Republicans are demanding a new round of last minute negotiations. Baghdad has been rocked by a series of explosions at least 69 people are dead more than a hundred eighty five injured by apparently coordinated roadside bombs grenades a car bomb and a suicide bombing.

As the BBC's Sebastian Usher reports the attacks come amid a growing political crisis. Officials say the targets were mostly civilian rather than connected to security forces who've more often been the focus recently. It's not clear who is behind the attacks. But analysts are saying the level of coordination has the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq which is Sunni many Shia including the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are likely to put the blame on Sunni groups further inflaming the crisis between Shia and Sunni political leaders that erupted just for final U.S. troops left Iraq. The BBC's Sebastian Usher. Turkey is condemning Syria for the latest round of attacks on protesters that have reportedly killed more than 200 people in two days. Once an ally of Damascus Turkey now says Syria is turning into a bloodbath. South Korea's president is assuring Pyongyang that his country is not hostile. From Seoul NPR's Louisa Lim reports the comments come after South Korea put frontline troops on alert following the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

South Korea's president Lee Myung-Bak underlined the soul feels no animosity towards Pyongyang. He said there was room to exercise flexibility in relations with North Korea possibly signaling a softening of his stance. He also said a swift stabilization of North Korea's new leadership was in the interests of its neighbors. But South Korean intelligence is questioning the official reports of Kim's death on a train saying his special train had not left Pyongyang at that time. In Pyongyang state media called successor Kim Jong un an outstanding leader. Further building up his personality cult we say Lim NPR News So the last check on Wall Street the Dow was up 33 points at twelve thousand one hundred forty. The Nasdaq was up 17 points at twenty five ninety four the S&P up six. This is NPR. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has overwhelmingly won a confidence vote signaling lawmakers will give final approval to his massive package of austerity measures aimed at saving the country from financial disaster. Countrywide Financial isn't

admitting any wrongdoing but its new owner Bank of America is agreeing to pay three hundred thirty five million dollars to settle a discrimination suit. As NPR's Howard Berkes reports the company is accused of overcharging tens of thousands of Hispanic and African-American borrowers. Attorney General Eric Holder says Countrywide based fees and interest rates on the color of a borrower skin a qualified African-American customer in Los Angeles borrowing $200000 paid an average of roughly twelve hundred dollars more in fees than a similarly qualified white borrower. The Justice Department says more than 200000 Hispanic and African-American borrowers were affected. Bank of America says it discontinued Countrywide lending practices after buying the company in 2008. The 335 million dollar settlement will be distributed to victims Howard Berkes NPR News. The entire state of Colorado is being slammed by another major winter storm. The state's transportation spokeswoman Stacey Stegman says anyone traveling to or

through the state be aware the road through Colorado are icy and snow packed from pretty much all the way from New Mexico. You know I thought the way to Wyoming and almost to the border to border going to the left and the National Weather Service says New Mexico should be prepared for another significant winter storm today and tomorrow. I'm Barbara Klein NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from the George Lucas Educational Foundation celebrating 20 years of being a source for what works in education bore at Edgewood dot org. It's live and it's local. Coming up next two hours of local talk the Emily Rooney show and the callee Crossley Show. Only on WGBH. Good afternoon you're listening to the Emily Rooney show shortly after the devastating terror attacks of

September 11th. President Bush addressed the nation making it clear that any country that harbored or funded or housed a terrorist would be considered a terrorist nation. Same if they amassed weapons of mass destruction. So that's really how the war in Iraq started. The belief that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction despite the fact that the executive director of the U.N. monitoring team could find no smoking gun. Secretary of State Colin Powell went before the U.N. in February of 0 3 stating there was evidence Iraq had them. One month later President Bush declared war on my orders coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign. Now some forty five hundred American lives later 30000 wounded countless Iraqis dead. The U.S. is pulling out of that country. Secretary of Defense Leon

Panetta says it was worth the loss of life those lives have not been lost in vain. They gave birth. To an independent. Free. And sovereign Iraq. And because of the sacrifices made. These years of rule are have now a year. Opportunity Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta also said it would ultimately be worth the price in dollars which is said to be as high as four trillion by a recent study at Brown University. We'll be discussing all of that as the United States pulls out of Iraq this month. I'm joined here in the studio by Linda belum a senior lecturer in policy at the Harvard Kennedy School she's featured in the documentary about the war no end in sight that you're so right about that win there by the way. And I'm joined on the telephone by Nicholas Burns professor of the practice of discipline international politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government He's also a former U.S. undersecretary of state also on the telephone I'm joined by Michael O'Hanlon.

He's the director of research and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute where he specializes in national security and defense policy. Welcome to everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Just when we go back and it's also vivid in my mind watching Colin Powell go before the U.N. in 0 3 doesn't even seem like it was nine years ago. But do you think we'll start with you Linda you're right here with me. Do you think we would have gone to war anyway even if there hadn't been what they thought at the time was evidence of weapons of mass destruction would it ultimately matter would with would our country have found another way. Well there are those who say that we would have gone into Iraq anyway. But I think the interesting point is that this was a war of choice. This was not a war that we had to fight this was a war that we chose to fight and we were told at the time that it would be a short war lasting a few months and a cheap war costing perhaps 60 billion. In fact it has been a long war the longest war the United States has fought since

Vietnam. We have been in Iraq for nearly nine years and it has been the most expensive war that we have fought since World War 2 and will grow even more expensive than that war. And when you look at the costs the costs are very significant not only the cost of deciding to go to war but the cost of how we decided to pay for that war including adding two trillion dollars onto the national debt making very significant damage to our economy. The cost of increasing pressure on oil prices the human cost and the long term cost of caring for veterans replenishing the military and of course the long term continued instability in the Middle East. So taking it by that you don't agree with Leon Panetta. Well I think that Secretary Panetta is in a situation where he is as the head of the Defense Department. He has to come face to face with the families of those who have died in this war which is 4500 young

Americans of whom it should be pointed out that 1200 of those young Americans were under the age of 22 they were children. He has to come face to face with those parents. Not to mention the fact that in addition to the 30000. Who were wounded. There is a much that is the tip of the iceberg. There are more than 600000 veterans of these wars who have already been treated at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals. And there are already more than a third of the veterans who have who are declared eligible for disability compensation and already receiving it. So you have hundreds of thousands of young Americans who have been injured or in some way disabled by this war. Secretary Panetta has to try to make sense out of the fact that they have given their their lives and their health for something that was essentially a mistake.

I mean Nick Burns the administration the time the Bush administration never could have imagined that it would have been nine years when he first did that and they thought they would go in make a clean sweep. They'd find the weapons of mass destruction. They destroy those or take them out they'd find who's This is Hussein get him and the country would naturally drift to a more democratic political situation. That did not happen it certainly didn't happen right away. What is your take. Leon Panetta is the sense that it was worth the price and both loss of life and financially because you know they believe that Iraq is on its way to being to fight what's happening today and will happen probably for months to come if not years with the internal strife and tensions there. But Emily I was serving as a United States ambassador to NATO at the time in 2003 and for the first couple of years of the Iraq war and I supported the intervention in March 2003 I assumed as did I think you know the everybody else in the government including the president that it would be a brief war and it would not be anywhere

close to nine years of military occupation. And I I regret my support for the war I think I do I think that the advantages there were some obviously the downfall of Saddam Hussein with the deaths but the chance that the Iraqis have for freedom and for some kind of democratic state that's positive but I think that the good was far outweighed by the disadvantage by class. I'm very much focused right now on the 4500 American men and women the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead wounded and homeless. The advent of the authority of the extraordinary cost of this war and I think also the damage that Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo you had to are to American credibility with one billion Moslem and with much of the rest of the world. So as I sit here now I have thought this way for a long time. I regret the fact we went to war. I think it was a strategic mistake. Steak I said in an article The Boston Globe yesterday

I think was the single greatest blow to American Power. And so we have a lot to consider. We look back upon this very very tragic war. Would it have mattered to you if Saddam Hussein had continued in power. I mean you know he. Iran Iraq North Korea described as the axis of evil largely in part a way for what they were doing to their own citizenry. Yes. Remember we had defeated it want back in 1991 when George H.W. Bush Bush 41 the father led a very large coalition against him. I think the other problem and the history teacher problem in this war was that it ended up strengthening a much more pernicious of the United States and that Iran Saddam Hussein the great enemy Iran in fact has liberated by this war in some way is the greater regional power and that's a continuing problem for us. In addition to that while we were occupying Iraq and Afghanistan for the better part of the last decade. In 9/11 we didn't have our eye on China's rise to

power in Asia and we now need to pivot as President Obama's been banked to to make that the primary focus of American foreign policy in maintaining a good relationship with China but checking their growing power in Asia and I think too that one of the larger lessons I've been reflecting on with that Kennedy School and since 9/11 we can we struck out and invaded two countries gauged to long term occupation. We saw the military as the primary way to respond to the threat after 9/11. It would have been smarter had we relied a little bit more on diplomacy and had made the military the last resort not our first. I want to bring Michael O'Hanlon into this. Michael you recently wrote about the situation as we pull out you said you think that President Obama has basically handled the situation reasonably well but that there are so many disparate concerns and interests in Iraq that they may

muddle through the beginning of it but you know they've got the Sunni and the Shia and the in the you know the struggle for power it within the governments and even what's going on today. I have to say I don't know who's bombing who. I have completely lost track of it. Maybe you have a better sense of it but I don't even know what it was about today other than just continued terror continued instability by continuation of sort of you know thumbing your nose at the United States is it anything beyond that. Yeah tough questions if you don't mind I'm going to quickly go back to the point you've been making about Leon Panetta. You know she has just in fairness to him I think you paraphrased in a way that's not totally fair when you've gone from his statement which was the lies were not lost in vain. To then saying that means that he thinks that the loss of life was worth the benefit. Two different statements frankly because you know those who served and did what they were asked to do I think should take some pride and some solace as Frankly Linda was getting at it in her earlier comments as you know and the family should take some pride and solace in whatever benefits

they were able to obtain they don't have to be the ultimate adjudicators nor does Panetta on whether the war was worth it or whether the loss of life was equal to the benefit. But that's a leap. And I just think the weapon that it was basically saying is there are some good things that came out of this effort or at least there may be some good things. And if you don't mind I'll actually actually answer your question because. How could I jump into what you just said because in gaming He says not lost in vain but that'll translate to me to be worth it in a lot of people say it wasn't worth it all it was worthless so. Well if you really feel it was worth less then yes you have to disagree with Panetta. But if what you believe is that the benefits are either smaller than the huge cost or still very fragile and not you know material not yet durable then I think you can actually make a pretty important distinction between these two phrases to say that they're not lost in vain means that some good may have come of the effort and will it will help to see that down the road. To say that they were worth

the effort means we should you know that everything about the decision was correct in the first place to different points in my opinion. Anyway looking forwards. I think we are and try to understand the bombings this week. I'm very worried myself. But I also am hopeful at the same time. And the reason I'm hopeful that there are a few reasons one of which is that even with these kinds of bad days in Baghdad that we've had various times in the last few years the overall trend has been towards a more stable place. Violence has become lower in Iraq each year for the last five years in a row than it had been the year before. And that's been during a period when the Iraqi forces have been consistently doing more each year than they had been the year before that goes back to 2008 that trend line. And so that gives us some reason to hope that even though today's bombings do perhaps come in the context of this political crisis and there's the potential for this one to get out of control in a way that previous ones were ultimately contained and I am quite nervous about that. Nonetheless there is some reason for hope.

Also these Iraqi politicians for the most part have backed off from the brink in previous confrontations partly because they've had good American diplomats like Undersecretary Burns to interact with and that's been a help and unfortunately our leverage now is less. So again I'm trying to convey two separate and somewhat conflicting messages here one that they've come a long way and there are some reasons to hope that they can keep finding it within them to move forward. But secondly we're at a particularly fraught moment and yes I am nervous when I want to get everybody to weigh in on something that you've all touched on which is about the costs of the war to to our society. I mean let's face it forty five hundred people is not a lot. I mean it's a lot if it's one of your sons or daughters. I don't personally know anybody. I've had a few people that I knew in a peripheral way and including several journalists. But the burden the cost was really borne by a relatively few. And there was a lot of opposition over the years in going back looking at my timeline from

March 20th 2003 up until now and remember the great Cindy Sheehan protests she had lost her. Son early on she protested for more than a year. I mean was it worth sort of the divison is that it created in this country as well. Start with you Linda. Well I mean I would say first of all the for the forty five hundred young Americans who died in this war are the very very very tip of an enormous iceberg in terms of the human cost. You you have as I mentioned hundreds of thousands of young men and women who are veterans who are going to be treated by the V.A. and claiming disability benefits for the rest of their lives and that alone is a cost of about a trillion dollars to the U.S. taxpayers in addition to the human cost on them and the families. But turning to the profound cost of the war on the U.S. economy the cost of the war is far beyond the two trillion dollars

that we have already spent and which has already been added onto the U.S. debt because the cost goes on and on we have to continue borrowing money to finance a war which it is unprecedentedly in US history has been financed entirely by debt mostly from abroad at the same time that we cut taxes twice. But beyond that the. War was one of the factors that contributed to the rise in oil prices from $25 a barrel at the time we invaded Iraq to one hundred forty dollars a barrel where it peaked in 2008 and it's impossible to separate out the war in Iraq and the cost from the impact on global oil markets. And even though there are many factors and this is only one factor the oil price run up contributed to the Federal Reserve's decision to increase liquidity and flood the market with the quiddity which led to the housing bubble which of course contributed to the financial crisis which has of course

created a global economic crisis. And so every American and people throughout the world are currently suffering from a kind of cascading series of events. And one of the precipitating factors was the increase in oil prices which was related in part to our decision to invade Iraq. Now in addition to that there are human costs and economic costs which are not captured in the official total cost line. For example there are hundreds of thousands of families who are facing the social costs of very high rates of divorce homelessness substance abuse domestic violence and. A wide range of costs which are costs that are being paid by those families even though the government doesn't pay them. And I would add that one of the particular groups that is really suffering now are the women veterans. This is the first war in which we have had a significant number of women

fighters. Women are three times more likely than their male counterparts to be unemployed to be homeless. They are twice as likely to be committing suicide. The women veterans are suffering very very badly and the male veterans are themselves twice as likely to be unemployed now as their counterparts in the of the same age. I guess one of the points I'm getting at here Nic Burns if you want to get back into this is all that was you know fascinating and the detail is stunning and it sounds like it's going to go on for the next 10 years but do you think the war divided us as a nation as well. Well I think it did. I just like to say on the issue of what we've lost the war was not a bloody civil war or the two World War or Korea but we did lose or about 500 young men and women don't ever have a chance to build a life of peace. There was a tremendous tremendous number. People in America typically these are

the bomb that made a lot of our soldiers amputees. There was a huge impact on deployment you know military officers and enlisted personnel that birth overseas a lot longer than they had expected this attack is a real burden on the families back home. My nephew been Marine Corps pilot three combat tours to Iraq war in Afghanistan and now a fourth extended non combat tour which takes away from family wife two kids for more than a year. So there's been a tremendous strain on the military and we have civilian life have not seen that and we've not appreciated it because a very small group of people this war for us not only this war the war in Afghanistan and President Bush did not ask the rest of us living in the relative peace and comfort of our homes here in the U.S. to make the kind of sacrifices that the military made so I think with this little lift of the pressure on the military is really well considered.

I think it does deserve does that a lot of thought. I think Emily your question about strength here at home. I know that among a lot of Americans who oppose this war the government had less credit. Because of the cited reason for the war it turned out not to be true. Yeah and that that loss of credibility in Washington and our elected officials in career officials like me and we certainly I certainly felt this by certain government is something that a democracy cannot afford to have and so I do think these two warrants together and I really think of them as want since 9/11 have in many ways done great damage. I'm not saying they were worthless I agree with Mike very much that we accomplished something in Iraq in overthrowing Saddam Hussein we've given the Iraqis a chance for a better future so I don't look upon that as a mitigated disaster but when I try to weigh the pros and cons and I ask the question if we could if we roll back the film would you do this again. I certainly would not support a

military invasion of Iraq if we could do it all again. Well Mike OK and on that point I wonder if Nick is right if if people who really care whether the original mission was true or not I think they've lost sight of it and it became about other things and I also questioned something that Lynn said about that about the Grob. I think in some quarters it was a source of pride and I refer specifically to you know the torturing of Muslim prisoners and you know that the horrible conditions there and the pictures that are just green are mines. I think people thought well gee you know that's the kind of thing they do to us. So I'm wondering if it really was the blight that bill missing so it was. Well I agree with most of what I'm hearing from Linda but I guess I would add just a couple of points because you know just listening to the show so far one could be forgiven for wondering you know how could we have even been so crazy as to have an

even contemplate this war. And I actually think it was you know even though it was very badly mishandled at a military level. But on that point I'm very critical of Secretary Rumsfeld. For dismissing the possibility this could be difficult and I try to warn in my writings in that period of time and I was also like Nick a conditional supporter of the war. But I did not appreciate at the time and wish I had in retrospect I wish it had been known publicly how much Rumsfeld was systematically taking apart the military's ability to stabilize this place once Saddam was overthrown I think a lot of the costs have been much higher than they necessarily would have been if we had done this properly. Now that's obviously a conjectural statement but it's also conjectural and I've to push back on one thing Linda has been arguing she has assumed in measuring the cost that the world was going to go on peacefully and stable in the absence of any intervention and that oil prices naturally would have stayed low and that the Middle East naturally would have stayed stable and that that would have been a reasonable bench liner based Mark you know. Sort of a default assumption to build

in and then measure against it when oil goes up to one hundred forty dollars a barrel. You assume that it would have stayed at 25 or 30 were it not for the war in 2003. The sanctions sanctions regime on Saddam was eroding badly even though the Bush administration dramatically exaggerated the the nuclear threat from Saddam and created a false impression at times of a potential link between Saddam and Al Qaida. Almost everyone thought that Saddam did have chemical and biological weapons and nuclear aspirations. And there's no reason to think the Persian Gulf region would have stayed stable and that the world would have enjoyed 30 dollar a barrel oil forever in the absence of a war. So this is not to disagree with the fundamental thrust of what either Linda or Nick has said but simply to remind people that there were some complex calculations and some serious reasons to think that overthrowing this horrible dictator who had invaded two neighbors previously who had carried out at least two horrible pogroms against his own people and who had sought nuclear weapons through three separate programs in the 1980s that he might again be up to mischief down the road. And I think if we remember that

we can try to heal some of these wounds domestically where even war supporters and War critics can at least acknowledge 10 percent of the other side's argument that's an important way to start to move beyond the fissures that we've had in our domestic politics. That's what I'm getting at like that I think a lot of Americans maybe not the majority but support the war for no matter what reason we you know they liked seeing Saddam. Hussein captured in that little spider hole he didn't mind seeing the pictures of him. They didn't mind. You know it's sort of the retribution of the whore and whether they support to go in there in the first place I think you know a lot of Americans just feel like it's America first and they're not going to be against the president in a presidential decision for going to war. Well I don't want to I don't want to command anything about the the one hypothetical reason you raised that some people would have taken some measure of comfort or satisfaction and obviously for me and I think for the overwhelming majority of Americans that would not be an acceptable argument I'm talking about arguments that I think are a little more reasonable that Saddam Hussein was a danger even though he seemed to have been

contained. It wasn't necessarily going to last forever the regime on sanctions was eroding. Again I'm not fundamentally disagreeing with the argument that Linda and Nick have been making but I just think that there is a bit of gray and a bit of nuance in this debate that we do well to remember if we're trying to sort of understand each other's positions and move beyond in a constructive way and let him build this response that we can take a break and continue right. I did want to respond just on one point that Michael said which is that it's not me that expected the oil prices to continue with the same right where they had been for 25 years at $25 a barrel but the futures market which already take into account the increasing demand from China in India the futures markets predicted that oil prices would remain stable for the next decade at least. But one thing I wanted to point out is that one of the the real lessons of the war is is that there are a couple of decisions about war one is the decision to go to war and second is decision for how do you pay for war. And

if in this war not only did we pay for it entirely through debt but we actually discovered that the cost to the Pentagon is has been enormous and we don't even know where it has gone. We've spent nearly a trillion dollars in increased Pentagon costs in the past decade that are supposedly unrelated to Iraq and Afghanistan. But if you actually look at where they went they didn't go into increasing our forces. We have a smaller and older Air Force fleet a Navy fleet than we had before and we have an army and marines that are the same size. So all of those who have supported the troops and supported the idea of a strong defense have to wonder where did the money go. And when you look up close it went to indirect costs associated with Iraq and Afghanistan right at Idel Linda Bilmes from the Harvard Kennedy School Nicholas Burns also from the Harvard Kennedy School and Michael O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institution we're talking about the end of the pull out of the war in Iraq we've got much more to come. You'll see the Emily Rooney show Stay with

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WGBH. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show we are talking about the war in Iraq what it accomplished or did not our obligations to that country going forward and where future conflicts in the Middle East may lie. I'm talking here in the studio to Linda Bill mous public policy lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School and featured in the documentary about the war no end in sight and on the phone Nicholas Burns also of the Kennedy School of Government and a former US secretary of state. We were talking also to Michael O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institute but he had to get going so unfortunately I lost him during the break. Welcome back to both of you. Actually I want to start kind of right there. Nic Burns if you would I mean we're seeing what's happening with North Korea with the change of power there so to speak as his son has come into power but are we concerned that there's going to be other kind of likes that we're going to be facing very soon down the road. Well I think you're right. Right now one is North Korea you mentioned 28 year old third

son of Kim Jong Il Kim Jong un this is a proud possessor of a nuclear weapon. Yeah exactly. And if the gangster family is very and they're not sophisticated about the world yet they have nuclear weapons that they're certainly a threat to both South Korea and Japan allies of ours and to the United States and the second got to be concerned about is Iran itself. I have thought for many years that Iran is a much larger threat to the United States and Iraq ever was under Saddam and Iran is clearly seeking a nuclear weapons capability and a very large army is a much larger stronger more powerful government that dominates ever had those two threats are really going to focus. President Obama in his second term or or one of one of the Republican campaign should they win in 2012 they'll really be the focus. Concern was that actually true even before the war in Iraq that Iran was a greater threat. I thought so and many of the other people did as well and I think one of the reasons why this is such an

important discussion the one we're having on your show. What lessons do we learn from the military intervention and long term occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan. One of them should be that we shouldn't rush to war against Iraq. We've got to think very carefully in a very tough minded way about the right because it's a radical government. If the government opposed to all of what the United States stands for and and to many of our allies such as Israel and the moderate Arab states in the Middle East and alternative to war would be the construction of a long term containment of Iraq. That the President Bush in his second term and certainly President Obama have but have been trying to do and that is to give military assistance to the Gulf states to sanction Iran to keep American forces for a time in Afghanistan and Iran to have debt but not to rush to war not to try to invade or even launch airstrikes against Iraq because we learnt through bitter experience especially in Iraq. But you may think you're starting a short term there

as we did in 2003. But you might buy yourself a decade or so we've got to be very smart and I think restrained a bit in what we decide we're going to do in Iraq based on our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Well sanctions might work in Iran but what about North Korea Linda Bilmes they don't they act like Anyway they don't need any of the outside world they're willing to as we've seen in the past starve their own citizenry in the name of you know power and they don't they're an insular country. Well I think that Nick is better placed to answer questions about Korea but I would point out that that as Nick says you know we have learned a number of lessons from the Iraq debacle. Many which I outlined in the Boston Globe last week and one of them is that fighting multiple wars takes an enormous toll on our senior military commanders during the time that we were at one of the major costs of the fact that we went into Iraq was the fact that we we distracted senior people from Afghanistan. And so what started out as a very quick mission in Afghanistan has

dragged on to a 10 year mission with no end in sight in Afghanistan. We now have to think about if we you know when we think about the withdrawal from Iraq the fact that. One of the reasons that it's important to be out of Iraq is that we have many things going on in the world that require attention and every place that we go in is going to be requiring that attention. But the second thing that Nic said that I think is interesting is the fact that we have relied for the past 20 odd years really starting with Reagan on a very strong military as our sort of first point of intervention investing in the military sending the military into any situation whether that situation is a hurricane or civil conflict or a civil war and we have disinvested essentially in our diplomats our State Department our capacity to solve problems in ways other than military means. And I think we have to think very very

seriously at this point considering that we have bankrupted the nation in the Iraq war which has led to a very uncertain outcome. Whether that is the way forward. Well and Nic on Linda's point about Afghanistan that Iraq may have dragged that out for 10 years as well. Do you think that the original premise in going there was legitimate morally when you've said that you've changed your mind about Iraq that you don't you no longer support the reasons for going there but what about Afghanistan. Well I thought that it was on a level that we were right to go to Afghanistan. We had to take out the rest. The Taliban which is the twin twin threat that led to 9/11. But we did this soon and I was involved in eventually getting a toe into Afghanistan. 2003 we did not have this would be a decade long occupation and that's what it has become I think the president has a major decision he has to make now. He did build up and I support his decision in 2000 to add the 30000 troops we now have of coming down

to about 68000 troops by next September. So what's the strategy going forward. Do we think that there's a military victory in front of us. Well he would say Now should we shift to a counterterrorism strategy where we don't put the emphasis on massive deployment of ground troops in eastern Afghanistan are so the Afghans can strike. The elected target against a terrorist encampment that seems to me to be to be the better strategy and that's a decision that the president will have to face. In his last the last year of his first term as we head toward the 2012 election. Can you respond to Linda's point about disinvestment in diplomacy. I think it's been a major problem we have. Think of it this way since 9/11 we fully funded it and reinvented in a lot of ways our intelligence community the military we've created the Department of Homeland Security now the second largest agency of the U.S. government and yet we've hollowed out the State Department we've not funded what we need to do to build up our capacity to to outsmart the rest of the

world through effective diplomacy and I think the proper way to think about this is the United States has a lot of tools in its arsenal and among them our intelligence the military and counter terrorism. We've also got the ability to persuade to leverage to could shore it may have disappeared that kind of soft naive is actually the way that the United States normally operates in the world. We normally get our way because of our major political weight. And I think one major lesson of the last 10 years we have to shift toward a diplomatic stance. It's what President Bush without really saying it was doing it in second terms. President Obama I think very effectively if his first term in office. We've got to continue that trend. If it plays to our strength. They've also got a front about us but I think the point. All right. Linda Bilmes for some final thoughts here. I think that the it's important to note that the cost of the war will continue

going on for many many decades. We not only have trillions of dollars yet to come in cost for returning veterans but we have a cost of entirely replenishing our military entirely replenishing all of the equipment from the National Guard much of which has been used up in Iraq. We have the economic cost which are certainly you know the cost of the crisis are not yet resolved. And so we need to think at this point about what lessons on the budgetary front can we learn. One of them is the fact that we actually don't know where the money goes because we don't have an accounting system in the Pentagon that is capable of tracking money. The Pentagon has flunked its audit every single year for the past 20 years since all of us were required. It is the only department in the government that flunks its audit and. At a time when we are facing as a nation enormously high deficits enormously difficult budgetary problems we need to rethink the way we actually do the accounting

for military spending and war spending and that is a pressing issue. The second pressing issue is rethinking how we transition home veterans from this war. We have hundreds of thousands of veterans who will be coming home in the next years. We don't have jobs for them. They are disproportionately the 11 Bravo category who are the infantry men who don't understand very well how to translate their military skills into civilian skills and we have employers who are wary of hiring in general nervous of hiring veterans who they have heard might have post-traumatic stress disorder and for whom even if they want to do it it's not clear how to do it we have many federal laws which are very difficult for the states and localities to navigate and I think that if we don't set aside funding and make a national priority of transitioning these veterans we will have another legacy crisis on our hands. Right. You're going to pounce on the withdrawal.

Well just I think with Christmas you're going to they thought about it but right now we know about it. Secondly it finally has disappeared from our national conversation. We don't talk. But well but think about Lincoln after the war FDR Truman up well or even Nixon it will be the ultimate national aspiration with peace. They said that our political leaders in both parties are now not saying that what they're saying is defense protect the report but we don't think about it Democratic always flying that flag for peace but it having that you know an aspirational government should be about. We've gotten away from that. Perhaps because of a lack of self-confidence. After 9/11 I think that's an important thought for all of us. All right Nicholas Burns thanks so much for joining us and Linda gave us great conversation an end to the war in Iraq we'd like to hear from you what's your take on the U.S. war should the U.S. and the international community assist Iraq in its recovery should we stay there do we have a moral imperative

to stay engaged. Join the discussion or send us your story find us on Facebook or send us a tweet Emily Rooney show. Up next to Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart is here to get us in the holiday spirit and talk about a collaboration with a local artist is putting a new spin on this year's holiday pops. You listen to the Emily Rooney show from eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston Public Radio. This program is on WGBH thanks to you. And the Museum of Science presenting the exhibit A day in Pompei. You can step back in time to explore the treasures of an ancient city steeped in legend only at the Museum of Science. More info online at AM OS dot org. And Russell's a family tradition for over 130 years with Christmas trees roping lights gift toy and flower shops plus live animals Russell's garden center Route 20 in Wayland for evening hours you can visit

Russell's garden center dot com. Next time on the world the Soviet Union its founders promised a worker's paradise by the 1980s it had more missiles planes and tanks than the US the Soviet Union was compared to in one sector which was this military economy but a depress of destroying the rest of the economy. The collapse of the Soviet Union we marked the 20th anniversary on the world. Coming up at 3 o'clock here at eighty nine point seven since last fall nearly 900 WGBH members have made the switch to sustainer. That means they're choosing to break down their support into monthly installments that automatically renew. And that's great. But this isn't the 9100 challenge it's the 2012

challenge. 2012 new sustainers before the new year at eighty nine point seven will cancel the first fundraising campaign of 2012. Start doing your part as a new sustainer online at WGBH dot org. Great question that is a great question and that's a great question. It's a great question. Rick great question on FRESH AIR. You'll hear unexpected questions and unexpected answers this afternoon at 2:00. You're on eighty nine point seven. Welcome back to the city Emily really show the holidays in Boston a couple of traditions but perhaps none is more cherished than the. Holiday pops. Each December simply hall comes alive. Seasonal sounds of the Boston Pops Orchestra the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and a host of special guests meeting Clement Clarke Moore his beloved 1823 problem the night before Christmas. But amidst all the tradition Pops conductor Keith Lockhart has a knack for keeping things fresh.

This year a collaboration with Norwood artist Jan Brett is bringing an exciting new wrinkle to the Boston Pops holiday story. Here with me to talk about that and more is Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart. Hi Emily Howard always a pleasure but it's just not Christmas until you're here in the studio. Oh you're you're very kind to say so it's been Christmas for me for pretty much a whole my I know I know. Does that get tiring. Only you know it's funny and I love doing it. And we really do. I was talking to one of the orchestra members we kind of collectively feel like Santa Claus because we bring something that means the seasons you know on the table but it is you've missed some of the things that other people do you miss going to holiday parties and and frankly you miss enjoying other Christmas music when you hear it because you hear quite enough of the detail the third day job. Tonight I have a Christmas party and I'll tell you that I'll be the conductor because people have stopped inviting me to Christmas parties I have been able to go to one for 17 years. That's awful. Hey how did your caroling situation work and in Copley Square this week just to get a record or not it was actually over in the Christian Science plaza on the other side is kind

of the IT WE DID NOT once again get a record mostly because the record had just been reset right underneath our noses had it gone up doubled it was up over 15000 and we would think we were prepared. Gee you know I never heard that information the previous one I believe it was it was a was it a private university and I think they forced all their students to sit in the arena and do it you know I'm thinking that we need even a larger public venue to if we're going to actually make that happen but that you know the goal of this was to get a lot of people to stop shopping bring their families down hold hands and sing carols and that worked and you know I think was a great success I don't care how many people we had we had about 5000 people which is still ahead. We needed you know a sort of a public way we get we have to have sort of like one of these just mass public relations. Maybe we should open Fenway Park. Yes December it is I think it's the 100th right street next year they would love that. Let's get on that now. OK here. OK your people Larry if you're out there. Actually no that's a terrible idea. It's a great idea. Well of course.

Anyway well well they can certainly. It wasn't 36000 would shatter the record and standing on the field you could probably get if they'd let you know that we need to get enough that nobody can come close to set against. All right so the. The reading of that was the night before Christmas you know I don't ever told you this but I was I did a couple years ago number and the prompter I should have gone out there earlier but couldn't even see it was like below me and of course I had memorized it some people I think he memorized. She always she said Oh she's she's so talented she memorizes her but we have some some you know we have a bearing on what you see but you're right the size of the print is an issue and I think those kind of things to the angle it was like to lower I don't know that oh my god I'm in a panic here I am. I can't see the problem you are a trained professional you are insightful of my way through it but that's a that's a fun thing to have all type of people. Wide range of people they have this we have we had Governor Patrick joined us last night he's always good. And yes he's actually very good at that sort of thing just very communicative. And of

course many people from many of the different media outlets here and Mary and Robert de Leo and most interestingly perhaps Joey MacIntyre of New Kids On The Block was there let me days ago and then sang a couple songs with their sister too which is kind of a fun time yeah that would be fun. It would be an extra treat. All right so you've incorporated Jan Brett who most of New Englanders are familiar with. She's a fantastic. You know artist of her own right. You know the characterizations in a number of books including The Night Before Christmas but you've actually incorporated her illustrations into the process was this was actually a project they came from. Jan I've known Jennifer since I came here because she's a big friend of the Boston Symphony the Boston Pops she sits on the board and her husband is a member as a member of the basics of the Boston Civic Association of an in-house person and I had no idea frankly not being really privy to the ins and outs of the children's book trade how popular she only has thirty seven million books in print and which is kind

of a staggering number. And I did a couple of signings with her of this new product that's come out this combination of her book her setting of Twas the Night Before Christmas with the music of the Boston Pops and the narrative voice of Jim Dale the Broadway actor from Barnum etc. and you know people come and people came up to a little girls little boys who want to grow up to be artists who are entranced by her art work and children's reading teachers. I swear there were more elementary school librarians and first and second grade teachers at this thing and they all are absolutely worshipful of her it was really a fascinating thing. Every time I've done a signing before I've always been the only one there and then this boy you know they were all like Jan Brett and they look over at me and go and who are you. So. I think you missed her when my daughter was little but one of the fantastic things as she puts the illustrations that she does the main illustration and then there's something on the side that sort of portends what's to come. It's very richly textured she uses a border that has you know on the left hand border shows what was on the other hand in the other border allows kids to guess well gee what I think's going to happen to me it seemed my I

have to say audience survey my 21 month old is in thrall to with the mitten and the hats which are two of her best. Those are the non Twas the Night Before Christmas Those are books that she actually admitting that this is actually an unusual thing for her because in this of course she just illustrated a preexisting material. Now when you haven't seen the program this year but when you use the illustrations do you actually have the words on screen too or you know we have the words are taken off of the old ways that it is just the art and then the narrative voice covers that and on the DVD that comes with goodness right he has the music and the illustrations with the narrative voice on top so you can either read the book or you can you can play it for your kids or do both. So I mean you go through this every year. How do you keep it fresh. I mean this is a great idea. You try to do something different every year we want something we don't think we tried well we haven't thought of that. It will start on that I'm just going to say it's that is the big challenge of course because this is a you know it's the holidays are about tradition.

Nobody would want you know we didn't nobody if we came in with 100 percent different program people would hate it. People want something they go oh I love that I can't wait every year I wait for that to happen that's what the holidays in the larger sense I think even emotionally about coming back and holding on to something and saying oh at least I recognize this is the rest of my world you know it turns upside down. So we try to balance the traditions and the things that people can expect with bringing new things in or new takes on old things and we try to make sure that everybody who goes leaves thinking well they musta played that one just for me because that's my favorite Christmas memory or my father always played that one for me. The fun thing about that for me is that a lot of these things are my Christmas memories. That's the job I guess when you get to make the programming decisions or pieces on this program that I remember hearing because my father had the LP or in one case of Harry Belafonte 45 of a piece that he really like to play it every Christmas and it was the little boy child. So you get to incorporate a couple new pieces every year and we try to mix up and also we have such a

huge repertoire these days over the 17 years I've been here we have added so many arrangements and really high quality arrangements things that people just love this new 12 Days of Christmas. Of course that we put in a couple of years ago and have had I have courted as a as a separate digital download which is available from us. It stops the show. We get a full standing ovation every night in the middle of the concert for this one piece. It must be about what Arthur Fiedler thought when he first played sleigh ride he said I'm going to be stuck playing this forever we think that's right. And he was so how many more days to have to do I mean how many more days is this wonderful. Oh it's water it is a labor of love but you are never you never sorry to see it go at the end. Collectively we have done for we'll done forty eight concerts this year the surround us tour concerts out on the road and. And I will have done forty six of them. I've done 40 as of last night I have six more to go. And then you must get a little time off. Actually I have about three weeks without any work and right on Christmas Eve we're going to go up with our son up to Stowe and

what we're hoping for a little snow up you might get snow up there you'd think you'd expect it by this time of the year but it's been a very strange you know I'm going to upstate New York I think they're supposed to get some snow to the U.S. they have feet and feet of it by now. Well we'd like to get frankly go there and then get snowed in that would be just fine. It's not in there for three weeks. All right we're going to let you have a little bit of the program. They're teasing me here you know I also got a note here that saying that our sister station classical New England has all kinds of pops goodies on their website so you can listen to this year's holiday pops program. Hear an interview with Illustrator Jan Brett and more and you can also find a link to that on our website at WGBH dot org slash Emily Rooney I don't think I've met Jan yet I can't believe I don't know. Is she related to the Brits. No she's well I don't Jim and Bill and I don't know about that she's I know that story her husband is Joe Hern who has been a member of the Boston Symphony basin for since the mid 60s I think hers. Keith Lockhart always a pleasure to have you here and we're going to help you get that caroling record done

next year. Thanks I'm going to call Larry Larry know myself Hanway park or eat I really sincere show every day. OK do you like art. Thanks for being with us. Good for us this afternoon we are back tomorrow at noon with a look back at the year that was 2011 and stay with us now for the callee Crossley Show coming up next. And tonight on my television so Greater Boston our 20 11 year in review. Don't miss that. That starts at 7:00 on channel 2. The Emily Rooney show is a production of WGBH radio on the web at WGBH dot org. Boston Public Radio. I'm Emily Rooney. Have a great afternoon. Anyone.