Focus 580; The Mission: Waging War and Keeping the Peace with Americas Military

In this first hour of the show we will be talking with Dan a priest she covers the intelligence community for The Washington Posts and has worked at the post for 15 years where she was the Post Pentagon correspondent for six and their order wrote exclusively about the military as an investigative reporter. We'll be talking in part about some of the ideas that you will find in her recent book which is titled The Mission Waging war and keeping peace with America's military that looks at the increasing tendency in the time since the Cold War of the military being given a mission of carrying out American foreign policy in some senses eclipsing and taking over the role that had been filled by the Department of State. The argument that she makes in the book is that while the American military may well be very good at fighting wars it is really not trained or equipped to do peacekeeping and nation building. The book first came out last year and now has been published in a paperback edition. Published by Norton with a new afterword touching on the situation in Iraq. I will try and talk about all of that's morning in

this first hour of the show as we talk of course questions and comments are welcome. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line and that means if you would be listening around Illinois Indiana or perhaps over the Internet that you can use that and will pay for the call as long as of course you're in the United States. That's for Internet listeners. The toll free line is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 again. Locally here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 Ms Priest. Hello. Hello nice to be here. Well thanks very much for talking with us. We certainly appreciate it. Maybe we could step back a couple of steps before trying to talk about where we are now and talk about how it is that we came to this point. I think probably some of the people will remember back at the end of the Cold War that we were talking about something called a peace dividend and the idea was that with the cold war being

over and the major adversary of the United States that being the Soviet Union being gone then we could scale back on the amount of money that we spent on defense and the kind of defense that we had. And I'm not sure how long we were talking about that but it wasn't very long and in fact if you look at what's happened since then we're not spending less on defense we're actually spending more. And the role of the military has has morphed and that's really what the book is about. How did we how did that happen. How did it. Get from from the peace dividend to now the mission. Well it's a great question because most people might assume since we have 100000 troops in Iraq 11000 in Afghanistan another couple tens of thousands fighting the war on terrorism that it really did begin under a Republican president. Republicans traditionally a more supportive financially military and and using them in in this way. However this

trend really began under the Clinton administration and as you recall President Clinton did not serve that cause a lot of controversy. He didn't have a particularly good relationship with the military during his first term. And yet and but he did during the second term. And yet it was under the Clinton administration that the that the armed forces were given a huge prominence in foreign policy. And the reason there are several there and then the Cold War as you say it's expected to have a peace dividend. However really they did do some downsizing. But at the same time the State Department the traditional diplomatic arm of government was being slashed in one. One reason was the Republicans Jesse Helms in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee didn't see the value of the State Department as much but the administration didn't make the case either didn't really go to bat for it. So while the State Department's budget declined by about 20 percent in the

70s and 80s in the 90s it declined number 22 percent. And in fact the Department for budgetary reasons was forced to close 30 embassies and consulates throughout the world. Added to that the administration really did not have a clear strategy for dealing with the post Cold War era. It was a shift of such a magnitude and there was there was not a consensus about how we should use our superpower hood at the time and how we should use our troops. The other thing that that happened was as a result of all that. There was a vacuum in foreign affairs and the administration pushed the Pentagon into playing a role that it hadn't played so predominantly before. That being they may push their four star generals to become super diplomats and they asked the soldiers

who are really trained to kill people and destroy things to become nation builders. One other important element here is a piece of legislation passed in ninety one thousand eighty six that was meant for an entirely different reason but comes into play here. That was the Goldwater-Nichols Act and it was passed because the Army Navy Air Force and Marines during war time didn't fight well together and there had been some bad disasters people died and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time David Jones thought we have to get this under control and we what we need is a four star general in charge of the war fight in during wartime and they will be the one to mediate. You know all the services and ordered them to work better together. So they set up what are called regional commanders and Chiefs otherwise known as the sinks and they divide. The world in four parts. It's now divided into five parts. Divide in four parts and put a four star in charge of each one of those regions.

Very dynamic individual. They had a huge staff have huge budget in comparison to the State Department and they had their own airplanes with their own communications staff something that not even a you know a diplomat has the ONLY in fact the only people in the diplomatic corps that can get around that easily are the secretary of state and his deputy. So you had the ability and the request to move throughout the air the region to visit countries in the region and the ability to do that or to put on conferences in the region things that that really the really the State Department should've been doing but couldn't because it didn't have the budget or the wherewithal really. And so it developed that in every place in the world probably except Europe. These four stars became the face of the U.S. overseas and they in they took that role. Luckily there were no hot

wars at the time and really ran with that I guess you should say even though they had great doubts all of them about the extent to which you know they should be doing foreign policy so bad that the back. Drop for you know for 9/11 when that comes along. By that time we already had these four star I think who were acting in this way and I can go into more detail on them. If you want but we also had come to life over and over and over again on US troops trained for combat to do nation building in Haiti in Somalia in Bosnia Kosovo. A little bit in Rwanda but. And the reason we asked them to do it is not because the policy makers sat around and said Who is the best to rebuild countries and chose the military. It was because there was no alternative. The State Department couldn't take it on. There's been no

civilian counterpart that has grown up to be able to take on these missions so they asked the soldiers to do that in my book. Talks both about the four stars who I traveled with for four of them at the time but it also looks of peacekeeping and says really what do you get when you send an infantry man to become the mayor of a town or the the school administrator of a town and so I spent time with one unit I made the second Airborne one company a second Airborne troops in one town in in between in Kosovo to try to assess what it is like when these men they're all men trying to do this job something they weren't trained for. Actually something they didn't even expect to do until they hit the ground and learned there was no combat in Kosovo but they would have to go and start helping to rebuild not only the simple things like the telephone system in the water system but the

political system. And I find that it's a huge mismatch between the military culture and the mission that they've been in and find. I should introduce Again our guest and mention that this she has now given a thumbnail sketch of her book The Mission Waging war and keeping peace with America's Military. It's now out in paperback it's been. Bush by W W Norton and then a priest works for The Washington Post. She's been at the post for 15 years. She was the Post's Pentagon correspondent and now is covering the Intelligence Committee for the paper. Questions welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. I want to ask you a question and I suppose in a sense this is this is a question that should go to somebody whose beat is the State Department but since we've touched on that I guess I'm interested. I think people when looking at what has happened here and the increasing role of the military in doing things like peacekeeping nation building carrying out front policy they if you ask well what what happened

here. Some people would say well the problem part of the problem is the State Department itself it's a heavy bureaucracy it's slow moving it's populated by a bunch of dinosaurs and it has just atrophied and on the other hand some people would say well that might in part be fair but part of the issue also is that it has been starved of resources and hasn't really given been given adequate funding. So it could do this job and I guess I wonder whether you think the ads you know the real truth is in fact one or the other or is it some of both. Well I think it's it's both and it's a lot of both. Give you one example. The Pentagon has all the services have these large lobbying offices on Capitol Hill. They don't they're not allowed to lobby. But that's exactly what they do. Any any member of Congress that wants to know about a weapon system you know they get somebody in their office explaining it to him. Or any member that wants to know the strategy behind acts someone will be up there talking to any staff member or the member even

if they go on trips overseas. The military will send baggage carriers along and it's a part it's a way to bond with the staff and the member and to get them to understand what the military is all about. They're into Colin Powell on board and the State Department. There wasn't any office on Capitol Hill because the attitude of the State Department really was we don't need to explain ourselves or sell ourselves what we do is so important and so crucial that it should be evident Well it's not. And they suffered because of their own cultural traps. The other issue is today we still have by and large a traditional diplomatic core which are people that operate in pinstriped suits or or you know and in embassies they deal with the the most elite of countries in behind closed door negotiations that take a lot of patience and

quiet diplomacy. Meanwhile what we need as well in places that are trying to rebuild after war our diplomats of another sort that are willing to roll up their sleeves get into the hallway pull Oyo of you know the tugs and pull that you'll have been a country trying to rebuild itself people who will wear boots who get in the mud and who will be dynamic personalities. Public figures who leave that cause a kind of reconstruction. It's not to denigrate the traditional diplomat we need to do that too. But it's to say that we don't have the other sort which is what you need to lead reconstruction and so it is much easier to say Well really the the Colonel he can he knows. How to get this stuff done and even if he doesn't know anything about politics he's got the efficient force behind him to go in there and rebuild. You know the

water system the roads and integrate the schools and by the way you know probably why he's there. Oh he should be the town mayor and he'll just learn it because you know it can't be that hard or if we give him the job. Some will figure it out and until we really have to I think bring about a change within the nonmilitary arm of our government the civilian agencies. There is some there is growing sentiment that this is the case especially as the military gets stretched thin in combat operations which were not occurring at the level they are during the Clinton administration and have since 9/11 the military has both its traditional role to play as combat a combat force and and this other role and that is what is stretching them so far these troops have got to stay in Iraq and stay in Afghanistan in huge numbers in Iraq it's because the administration ignored all the lessons learned previously and did not and did

not reach out to allies did not reach out to people who could step in for the military when when the combat part of it was over. And so you've given that all to them. Let's talk with some callers here. Couple they're both in champagne. We'll start with one one. Hello. Yes thank you. Well I would certainly agree that you know the type of use of the military you're talking about is certainly bipartisan. Well I would differ with you is that it's something more recent. I would posit that it goes at least back to the Monroe Doctrine and you know certainly the Navy was used to open up markets in Japan and other places and I would hope you're familiar with General Smedley Butler and I would just quote from his congressional testimony where he stated I spent 33 years and four months in active service as a member of our country's most

agile military force the Marine Corps. I served in all commissions and second lieutenant to Major J. And during that period I spent most of my time being high class muscle man for Big Business for Wall Street for the bankers and short. I was a racketeer for capitalism but I don't make Mexico especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1014. I don't make Haiti and Cuba but he's a place for National City Bank to collect revenues and I hope purified Nicaragua for the interest of the banking house of Brown Brothers and from nineteen oh nine thousand nine hundred twelve. And I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American church interest in 116 and Honduras and I make under right for it. American fruit companies are 9000 03 so I don't think that this is there's anything new

about this use of the military. It's just our ongoing policy that's been carried out by pretty much every administration for most of the history of the United States. Well that's the difference. In some most of the examples that you gave is that the military was used as a military muscle to do to carry out U.S. foreign policy U.S. strategy abroad. The did call as you say to you know maintain stability and make sure markets were safe around the world for U.S. interests. That that's that has been one reason why presidents decided to send troops to certain places in in the post-war post-Cold War era. The difference was that many of these places. We're not we're not like that. You can't use the exact same rationale for sending troops into Somalia or Haiti or or Bosnia or

Kosovo in which U.S. vital interests if you define them as maintaining open markets for U.S. interests which every administration has done over and over again rightly or wrongly. But those cases we're not we're not like that those cases were largely humanitarian. People could could make the case that the Balkans was close enough to Europe that instability in the Balkans would threaten stability in Europe. Your larger point yes. Throughout history in World War Two troops did rebuilding after and what would be called now a nation building or peacekeeping efforts after World War Two in Japan and Germany. But do us also in those cases and in Europe in particular had the Marshall Plan which was a which made this. Use of the troops slightly more balance because we were at the same time pouring money into the economic

rebuilding of Germany. And it's the imbalance here in these areas that I think somehow that we learn you know haven't we learned that that you know military solutions don't get you always exactly what you think they can win wars but then they cannot necessarily rebuild countries and create stability. So I agreed that the military has been used in many ways for long periods of time I just think that in the post-Cold War era we had a even more predominant use of them and dependence on them to do things that weren't necessarily controlling or keeping markets open as you suggest. Appreciate the coming of the caller. Have somebody else here who's waiting for a while I hope you won't mind if I go on here to another champagne call this is lie number two. Hello. Hi I'm wondering if you might connect the kind of Education that. Enlisted people gag and all for the kind of education that officers get and how

defect their ability are credited to doing such a job. And then maybe connect that to you know how if knowledge produced in universities or ROTC Prabhat programs or government schools. Well that's a good question because most enlisted Let's talk about those first not the officers. They are their main focus is on learning how to operate in combat situations. Unless you're an military police officer and your role is really something is really policing you are going to learn how to work with your team to most efficiently defeat an enemy. And sometimes that means overwhelming violence overwhelming force against your enemy your target. Translate that mindset which is an appropriate mindset for the military for for combat troops. Translate that mindset into a peacekeeping operation it becomes very

difficult for people to operate in. Because you see threats everywhere and the military is all about maintaining control and exerting violence in in rebuilding you know allowing and helping and facilitating countries to rebuild imparted it. It's letting other people have some control and recognizing that chaos is part of the rebuilding. Political chaos is part of the building of democracy are we living in a democracy. For the officers I think they are now studying the younger ones are studying nation building experiences. What I find start only now is that the units that go over to a place like Afghanistan or Iraq or in Kosovo it was the case as well. They did not until recently the ones in

Iraq get any specific training that would say to them you know if you're there would be more appropriate for the nation building role. And they got that in Kosovo only after two years on the ground when something bad happened involving one the troops the Army said well we better train them for this mission and they did what for the army context. It's a big deal training but in reality it came nowhere close to really getting people up to speed in the kind of cultural environment they were going to operate in something that's very difficult to do in the rack. They have just started training me and the units that are rotating in now or are getting some training in peacekeeping. But again it's sort of minimalist training and I wouldn't expect them to do much more and I'd think it's unfair for us to think that the army can really do both things well. They are always going to train on their core mission of combat and then they'll you know they'll fit in the

peacekeeping thing if they have to. So we either have to one option is to create a sort of Peace Corps force within or a peacekeeping force within the army something the Army doesn't want to do but which would include a lot more military police and a lot more military intelligence officers and civic affairs officers. Those are the troops that are sort of best suited to doing this or we have to create I think an alternative which is I call it the Peace Corps for the 21st century which is which should be some kind of a civilian corps that could take over from the military the minute it's appropriate and that would include a police contingent but also a judicial system a temporary one so that you could take the bad guys off the street and then show people that they don't get they just don't rot in prison but there's some fair just. And top judicial system. That would be applied while the indigenous population tried to figure out how they'll come up with their own system. But you would also use the civilians who

are experts in rebuilding and you would reach out to the net to the non-governmental organizations the humanitarian groups the hundreds of them who have been doing small forms of nation building throughout the world for years now and who would be more than happy to work with civilian U.S. officials but are not willing to work with U.S. military forces because they think that it impugns their impartiality and and makes them too much of a part of the US government. We are already on our midpoint here and I have some other callers on the. I want to get on to them and let me also introduce Again our guest Dana Priest. She works for The Washington Post and has for the past 15 years. She was for a number of years the Pentagon Correspondent and then wrote exclusively about the military as an investigative reporter she's now covering the intelligence community for the post. If you're interested in reading the book that she wrote of dealing with this subject here that we've been talking about it is.

Out in a new paperback edition with a new afterword on Iraq the title of the book is The Mission Waging war and keeping peace with America's military and it's published by WW Norton. As you mentioned a good part of the book is based on the time that you spent with her at the time there only were four for the regional commanders in chief Anthony Zinni Wesley Clark Admiral Dennis Blair and General Charles Wilhelm. And I'm wondering if you could talk for a couple of minutes about how it was these men have felt about this new role that was being thrust upon them for which we're arguing the. You know that wasn't really what they were trained for. Yeah well conflicted about it but but they also accepted it and I think in every case they push the envelope because they saw not the military that existed in the countries of the region but they saw the great need for others sorts of help. And yet they were in some cases for the

U.S. government and the they may do there's this great army expression which is all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. Then he said he used that often to comment on you know what am I doing here. Just to give you one. I want to get one story from my trip with him I went to Bahrain and he put on a conference for all the countries of the Persian Gulf and had the defense ministers and defense high ranking defense officials there and it was a conference on early warning system and in the comments box about about half a million dollars put on she could do that he had that budget the conference itself was really boring. I mean it was the you know the scoring system like a souped up telephone system where you'd someone who was noted to be doing something wrong moving missile parts around or something and you call up everybody else. So I turned to him at one point I said you know that's so boring. He said I know it's like watching paint dry. Why.

And then he explained the real reason behind it which was that the the countries of that region they don't get along that well they don't work well together they don't have mutual trust and he saw it as part of his role to create ultimately a regional coalition that would be the best to handle to preempt crises before they got to before they got out of hand. And each of the syncs saw our regional coalitions as the best way to do that and they each made efforts of course in Europe they had made oh and Clark played a prominent role in keeping the alliance together and negotiating among the members on the military side but during the war. Also on the political side and the others they sought to sort of create that. And I think that's one of the common commonalities that they shared one is that the needs were not just purely military and in fact

mostly they weren't military and second there wasn't a diplomat out there with the assets and the and the face time really to start getting these people together to hopefully bring about this kind of confidence building measures. And he was one of them. Let's go back to we're talking with some callers. Next is a champagne line one. Hello good morning. Appreciate very much your work going on. Back to Panama and the stuff on the proconsul seems to me to there be very important the account of how the shift has taken place in the American government. It seems to me that it's quite significant and very glad that you you give an account of it. I wonder though if you are entirely happy with discussing that shift in the context of humanitarian wars by the United States in the 1990s. It seems to me every empire we know about the British in

the 19th century the Germans 1840s the Soviets and the middle century in the US in Latin America for a century. I've always said that it's for three Unitarian. You know we're doing it for the good of the people and for the good of the people who might be affected by it and so forth and we don't believe any of them. I mean we can see when we look at those empires that they had clear Altera motives why are we so blind when we look at America in the 1990s and not not notice. I'm sure you know Chalmers help book write his discussion of the sorrows of Empire and the development of the spread of a base that seems to go with the system of couples. Well I think that's a good point because if you look at the wars in the 90s which the biggest of which was in the Balkans Bosnia and Kosovo in the inbox. I think the humanitarian impulse First of all there was no

consensus in this country about what to do and the military didn't by a large want to get involved because it was messy. There was no way to know what was going to since Milosevic was you know the main enemy you weren't going to attack Belgrade get rid of Milosevic in the way that you would more classically in a conventional war. The outcome was uncertain. How would you remove someone or stop the fighting in Bosnia a civil war without without really getting yourself embroiled in something that was not by everybody's agreement a clear my little interest on the part. The United States. So I think the issue of Europe's security came in there that Europe was worried. And we you know Europe is part of the new alliance with us that would spill over and instability in Europe. And so for that security reason I think we. Was one element pushing us into Bosnia but also you can't ignore the

fact that that tens of thousands of people were being murdered in the streets. Civilians remember the snipers and carry a bow and that had an effect on public opinion and so that many people Republicans and Democrats alike said shouldn't we be using our military in fact remember Madeleine Albright's famous line at the time was you know to go to Colin Powell and he writes about it in his memoirs. She said you know what all these soldiers are good for if you're not going to use them what she thought was a lie from the statement that you would what he thought as cavalierly use of them in a non vital interest sort of way. It's just to say that there were complicated nxt written reasons why we went into both of those places Kosovo the same thing and as you know the decision was made to sort of do it halfway we will go in but we would only go in an air war no ground troops and. And

restrict even the pilots ability to hit targets from by giving them making them fly very high where they would never be vulnerable to being shot down and that was the compromise that compromises will use our military force. We don't think it's important enough to risk our American lives and I think that that distills the otherwise you know the history of use of American force I think it became somewhat different in the 90s when American motives in the fall Republican I think a very important topic and one that really should be talked about in the notion that it's been sold certainly on the basis of you know our anguish at seeing people bombed Syria and are concerned about Kosovo and so forth and so on but I mean it seems to me that the can take too much investigation to see that the U.S. was never particularly concerned about fighting in the former and former Yugoslavia I mean we let the both thing or for me put in when we find me something about it it had much more to do with the question of the role of NATO. I mean here

we have a major competitor in the. And the U.S. controls the military and it was a question of control what you think of all the demonstration in Yugoslavia. You are moving in. People like Osama bin Laden the folks that we have recruited for the Afghanistan campaign back in the Carter administration we were sending those people to Albania in order to move them to Wesley Clark himself said that the real I think cleansing Buffalo did not begin in earnest until after the NATO bombing to get hold of the basis of our own. I'm not sure it was motivated but well I guess I would disagree for the reasons I just stated but I don't really want to restate them so. And I know we do have other callers waiting so again I appreciate the comments of the last caller and we'll go on to next. Ban the line 3. Hi. I seem to remember back in the early Clinton years that there may be if this was after Somalia. I'm not exactly sure

when but there was a decision made to try to sort of reorient the military courts are more post-Cold War position of peacekeeping and I think his name is General. Right through a tour of the Joint Chief of Staff. We've sort of got me. Whatever happened to that. Well it never really nothing really got really organized in the way that that you might think because Challis had this great people call him Shali Shalikashvili and he had this great line that he sees with army officers which is he would say there's a phrase there is a an army acronym for these humanitarian and nation building missions they're called missions other than war. And he would say Real men don't do move and it was the

way he was. They didn't get a lot of lapse of way of making fun of themselves because it was true the Army leadership all of whom came from the combat arms the armor artillery and infantry branches of the army. That's their core mission. Those are the leaders of the army. And they thought this peacekeeping as a diversion from their main mission and so they didn't embrace it in any real fundamental way and. Back to when they started to study this which they did at work colleges and at Leavenworth the Army Lessons Learned Center. They didn't say it. They didn't say we should really write doctrine on this. The army needs doctrine for everything it does and they have the Training and Doctrine Command which is pretty much the heart of the army and and that's where you start to make real changes you codified into a doctrine. Instead they send out you know peacekeeping will put this over would they have the U.S. and the two U.S. peacekeeping Institute

at the Army War College in Carlisle Pennsylvania way out of the way and it's in actually the basement of a building there. It's to say that yeah they knew they had to do this but they didn't really want to so they really didn't make any fundamental changes. And I don't expect an institution that is so tradition bound like the army to do that on their own. It takes political leadership and leaders have to decide if they want the army to change which they themselves are conflicted about. They have to order it to change. And the Army follows orders. But no one did that either because there was so much resistance and because of the fear that if we build it they will come and no one likes to do peacekeeping operations because the outcomes uncertain takes years it's very costly it's not politically popular in the United States after very long. So they really did. Want to do it. And they didn't want to build the worry was if we build a peacekeeping force that would be pushed into peacekeeping all the time. I have to

point out some irony that the Bush administration which came into office saying we will not as Conda Lisa Rice said we will not use our soldiers to escort Bosnian children to school is now not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but it's back in the 80s. That's to say the world just keeps going on and these problems keep occurring whether you want them to happen or not. All right. Let's go to Chicago and our next caller. Well in for a little hello I want to follow up on the comment that you are making because I'm wondering what could possibly be the future of our military on a world scale because most of the world is moving away from war as a solution. And if you look at the European powers they're mainly looking at putting out using their military to put out fires or to control small wars that spring out. And we so far are seem to be having a very wary. But in these situations and we have not

prepared our troops for them as you said and it's beginning to look really sad and one thing that they didn't translate a completely was that the Spanish new Spanish prime minister didn't say that we would do it with a disaster our occupation of Iraq he said it was a great disaster and and begin. To wonder especially looking at what's happening to him and our performance in Liberia you know before that thing was if there's a problem send in the Marines. I'm wondering now if they want to avoid sending in the Marines I mean France jumped to the fore when the problem started in Haiti and we were reluctant to go in. It looked like if we didn't do something soon France was going to ignore them or Munroe doctrine and come in on their own. And I'm wondering if the military does not adapt to what the world sees as its needs. Will the rest of the world simply try to go over us. It would be hard to go over us because it takes a lot of money and these troop deployments are not just expensive but you have to have a large military I think

to support it and no one has anywhere near you know the number of troops we do. Well some countries do but there is China not involved in the sort of thing. I think you know your question raises some other interesting point. The military solution to all problems prove post 9/11. There's no question that the US government has turned even more to the military to take care of the war on terrorism or to take care of terrorism. But I'd like to point out something that the veni said to me once and and and has been repeated by many other people which is his belief that there's no military solution to terrorism. What he meant by that is not you know it is of course you need troops to to try to identify and capture or kill terrorist leaders that you can but that the use of the military is not going to it's not going to hinder the development of new terrorist recruits in the CIA director George Tenent.

And the DIA a Defense Intelligence Agency director Andrew Jacoby told the Senate last week in which they said that you know our big problem we are making head roads in in the terrorist networks and that will remain a problem that has to be a priority. But we have to do something in a nonmilitary sense about these demographic bubbles that we find throughout the world and unfortunately we find them in failed or failing states. They are bubbles of of large youth populations who are on educated have no prospects for the future and who really are open to Islamic fundamentalists like the Taleban and and like. Al Qaeda recruiters who come in offering not only education and clothing but hope of something something to believe in. And unless we try better to understand how those recruited recruits are are recruited and to deal with the

fundamental problems we will never get rid of terrorism and that it is not. It does not. It needs more than a military solution. I think you slightly misunderstood my question No that's the point I'm trying to get at the rest of the world is looking for non military solutions. If anything they're training their military forces to do peacekeeping and to go in and to put out the fire and then to follow up you saw that in Sierra Leone with the French work in the Congo. If we cannot contribute to the solution. And I think the rest the world beginning to think that we cannot as I'm just using one of the Spanish prime minister's remarks. They will not ask us to how and I do I mean what where where can the military go if they don't adapt to what is obviously changes in the world. I just don't think that. I think the French help out in their former colonies. Haiti is a good example of that that's why they're there.

But I don't expect sort of us to be sidelined by by a national or foreign deployment for peacekeeping around the world I just don't think that other countries are are all that much more willing to step into the peacekeeping role without the United States because they need the financial support and they need the acceptance even. You know it's an odd thing that you know France would want the acceptance of the United States for anything at this point but I think that the European and and Western allies they do still value standing together in NATO coalition. And so you know you also see a. So I wouldn't expect people to take a lot of these major cons confrontations on their on in their own. And you've mentioned some of them but those are still kind of the small small fires here and there and

they're pretty should not. Dropped them but I don't think we're going to step back and play a secondary role. I do think and this is a little off your question again but I do think that too I think the United States did miss the the the Bush administration is reaching out in a way that it didn't previously and maybe that's because they realize a little bit late but they realize that the cost of doing this by yourself is a very high not only financially but politically so you saw that when Donald Rumsfeld went to Germany a month ago he did not derive anybody as old Europe and he was trying to be on his best behavior and to say in essence you know we want to be friends again the Europeans as angry as they are at the Americans for going their own way in Iraq. I do think they see their larger interest in having an alliance again. And that's why you

see Nido back into Afghanistan frankly nobody. He wants to be in Afghanistan it's such a hard problem but you do see a NATO's presence growing there you do also see planning by Nido to come in to Iraq and I would not be surprised at all if it's a neato force that places American troops there so part of what our allies were earned. And what I thought the United States had learned was that it is always better to act in cahoots with other people. You know it's a pretty militarily when you're when you have a military force like ours that is so vastly larger and to be more superior than other peoples. But you get a political buy in that will help you when the really hard work comes of rebuilding a country and chances are you can stay there longer you can share the burden and you can defuse some of the anti-American sentiment that has grown up in Iraq. Visa vi and all U.S. force

and who which many people do you see as an occupying force. We're just about five minutes left we have a couple of callers remaining we'll try to get at least one. Champagne County wine wine. Oh yeah that was really a hall of mirrors but I think you're still missing the point of the last caller. The peacekeeping Institute at Carlisle with the work college was summarily dismissed I think and then they say oh we didn't really mean to do that we reconstitute it under another name I believe that's true and I actually don't remember where in the Iraq occupation that happened but the US isn't willing to make an authentic offer of a coalition in fact even the Spanish new Spanish president said that they would stay if if there was an authentic cooperative U.N. approach try to pre-mature this that that they're to say they're unwilling. I mean they've said in recent months that they would like the U.N. to come in and that's a change for them and let Now we're seeing the U.S. you're saying right it would like to come in on their terms basically

it may well be going to be I want to study how to do peacekeeping. That's what you have to see is whether or not they really mean it or not. And and it's too early to tell because it would seem they did learn from some of the mistakes that have been made over the last year in trying to act unilaterally. And certainly they're getting as they did before the war and getting all sorts of people saying you know don't do this alone. And whether they will listen now. I I think there's a better chance because it. It's not turned out the way they thought I thought. I think part of the reason they want to go in by themselves. They thought the war part would be you know easy in the sense that the Iraqi military was not a strong one at all and that the post-school were post-war would be easy because they misjudged it so badly thinking that people would welcome them with open arms and neither need. Well and that didn't happen so now they're stuck. And one of the reasons one of the ways they can get out and I think it's the only way they can get out is

is to lighten the burden by sharing the burden. So I think there's another it's not an altruistic reason. It's a realistic reason for now welcoming the U.N. And you know may still not happen but I think there's a better chance that we'll be coming back to the beginning where you're talking about why this is happening why the State Department is atrophied of her was also you know the I don't remember the Powell quote but we were in search of enemies. We were in search of a role for the U.S. for the U.S. military and I think that was a large part of it at the time of the post-Cold War. And now that we have missions more like war for the for the military to do though I know a lot of military oppose this. This from the beginning which is an ironic twist as well. They didn't want to go in and there were a lot of in fact your Vili your longtime competitor was of was incredibly vocal and of cervical about saying this was a stupid thing to do and it was the wrong war to fight etc. etc.. Anyway I know there's so little time you have to come back and talk about trying to

report on intelligence matters. Oh yeah and then I know you get castigated in the press for having so many anonymous sources and I agree with that. But I am going to be very quite frustrating because nobody will go on record. Well that's the problem. And I think that public. The media is a good thing because the Q Who else is going to really keep us on our toes. You know we try to get those sources too. If they are going to be on the record to at least identify the department they come from. Sometimes it gets so ridiculous you can't even do anything better than you know a U.S. official. But we need to be trying to do that more and I can definitely understand the frustration of people have to read it and try to make sense in the facts. The value of what the quote is if it comes from someone who's only identified as a U.S. official it's in this administration it's particularly bad in that way but in part it's because they're in what they call you know the operational mode which they are in a war

in so many places and they sort of think everything they say is there's much more sensitive because of that. It's not to make an excuse it's just to say I hear the criticism. I try better. And and and it's just it's not always it's not our decision. Well you know I wish we could keep going I'm sure we could go another hour at least but we'll have to let you go at that and suggest to people if they're interested in reading the book that we've been talking about it is now in paperback it's titled The Mission Waging war and keeping peace with America's military by our guest Dana Priest. It's published by WW Norton she's now a reporter while has been for a long time reporter The Washington Post first did cover or we covered for a long time the Pentagon wrote about defense. Now she's writing about intelligence and of course you can read her stories in the post. Mr. Reese thanks very much for talking with us. Thank you my pleasure.