Interview With General David McKiernan

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
NBC
June 16, 2008
NBC Nightly News, 7:00 PM
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Back to Afghanistan now, where we reported from last week. We went there to take a closer look at the U.S.-led war effort there, the one that started, after all, in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks. But these days it is too often called the “Other war” or perhaps even the “Forgotten war” and it’s been a tough go. In the month of May, for the first time ever, American and allied combat deaths were higher in Afghanistan than the monthly loss in Iraq.
And today came word that hundreds of enemy Taliban invaded villages just outside the city of Kandahar just three days after a Taliban attack on Kandahar’s prison freed 400 insurgents.
Because our coverage from Afghanistan was cut short on Friday, we are going to air starting tonight the segments on the U.S. military effort that we’d gone there to work on, starting with our exclusive interview with the new American in charge: four-star U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan. He ran the ground war in Iraq. He’s now running this 40-nation NATO force, and when we spoke in Kabul on Friday, I started out by asking him how he sees this fight progressing.
(Begin videotape.)
GEN. DAVID MCKIERNAN: That’s a tough question because of the complexity of this environment. If I could put a couple of things in context.
WILLIAMS: Please.
MCKIERNAN: When I look around Afghanistan, I see first of all a country where the average age in Afghanistan is less than 20 years old. The average life expectancy is about 43 years old. This country has been in constant conflict, war, for over 30 years. So violence from a variety of historical sources and influences has been a part of the life of Afghanistan for as long as most people can remember.
WILLIAMS: Can you ever be successful in all you’re charged with as long as where we’re sitting is considered, by most level-headed individuals, a narco-state, supplying 91 percent of the world’s opium?
MCKIERNAN: I think that’s one of the great challenges to getting to the right security environment here. I won’t say that that’s impossible to overcome, but it is one of great challenges. The insurgency is one of the great challenges. The issue with a very porous, uncontrolled, unsecure border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan is a challenge.
WILLIAMS: You use the word insurgency, and the last time Americans heard that, they know, was in the Iraq war. What are the similarities and differences in the insurgency here?
MCKIERNAN: I find probably, first of all, it’s very helpful to disassociate Iraq from Afghanistan. I think the environment is much different. The insurgency here comes from a variety of influences. It’s much more than just a religious or ethnic division. A lot of it is fueled by foreign influences, by terrorist organizations, but there’s no one insurgent headquarters that orchestrates all this.
WILLIAMS: A lot of Americans, when they last kind of checked in on this war through news coverage, associate the Taliban with the face of evil here. They associate it chiefly with loss of freedoms and identities for women and girls in Afghanistan. Where do you put the Taliban today? How robust a force is it? How insidious, how dangerous is it to doing your job and to everyday life here in Afghanistan?
MCKIERNAN: In a good part of the country, not in every part of the country, but especially in the east and the southern part of Afghanistan, the terms you used – dangerous, insidious – I would echo that. Resilient, determined. I wouldn’t call them a centralized, coherent command and control.
WILLIAMS: A senior military official recently said to me: I kind of get where we could make a case where Iraq is heading, but Afghanistan, man, that’s the one that bothers me. “I don’t see how that ends,” was his quote. Do you see how this ends, when it ends?
MCKIERNAN: I don’t see when it ends. Our objective is to create a viable Afghan country with governance, with institutions that connect with the people, which are different requirements in different parts of Afghanistan. However, ultimately, strategically we have to look at this region. I think the answer to the question of what’s – you know, what’s the outcome that the world needs in this part of the world, this region, is bigger than Afghanistan.
(End of videotape.)
WILLIAMS: Four-star Gen. David McKiernan, this nation’s commander on the ground in Afghanistan during our conversation with him just three days ago there in Kabul, Afghanistan.
 
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