a chilling capacity to strike with great discrimination against target like the un headquarters in baghdad, and almost against the deputy minister of the interior in saudi arabia. we see its reach in the united states today, both direct and indirect. the afghan american arrested by the fbi in colorado demonstrated the direct connection. what happened in fort hood demonstrates the indirect connection of the narrative and the ideology of the global islamic jihad. today the only sustain significant pressure on the al qaeda core comes from between 30,000 and 60,000 feet in the air, from the drones, the predators, and the reapers. the drones are technological marvel, and they have proven highly successful against a limited range of targets and a limited piece of geography. they have come to some extent, and it is hard to know if you are not a member of al qaeda how big that extent is, disrupted al qaeda in recent months. the drones are a tactic, not a strategy. they are like attacking of beehive one be at a time. you are never going to destroy a beehive one bee at a time. it is ironic. eight ye

once you get by your political problem, and we get to baghdad, we will be greeted with cheers and flowers by the population, all this will be past history. you and the president will get the credit they deserve. there was a significant chunk of the administration that was not particularly concerned about the aftermath because they thought it would come out all right overnight. connelly's a rice -- condoleeza rice said, as difficult as it would be emerging -- the trouble with the europeans is that we were to sniffy -- were too sniffy. what'st eh word -- what's the word? condescending of the iraq people, that they were unable to run a democratic system. and i was going to say something else. to answer your question, nothing really changed on that score. >> they remained very optimistic? we did not get into a lot of planning with them. >> we tried. >> did we succeed? >> we did not succeed because they did not have their house in order. >> it never really happened. >> let me finish this point. it sort of happened, but it wasn't enough. in the winter of 2002, interagency teams came to engage t

is also demonstrated to strike with great discrimination against targets like the un headquarters in baghdad and one month ago against the deputy minister of the interior in saudi arabia. we see its reach in the united states today both direct and indirect. the afghan american arrested by the fbi in the colorado demonstrated the direct connection. what happened in fort hood it demonstrated the indirect connection of the narrative and ideology of the global islamic jihad. today the only sustained, significant pressure on the core of qaeda comes from between 30,000-60,000 feet in the air from the grounds of predators and reapers. -- from the drones. the have proven highly successful against a limited range of targets in a limited geography. and have to some extent, and it is hard to know if you are not a member of al qaeda, disrupted. they are a tactic and not a strategy. it is like attacking one bee at a time. it is ironic. eight years after torah borrow, osama bin lawton is the voice we hear -- eight years after tora bora, bin laden is the voice we hear. he could be in the room next door as

confidence in you and have had since i guess we probably met the first time in some remote corner in baghdad or somewhere, you were doing a fantastic job. but what is it that we have the right strategy and the right resources to do? is that to win? >> i believe it is to let the afghan people win. >> okay. and is there an important difference there? we're asking our sons and daughter literally in some cases to go over there and fight, 30,000 more of them. are we asking them to go over and win? >> we're asking to go over and be on the winning team. the reason i parse this is because the afghans are the ultimate winners here. >> i understand that. i think the parsing is interesting because it seems to be consistent that whether it is admiral mullen who i asked whenever we had the last hearing here a few days ago if we were seeking victory and he said, no, it is success. well, i don't understand why we're parsing these words success and victory and win, but it seems to be consistently coming from that table. now, secretary gates reportedly said this weekend, quote, we are in this thing to win, u

headquarters in baghdad and against the deputy minister of interior in saudi arabia. we see its reach in the united states today, both direct and indirect. the afghan american arrested by the f.b.i. in colorado demonstrated the direct connection. what happened in fort hood demonstrates the indirect connection of the global islamic jihad. the only sustained significant pressure on the al qaeda core comes from between 30,000 and 60,000 feet in the air from the drones, the predators. the drones are a technological marvel and they have provenñr highly successful against a limited range of targets in a limited piece of geography. they have, to some extent, and it's hard to know if you're not a member of al qaeda, how big that extent is, disrupting al qaeda in recent months. but drones are a tactic, they're not a strategy. they are like attacking a bee hive one at a time. you will not destroy one bee at a time. it's ironic eight years, osama bin laden is a voice we hear, but virtually invisible man. we have no idea where this man is, that despite the biggest manhunt in his

and these folks, business is not in baghdad. it's out in the countryside. and we'll have to protect them. and we will -- we are seeking the resources necessary to do that. there is a very, very active planning operation regarding iraq in 2012, it's department wide. we're very much a part of it. and that aspect is one of the things that we are -- that we are considering very closely. >> thank you. senator whitehouse? >> one of the things that always bothered me is the lack of planning, the fiasco and a few others. and lucky that toward the end we got our act together. it seems to me that we're doing a much better job of preparing for our mission in afghanistan. do you have a critical path in place? you mentioned that in terms of iraq that who's going to leave say in the green zone and how much is being provided by the military there gone and how are those people going to be taken care of? i don't think very much is said about the number of people that are going to leave in iraq may continue with what prts that we got going there. has somebody really sat down