Excerpt
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): A year from now, July 2011, there has been some -- no small debate in Washington about whether that is a deadline for the beginning to withdraw and it's sending the wrong signal to our allies on the ground there.
From the ground, how are they responding to this idea of even a soft target in July 2011?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE, special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan: Let's be very clear in what the president said and what our policy is.
American and other international combat troops, some will start withdrawing in July of next year, the size and pace and scope to be determined by the president after the review, which will take place at the end of this year.
GWEN IFILL: So, it is conditions-based already, is what you're saying?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Everyone has said that, and I don't need to repeat what the president and the two secretaries of defense and state and others have said, and David Petraeus...
GWEN IFILL: But perhaps you do, because there still seems to be some other misunderstanding.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, I have got be honest with you. If there's a misunderstanding, it may be because the issue has not been correctly represented in the media. For example, I was recently...
GWEN IFILL: Or by Senator John McCain, or by Senator Lindsey Graham, or any number of people on Capitol Hill.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Look, you're talking about people I greatly respect, but they can speak for themselves.
Our position is extremely clear. As the troops draw down, the Afghan security forces will replace them. So -- and, furthermore, as the president and Secretary Clinton have said repeatedly, economic and development assistance will and must continue.
We are not going to repeat the abandonment of Afghanistan that took place in 1989, and which left the country, after the Soviet withdrawal, in a state of collapse, which led to the warlords, which led to the Taliban, which led to 9/11. We cannot afford that.
The American public understands the direct connection between our presence in Afghanistan and our efforts in Pakistan on one hand and our national security on the other.
GWEN IFILL: I do want to ask you about Pakistan. In Pakistan, where you have also spent some time, you have just come from a meeting with President Zardari. And you mentioned this question about relationships with the Taliban. These things are all integrated, and you're the integrating guy.
GWEN IFILL: How do you figure that you can negotiate some sort of agreement? Is that what you're going to do with the Taliban? And are you going to do that with cooperation from Pakistan, or is that something that's separate and apart?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I'm not going to negotiate an agreement with the Taliban.
President Karzai has said that he wishes to have reconciliation programs. He's talked about it. President Obama has announced that we support Afghan-led reconciliation. In my talks in Islamabad and Kabul last week, I put heavy stress on this issue.
In recent weeks and months, almost unnoticed by the American media, there's been an increasing intensity of direct contacts between the governments of Pakistan and the governments of Afghanistan. They haven't come to any final conclusion. Some of the reporting has been quite wild on this.
But the bottom line is that there's a more of a dialogue, encouraged by us. The U.S. is working closely with President Karzai. And the Pakistanis understand what we're doing. I'm not here to say that something very dramatic and secret is going on. But it's out there in plain view. It just hasn't been reported.
General Kayani went to Kabul, barely mentioned in the Western press. President Karzai went to -- not only to Islamabad, but to New Delhi, Beijing, and Washington and Tokyo. These -- these contacts are significantly narrowing the gap, the historic gap, which is over 60 years old, between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Please remember -- and, your viewers, please remember -- that, on the day Pakistan was -- declared independence, Afghanistan opposed its entry into the U.N. in 1947. They have a disputed border. They share a Pashtun ethnic group. There are massive historical issues here.
And President Obama has sought to help the two work together, for the simplest of reasons. If they work together, there's mutual benefit for them and for the rest of the world, because that is the area of the world, that border area, where the greatest threat to our national security, homeland security, and that of our European allies, and India all lie.
And the last few months have seen a real dialogue, encouraged by, but not guided by the U.S. That's what we do. That's what I think should have been done years and years ago, and that the policy I'm part of.
Bold-blue emphasis mine
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