There Is No Military Solution To The

The Task [in Afghanistan] Is To Reduce Civilian Casualties While Still Not Hesitating To Respond To Enemies Who Are Trying To Kill Our Soldiers.

The First Official Statements Of President Asif Ali Zardari's New Government Have Been Firm And Robust. Pakistan Is Obviously A Renewed Democracy.

I Did A Week-long Assessment In 2005 At (then Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld's Request. Following Our Return, I Told Him That Afghanistan Was Going To Be The Longest Campaign Of What We Then Termed "the Long War."

First And Foremost Is To Not Allow The Reestablishment, If You Will, Of An Extremist Sanctuary That Can Export The Kind Of Terror That Ended Up With Terrorists Taking Down The World Trade Center And Plowing Into The Pentagon And A Field In Pennsylvania. That's The Point: We Started This War Because The Sept. 11 Attack Came From This Area. And We Do Not Fight Alone, But With Some 40 Allies Who Share That View.

The Sunni Arabs Began To Realize That They Had Made A Huge Mistake By Not Voting In The Election Of 2005 And By Not Being Part Of The New Iraq. They Had Reasons For This: They Were Effected By The Disestablishment Of The Military And By De-baathification (the Dismantling Of Saddam Hussein's Party) In Winter 2007-2007. They Increasingly Recognized That Their Future Lay In Being Part Of The Solution Rather Than A Continuing Part Of The Problem.