From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Daniel bolger is here, a retired Lieutenant General of the u. S. Army serving in afghanistan from 20112013, iraq 20052006 and again 20092010. After 35 years of service he , retired from the army in 2013. He wrote a new book released today, veterans day, called why we lost a generals inside account of the iraq and afghanistan war. Im pleased to welcome Daniel Bolger to the table today. That wepropriate salute the men and women who put on the uniform and who went in harms risk. Yes. We must always remember when we talk about the war, one thing we can point to with tried is the sacrifice, the bravery, their skills and courage and the sacrifices made by their family and fellow citizens to keep them there. When men and women go to war, their spouses go to war. Children, too. The title of your book is why we lost an inside account of iraq and afghanistan. Why did we lose . In the simplest term, we took our military and misused it. It was built out of the ashes of the defeat in vietnam and they are built to do short, decisive, violent campaigns against conventional forces with loins, planes, tanks, ships. They are designed in essence to do a desert stormtype operation or kosovo. They are not designed to replicate vietnam. We consciously turned away from that. Didnt we try to learn the lessons from that . Isnt that what postvietnam about . With the leaders i served with, we initiated both wars with that kind of decisive campaign. Afghanistan in 2001 and iraq in 2003. Success sort of on hand us. Their success sort of a undid us. We were so well with how the troops did that we thought may be thought we would fight the insurgency and win, succeed. The iraqis themselves have to want it. We can help them as we are doing now with isis, as we are still in afghanistan. Fight end, it is right to you think they want it bad enough . A good number do. The average people, its a different culture, but they are very much people who want to do things that normal people want to do. Very few of them are these jihad a fanatics. If you dont do something, eventually they skew everything on the wrong direction. The jury is out to see if whether they will be able to rein in control. They are trying. I help. Beyond what went wrong and being well advised to fight those wars in the way that we did and focus on the future, what does a president do . He looks at the advances isil were making and people were telling him they are moving and they are gaining and recruiting around the world. They have a narrative. You better stop them now. Absolutely. Our president has seen that. The presentation he made to the american people, the folks who work for, our citizens and all of us, he said some things that are really important man two of them show we have learned something from the episodes in iraq and afghanistan. One, it will be an iraqi fight. They will take the lead and we will support them. And train them. And provide airpower, logistics help they dont have. The other thing equally important is he said it would not be a fast campaign. It will take a long time. Because they are in the lead, we will move at their speed and it will not be perfect. It will be done their way and there way is not our way. We made a commitment for a lengthy time in the president has correctly and rightly warn all of us that it will not be a quick war. It will not be desert storm. You support what hes done and said so far. I do. It frustrates and does not give the initial satisfaction is probably an indication that its right. Unlike harry truman in korea committing forces there in the 1950s, a lot of people did not even know where korea was. He elected to put those forces in. In the end, although the war resulted in an armistice, we still have a commitment to the Korean Peninsula to this day. Whats americas role in the world today . We remain the predominant power, the superpower. We have a responsibility, clearly, to look after our interests and allies around the world. I think we also have a responsibility, i think, to be clear with ourselves about our limits. We cannot be everything and be everyone. Im reading the opening of the book. I am a United States army general and i lost the war on terrorism. Did we lose or is it incomplete . Looking at the two phases we fought so far, iraq until 2011 and afghanistan until 2014 are lost in the others remain undecided. Its tough to say that. I wish i could come to your tonight and say we are doing ok and it will improve but i dont see it. Those campaigns are complete or almost complete and they failed. Then something good come from that and we do better next time . Absolutely. I know we are continuing operations around the world to chase the remnants of al qaeda. All of those things are positives but we should not kid ourselves that these counterinsurgency campaigns were failures. Iraq and afghanistan were failures. As a u. S. Led insurgency. Was it a failure to go into iraq . The initial invasion . It was something we looked at and now looking at the end the intelligence people may argue otherwise. Its difficult to tell. Just as recently as the last few weeks, the New York Times pointed out there were quite a few chemical weapons although degraded, on the ground. One thing we do know about saddam hussein, whether he had workable chemical weapons, he massacred his own people, invaded his neighbors including iran and kuwait. He was a bad actor committing bad things responsible for the deaths of probably at least one million people. Once we went in, we had to do the job properly. Where we made the mistake as we did not settle for good enough. We did not let the locals take the fight to do with it could to run their countries. In iraq, everyone looks back and says it was a mistake to disband the iraqi army. A mistake to take the effort to take saddam husseins party and eliminate anyone who had ever been a member of the party as an effective force of government. You are exactly right. Those were the educated people, the technocrats you needed to run the power plants and keep the cities going and looked after in the hospital. To a degree, the Iraqi Armed Forces had already disbanded themselves. The great sir john keegan already wrote about that in his book. We would have already had to call them together by the time we got to baghdad. Some of those people are fighting with isis now. They are. Displaced members of the sunni arab minority that were saddams people. That is absolutely one of the components of isis. In your book and the point you raise in the column, this surge that has so been applauded by David Petraeus and the decision made by the president against all odds that we would pour more troops in there, the conventional wisdom . I would tell you the conventional wisdom is incorrect. What is the nature of the enemy you are fighting . It is a guerrilla and many enemy. What happened in both iraq and afghanistan when we surged, immediate activity died down and they went to ground. As we drew forces down, enemy retreats and we advance. That is what mousey tongue told the guerrillas years ago in china. That is what mao told them in china and it is still sound. Isis is the natural result of the end of the surge. By their nature, they are temporary. They did not need a surge of u. S. Troops but a longterm commitment that we would support them in their fight there. There is an argument that the isis and development has in part been because they found in syria and find sanctuary grow and get combat skills. , absolutely. There is no doubt that they want sanctuary in serious served that even when we were fighting there and today pakistan. Pakistan serve that before and now. Absolutely. That is one thing the Guerrilla Force needs to survive, a sanctuary. In the current strategy, it looks like the Obama Administration will try to address that sanctuary. How effective it will be remains to be seen. The surge in iraq was a mistake . Conventional wisdom is wrong . That is what you say. I do think that. The problem is we were trying to judge too close to the event. It did to certainly depress the number of enemy attacks. It took place at the time of the awakening as well. That is right. Where the sunni arabs split away from al qaeda in the enemy camp to come to our side. All of those were temporary effects. After you run out of aspirin do, its not the underlying disease. When the president of the United States in 2000 a does a huge and long review and decides to have the surge in afghanistan that was absolutely a mistake. Youre doing the third u. S. Led counterinsurgency. Vietnam, iraq, but there appeared to be this amelioration because of the surge. In the aftermath of that, as all obamaents are, president armed with the best information he can get in the best military advice and decides to surge into afghanistan and it was a mistake. In all cases, the local people must take the lead in a counterinsurgency. How many people in the military said to the president not to surge . None that im aware of and i was in a position to know a good many of them. Where were you at the time . I was serving in iraq, a Division Commander in baghdad but my job after that, i was in the army staff as operations chief. All of the implementation surge, i was there for that. And nobody stepped up to say mr. President dont do this . , not the chairman of the joint chiefs, not the chief of staff of the army, the marines, or the navy . For the afghan surge. The iraq surge was a different story, as you know. The theater commander, the incoming secretary of defense gates all recommended against that. And george bush when ahead with it. David to trace petraeus the designated commander. And in most analysis of David Petraeus leadership in iraq, thats where he gets the most credit. And he should. His responsible for everything the unit does or fails to do. He was in knots tending figure but its noteworthy came into afghanistan after Stanley Mcchrystal and had to oversee that. The majority of the troops arrived. Not such good results there. Is there an opinion in the army things might have been different if Stanley Mcchrystal had stayed . There was no doubt that stan had the vision on how to fight this network of terrorist enemies. Some things that most people in america dont know but they should is stan was the guy who organized our special forces for manhunts in iraq. And later afghanistan and other parts of the world we dont need to talk about what stan was that visionary and he did that. The only got about a year in command in afghanistan. His ideas were just going into effect. He had an unfortunate runin with Michael Hastings of rolling stone. They said some things they should not have. The president rightly said i cannot have that for my field commanders. We lost him. A very skilled guy. And he had a relationship with karzai. He was a special forces officer and understood the local people needed to have a leading role. The afghans had to fight the afghan war. And getting them to do that to minimize as much corruption as you could. Do it you could. Im struck no one was saying this. You just heard this in chuck todd with that conversation, the kept asking the military for another option in the options that were presented small, medium, and large but always a troop increase. What it says to me, and this is where i wrote the damning statement about losing the war, what it says to me is we have a degree of arrogance we the military . We the senior leadership. To some degree it reflects our country. Its a degree where we think because our soldiers are so good and our equipment is great, training is great, we are confident on our ability to fight or win any type of battle that we can do anything. If you give us a task, we will figure out a way to solve it. Some problems are not solvable by military force. An insurgency by its nature draws strength from foreign troops in the country. The less foreign troops, the more chance you have to defeat that insurgency. What would a general bolger do about isis . I would recommend to the president my best advice would be in line with what we are doing, and measured u. S. Response filling in what they dont have been preparing for a long struggle. With american advisers on the ground longterm . Yes, but a small number. 10,000 . Or less, about what we have now. Whatever it would take. We know we are doing this wrong if you see u. S. Battalions, u. S. Regiment going into battle, they will dissipate and go away like the guerillas they are and wait us out. Mission creep possible . Its always possible. Theres a clock that runs in washington and its different than the clock in the theater because people once the results. They feel the pressure to get it is back to how our military is designed for rapid, decisive action. There is a natural perception from the american people. You put our sons and daughters at risk. How long will this last . Hopefully congress will pick it up with hearings in a formal vote where we decide. Yes, we will stick with this. If we say no, thats fine but let the public be heard. Since youve retired, what are you doing . I teach at North Carolina state university. I teach those great young men and women there. What do you teach . Military history. The book is called why we lost. Daniel bolger also has a column, the truth about the wars, when we have just been talking about. He is a retired Lieutenant General of the United States army. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Basetrack live is a multimedia theater work drying on the experience of your screens deployed in afghanistan. It lays at the Brooklyn Academy of music or november 15. It comes to bam including outreach to veterans communities. Heres is a look at the opening sequence. Bravo Company Second platoon. Im from indiana. Im 21. I was in newport news, virginia. One a bravo company, second platoon. Its in my blood. My name is Corporal Sean smith. First platoon 81. Captain john campbell, bravo company. Richard gilligan. Lance corporal. [cross talk] lance corporal. Bravo Company First platoon. Im squad point man. I was at the front. No question about it, we are the best. My name is aj czubai. I grew up in fort worth and im United States marine. Joining me now for a conversation about basetrack live is Anne Hamburger and Edward Bilous on the Juilliard School and aj czubai a former marine who served in iraq and afghanistan. It is based on his story. Im pleased to have them all at the table for the first time. Welcome. What is basetrack live . Its a multimedia experience about the impact of war on veterans and their families derived from reallife interviews with a marine unit in afghanistan, marine unit 18 and their families, mothers, wives. There is an electroacoustic score composed by two other composers that runs throughout. It really centers on the impact of war not just on the guys who served but their families as well. How did it come about . A few years ago i went to see an exhibition that was produced by google from the streaming museum then i saw this extraordinary collection of photographs taken by a group of young photojournalists who were embedded with the 18 marines and it included portraits of the marines, the local afghanis and video and some images of the war itself. I later learned these photojournalists had some difficulty getting their images published. Most of the american magazines were not interested in running articles about the afghan war and they were not really selling and perhaps a readership was not so interested so they created a website and a blog called basetrack. Org. They posted their photos and stories there. More importantly, they started a forum that allowed the marines and their families to communicate online and amazingly in a very short time, that for forum received over 5 million hits and became one of the primary ways in which the marines and their families were communicating with each other. What i learned about all of this, i realized there was a much bigger story here in a much bigger import and social message that needed to be brought to life. I thought the arts was the best way to do it. The message is . The nature of war is changing. The way we start and involve ourselves in wars is changing. The way marines communique, the theway maintenance way marines communicate. The way we engage in those environments is changing. Years ago, a soldier would leave home, kiss his wife goodbye, get on the bus and would be gone for a long time. Now, theres levels of communication in which they are existing in two or three realities at the same time. They are extended over a long time when we are not exactly sure when things begin or end because of the complications of media. All of this is reflective of a very different world we live in, a very different paradigm for making art. How does it feel for you . Extremely surreal. I went to go see basetrack live when they came to austin. I reside in texas. Just seeing all of my brothers up there on the screen. I remember that. I know him. It was just really surreal. It took my words away. One of the pivotal scenes is when your wife gives birth . I was in the middle of the Mojave Desert at the time and i was listening on a speakerphone. That was one of the very first times, the first of many things that i was not there for my family because of the military i joined. I knew it was a strong possibility that if i ever chose to have a family while i was in, it was really rough. Some days it still bothers me. You went through a transformation. I did. Not just then, but obviously going as a train marine and then actually going over there getting in combat, being wounded. It changes you. Unfortunately, the change does not stop there. Once you come home, you have to remember how to be a civilian again. Its a grueling battle, it really is. Whats the story . We picked ajs story. We conducted over four dozen interviews by phone and it was very difficult to narrow down. We picked his story because in some ways hes like the everyman. When entertainment deals with the issues of war, it is either sensationalized or victimized. We felt very strongly we wanted to do neither. Aj is someone who enlisted and served, got wounded and came back and is doing very well. But he struggled. For a very long time. We wanted it to be a realistic portrayal. The vets w