Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On In Bed With Wall S

If you look at the track record between the action by the people at treasury or the Federal Reserve first do no harm. There is a lot of harm done with the longstanding impact a large part of our country says lift justice is misdirected then it is ultimately denied. With all due respect to mr. Shapiro you should get a failing grade. The. One of the issues we are very concerned about with congressional oversight when do you think with winding going to the box is see will anything change . There is always held. Hope. Can he rally to support . It takes more than one. I also think that the change where it to freely comes from is get t. These issues in to the public every nestle it creates public pressure on others that they start to get it out there. That is one of the motivations for be to write this book. The stock act was only after 60 minutes this embarrassing expos say they start to get it out there regrettably they brought the stock back a little bit that is unfortunate but transparency is a great disinfectant. These issues need to get into the public arena. I am motivated to bring these did have the highest level for no other reason they and a small percentage of people who would not appreciate the 310 Million People would have a real appreciation and. Perhaps there are disinterested observers but to a hundred 80 Million People. If we get 280 Million People we could create real change. Based on your expertise and knowledge of the past quarter your top two performers lucky into the future . Great question. There are 43 forms laid out chapter 12 i cannot say what is going on not allow them the opportunity we have a chance for something better. Of those 14 what are the top two . I would like to end the too big to fail model. That takes a while but with specific reform we need was sold well were protection. For the fed to Chill Services industry have that serve as a model for other parts of the government so perhaps edwards noted would not feel he has to go public because if i go to the of whistleblower protection to get people action in. With the stories that i highlight that were abused or intimidated or fired with some very significant cases to have a Material Impact of the market. A phenomenal story of American Hero if he had been allowed to reach his insidertrading case 2005 that it would have had a Significant Impact on wall street. , to see the office of was a floor protection to allow for the processing of that bottles up the Justice Department to the effort rand there is a case here peter work to compliance at jpmorgan and blues of whistle of after hours trading case. His identity implies violated by sec attorneys. How does that work . He was clearly tried to bury him with the general counsels office said jpmorgan and the other thing is we have the sec was named in confidence i personally seek a selfregulatory model the idea that Goldman Sachs are jpmorgan will aggressively regulates to be on its face, but, long look at the statistics they call them peter graves for avery said for the revenue generated in the industry that the finds that Phaedra Finra imposes there is a reason you want to be self regulated but that doesnt help to have trust or confidence so the regulatory model doesnt work and i personally would like to see the federal financial placatory review board. Looked at cities around the country and have been as. What happens they have private citizens who are concerned for the Public Interest to form a committee to oversee the Police Department it is run in the Ethical Fashion but given the track record of our by to tell regulators i would like to see a review board implemented. But we have just done that we implemented the for initial stability and that they will oversee the regulators. The problem with that disable fox is in the henhouse so again a massive conflict of interest. It looks good on the surface but how was implemented during challenging times . You have a primary interests with those entities. Looking at 12 individuals these are real statesmen. Not one Political Party or another but if we went to the individually would you give us three years of your time to implement this review board people like sheila bair, william black, a bill isaac gedaliah pity and these are credible people. The professor at Tufts University who has industry experience. Of aware without care coming get these people to come in and hold them accountable. Real accountability to get back toward trust and confidence. Wall street the last five years has seen volume so so with the different sectors over 50 percent. The stocks are trading very well that wall street is the oligopoly. That is problematic you have just a small handful of firms. What about a situation like that . You dont have accessibility said you have periodic bouts of market manipulation and collusion. It just happens with there is only two other guys involved they talk to each other so that breaks up the too big to fail model we need to get back to put it glasssteagall the focal role was a distraction the full Parole Committee banks were the only ones. But just a followup based on your experience can be remade optimistic tubal street . , wall street is filled overwhelmingly with good people. Americano will look at that to say wall street, the broad brush, the bad guys. Overwhelmingly they have good people but in my opinion this system is broken in the system of oversight, people with all street are negatively impacted but overwhelmingly good people who do a good job if we kim brink transparency to the regulatory process we have to get the cronyism out. This is not more regulation or less regulation on capitol hill the money will stop flowing we will start to represent the publics interest get the cronyism about ned you will see capital start to flow. It will flow would it is protected. It does take time. These are aggressive mashers but what about there i will consider this book a success if this creates dialogue that is all i want. To that end they q for being here i appreciate your interest to spread though ford about the book so ultimately the public benefits. Think you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] use] [applause] secretary gatesal [applause] y secretaryou gates i want to stake you fo r being your in light of your injury you are making a robust recovery nd we thank you so much f king but wearing a us. Until i became a secretary of defense i have never broken a bone or had a surgery. [laughter] february 2008, i fell on the ice and broke his shoulder in three places and 10 months later a snow plow blade on the tractor and my security guards came to the conclusion that al qaeda was no risk to me at all compared to myself. [laughter] and before we start i would like to say that it is good to be back here at the senate and also to apologize to the audience on my right for not turning in your direction. But the result of a broken neck is somewhat limited mobility of my head. Well, that being said, lets get to your book. I found it a striking account duty gave what i would call a great thing. And you had a lot of help from the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton as you and other top members wrestled with the difficulties on the ground in afghanistan and i would like to talk to you about this at some length, about your impressions of president obama. Before we get into that, i would like to focus on a part of the book that hasnt gotten that much attention but which i think is equally important. And that is your description of the situation in the government and the white house when he took over as secretary of defense in 2006. You described a dire situation in iraq. American troops are dying at increasing rates. With the insurgents that are gathering force, there is extreme explosive sectarian violence and no apparent plan on the part of the United States government for coping with that. The take away from that part of the book is that we had not planned properly for the occupation. And that that, indeed, it never occurred to military planners that we might be there as long as we had. So why were we so mistaken by that point . Why we miss that . One of the concluding sections of the book is in effect on Lessons Learned about war. And one of the things that you would think people would understand would be how frequently people who advocate going to war and who make decisions to go to war almost always are convinced that the war is going to be short. This year will celebrate the centenary of world war i, which is a classic example of where everybody thought the war would be over by october or november of 1914. The problem in iraq in particular and it really is true of iraq and afghanistan, that what began as swift military victory is quickly degenerated into long and grinding wars. In the case of iraq, it was always believed that it would be a shortterm commitment. And i think it would be interesting to ask those who are participants in the decisionmaking had they known in march 2003 that the country would be at war in iraq for six or seven more years, whether they would have made the decision. They did. This assumption that the war would be short but at the end was right around the corner afflicted the department of defense as badly as it did the decisionmakers themselves. And because they assumed the war would be over quickly, there was a great reluctance to spend significant sums of money on equipment that might be needed to protect the troops but that might be useful only in iraq or afghanistan and as i describe in the book the department of defense has organized a plan for war and not to wage war. So the services dedicate all of their efforts to developing their longrange procurement plans and then defending those plans in the budget process regardless of what comes along. And people were reluctant, for example, to find developing funds that save so many lives because that particular kind of vehicle was not in any plan for the army or the marine corps. I would like to ask you about that. To me that the military planners inside the beltway, they did not adjust to changing situations. The fact that also after the initial invasion it was just a series of stunningly bad decisions and mistakes. I would like to read a portion of the book, a situation that came across to me as scandalous. And i say this also because theres quite a bit of praise on president bush on his. And i think that your critique of the president and the much reported critiques of president obama have missed the point and that they are part of a larger fabric and evaluation, which is much more nuanced and we have gotten so far. But let me talk about what i think is a scandalous situation. A fundamentally flawed and assumption from the outset that the iraq war would be a short one and cause many problems on the ground and for the troops as well. As the month stretch in two years, he never claimed to their original sanctions and seem unwilling to provide the troops everything they need for the protection and success and in their mission and to bring them home safely. If wanted to provide them with the very best of care. Who wants to spend precious dollars on equipment for todays troops . That would otherwise just be surplus. So for years, our troops traveled in vehicles like humvees, the modern equivalent of the jeep. But we are vulnerable to it with rocket propelled grenades and explosives projectiles. So people why did they not respond to casualties that are increasing . What we were doing was not working. Were they not visiting the country . Were they getting bad that information . And why was there bureaucratic resistance . I think as i indicated earlier i think that they kept thinking the end of the war was right around the corner throughout 2006 and the commander in the field until the fall of 2006, our commander in baghdad was still planning to draw down from 15 to 10 brigades by the end of 2006 and only realized toward the end of that wouldnt be possible. The first person that i think seriously concluded that the strategy wasnt working was president bush. And i think that that happened probably in the late spring or early summer of 2006 and there are several different reviews launched for the most important one, which is probably led by the National Security council staff, which would then lead to the president s decision to search the troops to get control of the security situation particularly in baghdad. This is a case and i have pointed it out and it has been presented mostly in a negative light. But i dont think it is a negative consideration. This was the civilian leadership that decided the strategy wasnt working. Not the military. And so when bush decided support the iraq surge, he was opposed by the joint chiefs of staff and the chairman of the joint chiefs and the theater commander in the commander in baghdad. You can hardly characterize that as a brilliant insight. Many have turned against them because they were not doing well there. So why did the generals come on everyone else had decided that this was not going well . I wish i had an explanation for now. I wasnt there. I think that they i think they have concluded that their view was that more troops would aggravate the situation rather than help it. Including responsibility for their own security and that it would and that the iraqis were expecting to see a reduced u. S. Presence is not an increasing one you okay, you write in the book that the general famously predicted that a congressional hearing that an occupation wouldve required and this is before the invasion in march of 2000. At an occupation would require hundreds of thousands of troops. Would that have been a better approach . I think that the initial, it goes back these are the mistakes after the original invasion. Had the iraqi invasion not been disbanded, which was a catastrophic mistake, from men who didnt know anything else, into the civilian economy with no support for their part of this. If those troops, if we had done our best to keep the iraqi army coherent and with different leadership, then you probably would not have seen the looting that took place in baghdad and elsewhere. Including violence that became so bad by 2006. So the number of troops required after the invasion in part dependent upon in iraq. I said in a speech of may of 2003 just six weeks after the invasion that now that we had overthrown saddam hussein, it reminded me of the situation where the dog catches the car and i said at the time we that we have more than 100,000 troops in iraq for more than a few months, we will be in serious trouble. And i said that i thought the political end of different decisions have been made and not period under the original invasion, they might have had ended up with what they did and people seem unwilling to say that that was a really stupid decision. I write in the book that its like no one ever wrote a book about this and the fact that if he ran the local power plant used to be a member of the party in the same thing in iraq. You have to be a member of the party if you were a schoolteacher. So does being oblivious to those kinds of things does lead to some amazingly stupid decisions. And it wasnt just a matter of the military infrastructure being dissolved but this as well, which i think is disappeared overnight. It goes to this. Secretary rumsfeld said famously to a soldier that this is true. And what i add is that you better make it into the army as fast as you can. And that is what i think we did not know. I have to ask you this. You mention this mentioned this and i think that i have this right. That your good friend i think it was the First Bush Administration that opposed the invasion in iraq. And im wondering, you never really address that issue as far as you are concerned. Have you been asked a part of these, would you have supported this . In the last chapter, sort of summing up a reflection that i dont know and its hard for me to say what i would have advocated in 2003. Like a lot of people in the congress and most other countries in the world, initially they all accepted this and that is how the u. N. Security council got past with even russia and china. And so in that speech that i reviewed two, i supported the original decision and so i say in the book toward the end that, you know, i had argued strongly against going to baghdad in 1991 in the First World War because that would have meant to overthrow the regime and to get saddam would have meant occupying two thirds of iraq and then it would be our problem. Until we were unanimous in the First Bush Administration in opposing the idea and we took a lot of grief for it or not part of this. We cannot get the criticism after march of 2003 anymore. But i argued maybe i wouldve made the same argument that i did in 1991 about going to baghdad. I also might have been far more skeptical because of my intelligence back then and the intelligence case that he had weapons of mass destruction and others were around the on the table this because i have a pretty good view and intelligence capability. And so to be honest i think it is hard for me to say what i wouldve advocated in 2003 with 10 years of hindsight. Can you talk about your effort to get these vehicles for the troops in iraq . You are surprised to learn that there were these vehicles and developments in these mine resistant ambush and so how did you get that . A noted that senator biden was a target of much of your criticism. Yes, and i give him credit for it. And actually it is a lesson that i tried to hammer home to the military leaders with when they read criticism in newspapers want to go into eight defensive mode but to find out whether the newspaper series in the Washington Post had put me on to the problem of Wounded Warriors and let me to fire the secretary of the army. He was a newspaper story that i first read about this. And the marines had about 300 vehicles and he was riding in one of these vehicles. And i wanted to buy these things in large numbers. And so i basically said, well, we are going to do it. And this is one place that im very critical of the congress in this book are that this is the one place that they did the right thing and we ended up buying 27,000 of these vehicles for iraq and afghanistan. When i first visited the Federal Reserve<\/a> first do no harm. There is a lot of harm done with the longstanding impact a large part of our country says lift justice is misdirected then it is ultimately denied. With all due respect to mr. Shapiro you should get a failing grade. The. One of the issues we are very concerned about with congressional oversight when do you think with winding going to the box is see will anything change . There is always held. Hope. Can he rally to support . It takes more than one. I also think that the change where it to freely comes from is get t. These issues in to the public every nestle it creates public pressure on others that they start to get it out there. That is one of the motivations for be to write this book. The stock act was only after 60 minutes this embarrassing expos say they start to get it out there regrettably they brought the stock back a little bit that is unfortunate but transparency is a great disinfectant. These issues need to get into the public arena. I am motivated to bring these did have the highest level for no other reason they and a small percentage of people who would not appreciate the 310 Million People<\/a> would have a real appreciation and. Perhaps there are disinterested observers but to a hundred 80 Million People<\/a>. If we get 280 Million People<\/a> we could create real change. Based on your expertise and knowledge of the past quarter your top two performers lucky into the future . Great question. There are 43 forms laid out chapter 12 i cannot say what is going on not allow them the opportunity we have a chance for something better. Of those 14 what are the top two . I would like to end the too big to fail model. That takes a while but with specific reform we need was sold well were protection. For the fed to Chill Services<\/a> industry have that serve as a model for other parts of the government so perhaps edwards noted would not feel he has to go public because if i go to the of whistleblower protection to get people action in. With the stories that i highlight that were abused or intimidated or fired with some very significant cases to have a Material Impact<\/a> of the market. A phenomenal story of American Hero<\/a> if he had been allowed to reach his insidertrading case 2005 that it would have had a Significant Impact<\/a> on wall street. , to see the office of was a floor protection to allow for the processing of that bottles up the Justice Department<\/a> to the effort rand there is a case here peter work to compliance at jpmorgan and blues of whistle of after hours trading case. His identity implies violated by sec attorneys. How does that work . He was clearly tried to bury him with the general counsels office said jpmorgan and the other thing is we have the sec was named in confidence i personally seek a selfregulatory model the idea that Goldman Sachs<\/a> are jpmorgan will aggressively regulates to be on its face, but, long look at the statistics they call them peter graves for avery said for the revenue generated in the industry that the finds that Phaedra Finra<\/a> imposes there is a reason you want to be self regulated but that doesnt help to have trust or confidence so the regulatory model doesnt work and i personally would like to see the federal financial placatory review board. Looked at cities around the country and have been as. What happens they have private citizens who are concerned for the Public Interest<\/a> to form a committee to oversee the Police Department<\/a> it is run in the Ethical Fashion<\/a> but given the track record of our by to tell regulators i would like to see a review board implemented. But we have just done that we implemented the for initial stability and that they will oversee the regulators. The problem with that disable fox is in the henhouse so again a massive conflict of interest. It looks good on the surface but how was implemented during challenging times . You have a primary interests with those entities. Looking at 12 individuals these are real statesmen. Not one Political Party<\/a> or another but if we went to the individually would you give us three years of your time to implement this review board people like sheila bair, william black, a bill isaac gedaliah pity and these are credible people. The professor at Tufts University<\/a> who has industry experience. Of aware without care coming get these people to come in and hold them accountable. Real accountability to get back toward trust and confidence. Wall street the last five years has seen volume so so with the different sectors over 50 percent. The stocks are trading very well that wall street is the oligopoly. That is problematic you have just a small handful of firms. What about a situation like that . You dont have accessibility said you have periodic bouts of market manipulation and collusion. It just happens with there is only two other guys involved they talk to each other so that breaks up the too big to fail model we need to get back to put it glasssteagall the focal role was a distraction the full Parole Committee<\/a> banks were the only ones. But just a followup based on your experience can be remade optimistic tubal street . , wall street is filled overwhelmingly with good people. Americano will look at that to say wall street, the broad brush, the bad guys. Overwhelmingly they have good people but in my opinion this system is broken in the system of oversight, people with all street are negatively impacted but overwhelmingly good people who do a good job if we kim brink transparency to the regulatory process we have to get the cronyism out. This is not more regulation or less regulation on capitol hill the money will stop flowing we will start to represent the publics interest get the cronyism about ned you will see capital start to flow. It will flow would it is protected. It does take time. These are aggressive mashers but what about there i will consider this book a success if this creates dialogue that is all i want. To that end they q for being here i appreciate your interest to spread though ford about the book so ultimately the public benefits. Think you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] use] [applause] secretary gatesal [applause] y secretaryou gates i want to stake you fo r being your in light of your injury you are making a robust recovery nd we thank you so much f king but wearing a us. Until i became a secretary of defense i have never broken a bone or had a surgery. [laughter] february 2008, i fell on the ice and broke his shoulder in three places and 10 months later a snow plow blade on the tractor and my security guards came to the conclusion that al qaeda was no risk to me at all compared to myself. [laughter] and before we start i would like to say that it is good to be back here at the senate and also to apologize to the audience on my right for not turning in your direction. But the result of a broken neck is somewhat limited mobility of my head. Well, that being said, lets get to your book. I found it a striking account duty gave what i would call a great thing. And you had a lot of help from the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton<\/a> as you and other top members wrestled with the difficulties on the ground in afghanistan and i would like to talk to you about this at some length, about your impressions of president obama. Before we get into that, i would like to focus on a part of the book that hasnt gotten that much attention but which i think is equally important. And that is your description of the situation in the government and the white house when he took over as secretary of defense in 2006. You described a dire situation in iraq. American troops are dying at increasing rates. With the insurgents that are gathering force, there is extreme explosive sectarian violence and no apparent plan on the part of the United States<\/a> government for coping with that. The take away from that part of the book is that we had not planned properly for the occupation. And that that, indeed, it never occurred to military planners that we might be there as long as we had. So why were we so mistaken by that point . Why we miss that . One of the concluding sections of the book is in effect on Lessons Learned<\/a> about war. And one of the things that you would think people would understand would be how frequently people who advocate going to war and who make decisions to go to war almost always are convinced that the war is going to be short. This year will celebrate the centenary of world war i, which is a classic example of where everybody thought the war would be over by october or november of 1914. The problem in iraq in particular and it really is true of iraq and afghanistan, that what began as swift military victory is quickly degenerated into long and grinding wars. In the case of iraq, it was always believed that it would be a shortterm commitment. And i think it would be interesting to ask those who are participants in the decisionmaking had they known in march 2003 that the country would be at war in iraq for six or seven more years, whether they would have made the decision. They did. This assumption that the war would be short but at the end was right around the corner afflicted the department of defense as badly as it did the decisionmakers themselves. And because they assumed the war would be over quickly, there was a great reluctance to spend significant sums of money on equipment that might be needed to protect the troops but that might be useful only in iraq or afghanistan and as i describe in the book the department of defense has organized a plan for war and not to wage war. So the services dedicate all of their efforts to developing their longrange procurement plans and then defending those plans in the budget process regardless of what comes along. And people were reluctant, for example, to find developing funds that save so many lives because that particular kind of vehicle was not in any plan for the army or the marine corps. I would like to ask you about that. To me that the military planners inside the beltway, they did not adjust to changing situations. The fact that also after the initial invasion it was just a series of stunningly bad decisions and mistakes. I would like to read a portion of the book, a situation that came across to me as scandalous. And i say this also because theres quite a bit of praise on president bush on his. And i think that your critique of the president and the much reported critiques of president obama have missed the point and that they are part of a larger fabric and evaluation, which is much more nuanced and we have gotten so far. But let me talk about what i think is a scandalous situation. A fundamentally flawed and assumption from the outset that the iraq war would be a short one and cause many problems on the ground and for the troops as well. As the month stretch in two years, he never claimed to their original sanctions and seem unwilling to provide the troops everything they need for the protection and success and in their mission and to bring them home safely. If wanted to provide them with the very best of care. Who wants to spend precious dollars on equipment for todays troops . That would otherwise just be surplus. So for years, our troops traveled in vehicles like humvees, the modern equivalent of the jeep. But we are vulnerable to it with rocket propelled grenades and explosives projectiles. So people why did they not respond to casualties that are increasing . What we were doing was not working. Were they not visiting the country . Were they getting bad that information . And why was there bureaucratic resistance . I think as i indicated earlier i think that they kept thinking the end of the war was right around the corner throughout 2006 and the commander in the field until the fall of 2006, our commander in baghdad was still planning to draw down from 15 to 10 brigades by the end of 2006 and only realized toward the end of that wouldnt be possible. The first person that i think seriously concluded that the strategy wasnt working was president bush. And i think that that happened probably in the late spring or early summer of 2006 and there are several different reviews launched for the most important one, which is probably led by the National Security<\/a> council staff, which would then lead to the president s decision to search the troops to get control of the security situation particularly in baghdad. This is a case and i have pointed it out and it has been presented mostly in a negative light. But i dont think it is a negative consideration. This was the civilian leadership that decided the strategy wasnt working. Not the military. And so when bush decided support the iraq surge, he was opposed by the joint chiefs of staff and the chairman of the joint chiefs and the theater commander in the commander in baghdad. You can hardly characterize that as a brilliant insight. Many have turned against them because they were not doing well there. So why did the generals come on everyone else had decided that this was not going well . I wish i had an explanation for now. I wasnt there. I think that they i think they have concluded that their view was that more troops would aggravate the situation rather than help it. Including responsibility for their own security and that it would and that the iraqis were expecting to see a reduced u. S. Presence is not an increasing one you okay, you write in the book that the general famously predicted that a congressional hearing that an occupation wouldve required and this is before the invasion in march of 2000. At an occupation would require hundreds of thousands of troops. Would that have been a better approach . I think that the initial, it goes back these are the mistakes after the original invasion. Had the iraqi invasion not been disbanded, which was a catastrophic mistake, from men who didnt know anything else, into the civilian economy with no support for their part of this. If those troops, if we had done our best to keep the iraqi army coherent and with different leadership, then you probably would not have seen the looting that took place in baghdad and elsewhere. Including violence that became so bad by 2006. So the number of troops required after the invasion in part dependent upon in iraq. I said in a speech of may of 2003 just six weeks after the invasion that now that we had overthrown saddam hussein, it reminded me of the situation where the dog catches the car and i said at the time we that we have more than 100,000 troops in iraq for more than a few months, we will be in serious trouble. And i said that i thought the political end of different decisions have been made and not period under the original invasion, they might have had ended up with what they did and people seem unwilling to say that that was a really stupid decision. I write in the book that its like no one ever wrote a book about this and the fact that if he ran the local power plant used to be a member of the party in the same thing in iraq. You have to be a member of the party if you were a schoolteacher. So does being oblivious to those kinds of things does lead to some amazingly stupid decisions. And it wasnt just a matter of the military infrastructure being dissolved but this as well, which i think is disappeared overnight. It goes to this. Secretary rumsfeld said famously to a soldier that this is true. And what i add is that you better make it into the army as fast as you can. And that is what i think we did not know. I have to ask you this. You mention this mentioned this and i think that i have this right. That your good friend i think it was the First Bush Administration<\/a> that opposed the invasion in iraq. And im wondering, you never really address that issue as far as you are concerned. Have you been asked a part of these, would you have supported this . In the last chapter, sort of summing up a reflection that i dont know and its hard for me to say what i would have advocated in 2003. Like a lot of people in the congress and most other countries in the world, initially they all accepted this and that is how the u. N. Security council got past with even russia and china. And so in that speech that i reviewed two, i supported the original decision and so i say in the book toward the end that, you know, i had argued strongly against going to baghdad in 1991 in the First World War<\/a> because that would have meant to overthrow the regime and to get saddam would have meant occupying two thirds of iraq and then it would be our problem. Until we were unanimous in the First Bush Administration<\/a> in opposing the idea and we took a lot of grief for it or not part of this. We cannot get the criticism after march of 2003 anymore. But i argued maybe i wouldve made the same argument that i did in 1991 about going to baghdad. I also might have been far more skeptical because of my intelligence back then and the intelligence case that he had weapons of mass destruction and others were around the on the table this because i have a pretty good view and intelligence capability. And so to be honest i think it is hard for me to say what i wouldve advocated in 2003 with 10 years of hindsight. Can you talk about your effort to get these vehicles for the troops in iraq . You are surprised to learn that there were these vehicles and developments in these mine resistant ambush and so how did you get that . A noted that senator biden was a target of much of your criticism. Yes, and i give him credit for it. And actually it is a lesson that i tried to hammer home to the military leaders with when they read criticism in newspapers want to go into eight defensive mode but to find out whether the newspaper series in the Washington Post<\/a> had put me on to the problem of Wounded Warriors<\/a> and let me to fire the secretary of the army. He was a newspaper story that i first read about this. And the marines had about 300 vehicles and he was riding in one of these vehicles. And i wanted to buy these things in large numbers. And so i basically said, well, we are going to do it. And this is one place that im very critical of the congress in this book are that this is the one place that they did the right thing and we ended up buying 27,000 of these vehicles for iraq and afghanistan. When i first visited the Army Burn Unit<\/a> at the dick Army Hospital<\/a> in san antonio is absolutely full because most of those young men had been in humvees that had blown up and became part of them. By the time that i was within six months, the burn unit was nearly empty and so ultimately everybody came around to the fact that this is a good idea and looks good on that probably because i said so. The secretary of defense and there was a lot of opposition and again because these vehicles were not in anyones longterm procurement plan. They were more worried about what they would do with them after the war and what good they might do in the war. My attitude is particularly when youre dealing with the lives of young men and women, it is when you are in a war you are all in whatever it takes to protect them or give them the tools to do the job and come home safely. You make that investment and if you have all this stuff at the end of the war, so be it. Is one of the most disturbing elements because it was a mailable to the military to say okay, now we have reasons of bureaucratic agendas and it wasnt implemented. So how do you fix a problem like that Going Forward<\/a> . It seems that that is cultural and the culture survived. It is a leadership issue. And i will give you another example. Its even more shocking in my view. And the time for medevac anorak was an hour. It was called the golden hour the wounded and getting to the hospital within an hour. In afghanistan it was two hours. And i said i think it should be an hour. Just like in iraq. In both senior officials came to me and had all of these statistics about how the death rates were comparable and in iraq and afghanistan despite the time difference and so on because it was statistically a wash. It wasnt worth the investment to put Additional Resources<\/a> into it. And so my reaction was a simple one. Im a soldier that had been blown up and i want a helicopter there as quickly as possible. And so we sent more helicopters and i made that decision in january of 2008 or 2009. I cant remember which. And by july Something Like<\/a> 80 are medical decorations are taking place in less than 40 minutes. That any one of those elements whether its the money people or the Technology People<\/a> or the budgeteers or whatever, can basically slow down or stop something from happening. Only the secretary of defense has the authority to override everybody in the building. And just say we are just going to do it. He another which it requires a leader with considerable willpower and commitment to getting this thing done. I wanted to ask you. Theres nothing like getting the attention of the senior military and the pentagon as a whole. Likes firing some people. Which he did a lot of from what i read in the book. My attitude was in the case of both walter reed and the Nuclear Issue<\/a> which is back in front of us, when i fired both chief of staff and secretary of the air force didnt fire them for not knowing about the problem in the first place. I fired them because once they knew about it they didnt take it seriously enough. That is the kind of accountability that i think needs to be exercise more frequently in washington. Speeds and she brought up the issue of firing how did you feel about losing Stanley Mcchrystal<\/a> . Well at first, i mean i felt he committed a terrible error and i say so in the book. 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