Violent act, the expectation is that that inoperation will also go down. That will make us safer. As well. The secretary of he fence ash carter for the hour, next. Funding for charlie rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose ash cart certificate here, is he the outgoing secretary of defense, president obama appointed him in december 2014. The role marks a capstone to a decades long career at the pentagon which began during the cold war extending into the cyberage. He has served 11 secretaries of defense in both democratic and ep can administrations. He was a washedded the Defense Intelligence metal in the departments distinguished service petal five times. Confirmation hears for general james mattis to succeed him took place today in front of the Armed Services committee. Im pleased to have secretary ash carter back at this table. Welcome. Thank, good to be here. Rose we have done these conversations when were you in office and out of office. So i appreciate you coming by am taking from the time you have been secretary of defense, tell me what you set out to do and what you believe you have accomplished. What was your highest agenda . Well, in the here and now, it was to put us on a path with respect to the principle palled dangers that we face today. Which are first and fore most isil and put together the Campaign Plan which you now see unfolding towards the destruction of isil. Second, a traj strategic approach to russia and iran, possibly russian aggression, iran, north korea, china. Those are our principal here and thousand problems. To put together a strategic approach and get us on the path. The other thing is that if you are secretary of defense, you, your other job is to make sure that your successor and your successors successor have what i have which is the finest fietding force the world has ever known. Ive inherited that from decades behind us. And i need to pass that on. And thats in people, its in technology. And its making sure that were competitive and that were ahead of everyone else. Those are the two things that i have tried to accomplish over the last two years and youre right, a 35 year old involvement of the depprtment of defense. People look at this world today in 2017 and they say use this term. There is a new world order. How has this structure changed. I mean people look at and they say there are three main powers, russia because of the nubbing clear weapons that it has. Certainly china because its growing. And there is a United States. But is the world order changing . Who plays what role . Well, we, that is the United States still is by far and away in terms of comprehensive military power, the strongest in the world am you mentioned two other important powers, russia and china and they are extemely important. But there are others. India, japan, europe as a bloc. And i think in addition to our military strength, the thing that sets the United States aside is, and i hear this all the time, charlie when i travel around the world, foreign leaders say to me, we really like working with your people. And its not just that they are awesomely capable. Its what they stand for as well. People, our values and what we stand for in the way we conduct ourselves with other people, those things are valued. That is why the United States has not only the Strongest Military in the world. If you think about it, we have all the friends and allies and most of our major antagonists have few or none. When you look at the world today, and the nature of warfare, is there dramatic increase in the possibility of cyberwarfare and the ability to defend against it . Sure, theres certainly a dramatic increased role of sien in warfare. Im hesitant to say cyberwarfare because it suggests that you cabin cyberattack i think an attack is an attack. And we do not, its in the our doctrine and our practice to limit our response to an attack on the United States to the way in which we are attacked. So if it comes in cyber, we may do that. We pay do something els its also true that our net our military works on networks. Its one of the things that makes us the best, our planes, our ships, our t t are all networked together. If i dont de defend that, that is job one for me, making sure our network, our wartime network is secure. Also i talked about the next generation. The kids would come in are, you know, kids without have been on iphones their whole lives. Theyre not going to understand a style of operating or leadership that doesnt involve technology. So simply to connect with the next generation we have to stay ahead in information. So i have a lot of Different Things we do. But yes, its part of warfare. But i just, i always caution people to say, you know, warfare isnt cyberwarfare. Its warfare. Cyberis a dimension. And the National Security area, what is the legacy of barack obama. Well, he has a number of them. But i would say in so far as we are concerned, i have been greatful for his support and approval and his encouragement. As i put together with the staff, general joe dunford and presented to him over the last 14, 15 months, step by step an accelerating campaign against isil, president obama has approved every step weve asked for and sometimes thats difficult, you know. In the environment. He has not wanted to be any less aggressive than you wanted to be. Well, i think he told me early on that he wanted to get rid of isil. And i took him at his word and he kept his word. Gave you everything you needed in terms of. Every time you asked in terms of boots on the ground. Aircraft, money requested from congress. Authority. Everything you have requested he has given you. He has granted us every request that we have made. And ive been very grateful for that. Because we have continuously seen opportunities. You know when you do a raid you capture a guy, you learn something that leads to another raid, another air strike. Every time we reached another step or we had trained some more iraqi forces, for example, for what is now the, what will be the taking of mosul, i think you see it under way now. Our plan for that, we devietioned 15 months ago. You and i talked about that. We did. And we needed to train the iraqi forces. We needed to position them there. And then support them for the destruction of isil. In northern iraq. And at every step we were as general dunford were saying to ourselves and talking to our could mannedder can mannedders, how can he with make that could faster, how can we hasten that process. Every time we saw a new way we wanted to do more. I consistently said were going to do more every time we see an opportunity to do more. And every time we have asked for more, he has given us. So i have been gratedful for that. And it has allowed us to both in iraq and syria carry out the plan. Im encouraged. Were on the plan, both those places. And its necessary to destroy isil in iraq and syria. Because that is necessary to destroy both the fact and the idea that there could be an Islamic State based upon this ideology. Its necessary, its not sufficient because we have to operate against them elsewhere in the world where little nests of isil arise. And of course our top priority is their external operators, that is the people who are plotting attacks upon western countries and ourselves, that were killing those people, were disrupting. Is that ratcheting up as they lose territory in iraq and syria because that is the only means they have. Well, theyre constantly trying to do more in that area. As they lose their territory, its going to be harder for them to plan and coordinate complicated attacks. So thats good. And the narrative that fuels the inspired attacker as opposed to the organized attacker, the organizerred attackers will have less of a base and a free territory to operate from. Thats a good thing. But when the Islamic State is so obviously destroyed, it means that those who are, you know, the person on the internet who has never been to iraq and syria but gets inspired to carry out a violent act, the expectation is that that inoperation will also go down, that will make us safer as well. So they will relocate from moss you will and raqqa, those that we dont kill there. Well kill as many as we can. But there will be those who try to isolate. And we will pursue them working with the iraqis and Syrian Forces else where in the country. It will take some time and be a sustained effort. I want to talk about that, has the taking of mosul been a more difficult challenge than all of the military strategists thought would be. No, its pretty much gone the way we thought. We thought it would be difficult. Rose they were dug in. Yes. And we were ready for anything simply because as weve gone in from ramadi to are youa to makmor, to kiara, taking step by step, the isil devices and then over in syria, whether shadai of or particular rit, each of the battles in those cities had a different timek dynamic and sometimes they fought harder and sometimes they didnt fight as hard. We knew they would fight hard for mosul. We also knew that mosuls defenses were really, charlie, a set of shells. Con centric shells. And you saw us in the early weeks punch through the first shellment and then you get to the next. And theyre now through that, to the inner city now. The eastern side of the city. And then there is a citadel in the middle. And so theyre in between that second line and the citadel on the eastern side of the city. Then they will go up to the tigris river. And then cross over and mount defense it has always been our plan. And so its going pretty much according to plan. Rose when do you think mosul will. This is a war. And in war you dont predict. My answer to that is. Rose plans change at the point of first contact. Our plan is pretty clear and our plan hasnt changed. Were pretty much on the schedule we thought in our plan but i would rather overdeliver. And thats what our commanders have consistently done there. Let me put this t this way. Im kf debt confident of the result. I have no doubt. Rose it has to take place in 2017. I believe so, yes, absolutely. Rose how about raqqa. Same thing. Rose 2017. Yeah, yeah,. Rose both of them. Yeah, i do. I do. I think that that is in the plan. There is every reason to have that expectation am again i always want to say its war and reality in the dynamics of war intervenement but we have the momentum. We have the plan. We have the forces, or are assembling the forces and im confident that it will occur. Do you think will you capture and kill a baghdadi. We will eventually. Do we know where he is. If i knew exactly where he was, first of all i want tell you and second of all he wouldnt have long. He moves around. Im just confident, i dont want to say any more than that. But i wouldnt want to be a senior isil leader. Many of them have died already. The more we do,he more we learn about where they are, so his days are numbered, and thats true of all the other western leadership. Baghdadis days are numbered. Absolutely. Have the russians given you any help at all . No. And thats a real source of disappointment only in the sense, disappointed only in the sense that they said they would do otherwise. Rose they said they would be against isil and theyre coming in in part to take on isil and al nousra. They said they would do two things. One is to help end the Syrian Civil War which is one of the sources of this whole thing. By knowledging aside bashar assad, keeping the structure of the Syrian Government in some sense, so the place doesnt completely disintegrated. But allowing it to be governed with the moderate opposition as well, beginning to put back together a country and a more desent life than that poor, tragically stricken population has had for the last few years. They didnt do that, they doubled down on the civil war. Rose they doubled down in their support of assad. Correct. And you see what the consequences are. Rose what are the consequences of their doubling down in support of assad. You saw in aleppo, well, a continued lawyer of people. And a continued drive towards extremism among those who oppose assad. So thats not what they said they would do. They did something different. The other thing they said they would do is fight isil, that is not what they are doing. They are fighting mostly the moderate opposition. So its very hard to associate ourselves and certainly we have not cooperated in that because its not aligned with our interests. We do have a military to military channel to make sure we dont create incidents with one another. Thats very professional. It works very well. But in the larger sense, because they havent done what they said they would do, we havent been able to associate ourselves with what they are doing. Rose it has been argued by diplomats and the state department that they needed more leverage on the ground in order to have some diplomatic effort. And they simply didnt have it. They put together that in terms of a criticism of our military presence on the ground t is said that secretary kerry wanted to do more are cooperation with the russians in terms of air strikes what can you say . Well, these are two Different Things. Rose right. There are those and who you you read it out in the press, who would have had the United States join the civil war in syria. We have not gone to war with the Syrian Regime as a military. Rose why not. Because that, that is an undertaking and this a decision the president made consistently. That would be not to try to settle the civil war but again to try to overthrow the government of syria. That say very big project as we have discovered. Rose and a risk that the United States is not willing to take. Its not a matter of risk, it is a matter of where our interests lie. Rose our interests are not in getting. Our interests are first and fore most in destroying isil. And that we have managed to do. Rose but that runs right up against the argument that as long as assad is there he is a recruiting tool for isil. Well, that doesnt mean that we cannot and dont have to protect ourselves against isil, charlie. Even though the civil war is raging in syria, it does mean that syria is going to be a continuing source of tum ult in the region, but the solution to the Syrian Civil War that we have favored, i think is the right one, is a solution in which there is a political transition from the assad regime to a government that is mor the right approach to isil is destruction, military destruction, and we have taken that. Rose there was nothing that we could have done to make the result better than on the ar, we will take we willthis destroy isil this year. Uhhuh. Rose nothing, no alternative that you thought was possible. What we are doing against isil, absolutely not. We had to do everything we could bely could, we have added every ingredient we possibly could. Every accelerant as our phrase is to the campaign to destroy isil. Thats about protecting our people, charlie. And that is at the end of the day, that is the most important responsibility of the department of defense. Is to protect our people. And that necessary taited the focus that weve had on isil. And we are we are on the path to meeting our objectives there. And thats been job one for me and i think appropriately job one for us. Rose im asking the question, i have to ask it more than once. When you look at what has happened to aleppo and when you look at the destruction of syria from that civil war it is such a tragedy, when you look at it, is there any sense on your part that maybe there was Something Else we could do, that we didnt do . Or we didnt do it in time. I am this is a tragic situation that the United States did not have other ways to prevent than the ways that i think were attempted. I think the right approach, ive said this before, is, was a political transition. We tried to foster that, that is what you saw secretary kerry trying to work with the russians. But they didnt do that. They didnt go along with that. That was the right approach to take. Neither the russians nor assad, i didnt expect assad to do that but the russians said that they were going to try to promote that. That was a reasonable thing for them to do. Therefore it was a reasonable thing for us to attempt to work with them on. But thats not what they did, charlie. And but in so far as the protection of our own people from terrorists in iraq and syria is concerned which is my responsibility, we have done what i recommended and what i thought was necessary, and what i think is going to succeed in destroying isil. Rose what is it you think drives Vladimir Putin . What does he want . I dont know. But heres what i observe. By the way, i have worked with the russians, chartie, as you probably know, for 30 years. And including some eras very coop ralt cooperatively. I was the person who ran the program that worked with the russians to control all the Nuclear Weapons of the former sov yent union whens wall came down and the cold war ended. I negotiated with the russians to get them into thes could vow, an example very, the opposite k osovo an opposite outcome to syria to try to settle the kosovo civil war in the balance cans in the 1990s. So i have balance kans in the 1990s so, have i some concerns with that, our experience what we should be doing always is to wear our interests can be aligned with that of another power, work with them cooperatively. For the First Quarter century after the end of the cold war, there were many areas where that was possible. Those areas particularly under putin have narrowed in. Rose why is that . Progressively. Im not the person to ask that to. But one way in which they have by the way, there still are some areas where we worked productively with them, for example, nonprolive raise regarding north korea, iran. Rose the Iranian Nuclear deal. Exactly. But the one of the things that russia seems to do under putin is define an objective of that warting or frustrating the United States and the