The story of the chinese army spying on the American Government and American Companies with david sanger of the New York Times, dune lawrence and Michael Riley of Bloomberg Businessweek. The cyber has been off to the side as something of an annoyance. Im hearing this has gotten so big its moving to the center of the relationship and it risks the rest of the relationship. I think the next thing youre going to see the president sending some kind of envoy to beijing to make that point. Rose the conflict in syria and spying on the United States by the chinese army when we continue. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin tonight with a look at the crises in syria. Nearly 70,000 people have died in one of the most deadly civil wars in recent history. Two years in and the community has debated how to intervene. The United States has given nearly 400 million in humanitarian aid. Hes remained fragmented and disorganized. As the violence skates the United States has increasing efforts to arm the groups. Joining me is Michael Gordon the chief military correspondent for the New York Times. Im please to do have him on this program. Welcome. Nice to be here. Much to talk about. Let me begin with syria. We all know from congressional testimony from leon panetta the former sect of defense and others that there was a recommendation from leon panetta and from David Petraeus at ci and from Hillary Clinton at state to do something. So what happened, i believe, and i did a lot of reporting on it. And actually it was an article that i worked on with mark rangler that was the basis of the question that elicited secretary panettas response. In iraq training the troops was looking for a way in syria. He wanted not only to influence the situation on the ground now but assuming assad is deposed, the thought was it would be beneficial from the United States had some stronger relationships with the fighting groups of groups inside syria. The people actually in control the ground. Then secretary of state Hillary Clinton supported that argument. So did leon panetta and general dempsey. That was brought to the whitehouse before the election not a political climb to do something controversial like that but it would have been a limited operation in the sense they werent going to provide what they call man pads, air defense weapons because they didnt want to risk them falling into the wrong hands and endangering israeli and other civilian aircraft. Anyway it came to the attention of the whitehouse, it was discussed president obama decided against it at the time and others who counseled against the proposal including Vice President biden, tom dawn lynn who was recently a your show the National Security advisor and susan rice. Those are kind of the two camps, the whitehouse against the rest of the government as it existed at that time. But now we have a new National Security team. Rose where was dennis mcdough know. I dont know where he was for a fact but i know dennis was very close to president obama. And i would probably put him in the camp of those being cautious about getting more deeply involved in the crises. And i think the argument would have lined up this way. On the side of caution, you know, you would be getting more deeply involved. And i think the concern president obama had was by supplying weapons would be in effect involved in a approximately war against a regime supported by iran and russia. On the other side of the debate the argument was well nothing else is working and we need to increase the pressure on assad and also build the relationship with the people inside syria who might take over one day. Another factor is there are rebels jihaddists, alqaeda rebels that the u. S. Doesnt support. I dont want to see them at the top of the heap. Rose thats always the answer to the question people always ask. Suppose you win what then. Its a good question. Right now theyre not winning. Right now you have a situation where assad is pretty entrenched and the rebels are making gammons games but they dont seem to be decisive yet. Rose able to close the deal. Not yet. So youre looking at a fairly drawn out conflict. One of the concerns people have is if the conflict is drawn out much longer, there wont be much left to hand over to oppose the assad regime. The whole mechanism and institutions of the state will have been destroyed. Rose let me make sure i understand. I have your piece in front of me and i read it several times. You are reporting from people within the whitehouse theyre beginning to consider as a condition deteriorates reopening that debate. Is that the extent of what youre saying. The way i would put it is they havent ruled it out and down the road they may reconsider it. And really the emphasis right now, secretary kerrys going on a foreign trip at the end of this week and some of its devoted to the situation in syria. And i think really the emphasis now is more on the diplomatic track trying to find a way to get talks started between the resistance and some elements of the regime, trying to get the russians to be more supportive. So i think thats where the emphasis is. But if that doesnt work out and i think that is always a problematic course at the current time. What people are saying is the whitehouse has not ruled out revisiting the arms issue. Rose right, got you. Is there consensus among multiple countries to do something or is there an unwillingness for anybody to step forward at this time and do anything significant . I think there is a different views. I mean iran is supporting the assad regime with arms and paramilitary advisors. Russia is fulfilling arms contracts to the assad reregime and helping them. So i think russias interested in diplomatic outcome in which maybe some elements of the regime are represented in a transition and russia retains its influence and even have a naval base in syria. I believe europe is a bit divided. The brits wanted to see the European Union ban on arms shipments expired which would at least open the door to possible army of the resistance and make it legally possible for them. Other elements over other countries in europe didnt want to go that far. The friendship didnt particularly engage because of their past rose i think theyve drawn the line, have they not in terms of what theyre prepared to do in syria so far. The french. Well, you know, i just saw Madeline Albright you interviewed in your program. There is a role in these situations for american leadership. And people do take their cues from the United States to certain extent. So i think in an environment in which the United States has decided arming is too risky, that sends a message to the rest of the World Community whether you agree with it or whether you dont agree with it. I think if the american position were to change, its possible that the western european position would change as well. Rose let me go to a country which you reported a lot, iraq. The lead story right hand column, iran attacks on u. S. Forces. The iranian back shiite Group Responsible for the attack in the final year of the iraqi war is reinventing itself in ways that could influence influence in post american iraq and perhaps beyond. You know that country and you know that situation. Right. The group is and theyre lead by the brothers and those individuals were implicated in a nefarious attack on a group of american soldiers who were advising the local government during the war with a botched kidnapping and led to the death of a group of soldiers i think five of them i call and headed by hezbollah recently released in custody and returned to lebanon. So its a group that at the time the americans were there was certainly very much, well, was involved in armed operations against United States. Theres a socalled effort at reconciliations going on inside iraq in an attempt to try to rehabilitate the group and get them inside politics. And i guess the story says that its now inside politics and trying to become influential. But i dont know how strong a voice theyre going to have in the Shiite Community at this time. Rose but there is a natural affinity between iran and the Shia Community and iraq, is there not. There is and there isnt. I mean its a iraq is the majority is shia. Theres a whole array of groups. Theres Supreme Council was a group that was rather prominent. Not all of them have so cozy a relationship with iran at this point in time. Iran has spent, according to quickie leak they spent 100 billion supporting shia groups, sponsoring them and making sure they had some sort of say in iraq politics. That said, some groups are closer to iran than others and this group is one of the ones that is close to iraq. Rose because much alqaeda is sunni, whats the dynamic of the relationship between the two . Well, its sometimes been assumed that because iran is a persian shia state and alqaeda is a there can never be any sort of supporting relationship. During the iraq war there was intelligence reports that iran was providing some, at least some degree of cooperation or assistance to alqaeda and iraq and some of the sunni extremists on the grounds that the enemy of my enemy is my friend and they were just trying to ratchet up the pressure on americans. I think the values majority of the awe since iranians provided to shia militants. It went to what the military calls special groups. Iran had a stake in iraq and they pursued through military ends to their proxies and groups trained in iran even and go into iraq, iraqi groups and through their diplomacy. They played it through hard power and they played it through soft power. Rose has consequential have sanctions been on iranian behavior. Well they certainly affected the economy, had a huge effect on the economy and led to the devaluation of the iranian currency. But its an excellent question because theres some talks coming up now in kazakhstan of all places in late february involving the eu, the United States and the iranians. And so this is going to be a venue in which people are going to be able to see to a certain extent how serious iran is about negotiating on limits on its nuclear program. There hasnt been negotiations for some significant period of time. And this is an opportunity to test the iranians. I think this initial round is not going to prove much but certainly over the next six months, i think there will be an ample opportunity to see if there is an intent on the iranian part to reach some sort of compromise. Rose leon panetta and others have said the following. We have no information that theres been a decision on the part of the iranian government and the most influential people there to builds a Nuclear Weapon and a missile that will deliver it. What do they mean when they say that . Well, i cant really speak for them but i think its pretty clear that iran has made the decision to have a Nuclear Weapons program. And theres really nothing el that explains kind of procurement. Rose you know panetta have said that. I think probably what people mean by that is theyre moving down the road. The question is will they get to the end of the road or is there a diplomatic solution before then or a military confrontation. Because remember president obama has said that he will not allow iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. So i think what people are saying is, theyre making rich uranium for weapon, working on design work and some missile work. But whats not yet clear, i guess what secretary panetta is saying, whether theyre going to make the final hundred yards dash to assemble and feel the weapon. The dilemma though is for the west, you cant afford to stop them just short of that final screwdriver turn or else you really have to contrain them in any meaningful way. What these negotiations aim to do is try to find some kind of way to constrain the iranians enough that they are clearly short of a Nuclear Weapon and the west would have sufficient warning should they break out of the awe agreement and make a dash for it. What would the west consider sufficient warning . Well, i dont know what their intelligence means are on this but something so that you have months and not days of indication that iran is trying to, and also the means to do something about it. I mean if you take president obama at his word and i dont see any reason not to, he said that he will not permit iran to have a Nuclear Weapon and may need to resort to military force. Well then you need to have something you could use that military force against if they have all the makings of a bomb or its in a clandestine facility and you dont know where it is, then while you may have some warning that somethings going on, you dont have the means of influencing the situation. So i think all of these intelligence considerations you know is subject of a big debate between israel and the United States a few months ago. But i think they inform or at least i assume they inform kind of the u. S. Position in the talks. Rose we continue to find that the hottest place in the world for potential conflict is in the middle east and now in possibly in africa because of alqaedas presence. Where are the unfocused hot spots in the world likely to erupt that are not yet, have not yet reached that point. Well, i mean its interesting. You know you dont hear a whole lot of talk except perhaps from the whitehouse about the asia pivot because you cant pivot to asia when the middle east is such a caldron in difficulties. I think next year will be how the negotiation reaches outcome or it wont and the administration has to make a choice. I think syria is bad and getting worse every day. And it has a potential to destabilize the region around it. Its beginning to overlap its borders a little bit. Yemen is something the french or mali is something the french are doing something about, sending troops there. That doesnt have the threat to what they call aqim, alqaeda islamic, doesnt have the ability to strike the more than homeland but there are a lot of french maliians. There are parts of world that dont involve us but still quite a calamity. Pakistan and india came to blows, theres still a lot of residual tensions there. And it really remains to be seen how the american reduction and eventual withdrawal of American Forces for afghanistan will effect that entire region. Because theres a battle for influence within afghanistan clearly between indians and pack stages. Rose do we assume if in fact the of gun portions are not Strong Enough after the United States leaves to with stan the taliban and the taliban is able to gain somewhat approaching the power they had previously when they had power, that they would welcome alqaeda back. Well, you know, one of the Big Questions that has not been answered by the president s advisors is whats the American Military presence going to be after 2014. In the state of the union, he said well be down basically by half a year from now. There are 66,000 now. At the end of the february next year it will be 32,000. But what happens after 2014 when the socalled war is over and there are a whole number of options on the table, anywhere id say from 3,000 troops to 10,000 troops or 9,000 troops. And also the capabilities that could be kept in the country from the u. S. Side counterterrorism error and all that. So i think what military posture the u. S. Agrees to keep in after 2014, and that will effect what nato agrees to do, are the nonu. S. Part of nato i think will have a big effect what happens in afghanistan in terms of this question. We should be able to preclude that if thats what were determined to do. Rose finally, are you suggesting that you think that the conflict in syria could be prolonged. That there is no imminent end result likely to happen unless somebody from his own side decides to assassinate assad. I think in the conflict continues as its going and ive heard experts talk about this that its possible the state may fragment in some sort of bosnia like way that there will be sunni communities and kurdish communities. It will be like syria several years ago several pockets supported by different outside interests and iran will support the assad al wite factions and sunni will support the sunni parts and syria may sort of cease to exist as a functioning kind of entity. And so i think that recognition and the possibility that islamic extremists may come to exercise outside power, extraordinary amount of influence within the country i think is what is adding a little bit of urgency to the american kind of liberations about how to handle. Rose Michael Gordon chief military correspondent for the new the New York Times. Thank you so much. Thank you. Rose the threat from Cyber Attacks is on the rise. An American Security firm that has attracted chinese hackers for several years will release a report tomorrow. It makes a strong case that chinas armys behind most of the attacks on the American Government and companies. Chinese officials have denied the accusations but the u. S. Government remains suspicious of state involvement. President obama recently expressed concern over the ability of foreign hackers to compromise critical american infrastructure the pentagon is planning a range of defensive measures including a massive expansion of its own signer security fo