State and the beginning of the iraq war. I want to begin with one of the rules one of your 13 rules published in parade magazine, this is the 13th and last. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. I find you the most optimistic person i have read in a long time. It is very important that rule had to be the summary of the 13 rules and it links to the first one that says things will get better in the morning. I start that description by saying that is not necessarily the case, but the attitude you should have. Things will get better and you should make them better. It is within your life to make them better. Force multiplier is a military term always looking for ways to enhance the power of our force, whether it is communications or supply lines or whatever it is, but we look for things that shout make the force more effective. I have found in working with human beings, and this book is about working with human beings. I have found if you convey an attitude of perpetual optimism, we can do it, we can do it, that will in fact an entire organization and it becomes a force multiplier that can do more than they thought they could do. Coming to roberts real question, as i go around the country, i see all the problems that are not discussed here in washington very often, the unemployment rate, the fact our economy is starting to come back, but not fast enough, the problem with overseas ventures we have been involved in and other crises around the world, arei also see people who hard at work, people in business and i talked to business leaders, financial leaders, mass audiences, i find people are optimistic about this country. They have confidence in who we are and what we are and almost reaganlike confidence. If there is one thing bugging them is they sense their leaders in washingtons dont understand how much confidence and optimism is out of there waiting for the elitists in washington to cut through the conflict and lack of compromise and get this country moving. I have always tried to be optimistic and convey an attitude of optimism. And i am optimistic about this country. So many people forget, in my lifetime for example, what it like from 1968 to 1964 1974. Bobby martin, vietnam war, race riots, counterculture, drug problems, racial problems, and the Vice President resigned in disgrace. We had to come out of the vietnam war and the president designed in resigned in disgrace. It was still a communist nation aligned against us. Through all of that, we never from e of confidence and a man who gave who doesnt get enough credit, gerald ford, came on scene in washington. He brought us back and president carter had difficulties with the economy, but he moved it around and Ronald Reagan shows up and says it is sunshine morning in america, here we go. A few years later, it is the soviet union that is gone, china that is trying to become a world power, not by invading anybody, but by selling to us. Imagine where we are now compared to the early years ago us stuffna is selling and the money we are paying them, they loan us to sell more stuff. This is our economic problem, ladies and gentlemen. Some americans have to be optimistic, it is what fuels us and makes us americans. Host i did not know until reading the book of the important text for you on the subject of confidence is the movie the hustler. Gen. Powell for those of you not old enough to remember the movie, it is a movie about pool by thed paul newman goes name of fast eddie felson determined to be the champion, he thinks he is the best in the world and goes into this pool york. N new the game starts and fast eddie is good, very good, but he has this manager or financer sitting in a chair watching all of this. His evening goes on and they are drinking and shooting pool and eddie is beating the devil out of minnesota fats and he is becoming desperate and keeps looking at George C Scott like what do i do . He says, stick with this kid, he is a loser. That kind of stuns anybody and they play more and he keeps losing and he thinks, i have got goesnd he excuses himself, into the bathroom and comes out a few minutes later and he is reaching for his coat, they think. As the attendant is about to bring his coat, instead of taking his coat, he smiles and puts his hands out and has talcum powder poured into his hands. Lets play some pool and he beats the devil out of them and fast eddie is crushed. He never gave up, perpetual optimism, he thought he could win and worked against Eddie Felsons weakness. As i say in the book, i loved that scene and many a day when i was in trouble, which was a frequent occasion in my life, and i had to testify in front of congress or face a hostile press , so help me, i would put my uniform on and go into the restroom and wash my hands and look in the mirror and say to myself, lets play some pool. I never watched the last scene. Paul newman is the star of the movie, so he has to beat fats at the end, but i dont watch that. I dont want to see it. Host you can turn it off early, in that case. I want you to relay a very touching story when you visited a Japanese School wants. It was a school of kids being prepared to succeed. Gen. Powell it was a private Japanese School in tokyo. Very intelligent, smart kids from welltodo families and i gave my speech to the students. I love talking to students. When i was through questions were ready and i noticed kids were lining up with their cards with their questions. I dont like that because these are the questions teachers looked at and proofed and made sure these for the honor roll kids. I took a couple of them and i looked out into the audience, anyone else have a question . A young lady in the back of the auditorium where i used to hang out when i was her age, she raises her hand and gets up and said are you ever afraid . I am always afraid, i am afraid every day. Are you ever afraid . I said i am afraid of something almost every day and i fail at something almost every day, if not every day. What you have to learn to do is understand that fear and failure are a normal part of human existence. You have to learn how to control it. You will never defeat it, but you can manage it. Be optimistic you can get out of the problem you are having and if it is a failure, figure out what you did wrong and correct it and move on. Take your failure, roll it up in a ball, throw it over your shoulder and forget about it. And iom was deadly still think everybody had that thought on their mind, kids are afraid and they have to be taught how to manage and overcome fear. It was the most moving moment for me and if i could regress, most of the book is like this. We will get to the tough, hard chapters about my time at secretary of state, but this is a book of parables and reflections and memories and kind of a fun book as well and that is why it does not have an index. Short chapters. Give me a break, read the book. This isnt heavy lifting, it will take three hours. Some of the chapters are a page and a quarter long. I think the longest one is 8 or 9 pages. Just 40 four stories. Host and some readers can decide they wont read the last chapter. Kid,her when you were a you say you were hanging around the back of the classroom, you were not the obvious ball of fire likely to be most likely to succeed. Gen. Powell that is right. I came from an immigrant family. My parents came here with a lot of my other relatives and they settled in new york after bouncing around a little bit and they all had children. There were lots of cousins in the family and we were all simply taught we have expectations for you, we did not come to this country to have children that are going to stick something up their nose or not get an education. We have expectations for you and dont ever do anything that shames the family. That was a killer argument because if any of us got in trouble, we begged to be beaten rather than have somebody give us that shame the family bit and the third thing we were taught, mind your manners, mind your teachers, mind your adults. This embracing family expected us to go somewhere in life. My cousins became doctors and lawyers and judges and i sort of hung around rolling a straight c average through high school and city college of new york. I am not sure how i got in, but i graduated with a low average years later. I was great in rotc. I found my calling. I wanted to be a soldier. Se Administration rolled my a into the gradepoint average and that brought me up to 2. 0. They said good enough for government work, get him out of here. Is now i amrt considered one of the greatest scholars the city college of new york ever had. They named a center after me. My professors are rolling over in their graves. What i say to kids when i tell the story is it is not where you start in life, it is where you end up and what you did along the way. Your past is not your present and not your future. Your past is your past, always be growing. Never think you cannot make it. My family, one of the problems we are having in our country is Graduation Rates are not where they should be and when i was a kid growing up and got bored with school, if i had ever gone home and told those two immigrant people or my parents, they were short people, if i had ever gone and said to every one i think ine of them will drop out, they would say we will drop you and go get another kid. It was not going to happen. There is a chapter in a book called we are mammals. I love the hustler and animal planet, national geographic, wild kingdom, i love watching lions and tigers raise their cubs and all that and what i get its eyess a cub opens and it is allowed to start moving a little away from mom and out of the den, but only so far. If he steps outside at the wrong ager is not ready for it, grabbed behind the neck or hit with the paw. As they gain experience, go a little further. Other than that, he does not do much, he is just around. The point is that i watched this and when they are two years old, they are sent out on their own. What has happened in that two year period . They learn from their siblings and cousins and females and the pride and the role of the male pride. Themhave passed onto generations of what it is to be a lion. How can we imagine we dont have that same imaginative requirement to pass on the experience we have as human beings to our children . There are too many children in america not having that experience passed on and if you dont see the good things in life you are supposed to be doing, you will find the bad things in life. When we spoke last week, i told you i had been in jamaica doing the story about the sprinters. We recorded two jamaicans talking to each other. I could not understand a word they were saying. You grew up bilingual. Caller all of might gen. Powell all of my relatives spoke with a heavy jamaican accent. My mother and father were not too bad, but i have a couple of aunts i could hardly understand at all. Them and slipth into jamaican if i need to. I was telling robert there are certain things in the language t you have to understand how are you doing question mark not bad, not bad. That means he is doing good. How are you doing . Not so good, that means it is bad. You have to understand this reversal they have in their lexicon. I loved my upbringing. All of us have a special feeling for the family we are a part of and the place we came from or they came from and it was tightknit. My neighborhood in the south bronx was all tenements and i had aunts in other buildings and when i walked home from school, they were all hanging out the window leaning on a pillow on the windowsill. They never left. They did not cook, they did not go to the bathroom, they were always there, watching. If any one of the cousins did anything wrong or were caught misbehaving, it was instant retaliation. You talk about the speed of the internet, nothing compared to et in the of the auntn south bronx area of the city. We were there greatest treasure. Fail. Ould not let us we have too many children in america today, particularly our inner cities and some of our indian homes on reservations where children are not being raised to not fail. Denver akid in hispanic kid from a poor family, went to a private school and became valedictorian of his class. He was the first person in his family to have such an honor. He was being interviewed and the guy said how did it happen . I was never given the opportunity to fail, they would not let me. Anytime something went wrong, they were there, i was never allowed to fail and if they felt that way about me, i had to feel that way about me and i am the first one in my family to graduate high school. I have changed the history of my family. Host one chapter of your book is called tell me what you know. You write about rules you developed for your intelligence staff. Tell me what you know, tell me what you dont know, then tell me what you think and always distinguish which from which. This brings us to iraq. I guess my big question is in how . Pital letters, specifically whom we identify with caution and the use of military force, never going in life, weighing our obligations carefully, being very much the realist in foreign policy, tell me about the decision made to go to war in iraq, how you figured in it, and your presentation to the u. N. . Gen. Powell in the first year of president bushs administration, george w. Bush, iraq was an issue. Planess shooting at flying over. For the most part, they were contained, but the sanctions regime was starting to break down and we were watching carefully to see whether we could allow the u. N. Sanctions regime to break down and iraq is free to do whatever it wants to. Weapons and used them against their own people. They fired them against iranians. It is not a figment of our imagination these people have the ability to do it and we thought they had them. Host they used chemical weapons. Gen. Powell chemical weapons, and also playing with programs that were not that far along and we had a good idea they were playing with biological weapons as well. Along comes 9 11 and the president is faced with the challenge of bringing the country together and fighting this conflict we are now in, brought to us in afghanistan by al qaeda. We go to afghanistan and we get that what seems to be under control, did a terrific job although it did not stay under control and then the president s attention turned to iraq because his regiment concern was there could be a nexus between the weapons of mass destruction iraq has and could develop and terrorism. The president started asking his military authorities to give him plans. 2002, i sensed the president is receiving military information, but we have not put it into a broad military context. I went up and had dinner with the president and we went into his private study and i said, you need to understand if we need to use military force and take out this regime, we become the government of this country, international law. If you take out a regime and there are 25 million, 29 Million People standing there, you are in charge. We talked about it for a while, what the implications could be and he said, what do you think we ought to do . Lets go to the u. N. , they are the offended party and see if we can get them to act and get a resolution that will put the inspectors back in and see if he wants to play with the rules and turn over everything he has. The president agreed and in september of 2002 he went before the u. N. And made the case for the u. N. To get engaged and militarys back and resolutions. We got a resolution early november from the u. N. Putting saddam on notice. That test and i made it clear to the president if he passed the test, you might still be stuck with Saddam Hussein in power. If it made clear to him was necessary to move use military force, i would be supportive because we tried to avoid the war. To speed this up, in late january none of us were satisfied with the response or what the u. N. Had been able to fully recover. By the middle of january, the president decided the force would be necessary. At the end of january he said we need to present our case to the united nations, to the world and i would like you to do it and do it next week. I had 4 days from the time he told me to the time i had to make the presentation. I was not concerned because the case was being worked on by the National Security council, we all thought. Then when i saw the case they were working on, it wasnt what we needed. It did not connect to the intelligence, i asked the director of Central Intelligence, how did it get like this . We provide the information to the nsc and they took it from there. I was concerned i could not get any change in time because the president announced i would be there on the fifth of february. I was not worried because there was a National Intelligence estimate that had gone to congress the previous fall and based on that National Intelligence estimate, congress had overwhelmingly passed a joint resolution saying to the president , try to solve this diplomatically, but if you cant, we will support you going to war to read almost four months before, congress had already said to the president if you have to do this, we will support you. It was not a close vote. Pull it could altogether together from the National Intelligence estimate cia four dayse and four nights with my staff pulling it together. With the combined wisdom of 16 intelligence communities that came together for the nie so we pulled it all together and i tossed a lot of it aside because there were not enough sources for it. The things in the presentation i was assured were very well sourced and they could stand behind it. Brought chartsk, and a slide with me and had a presentation vetted by the cia. Every word was attested to. With the intelligence the president had, he had been using it. My colleagues had been using it. That is what i presented and thought it went off rather well. The british and Spanish Foreign ministers joined in agreeing and others, such as the french and russian and others were not in agreement, but that is where we were. About a month later, the present decided to look president decided to launch military action and it was within a few weeks nobody was finding anything over there. Over time, it started to emerge a little bit at a time that some of the sourcing we had been assured of, congress acted on and the president acted on, we all acted on, some of the sourcing was not reliable and i was taken aback when i thought of we had been getting information and had never talked to this guy. The presence of what was mass of weapons of mass destruction started to fall out completely. We still thought they had the capability to development develop them. That saidwe presented they were there turned out not to be the case. A lot of people agreed with the case and bought into it. Cia stuck by it. 6 months later the cia said we still support the judgment we made last year. The problem i have had for the last 9 years is not withstanding all of that, my presentation is seen as the defining one, the most prominent one and became the symbol of the intelligence package we put together and i have been answering questions about it. All i can say is i am glad Saddam Hussein is gone and worried we dont have to worry about and we dont have to worry about weapons of mass destruction being present or not present. We have given an opportunity for the a better life for their people and i always regret the presented was not full. We accepted the political judgment of the director of Central Intelligence and the 16 intelligence agencies that feed in to him, but i am seen as the symbol of it all there it i discussed this in the book and i will never get rid of that, it will be in my obituary. I have to keep moving forward. Host unlike anyone else involved, i believe you apologized. Gen. Powell i said i regretted it. I regretted that the information was wrong. I did not apologize for it because i was not the source of it. You told in fact, as president bush, if Saddam Hussein gives up weapons of mass destruction, he would be in compliance of what we were demanding. Gen powell he chose not to take the get out of jail card. We gave him an opportunity. But he didnt want us to know that he didnt have them, and he didnt want his own people to know he didnt have them. He really thought we would not attack. That somebody would stop us, the french, the germans, somebody would keep it from happening. And president bush was determined that we had to remove him and this potential threat and also provide a better life for the iraqi people. Still controversial to this day, but thats the story. Host did you feel strongly that the u. S. Was sending too few troops to iraq to occupy the country . Gen powell you didnt know what was going to happen once baghdad fell. There was no question in my mind that the capture of baghdad would be easy. First gulf war brought the iraqi army down in size considerably. So i had no question about that. But as dwopt plan, i was concerned that perhaps maybe not enough force was going in in anticipation of what else might be a problem once we got there. And so i called general franks, whos the commander, and i said, tommy, colin, dont want to get in your business, but you sure you have enough troops to deal with this . And i dont know what this is. Thats the interesting thing about war. You dont know whats going to happen after you have achieved that initial objective. And he was satisfied that he did. I presumed the joint chiefs were satisfied, and secretary rumsfeld was satisfied. And these are the military authorities, and they persuaded the president. Baghdad fell quickly. And what surprised me is that as soon as baghdad fell, you could almost see within a week or so that ministries were being burned down, old animosity that Saddam Hussein had kept suppressed have popped up between shia and sunni and kurds. Nd then the bombing started. And my colleagues dismissed all of this as sort of, well, these are just deadenders, as one of my colleagues described them t. Seemed to me they were not dead enders. While this was emerging, we were sending troops home. And we had stopped the flow of the additional troops that were supposed to come because we expected some sort of Iraqi Government to sort of spring into place rather quickly and that there would be no need for these large number of troops. Some of you may remember when general shin secty, then the chief of staff of the army, now secretary of veterans department, but he was asked at a hearing, how many troops do you think it will take, general . And he said a couple of hundred thousand. And he was immediately credited sized by the leadership of the department of defense the next day as saying cant be right. We dont agree with the general. This is a general who lost a leg in vietnam, whos been around for around 30odd years, who was involved in the balkans. He knows a little bit about all of this, but his judgment was immediately dismissed because we didnt expect that to happen. Well, the things that you dont examine to happen are the things you plan for and be ready for when they do happen. Host compounding, this you write in the book that the decision had been made to keep the iraqi army in uniform so that they could help to maintain order in the country once the regime was decapitated. And you were quite surprised when paul bremmer, the man who was the u. S. Chief of the operation there, disband the iraqi army. Gen powell there was a serious discussion of how are we going to keep order if we dont have enough troops to do it . And would we need some force that would help us keep order . And the iraqi army was one of the few functioning institutions in the country, not functioning that well, but a functioning institution. Ambassador bremer, our man on the scene, he felt strongly the army ought to be disbanded because it was such an instrument of oppression, and that was his point of view. But we had studied this, and we had received three separate briefings from the pentagon saying that they were counting on getting rid of the really bad leaders of the iraqi army and filling it back up with trusted individuals because the structure was still there, rather than building an entirely new army. The c. I. A. Felt that was the right way to go. I did. My staff did. And the president was briefed that this was what we were going to do. And so suddenly, between the pentagon, and its not clear where it all originated, mr. Msfeld, mr. Wolfowitz, mr. Fife, gave jerry bremer the necessary guidance and instructions to disband the army if thats what he thought was right. And jerry issueds the order, disbanding the army. I didnt know it was going to happen. I know senior members of the joint chiefs of staff didnt know it. C. I. A. Didnt know it. The suddenly the army is totally disbanded, and you have these hundreds of thousands of people who are armed and trained in the use of arms who are set free. And within a few weeks, theyre lining up wanting their pensions, and we had to pay some of them in order to keep some peace. And then we started to rebuild an iraqi army, and its taken some time. So i think it was a bad decision. If jerry bremer was here, he would tell you it was the right decision. But i think it was the wrong decision. And most importantly, it was not what we told the president we were going to do. Host given that the u. S. Is now out of iraq, at least in terms of being a combat force, what ultimately is the whats the legacy within the military, and within policymaking community, as you understand it, what are we going to be like because of the iraq experience . Gen powell let me start with the military. The military has remarkable capacity to learn from experience. They are one of the most introspective organizations in american society. They look in the mirror and see the reality. They dont hide from the reality. So im absolutely confident that the United States armed forces will recover, and recover rather quickly, now that theyre not going back and forth every few months, and they have time to get back into training and refit their forces, and they will learn the lesson. And one of the lessons theyre look agent now, and i still keep in touch with my army friends and read all of the necessary magazines and literature, so even though ive been out 19 years, i want to keep my finger in, you know . Im retired, but i havent resigned. They may call me back. [laughter] right after the cub scouts, theyll call me back. Were not that desperate, trust me, but theyre great, and theyll learn from it. I think one of the things theyre looking at right now is what is counterinsurgency . Whats the best way to go about it . A lot of what i iraq and afghanistan was called counterinsurgency. But to an infantryman, it just looked Like Fighting bad guy. You call it anything you want, but for a Young Private or young sergeant or lieutenant, theyre in fire fight with somebody or theyre getting blown up by i. E. D. s. I think what the military is looking at now and what doctrinal concepts are appropriate to this new 21st century world that were living in now that were out of sandroik will be coming out of afghanistan in due course. The good news here is that here really is no peer military competitor to the United States of america. The only two nations that even have the potential economic capacity or the population to challenge us, i would think, would be china and india, because theyre large, big countries. But there is absolutely no intent on challenging us that way. The chinese are building up their forces, and we have to watch that and ask for greater transparency. But theyre doing too good a job selling to us. Theyre not going to blow that. And so while i watch china with great interest as a professional matter, im not of the view that china is going to become an enemy because they got nowhere being our enemy in the past, and theyve gotten very, very far by not being their enemy and become the second largest economy on earth, and they still have 800 Million People who are dirt poor wanting to know when is it their turn. And so we have no peer competitor like we did with the old soviet union. Russia is not the soviet union. As nuclear host mitt romney said there are. Gen powell i disagree with my good friend. I dont think they are. Do they get silly . Do they say things that are troublesome . Mr. Putin does that all the time. But lets put it host is that the russians youre talking about . Gen powell mr. Putin, the president. Host not mr. Romney. Gen powell i said putin. [laughter] host you did. Gen powell see what happens when you work with these guys . Host i wasnt entirely sure. In a moment were going to take some questions from our audience, but i want to ask you very seriously right now, if you got your calls returned, and if you were in the discussions these days about policy, two quick questions. Hat would your what would your key message be about, syria or iran . Gen powell on syria, it is extremely difficult. I know president assad. Ive worked with him. Ive met with him in damascus. He lies constantly. You cant believe or trust him on anything. But necessary solid control still of the country, even with all of the troubles that he is facing. And he is of the minority group, as was his father. His father went through Something Like this and killed 80,000 people so. These are brutal folks who are not going to give up power easily. And even if they were to leave power easily or otherwise, its not entirely clear what it is wed be supporting on the other side. So if i was in right now, i would say be very, very careful before you start suggesting that sbr intervention is appropriate or providing more weapons is appropriate, which might fuel more violence. I think finding a some kind of Political Institution is the best way, but its going to be very, very hard. Because the opposition will want him to leave, and he ought to leave. He really is a bad guy. He ought to leave. But he knows if he leaves, the consequences to his tribe and to his interests may be more than he can bear. And on the other side, we need to have a clear idea, a clearer idea of who we would be supporting who would be taking over power. With respect to iran, i think keep putting the pressure on them. Theyre really starting to hurt. But theyre not going to give up their Nuclear Program easily. Weve been trying to do this now for eight or nine years, and they keep insisting that its just for the production of power. They dont want a weapon. But ive seen some of the things theyre developing, and theyre developing rockets and things like that, which up dont need for nuclear power. And so you cant trust them. But the solution may well emerge that says, ok, look, if thats all you want is power, then lets talk about how you an do that in the most strenuous regime of inspection that is we can come up with, and to put you in the box, so that if you make the slightest mistake for youre lying to us, its detectable, and you will face the most serious consequences. Host serious consequence mean we will attack you, we will bomb your facilities . Gen powell in my world of diplomacy and military stuff, the most serious consequences is a wonderful term, because it doesnt tell what you well do. Let him worry about what we might do. Dont tell them what youre going to do. When you are going to do, it youll do it. And so he will understand, he knows what we can do to him. The other thing that ive been around Nuclear Weapons as a soldier and National Security advisor and chairman for close to 50 years. I was taught how to employ Nuclear Weapons as a young cam kapp tan as age 25. As a core commander in germany guarding the narrowest part of the nato defense area, back, if they came through me, if the Corruption Army got through me, they were it was done. They would split nature notice half. And so my war plan had to stop them as best we could, waiting for reinforcements to come from the United States. We thought we could only do that for a few days because they had three armies facing my one corps. So we would call for Nuclear Weapons. I still remember we were steading this problem, and the game we were playing, the battle reached the third day, and my staff was saying we need to call for the release of Nuclear Weapons. And i said, let me see the target list were going to drop these on. And they were all in west germany. Because the russians had come through. I said where do all the german goes . Oh, we evacuated them. Really, how . And it was so surreal. But it was real. The weapons were there. They could have been eased. And if we had done it, the russians would have responded. And i dont think you would have stopped the escalation that would take place. And i learned from that experience that these things are really not that usable. You can deter somebody with them, but we deterred the russians. The russians deterred us. Reagan is the one who wanted to put in strategic defenses to make them worthless, because you shoot one at us and well knock it down. And then as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, i had under my supervision some 28,000 Nuclear Weapons, 28,000, of all kinds. And my russian colleague and i would talk a lot about this. And i was telling robert backstage that when the cold war was just about ending and we were talking very candidly to one another, one day we were talking about the Security Systems that we had on our missiles to make sure there were no accidents, and one of the systems that we were talking about, he had a level of security that was higher than mine. He had one more level of protection to keep them from being used. And i said, how come you have this extra layer . And he said, we lost 40 Million People in the great patriotic war, world war ii. We dont ever want to take that chance again. These cant be used, colin, you know it and i know it. And i said i agree. And the consequence of the the existential consequences of such use are almost unimaginable. And so when you look at iran, a country of 80 Million People, i guess, that broke, is under enormous pressure, people can say theyre crazy, theyll fire one of these just to hit israel. Well, i find that a little difficult to internalize, because they know that they would be destroyed the next day. And they may want to go to heaven and meet somebody up there, but more important for them is to survive. Host you believe that they would buy into the logic of deterrence when it came down it it . Gen powell i wouldnt rely on dismiss y, but i would deterrence by saying theyre crazy. They want to survive. Just like the north koreans, they want to survive. The first thing to ensure that they would not survive is to use those weapons. So i think deterrence and containment plays a role in all of this, but i dont want to see them get a nuclear weapon. I dont want their Nuclear Program to go higher toward enrichment, toward a nuclear weapon, and to create rockets that would deliver such weapons. And so i think we ought to put all the diplomatic and scomplill economic pressure on them that we can, because sooner or later it will cause them to rethink the awful position theyre putting themselves in. I once met with the Iranian Foreign minister at a dinner. We both were careful not to get in trouble talking to each other, but i wanted to make small talk. Whats the biggest problem you have in iran these days, mr. Minimummer . I thought he might say israel. Unemployment. We have to find 600,000 jobs every year, and were not doing it. The greatest Political Force at work around the world, and we need to understand it here in the United States is Wealth Creation through Economic Growth and economic development. Its what china is doing. China didnt get successful where it is now by invading anybody or attacking anybody. They did it by making things that others wanted to buy. And india is coming along the same direction. We have absolutely no reason to fear any of these countries, because they need to keep growing wealth in order to bring their people up out of poverty. What caused the arab spring, fundamentalism . No, they want jobs. They want to get rid of corrupt governments. They want to elect their own leaders. It was a fruit seller in tunis who set himself on fire because he got in an argument with the local authorities. He said enough. And he set himself on fire, and he started the Arab Spring Movement that we now see in such full flower. Host there are two mic stands, one in each aisle in the front. We have time for some questions, and well alternate rom one side to the other. Let me begin with this microphone here. Im very proud that youre here tonight, and i appreciate you and robert both being here to talk to us this evening. Since youve been on both sides, i like to say, of the last couple of decades political from the military side and also from the state department, do you think with our military force, which is incomparable to anything else in the world in terms of doing their job, but are we asking them to do a lot, to not only defend us, but also to do nationbuilding . Gen powell the principal reason for the existence of the military is to defend us and to apply the states power against an enemy. It doesnt mean we cant do other things, but that has to be the Principal Mission in my humble view as an infantry officer. The way the constitution is written, you raise and support armies. We dont need them, get rid of them. You need them, you raise them. But fundamentally, theyre there to fight. But when you look at japan and germany after world war ii, they werent run by diplomats. Douglas mcarthur and a series of generals in germany, and they were doing peace making and peacekeeping. They created constitutional governments for these people. And so the military can do just about anything that theyre asked to do, very, very competent Skilled Group of young men and women, and we should be very proud of them. But they exist to fight the nations battles, first and foremost. Host question here . Is this on . Host yes. Get a little closer. I was disappointed you didnt run for president , and i would like ask you personally to consider running again. [applause] gen powell i hit my sell by date long ago. [laughter] as robert said, and its in the book, it was an enormously fficult time, because i felt this obligation that was being put upon me by many people. There were a lot of people who said we dont want to see you anywhere near politics. We dont like it. So it was all a unanimous suggestion. But what finally pushed it over the edge was, there was not a singe morning i woke up and deep inside of me did i think it was the right thing to do. It just didnt fit me. Im not basically a politician. Im still basically a soldier with some other suits. And there was never a morning where i wanted to get up and go out and do that. Im so glad that we have the obamas and romneys and bushes and kerrys and all the rest of them, and they have that feeling for it, which i dont have. And also, my wife was not in favor of it. People think, well, it was because of your wife. No, you see, weve been married this year, this summer, in two months, weve been married 50 years, and weve been a team for 50 years. [applause] in this case, the decision was 100 , beginning with me, of course, she shared my view, and people say, well, you know, gee look, she didnt marry me when i was chairman. She married me when i was a young captain heading off to vietnam for a year, leaving her behind with a baby that would be born while i was away. And were close, very close. Host sir . Theres another part of the book that says the best thing about being disappointed is you get over it. [laughter] well, i think a lot of us host see, everything is in this book. You got to get it. We need you. Think about it again. Gen powell thank you. Host sir . A little different, some of us are really good in engineering, some of us are really good in rotc. Do you think that educators should allow more choice among the younger undergraduates the first two years so they can select those careers and those subjects that they have an interesting in, stay way from those that they really cant do that well . Gen powell this is a fascinating question that we could spend an hour on. My Public School education, i flunked out of engineering. Thats what youre suggesting. I know that. [laughter] host but now youre being asked to theorize about higher i had indication. Gen powell one of the things i found, i only tripped up in the last couple of years. The last few years, ive gotten older, trying to bring up old memories, in high school, i was exposed to stuff that bored me to death at the time. But 30, 40 years later, i remember it with such warm vividness, and im sure it was there all the while, having an now me. We had art appreciation. We had music. I could still hear bolero coming out of the 78 r. P. M. , the night watch by rembrandt. Canterbury tales by chaucer. All of these things our children need to be exposed to, and not just, how do i pass this math and science test to get it the next break . It would be a shame if in the course of our education of our children we dont expose them to lots of things, and we dont give them greater choice in what they want to do with their lives. Most of them at that age are not sure, so expose them lots of things. Give them a menu. And sooner or later something will catch them and turn them on, just like rotc turned me on. If it hadnt come into my life in 17, i wouldnt be here. I dont know where id be. Thats what i found and nell love with. Thats what i tell kids, graduation speeches, keep looking for the thing that you do well and the thing you love doing. Dont stop. It isnt fame and fortune. It isnt the amount of money you make or the titles you get. Its doing that which you do scombl which you love doing. And i was talking to a group of students not too lock ago, and said i didnt come in the army to be a general. I came in the army to be a soldier. And they could have sent me home any time they wanted, and i would have been happy, because i only came in to be a soldier for as long as they wanted me as a soldier. And so we have to get kids down from this, oh, i got to make a zillion dollars as a hedge fund manager, or im going to be the next, you know, guy who invents facebook or something. And get them to find out which they love doing and not stop seeking it until they find it. Host sir . Neral powell, sir, i most of iraq, i was in europe at the time working for nato. And i had a very different sort of environment than you had here, where i was the crazy american and all these europeans were talking about why are we doing this . But i had a o couple of puzzles that i couldnt account for. One was, there were so many leaks that shocked me so completely, and there was an awful lot of rumor that just before the outbreak of the iraq ar, there was caravans loading what might be weapons into syria. Can you say anything about either or both . Gen powell yeah, i saw those reports, and we looked into them pretty thoroughly, and there were a lot of people who said, well, the weapons were there, and they were either buried or sent to syria. Ive seen no evidence that either of those things actually accounts for the absence of weapons. There were no weapons, any humble judgment. And the judgment of the Intelligence Community now. Host yes . General powell, you say that you feel the u. S. Military has no peers or significant geopolitical rival. Why do you think so many of our politicians, and obviously so many of their constituents, feel that the same level of military spending needs to be maintained to the detriment of domestic spending that could benefit nationbuilding here at home . [applause] gen powell well, a couple of answers to that question. Im not sure what the right level should be. Im not in anymore. At the end of the cold war, i recommended to mr. Cheney, who was my boss at the time, the secretary of defense, and to president bush, that we cut 25 , and we did. Cold war was over, so we cut 25 . I dont know if that level of cut is in the cards. I dont think so. I dont think we can make that kind of cut. But i think the pentagon should be like any other government department, analyze to see what we dont really, really need. There are a lot of hardware programs that are going to be challenged, and if the segregation comes anywhere close to being implemented at the end of the year, the pentagon will have to make further reductions. We should not spend a dollar more on military spending than we need to, but we should not spend a dollar less. Youve got to find the right balance. And i have confidence in the generals and admirals who are over there to find the admiralsd it. They understand the real strength of the country comes from an economy that is working hard. It is always argued and i cannot agree that defense spending is at the expense of domestic spending. We ought to spend what we need on domestic issues and programs as well. We are a rich country. The soviet union was broken could not do both. Constrained defense spending to and is absolutely needed the mystic spending should be what is needed to take care of care of ournd take infrastructure and our education and the other things we need. Everything should be on the table. It was a mistake to not accept the proposal that came from , that would have been a start because everybody would have had to come to the table ready. Not pass physical muster and we are trying to get beyond that. ,ne thing we have to do somehow we cannot keep spending 3 trillion a year and only taking into trillion dollars a year. We cant run a 7eleven like that. How can we run a country like that . The answer is we borrow the money and our grandkids will pay for it. Starting to figure out how to bring our Government Spending down which means all of us have to give up something. I can think of several things to take away from this tomorrow. There are ways to cut spending in a sensible way and reform our tax code which is terrible and get rid of loopholes. There are things we can do and you cant quite find the right combination of Political Support and politicians who will move in this direction. Neither mr. Romney nor mr. Obama are supermen. Super people are those of us here or around the country. If youre going to start examining the issues or what these people stand for and what they say they will do what they are able to do because of their political strength or the strength of their party. Charge of this not the super pacs or rich guys writing checks to people. Back away from all the Television Commentators coming on commenting on other commentators and start taking a hard look at what we are doing. [applause] to stand to stand up for the commentators. Are you are saying the cuts that would take place under the uestration, that is doable i think sequestration will not happen even though it is off the books. I am not a political handicapper. The consequences would be too severe not only for domestic spending but foreign depressed defense spending. That would take the Defense Department too low. They are already kicking in between 400 and 500 billion. The sequestration would double that number and the pentagon could not take that kind of reduction. Nor do i think congress would allow it to take place. Since congress put this into the law, they are just as capable of taking it out of the law. We have time for just two more questions. It is an honor and privilege. I was wondering if you could say Leadership Principles you took away from your experience . Thickly these of the specifically president bush coming in as a young and inexperienced individual. Packing a cabinet with strong veterans but also veterans who had very strong personalities that crashed and created a policymaking and leadership debacle. What Team Leadership advice can you give to leading a team well that has such a strong personality . Gen. Powell strong personalities dont necessarily create conflict. Bush 41, George Herbert walker bush, personalities were very strong to include some of the personalities in the second bush first term. Me, mr. Cheney, and others. We got along well. This time around we got along well on so many wishes. If you look at what we did to expand nato, expand the european union. What we did with hivaids investment. What we do to increase the amount of assistance we give to the rest of the world. A lot of things were done very well, in total harmony. Because there were not strong feelings about the issues. On the issue of iraq, that was a key one. We had different points of view of how many troops are needed. We had different points of view of how to resolve the issues. Finally, it reached a point where the president in 2004, we were not working as well as we should as a team. It seems like there is somebody who is more at a frequency with the others than anyone else, its me. I only wanted to stay one term. Right after the election i want to step down and the president agreed. He understood the problem how do you function as a team . Everyone has to have a common purpose of what we are trying to achieve, Mutual Respect with each other, and trust with each other. I think we couldve done a better job with that. As i say, i was probably the one who was most out of sync with the others. Thats why i left when i said i was going to leave. And the president but it was a thought it was a good idea too. I appreciated your point of view the most, personally. Thank you. [applause] one more question. My question is simple. A lot of us americans are always saying, what is wrong with america . I still believe we are still the land of prosperity and opportunity. In your opinion, whats right with america . Gen. Powell so much. Weve got a wonderful democratic system that is noisy, looks like its riddled with conflict. It has always been that way. It was designed that way. Right now it is getting harder to resolve conflicts. Our democratic system has stood the test of time. We faced slavery, we faced civil wars, we faced all kinds of challenges and we ultimately come out the other end in pretty good shape. Its the other guys who fell apart. The soviet union said they would beat us to death and they collapsed. China said, this is working, we have to be friends with america and not their enemies. We will be trading partners. We have this resiliency in our makeup as a nation and people that takes us through difficult times. You look at some of the Founding Fathers and what they went through, these guys really they had duels, they would shoot each other. Hmm, never mind. [laughter] gen. Powell the two documents that i like to read our are jeffersons first and second inaugural addresses. In his first, it is a beautiful address talking about america and what it means, and what we are going to do for the people. Beautiful. Four years later when he wrote his second inaugural address, he was mostly mad and annoyed, and he was mostly mad and annoyed at the press. [laughter] gen. Powell there is a long section in an inaugural address where he goes on and on about how the press should be thrown in jail. Why dont the states lock these people up . I am paraphrasing a little bit. He said they ought to be thrown in jail and they are violating the laws for what they say about me and others. But then he pauses and atypical in a typical jeffersonian manner and says, but, given the choice between allowing people to speak freely or throwing them in jail, i choose the former. The reason he said he could choose the former was because, if everybody speaks long enough, the truth will win. The truth will always beat the lies. The truth will always overcome falsehood. We have lived by that principle. Second, we have the best economy. Its the strongest economy in the world. We are number one. And have been and will continue to be. Resilience and a strong economy, strong military. I think political Wealth Creation processes are more important now. Above all, we have a glue that holds us together as americans. We are all proud to be american. When i really think about this, and see the wave of immigrants that come to this country, and in the speeches i give itel two stories about what it means for americans to understand how we affect the rest of the world. Even though people are complaining about us, people are lined up at out of our all of our embassies and consulate offices. Tomorrow they will stay the same thing, i want to go to america. First has to be the japanese businessman. Very rich owned many conglomerates, he was being interviewed one night. The interviewer says, of all the cities that you visited, which is your favorite . He says, new york. The guy says to him, why new york, why not rome, london or paris . He says, new york city is the only city were i walked on the street and people come up to me and ask for directions. [laughter] gen. Powell try that in paris. Its remarkable. We are a nation of nations. We are renewed, refreshed. We are renewed and refreshed with every generation with immigrants coming here. Immigrants go to europe to get jobs. Immigrants come here to get jobs but also to become americans. Try that in half the countries in europe. See if you can become one of their citizens. The final story, which my assistant with me knows so well. Whenever i am in new york i love to walk up fifth or park avenue on a Beautiful Day and look at the shops and churches, everything, and admire all the people going by. I always have to stop at one of the numbered cross streets where there is a pushcart hotdog peddler. I always have to have one. Special mustard and red onion relish. Ive gotta have one. Even when i was secretary of state, i would come out of my suite of the waldorfastoria. [laughter] gen. Powell start up park avenue and have five bodyguards around me and three police cards on park avenue to make sure nobody wacked me. I always stopped and ordered my hotdog. A guy would look up a bodyguards and the police cards and say ive got a green card, ive got a green card. [laughter] gen. Powell but now i have no bodyguards. Im all alone and i still do it. It goes Something Like this. Hotdog, mustard, red onion relish. He fixes it. He starts to hand it to me. He says, i have seen you on television. You are general powell. Heres a hotdog, i hand him the money. It happens over and over, general, no. You cannot pay me, you dont have to pay me. America has already paid me. I will never forget where i came from. Im here, my children are here. We are americans. General, please, take a hotdog. I take it and continue walking up the street. It washes over me, this is still the same country. The same country that greeted my parents 90 years ago. Dont ever sell this place short. We are still the leader of the world that wants to be free. Thank you. [applause] the contingency sampler is down. Difficult totle dig through the crust. But theery soft surface contingency sample collector a very hard surface. Cohesives to be very material of the same sort. Trying to get a rock in here. Now you are watching American History tv. Every weekend beginning saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern we ring you hours of unique programming exporting our countrys past. American history tv is only on cspan3. This is houston, radioshack, over. Houston, we hear you, loud and clear. Roger, houston. Tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern former virginia democratic Governor Terry mcauliffe talks about his book beyond charlottesville, taking a stand against white nationalism. It is sending signals to people that thick the president comes out and says this stuff i can as well. Then they feel emboldened. If he can say this publicly so can they. People used to do this at night. They dont think they have to wear hoods anymore. In charlottesville they came out. They got hurt badly in charlottesville. Watch tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan two. Next on American History tv, four former apollo era flight controllers discuss the lunar module landing operations. This panel was part of an event hosted by Space Center Houston to mark apollo 11s 50th anniversary. It is a very special day. We are honored to have a panel of important engineers