I will just leave it this way. All right. I dont consider myself a journalist. Nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even know i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . General, thank you very much for coming. General petraeus pleasure, thanks, great to be with you. You served our country for quite david a while. now you are in something you might consider a higher calling of mankind, private equity. [laughter] how do you compare being in the military to being in private equity. General petraeus i am not sure i would root greek i would agree wholeheartedly with that although i feel privileged to to be in the private equity business and also in academia. I think it is pretty hard to top the extraordinary privileges serving ones country in uniform, particularly if you are leading our soldiers, marines come in combat. David you are famous for staying in shape. He told me you already exercised an hour and a half this morning. I do an hour and a half a year. General petraeus we can talk. David you are living in new york right now. When you are in new york, you run around central park . How hard is that . General petraeus 6. 2 miles. David do people recognize you . General petraeus not if you are running. If you wear sunglasses and a hat you can generally run unimpeded and unrecognized if you are wearing a hat. Folks are kind to me walking the streets. Can i just ask though if the veterans in the audience would please stand up so that we can recognize you and thank you for what you have done to our country while you were in uniform. David veterans . [applause] general petraeus david, i have often said that those who served in the post9 11 generation, all of whom are volunteers and raised their right hand and took an oath likely knowing they , would be asked to deploy to a combat zone. I have often described them as americas new greatest generation. Something tom brokaw shouted ears after he heard our soldiers in iraq in the first year in mosul. You saw all that they were doing, myriad tasks from combat to helping rebuild cities that had been damaged during the war. All of these different tasks. He said, you know that world war , ii crowd was the greatest generation. Sure that the men and women we have seen today is americas new greatest generation. I very much believe in that. David lets talk about how you came into the military. Your father was a dutch sea captain and met your mother, from brooklyn, and they met at a Church Service . General petraeus yes. David he later stayed here during world war ii and commanded a marine shift. General petraeus during the war he sailed with u. S. Merchant marine. I think it was in when the nazis 1939 overran holland, they could not back to rotterdam. David you grew up in new york city . General petraeus about 50 miles north of here. About seven miles north of west point. I could actually run home from west point, to and from. David when you were growing up, what was your nickname growing up . Peaches. Etraeus i was in a Little League game in an announcer could not pronounce it. He said it peaches, and it stuck. It followed me all through my time at west point. There was a girl in the laundry who had been a High School Friend of mine, doing that is a doing that as a summer job. She would send me notes, and the laundry you would send once a week to someone in class and opened up and it said dear peaches, so it jumped to west point. David how did you get appointed to west point . You seem like you are qualified and a good athlete. Somebody had to call a member of congress to get you in. General petraeus you just make an application, right to your congressman and the congressman rights you in. It is a competitive process. David suppose you hadnt gotten in, where would you have gone to college if you had not done it . General petraeus colgate. David you ever thought about how your life would be different . General petraeus at the end of two years and west point, we had this pic spectacular summer where i was in alaska, mountain climbing, glaciers, rivers, so forth. First in a Training Course as an and then with an actual unit. This is our summer training and then i went down to los angeles and a friend of mine who lived in the hills over there overlooking los angeles had such an extraordinary experience i decided should i really go back to west point for the remaining years or should i enjoy more of this . In the end, i went back, obviously. David at west point, did you play on the soccer team . General petraeus i was on the soccer team and a skier. David when you graduated, did you decide you wanted to make the military your career . General petraeus i just wasnt sure. What was interesting was of all things at west point i was in the premed program. I love that particular body of academic inquiry. I think it was also that it was the highest academic peak to scale. It was sort of known as the toughest and all the sudden i found myself in the senior year with an actual slot in the program and i realized at that time i was an absolutely certain i wanted to be a doctor, i just wanted to kind of climb that mountain so i picked infantry instead. I had a wonderful, wonderful experience. David you got married a few weeks after you graduated to the daughter of the commandant of west point. General petraeus superintendent is the overarching guy. Threestar general. It was a strange blind date i must say, when i found out. David but it wasnt nerveracking dating the superintendents daughter . Was in that kind of complicated . General petraeus we tried to do it clandestinely for a while and i took a lot of flak over that. There is a potential particular generals marched they play at parades and one of my classmates we were a little way away from the crowd and one of my classmates would sing my soninlaw, my soninlaw. So i took a little flak. David you graduated and went into the infantry, working your way up, and there were two incidents that occurred where you almost lost your life. Not in combat. General petraeus there was a pretty aggressive live fire exercise, live grenades, supporting machinegun fire and all the rest of that. We were following, in fact general keaton, the one star general and the vice chief of staff of the army fourstar was with me when we were walking behind the soldiers. One of them knocked out a bunker, spun out, tripped, fell down, and we think as he did he probably squeezed because you tense up when you are about to take a blow and a m16 round went through my chest. A inly it went over the petraeus rather than the a in army. The medics start working on you and initially, shock set in. They get an iv running, aircraft in, pick me up, held my hand the general keane held my hand the whole way. They took me to the hospital. In fact, it had nicked an artery but not severed it. If it severed it, you would be that he would bleed out and you are finished very quickly. It is one of the times when someone turned to me and the doctor said this is really going to hurt and he took a scalpel and cut an x in my side right down my lives ribs shoved a , plastic tube and my lung to try and get that out. Trying to get suction and get the fluid out and that is what saved my life. I was put back in a helicopter and flown back to vanderbilt medical center. Of all people, they called in the surgeon on call that day was dr. Bill frist and he came in later the majority leader of the senate and some people were jokingly said yeah trias was dying to meet bill frist raeus was dying to meet bill frist, and so you did. David and you did 50 pushups, 100 pushups to show them that you could get out of the hospital earlier . General petraeus thats the only time i stopped at [laughter] 50. David ive never gotten to 50. General petraeus i wanted to get out of there. Things were fine, there was no reason to keep hanging around. I was doing laps around the hospital. I put all my tubes in a wheelchair and push them around. I think it was driving them crazy. David the other incident was you were skydiving and your parachute didnt quite work and you broke your pelvis. What is that like . General petraeus that was actually worse in terms of pain because it fractured front and rear. Your body is literally in two parts. Anything that touches i wrote an ambulance rode an ambulance, and every crack in the street, not just a bump, was agony. David did you ever skydive after that . General petraeus i was told by the army, general keane, in fact, who was then a fourstar who said no more skydiving and i said, ok, you give me a Division Command and i will quit skydiving. David so they gave you a command. General petraeus and i was very privileged. David and you had never had anyone who were killed directly under you working in combat. General petraeus it was a chilling experience. I remember the call and it takes the wind out of you. David david you had a number of important jobs in the military, but then the decision was made by president bush to invade iraq and you became a commander there and you went over there as the first part of the military going into that. That went into that. It was supposed to be relatively quick. When did you realize this wasnt going to be as easy as we had thought . General petraeus first of all, in a matter of weeks we did actually topple the regime, although there was stiffer fighting along the way in various points and certainly was predicted by a variety of different folks tired to the invasion, which was that the iraqi units were going to surrender and come over to our side and help us establish order did not prove out. There was tough fighting along the way and i had this nagging sense early on, probably certainly in the first week, once the dust storm blew through and i had rick atkinson, a Washington Post reporter ride in the back of my rbn i remember turning to him at one point and asking him, tell me how this ends, because i am not sure this is going to according to script. The idea of toppling saddam and his sons and some henchmen and then every one will stay in place and build a political negotiation and we will hand it over to them, obviously proved. David do you think it would have been different if we had not decided to get rid of the entire saddam army . Gen. Petraeus these were huge general petraeus these were huge mistakes. We had a question on the Operation Center wall when i was a Division Commander and it asked will this Operation Take more bad guys off the street than it creates by misconduct . The same is true of policies. Firing in the military without telling them what their purpose was, which means you are taking tens of thousands of people, and there is no reconciliation process agreed. You have just created tens of thousands of people whose incentive is to oppose the new iraq rather than support that. David and you led the effort to get control of mosul. General petraeus we were in baghdad, which is where we were told we would end up and all the sudden we got this emergency order to get up to mosul, it is out of control, there was a small unit and there had been 17 civilians killed responding to a riot. Within about 36 hours, we did one of the biggest air assaults in history. 250 helicopters or so. Blanketedimmediately the city with our soldiers, literally pushed right into the city, calm the down, stop the looting and the rest of that and gradually took control of that and then we actually had an interim government out there within two weeks of arriving. David early on in the war it was thought that shock and all was all that would be shock and awe was all that would be necessary. General petraeus that didnt completely succeed. I think it did impose a little folksut there were some certainly fighting and we had casualties and lost heavy equipment. David when president bush decided to invade iraq, part of it was the theory that they had weapons of mass destruction. That came from the cia and other places. When you became the head of the cia, did you ever dig into it . General petraeus i didnt dig into that as much as i dug into other issues such as the enhanced interrogation use of enhanced interrogation techniques, something which i am personally opposed for two reasons. I think it is wrong. I think it is beyond, what you will, the International Law and geneva convention. Number two is i do not think it is as effective as proponents believe it is. Jim mattis said give me a beer and a cigarette and i will get more information than by waterboarding him. Its not quite that simple, but simply, it would be that you want to become the detainees best friend in detention than the interrogator does. The commander who oversaw the holding of more detainees in iraq than at any other time. 27,000. We have some experience with what works and treating them humanely while still eliciting information from them is the way to go about it and the most in afghanistan before. David you never before had people working directly that were killed in combat. What was it like to have command of people who were dying . General petraeus it is a chilling experience actually. I remember the radio call when our first soldier was killed and it takes the wind out of you. I remember hearing a sister unit, the Third Infantry Division which really spearheaded the fight along with the Marine Division up in baghdad on the ground with tanks , i remember the radio call. I was monitoring their net because we were fighting together and hearing that they had had a couple of heavy vehicles blown up. It is chilling. David you were there for how long before you were sent back to the states . General petraeus it was about a yearlong deployment and i was back for a couple of months and asked to go back over quickly for an assessment for few weeks iraqie command of the Security Force effort. I reported back to secretary rumsfeld and he said great report, now go back and change out of your division and do what you recommended we do. David have you thought that if you hadnt written such a good report you wouldnt have been sent back . General petraeus secretary rumsfeld had an interesting way of giving rewards. Was 15 and a half months and the final week or so he was literally patting me on the back. I thought, this is really nice of him and he said, you know, on the way home, i want you to come through afghanistan. I said, thats not exactly the direct line between two points here, but we did an assessment over there on the way home actually. David president obama calls you into the oval office and says i would like you to give up Central Command and go back and be a military commander in afghanistan. What did you think about that . General petraeus if the president calls on you and asks you to do something, you do it. David you didnt say let me think about it, give me a few minutes . You dont do that. General petraeus no. David you finished your second tour of duty in iraq and went back to the United States. General petraeus and then we had six months in leavenworth, it is really quite an extraordinary command. We really revamped the whole process of preparing units, leaders tond their go to iraq and afghanistan. We did the counterinsurgency field manual which is the intellectual foundation for that. David you wrote a very good report you oversaw the , counterinsurgency manual, it was so good that people said maybe this person should be in charge of the counterinsurgency efforts. You are asked by president bush to go back and lead the surge. When he said, i would like to go lead the surge and you said i have already served two tours of duty in iraq and i dont want to need to go back a third time . General petraeus you said it would be a privilege to do that and its the same thing i said president obama sent me down a a few years later. With no pleasantries and no one else in the room except the photographer he said i am asking you as your commander in chief to go to afghanistan, take command of the International Security assistance force. I think the only answer at a time like that can be yes. David i didnt understand at the time, how many troops did we have in iraq at that time . General petraeus we had about that weres. Soldiers there, marines, coalition had some tens of thousands of additional and then we added about 25,000 to additional 30,000 forces during the surge. I would just point out and i am sure there are some surge veterans in here that would validate this, the surge that matter the most was not the surge of forces, but the surgeon surge in ideas. It was the change in strategy, complete change. It was a 180 degrees shift from consolidating on big bases in getting out of the faces of the iraqi people to going back to living in the neighborhoods because that is the only way you can secure them. Realizing that you cannot kill or capture your way out of industrialstrength insurgency. You have to reconcile with as many as you can from handing off to iraqi escalating level of sources that couldnt handle the escalating level of violence after the bombing in february of 2006 to actually taking back over. We created 77 additional locations just in the baghdad divisional area of responsibility alone during the course of the surge. David so we had about 140,000 american troops. We sent over an additional 25,000 to 30000 and that was enough given the techniques you used to bring it to a stable position, relatively speaking. General petraeus it dramatically reduced violence. It was reduced by some 80 85 during the course of a 18 month period. David after 18 months you came back . General petraeus i came back about 19. 5 months after that and went back to central. David u. S. Central command is in charge of military operations in the middle east. General petraeus it is the countries from egypt in the west to pakistan in the east, kazakhstan in the north and yemen and the pirate infested waters off salon somali to the south. We were very proud to have 90 of the worlds problems at the time. David after you have this command, somebody gets to rise up to be the chairman of the Army Joint Chiefs of staff. You were kind of rising up, and then one day, president obama calls you into the oval office and says i would like you to give up the Central Command and go back to be a military commander in afghanistan. What you think about that . General petraeus if the president calls and asks you to do something david you didnt , i think you did it. David you didnt say let me think about it, give me a few minutes . General petraeus no, the only answer to a question like that can be yes. I will say that in that case and actually prior, it was actually secretary gates was the one who called me. I was actually on leave, it was the last time i saw my father before i went to the surge. We were on a freeway outside los angeles driving to where he lived in a retirement home and took the call from secretary gates. In each case, i wanted to have little bit more of a conversation and say i would like you to understand who you are getting is your commander because my advice on when it comes to drawing forces down and so forth will be based on the facts on the ground with an understanding of the mission that you have assigned us which will have dialogue informed by an awareness of all the other issues which you have to deal legitimately, congressional politics, domestic politics, galician politics, budget deficits, you name it, but driven by facts on the ground. That is important because what a basically saying is im going to give it to you straight. Im not changing it based on an issue you have to deal with although i will briefly support the decision that you ultimately make. David you went afghanistan, spent about 12, 13 months there. General petraeus a little over 12 and a half months. David what did you conclude . Did we have an effort to successfully get rid of the taliban and or reduce their impact . General petraeus i said in Congress Actually in my confirmation hearing that we would not be able to flip afghanistan the way we flipped iraq. I really did believe we could do in iraq what we ultimately did, what was eating at me all the time was whether we could do it fast enough, whether we could have sufficient results to report in september of 2007, 6 months into the surge or not and that was crucial because congressional support was very tenuous and we did and we and it continued to be reduced. Reduced violence vary dramatically it was sustained in iraq for a good three or three and a half years before tragically, the Prime Minister his action. H in the case of afghanistan, i was under no illusions that we would be able to replicate what we had done in iraq. Circumstances are very different. I actually laid out the for the secretary of defense after the afghan assessment that secretary rumsfeld asked me to do. The very first slide in that meeting, powerpoint is the means of communication of modern general, it said afghanistan does not equal a iraq. There was not going to be the prospect of a dramatic improvement, but our mission in that year which we did accomplish, it was to hold them to halt the momentum of the taliban, because we were on the march, to reverse it in key areas, to decelerate the instability in afghanistan so we we could begin transition of some tasks, which we did all while achieving the overarching goal, which is still a valid and Important Mission for the United States in afghanistan. That is to ensure that afghanistan is never again a sanctuary for transnational extremists when al qaeda plans the way it was planned the 9 11 attacks. David you briefed president bush, and many times president 43 obama. If they were taking sat tests, who would do better . General petraeus i dont grade the president s that i serve. David and who was a better athlete . General petraeus president bush. He could talk trash. He said general, when are you going to have the guts to ride a Mountain Bike with me. I said i could give you an experience that you would write off on your income taxes education. David while you were in afghanistan, the attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden was going forward. Capture or kill. How were you alerted to that, because you are not directly in the chain of command for that decision that night. Gen. Petraeus no one else in our headquarters new at all. I got up myself, no aides. We had a joint Operations Command post at the nato headquarters in kabul where i was located. I surprise them at 11 00 at night, said what are you doing in here. I asked everyone to leave except one officer who i knew very well. We dialed up so we could monitor the operation. We had a lot of contingency plans. The forces that conducted it, some at least, was working for me in normal times. But that time they were working for the cia. It was a covert action, which means the chain of command runs from the president to the director of the cia to admiral mccraven and the next unit. David subsequently, did there Intelligence Forces know that Osama Bin Laden was living there . Gen. Petraeus no, i do not think so. Im pretty convinced of that. David after 12 and a half months the president said i would like you to come back and be the head of the cia. Doing that meant you had to give up your military career. Gen. Petraeus i did not have to, but i chose to. The president and i talked about that when he made the decision to nominate me for that. I agreed that would be the best approach. I thought it was very important not to have folks think i was going to turn this place into a military headquarters. I showed up the first day and said i would do that. No one but the security guys. David was it emotional to give up your military career at that point . Gen. Petraeus it is always to take the enough ohs emotional to take the uniform off for the last time. It is a wonderful experience. But you have the prospect of this extraordinary new opportunity, it was very exciting. The cia is an Incredible Group of the men and women, the silent warriors, as we term them. They also raise their hand and take an oath at a time of war. They know they are not going to get a parade, there is nothing public about what they do. They do not even have the joy most of us have a talking about what it is they do on a daily basis. David when you get to the cia, do you say these are all the secrets the country have and these are not as many as i thought, or, these are incredible secrets . What do think . Gen. Petraeus on a near daily basis, throughout my time there, it was one of those, are you kidding me . Seriously . There are some extraordinary secrets. [laughter] gen. Petraeus by the way, those who do not think we know how to recruit spies or ill we are doing is relying on satellites or Something Like that could not be more wrong. There are incredibly talented, Clandestine Services operating that are really exceptional. David when you are at the cia, not a policy maker but involved in the policy process, how did you look at the government then as opposed to when you were in the military . Gen. Petraeus in both cases you have input. If you are the commander of a theater of war, iraq or afghanistan, there are certainly no one who has a bigger voice if you will, when it comes to assessment him options, and recommendations. It is more significant than the Central Commander in that regard. The same is true of the cia. Keep in mind your role at the situation table is a twofold. One is together with the director of National Intelligence to provide the intelligence analysis, to present what your analysts have determined. And occasionally the president would ask me if i disagreed with the analyst, which i have done three times. A fourstar commander, i broke with them on National Intelligence estimates. That is a pretty big deal. In each case there is generally a reason for it. In the search they had to cut their data off for five weeks before i did. David you disagreed with gen. Petraeus he said if you disagree a want you to give me what the analysts say and your own view. I had more time with the Prime Minister in the analyst peter. David you ever worry about a covert operation on you they might perform . Gen. Petraeus no, no. The analysts like this, they want somebody who engages them. It is fun. Analysts say today we will talk about the Prime Minister of iraq. I say great, have you ever met them . No . Give your best shot. David you briefed bush president 43 and many times, president obama. What is the difference between the two on briefing them . Gen. Petraeus the bush 43 i briefed significantly on a weekly basis together with my great diplomatic partner, we had a weekly video teleconference for an hour every monday morning at 7 30 a. M. Eastern standard time. Around the situation room, a videoconferencing directly with us. He had gone all in on the search. He put it all on the line. He had frankly, overridden the advice of his advisers. Few people were behind the surge. General keane was one of those. He was intimately involved in this. The next day he did a Video Conference with the Prime Minister of iraq each week. It was a different circumstance. We were not doing the surge in iraq anymore. By the time president obama arrived, iraq was in a good place. The question was, how quickly can we draw down without jeopardizing what we fought and sacrificed so hard to achieve. President obama famously does his homework, studies it, deliberated. The afghan policy review that was conducted in the latter part of his first year was extraordinary. I do not think any president has ever engaged the National Security team, nine or 10 times directly. Before each one of those there is the Deputies Committee and the principals committee. They were exhausted. David taking an sat test, who would do better . Gen. Petraeus i do not know. David a better athlete . Gen. Petraeus depends on the sport. President bush he could talk trash, by the way. And he did with me. He challenged me. I was in the oval office with my family and he said, when will you have the guts to ride a Mountain Bike with me . I said, i will give you an experience you can write off on your income taxes education. [laughter] david did you ever do it . Gen. Petraeus yes, terrific. He also knew the course, had the best bike in the world. [laughter] gen. Petraeus i had to borrow a clunker. Secret service will get you if you try to pass them. This is a full contact sport when you rd ride with president bush. President obama, famously a great basketball player. I do not think president bush had any illusions he could take president obama oneonone fullcourt. David the importance of nato . Gen. Petraeus think Vladimir Putin for giving it a rebirth, in some respects. David the russians probably interfered with our recent elections. Gen. Petraeus they are trying to undermine the trust of our people in our system. That is a major issue. David you are at the cia and because of a personal mistake, you conceded that you made, you voluntarily left of the cia. Would you ever go back in another administration . Gen. Petraeus i would not rule it out. It is an extraordinary privilege to serve ones country. For the right position with the right context and so forth, the right conditions, it is not something i would rule out. David would you consider running for president of the United States . Gen. Petraeus no. I said i would never run back before i left government. I went to one of the white house chief of staff one time under president obama. There was a buzz that petraeus is running for office, be careful, suspicious, he is setting himself to run in the next election. I politely grabbed him and said, i am not running for the president of the United States. Please understand that. I tried truly to be nonpartisan, not just bipartisan. David what word to the use . Gen. Petraeus he used another word. [laughter] gen. Petraeus infantry men have some degree of familiarity with those world words. David what is your view on the importance of nato and what to improve it . Gen. Petraeus i agree with my old marine buddy and james mattis. He said if nato did not exist in would have to be invented. It serves an extraordinary role during the cold war. The wall came down and it continued to serve an extraordinary role. It has a new reason for living. We can thank Vladimir Putin for giving it a rebirth in some respects in terms of its importance. There is no question. President trump is right that there are countries that are not paying their dues, not doing all that they should. The countries agreed they should all pay at least 2 of their gdp for defense and a number of countries have work to do to get to that threshold. David it is reported by many that the russians probably interfered with our recent president ial election. Gen. Petraeus i do not think there is any question about it. No one in the Intelligence Community has questions. What they are trying to do, arguably what they are literally trying to change the results, but the change how people might see one candidate or the other. Certainly they are trying to undermine the trust of people in our system. That is a major issue. David in terms of iraq, where is it today . Is it stable . Gen. Petraeus iraq, the situation improving. With our help, their forces have been retrained and equipped. We are enabling them with intelligence assets, drones, precision strikes, industrialstrength facilities. Gradually taking back from the Islamic State those areas they seized. We will eventually defeat the Islamic State with army in iraq. We then have to help iraqi Security Forces on the residual insurgents and elements and terrorist cells. But the issue is not these battles. I have said for two years, even in the darkest days, ultimately the iraqis would prevail with our assistance and that of our coalition partners. The real battle is the battle after the battle. It is not just sunni arabs or kurds. All of those have to field their representatives in the new government. That new government has to be within means, responsive to their needs. Most importantly, minority rights are guaranteed as well as majority rule. That is a tall order. The Prime Minister, no question he wants to have Inclusive Governance rather than exclusive. It was alienating the sunni arabs that created the fertile fields for the planting of extremism and the rise of isis. The question is, where the will there be fertile fields again from which isis 3. 0 will arise, or not . David in syria, there is an ongoing war that seems to have no end. What would you recommend to the president for what we should do in syria . Gen. Petraeus they are doing a fair amount of what i would recommend. The Obama Administration in the final six to 12 months made a number of steps. You could argue it took too long, but ultimately, it did take a number of steps to defeat the Islamic State as a focus. Beyond that objective of defeating isis and the al qaeda affiliates in syria, the other objective should be to stop the bloodshed. To recognize the diplomatic effort to create some kind of an agreement that will result in a democratically elected, multiethnic, multisectarian government in damascus for all of syria is probably beyond reach now. We look at what kind of interim solutions on the ground could be established, could be achieved, so that you stop the bloodshed, stop the further flow of refugees, bring some of those back, and try to stabilize the situation. David what about the iranian agreement under president obama . Do you support it, think it is working . Gen. Petraeus i do not support walking away from it without enormous reason for it. I fear that if we left it without that, we would be more likely to isolate ourselves and iran. iran. David you see any prospect of getting all of our troops out of afghanistan in the for seeable future . Gen. Petraeus not in the foreseeable future. We should make a sustained commitment to afghanistan, stop the year on year agony. I think we have drawn down a bit too far and it would be great to have another if you take all the coalition forces, say 5000 Additional Forces back on the ground, we are doing foolish things because of these troop caps caps. They had to leave maintenance crews behind, we paid extraordinary cost and you fracture mean integrity because manufacturers are sitting in the heartland of the u. S. Without helicopters while their comrades are at war and need them. We have to think our way through that. There is no blank check ever and the afghans should not think they have that. They have to deliver, but they are very much fighting and dying for their country. When you do continue to enable them. The mission we talked about early earlier, to make afghanistan never a sanctuary for transnational extremists, is very valid. David what about kim jongun . No one in the American Government has ever met him. What is he trying to do . Gen. Petraeus he is trying to build himself as quickly as he can a deterrent that will enable him to stay in power and continue the legacy passed on to him from his father and grandfather. The challenges, this is the crisis to prevent a madman in many peoples eyes from getting a Nuclear Capability that can reach the u. S. This is a very real threat and it is one that confronts President Trump uniquely. No president has ever had that particular prospect. Yes, they were developing nuclear programs, yes they had some delivering means. But in intercontinental ballistic missile, could put a miniaturized Nuclear Device on it, that is a significant threat to the u. S. The president may be confronted by that most difficult decision. David political leaders you most admire . Gen. Petraeus i am a great fan of teddy roosevelt. The man in the arena speech has always captured me. The credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by dust, sweat, and blood. If you fail, fail while daring greatly. David lets talk about leadership. You are considered one of the great military leaders of our generation, may any. What is leadership to you . Gen. Petraeus leadership has four tasks, especially at the strategic level. If your commanding iraq or afghanistan, you have to get the big ideas right, get the strategy right, communicate them effectively through the breadth and depth of the organization, oversee their implementation am i of these have the subtasks. It has metrics, your battle rhythm, how you spend your time. We have a matrix for months of how we did that. Most importantly and a task often forgotten, you have to have a formal prices to determine how they have to be revised, refined, left on the side of the road intellectually. And do it again and again. Think of netflix. Three times they have gotten this right. They decided early on to put blockbuster out of business by mailing cds to people. They worked through that then saw that blockbuster was out of business now others are doing it. The connectivity is fast enough we can stream content, the videos, out to them and download them. Then they realize the others were doing that and a used 100 million on house of cards, we are going to provide content. It is a truly admirable and innovative, impressive leader that continues to get it right. David who are the military leaders you most admire . Gen. Petraeus ulysses s. Grant is hugely underrated. Now he is once again getting his due. He was the hero of the world after he left the white house on his famous tour. He wrote fantastic memoirs. Then the southern historians ran him down. Gradually, regard has returned. There is a terrific biography by ron white titled american ulysses. He really was americas ulysses. They are saying his biography will be out midoctober as well. Grant was the only general in u. S. History who was billion tactically brilliant tactically, brilliant operationally, at vicksburg one of the greatest maneuver campaigns of all time. And then strategically when he charted the strategy for the entire union force. People forget, this was not inevitable. The idea the union forces were ultimately going to grind down the south was not inevitable until grant made it so. Had there not been for that strategy and the victory of sherman at atlanta and sheridan in the shenandoah valley, lincoln couldve lost the election of 1864. Have the other won, he might have sued for peace. David who do admire . Gen. Petraeus many have gotten big ideas right over the years. Those on Mount Rushmore deserve that. I am a great fan of teddy roosevelt. The man in the arena speech has always captured me. The credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by dust, sweat, and blood. If he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, and this kind of stuff. Fdr another great leader. David any current leaders do admire . Gen. Petraeus certainly some in congress have been very impressive. Men of enormous courage, frankly. John mccain is one who went through an extraordinary difficult period in captivity in North Vietnam when he was shot down. He endured that, still has limitations to his motion today. Truly an individual of principle. I remember sitting in his office one time and i was trying to support the nomination for an ambassador in the area i was responsible for. He pulled out something on that individual and confronted me with it politely. I said, this is a man of enormous principle. Indeed, he has them. David what about your legacy . You have a terrific career in Public Service and the private sector. What would you like your legacy to be, this is what David Petraeus was all about . Gen. Petraeus i do not know. To be candid, i have not thought that much about it. I have the liberally state as busy as i can, thinking about the future. Maybe it can be said he got the big ideas right a times in some critical situations. [wind blowing] ashlee there is part of me that thinks icelanders might not be the brightest of people. I mean, look at this place. It is mostly made up of barren, volcanic rock that belches, will belches. Pushing the foul smell of sulfur throughout the countryside. Animals and plants have avoided this cold, hard land, and so too should have humans. But, as we all know, humans are a stupid, yet wonderfully determined species