advisers to figure out what to do differently. over those next two years, iraq did change. in mcmaster, yes, he s a brilliant intellectual, wrote a great book, but if the ballotsfieballot battlefield, horrible killing space, he found a way to reduce violence. that gives people a level of self-confidence very unusual in american life, one reason we should have confidence he ll ab good person in the white house. also, david, i think you ll agree with me there s a story about the army culture in both men, petraeus and mcmaster. petraeus putting together counter-insurgency plan, new counter-insurgency plan for the military. mcmaster fighting in iraq in the early stages of the war. 2011 them long distance put together the new counter-insurgency plan that
washington including from many top democrats. his book, dereliction of duty looks at joint chiefs of taaffe during war in vietnam and how they fed information to politicians. that book has shot up to number one on amazon. new york city reports he also criticized the way george w. bush s administration went to war in iraq. quote, as a commander, he was credited with demonstrating how consider can insurgency can defeat militants promising approach david petraeus adopted to shift momentum in a war, the united states was on the verge of losing. stop right there. david ignatius, i had no idea that actually this was part of his strategy. iraq is looked back as such a disaster on so many front. it s hard to remember just how radically things shift freddie 2006 to 2009. 2006 when war reporters would go
literally transformed iraq. but they did it against the culture of the army, do your job, don t talk back. they thankfully how fascinating david petraeus has long been loathed in the pentagon. he certainly was even before his most recent controversies. they hated the fact he worked around the system, he bucked the system that george w. bush ally loud him to work around the system to do this, same with general mcmaster who was passed over several times because he was not a yes man. i think that was one of the biggest surprises going to washington seeing how many generals always said about judges, never been a county judge that didn t want to be a circuit judge, never a circuit judge that didn t want to be so many generals and admirals, if they have one star they want
council chief of staff. we know these are the kind of people that donald trump respects. has he no time for career politicians, government bureaucrats, in fact, that s why he ran because he wasn t one. he respects and listens to these people. if you listen to general mattis over the last couple of days traveling abroad, no, we re not going to take iraq s oil. i respect the press. the press is important despite what the president said. these are people who are their own men and willing to say things that may not be popular with the president. yeah. so the question is, will the president actually listen to mcmaster and act on his advice. for mcmaster, one question, must be something he considered, is will this job involve kind of doing what mattis is doing, cleaning up after trump. saying, no, we re not in the business of taking oil. mike pence was over in europe
deal, a warrior, a man who made a career speaking to power. almost didn t get promoted to brigadier general, passed over twice because he was his own person. he spoke out. wouldn t play the promotion games. i first met general mcmaster in ir iraq. he was really as much as anybody a shaper of the idea, push back, contain the violence. he was in a city called te tellafor. i ve got to get them out, reduce violence, the big indeed in the surge. hotline r. mcmaster was a key person with petraeus. i then saw him in afghanistan he had the insight. the problem in afghanistan, it was a corrupt, broken society. unless you fix the corruption