your colleagues. respected commentators who are columnists particularly say things that absolutely are contradicted by the facts like, oh, well, we wanted to leave a force behind in iraq but the iraqis wouldn t take it. that s just wrong. when you ran for president in 2000, i spent a lot of hours on the bus with you. you spent hours and hours and hours talking to reporters and were a media darling. when you flan 2008 you had a more contentious relationship and didn t offer that access. what changed? everybody has their own version of events. at least in my view and those around me, it became a rather adversarial relationship. it s very unfortunate. more of a gotcha relationship? i guess kind of a classic example, i was being interviewed and the guy said how many houses do you own? i don t own any houses. you re saying it s your
you and your colleagues. respected commentators who are columnists particularly say things that are absolutely contradicted by the facts like, oh, well, we wanted to leave a force behind in iraq, but iraqis wouldn t take it. that s just wrong. when you ran for president in 2000 and i spent a time of hours on the bus with you, you spent hours and hours .hours talking to reporters and you were kind of a media darling. in 008, eventually you different offer that access. what changed? everybody has their own vergz of events, but unfortunately at least in my view and those around me, it became a rather adversarial relationship and it s very unfortunate. more of a gotcha relationship? yeah. i mean, you know, i guess kind of a classic example was i was being interviewed and the guy said how many houses do you own? you know, i don t own any houses. that s not mine.
your colleagues. respected commentators who are columnists particularly say things that absolutely are contradicted by the facts like, oh, well, we wanted to leave a force behind in iraq but the iraqis wouldn t take it. that s just wrong. when you ran for president in 2000, i spent a lot of hours on the bus with you. you spent hours and hours and hours talking to reporters and were a media darling. when you flan 2008 you had a more contentious relationship and didn t offer that access. what changed? everybody has their own version of events. at least in my view and those around me, it became a rather adversarial relationship. it s very unfortunate. more of a gotcha relationship? i guess kind of a classic example, i was being interviewed and the guy said how many houses do you own? i don t own any houses. you re saying it s your
different answer. there was a sense in 2011 that the iraqi military was prepared to have an advanced kind of normal relationship with the u.s. military and even f-16s were sold. the iraqi air force. which is pretty advanced stuff for that region. today, what we saw in the interim period is malaki so corrupt that he purged those competent generals and military officers and instead appointed people extremely corrupt. essentially cronies to be in charge of important military divisions and the end of the day iraqis wouldn t fight for them. talking about the dynamic of selling arms to an unstable, new government, we re seeing that in the taunting photographs of isis forces taking control of u.s. vehicles in iraq. talking about the adversaries, who are we looking at? another interesting piece of reporting on the ground there is about isis leader al baghdadi
in the meantime, we have got an organization, isis, that has the ability to, you know, at least, right now in western iraq, cause a lot of havoc and violence and, over time, could pose a serious threat to the united states. that doesn t mean that we reoccupy iraq. it does mean that we are going to have to do our best to work with partners in the region, including hopefully a coherent iraqi government to slowly chip away at some of the advances that they have made. reporter: would you have moved differently in syria, given this eruption in iraq and given that the chaos has spilled over now? you know, if what you re suggesting is that there was a simple solution in syria that would have avoided the civil war and chaos there, that s just not true. you know, you had a ruthless