Lets just leave it this way. All right. David 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 though i had a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . David thank you very much for coming. Mr. Petraeus pleasure. David you served our country honorably for quite a while in government. We will talk about that. You are in what i consider a higher calling of mankind, private equity. [laughter] how do you compare being in military and leading troops to private equity . Mr. Petraeus im not sure i would agree with that. I feel very privileged to be in the private equity business. And to be active in academia with speaking on startups, and so forth very it is hard to top of serving ones country in uniform, particularly if you are leading in combat. David you told me this morning you already exercised an hour and a half this morning. I do an hour and a half a year if im lucky. [laughter] you are living in new york right now. You run around central park. How hard is that . Mr. Petraeus 6. 2 miles. David do people recognize you . Mr. Petraeus not if you are running. If you wear sunglasses and a hat, you can run unimpeded. Folks are very kind to me walking the streets. Can i ask if i can ask if the veterans in this audience would please stand up so we can recognize you and thank you. [applause] david david, i have often said that those who have served, or take post9 11 generation, all of whom are volunteers who took an oath at the time of war, knowing they would likely be deployed to a combat zone, i have described them as americas new greatest generation, something tom brokaw shouting in shouted in my ears after he saw our soldiers in the first year in iraq when i was privileged to be a trainer for the 101st Airborne Division in mosul, he saw all of the tasks that they were doing. From rebuilding cities that were damaged during the war. He says, that world war ii craft draft was the greatest generation, but what were seeing today is americas new greatest generation. I believe in that. David lets talk about how you came to the military. Your father was a dutch sea captain. He met your mother who was from brooklyn. They met at a church service. He later stayed here during world war ii and became a commander of a u. S. Merchant marine ship. Mr. Petraeus during the war he sailed with the u. S. Merchant war. Ne, long he signed on in 1939. When the nazis invaded holland, he cannot go back. I grew up seven miles north of west point. I could run home from west point. David growing up, what was your nickname . Mr. Petraeus peaches. I was an announcer at the Little League game. An announcer at a Little League game could not pronounce it. There was a nineyearold came to that, i said pppeaches. That stuck. That followed me throughout my time at west point. There was a girl at the laundry, she had been a friend of mine doing that as a summer job, and she would send me notes from the laundry. Someone opened it up, and it said dear peaches. David how did you get an appointment to west point . I assume youre a good scholar but, somebody has to call a member of congress to get you in. Mr. Petraeus you just make an application. You write your congressman. The congressman nominates you. It is a competitive process. David if you did not get in, where would you have gone . Mr. Petraeus colgate. I had a full ride for academics and soccer. Ever thought how your life would be different . Not only did i think about it, at the end of two years, at west point we had a spectacular summer where i was in Alaska Mountain climbing glaciers, rivers and so forth, there was a Training Course and then an actual unit. I went down to los angeles, and a friend of mine who lived in the hills out there had such an extraordinary experience, i decided should i really go back to west point for the remaining years or enjoy more of this . I went back obviously. David at west point did you play on the soccer team . Mr. Petraeus i was on the soccer team and a skiier. David when you graduated, did you decide you wanted to make the military your career . Mr. Petraeus i wasnt sure. What was interesting, of all things at west point, i was in the premed program. I love that particular body of inquiry. I loved that it was the highest academic peak to scale. It was known as the toughest. All of a sudden i found myself , in the senior year with an actual slot in the program. I realized i wasnt absolutely certain i wanted to be a doctor. I just wanted to climb that mountain. I picked infantry instead. I had a wonderful experience. David you got married a few weeks after you graduated to the daughter of a commandant at west point. Mr. Petraeus superintendent is the overarching guy. It was a strange blind day when i found out. David it was not nerveracking dating the superintendents daughter . Mr. Petraeus we tried to do that clandestinely. That was not successful. I took a lot of flack for that. There is a generals march they play at parades. One of my classmates, i was on the brigade staff, so he was singing my soninlaw, my soninlaw so i took a little black. Flack. David you graduated from the infantry. There were two incidents where he almost lost your life. Not in combat. Mr. Petraeus this was an aggressive live fire exercise. Live grenades, supporting machine gun fire. We were following general keygen, a one star general was with me. One of the soldiers knock out of it, and, spun out of fell down and as he did he squeezed and an m16 round went through my chest. Luckily it went over the a in petraeus. Rather than the a in army. David what happened . Mr. Petraeus obviously medics start working on you. Interestingly, shock said in. I initially said, dont worry, just do a quick after action review to figure out what was wrong. They were rolling their eyes. They get an iv running. They pick me up. Keene went with me. It had nicked an artery. It did not sever it. The doctor turned to me and said this was going to hurt. X and he cut and asked in my side down to the ribs, hold of that, and shoved a plastic to into the lung. That is what saved my life. I was put in a helicopter and flown down to the medical center. Of all people, they called in the surgeon on call, dr. Bill frist. He came in later as the majority leader of the senate. Some people jokingly said, the. Petraeuss he is dying to meet bill frist i was. Out of the hospital in five or six days. David you showed them that you could do pushups to get out of the hospital. Is that right . Mr. Petraeus the only time i ever stopped at 50. No. [laughter] david i have never gotten to 50. Mr. 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 was in a wheelchair, pushing it around. David the other incident was you were skydiving. Your parachute did not quite work. You broke your pelvis. What is that like . Mr. Petraeus terrific. That was worse in terms of pain because it fractured front and rear. Your body is in two parts. Anything that touches, and i rode an ambulance all the way in, and every single crack in the street was agony. David did you ever skydive after that . Mr. Petraeus i was told by the army, general keane, he said, dave, no more skydiving. I said, ok. You give me division command, and i will quit. David they gave you command. Mr. Petraeus i was very privileged. David you have never had people working before for you in combat. Mr. Petraeus it is a chilling experience. When a soldier is killed, it takes the wind out of you. David ultimately a decision was made by president bush to invade iraq. You became a commander there and went over there as the first part of the military that went into that. It was supposed to be relatively quick. When did you realize this was not going to be as easy as we thought . Mr. Petraeus we did in a matter of weeks top of the regime. Toppled the regime. There was stiffer fighting along the way at various points. What was predicted by a variety of folks prior to the invasion, which was that iraq the units were all 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. I had this sense fairly early on, certainly within the first week, once that dust storm blew through, and i had rick atkinson, the Washington Post reporter in the back of my humvee, and i remember turning to him at one point and asking, tell me how this ends . Im not sure this is going to go according to script. The idea that we are going to topple saddam and his management and everybody else will stay in place and there will be a little bit of a political negotiation, and we will hand it over to them, obviously. David do you think it would have been different if we decided not to get rid of the entire saddam army . Mr. Petraeus these were huge mistakes. We used to have a question when i was division commander, it asked, will this Operation Take more bad guys off the street then it creates . Same is true of policies. The fact is that firing the military without telling them what the future was, this means taking tens of thousands of people, and there is no reconciliation ross says. You have created tens of thousands of people whose incentive is to oppose iraq. David you love the effort to you lead the effort to take control of mosul. Mr. Petraeus we were in baghdad, which is where we were told we were going to end up. We got this emergency order to go to mosul. Its out of control. There was a small u. S. Unit up there. 17 civilians killed in response to a riot. We did one of the biggest air assaults in history up to mosul. We immediately blanketed the city with soldiers. We literally pushed right into the city, calmed it down, and gradually took control. We had an interim government out there within two weeks of arriving. David early on in the war, it was thought that shock and all awe would be all that was necessary. That concept doesnt really work. Mr. Petraeus that did not completely see. Completely succeed. It did impose a little awe here and there. There were folks fighting, shooting at us. We had casualties. David when president bush decided to invade, in part it was because of the theory that they had weapons of mass destruction. That information came from the cia. When you became the head of the cia, did you ever dig into that . And say where did you ever get that information from . Mr. Petraeus i did not dig into that as much as i did several other issues, such as the use of enhanced interrogation, which i have personally opposed. One, i think it is wrong. I think it is beyond International Law and the geneva connection. I just dont think it is effective. As jim mattis colorfully said, give me a beer and a cigarette, and i will get more information than by waterboarding. Not quite that simple. To put it more simply, you want to become their best friend in detention. The interrogator does. I say this having been a commander who oversaw the holding of more detainees than anyone else. 27,000 of them. We have some experience with what works. Treating them humanely well enlistingtill information from then is the way to go about it. David you have never before had people working for you directly who were killed in combat. Was that like to have the command of people who were dying . Mr. Petraeus it is a chilling experience. I remember the radio call when our first soldier was killed. It takes the wind out of you. I remember hearing when the third infantry division, which really spearheaded the fight along with the Marine Division into baghdad, i was monitoring the radio because we were all fighting together, and they had a couple of heavy vehicles blown up. It is chilling. David you were there for how long . Mr. Petraeus that was about a year long deployment. I was back for a couple of months. I was asked to go back quickly to do an assessment for a couple of weeks for the secretary of defense of the Iraqi Security force effort. I reported that to secretary rumsfeld. He said great report, go back and do what you have recommended. David did you think if you hadnt written such a good report, they would not send you back. Mr. Petraeus secretary rumsfeld had an interesting way of giving rewards. I remember in the final week or so, he came over, and he was patting me on the back literally. I thought this is really sort of nice. Then he said, on the way home, i want you to come through afghanistan. I said, that is not exactly the direct line between two points. We did an assessment over there on the way home. David president obama calls you into the oval office and says i would like you to give up Central Command and be a military commander in afghanistan. What did you think about that . Mr. Petraeus if the president calls on you to do something, i think you do it. David you didnt say, let me think about it . Mr. Petraeus no. David youve finished your second tour of duty in iraq. He went back to the United States. Mr. Petraeus then we had about 15 months at work leavenworth, kansas. There are a number of different hats and individual wears. You control the armys doctrine. It is a next ordinary command. Extraordinary an command. We really revamped the whole process of preparing units, soldiers, and their leaders to go to iraq and afghanistan. We did the counterinsurgency field manual. 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 current counterinsurgency efforts. You were asked by president bush to lead the socalled surge. When he said this, did you say, i have already served to two tours of duty, and i dont need to go back a third time . Mr. Petraeus no. You say it would be a privilege to do that. It is the same thing i said when president obama sat me down several years later with no pleasantries and no one else in the room except for a photographer, im asking you to go to afghanistan and take command. I think the only answer at a time like that can be. Yes. David what i didnt understand at the time, mommy troops did we have in iraq at the time of the surge . Mr. Petraeus about 140,000 u. S. Soldiers. The coalition had tens of thousands of additional, and then we added about 25,000 to 35,000 additional forces. I will just point out, and i am sure there are some surge veterans in here that will validate this, it was not a sur validate this, the surge that matter the most, it was a change of strategy. E it was a 180 degree shift. It was getting out of the faces of the iraqi people and going back to living in the neighborhoods to living with them. That is the only way you can secure them. You cannot kill or capture your way out of an industrialstrength insurgency. You have to reconcile with as many as you can. From handing off to iraqi forces that could not handle the escalating violence to actually taking over, we created 77 additional locations just in the baghdad divisional area alone during the course of the surge. David we sent over an additional 25,000 to 35,000. That was enough given the techniques you used to bring it to a stable position. Relatively speaking. Mr. Petraeus during the course of 18 months, which was the duration. It was reduced. I came back 19 months after that. I went to u. S. Central command. David the president asked you to head that. They are in charge of u. S. Military operations in the middle east. Mr. Petraeus it is 20 countries from egypt in the west to pakistan in the east, kazakhstan in the north, and somalia in the south. We were proud to have 90 of the worlds problem set the time. Problems at the time. David if you have one of these commands, usually, not always, someone gets to rise up to be the army chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. You were rising up. One day, president obama says i would like you to give up the Central Command and go back and be military commander in afghanistan. What do you think about that . Mr. Petraeus if the present asked you to do something, you do it. David you didnt say, let me think about it . Mr. Petraeus no. The only answer to a question like that can be yes. I would say, in that case and prior, it was secretary gates who called me. I was on leave. It was the last time i saw my father before i went to the surge. I was on a freeway outside of l. A. Driving to where he lived in a retirement home, and i took the call from secretary gates. In each case, i wanted to have a little more conversation and say, i would like you to understand who you are getting as your commander. Because my advice 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 we will have dialogue informed by an awareness of all these other issues which you have to deal with legitimately, congressional politics, coalition politics, budget deficits. That is important. What i am saying is im going to give it to you straight, not changing it based on issues you have to deal with. I will obviously support the decision you ultimately make. David you went to afghanistan. You spent 12 months. Mr. Petraeus a little over 12 months. David what did you conclude . Did we have an effort to successfully get rid of the taliban . Mr. Petraeus well, i said in congress, 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 was whether we could do it fast enough, that you would have sufficient results to report six months into the surge. That was crucial. Congressional support was tenuous. We did. We reduced violence dramatically. It was sustained for three and a half years until tragically the Prime Minister undid it with highly sectarian actions. In the case of afghanistan, i was under no illusions that we could replicate what we did in iraq. The circumstances are very different. I laid out for the secretary of defence in the first meeting, the very first slide in the breathing, as powerpoint is the means of communication, it set said afghanistan does not equal iraq. There is not going to be a prospect of a dramatic improvement. What our mission was in that year and what we did accomplish was to halt the momentum of the taliban because they were on the march. And select afghan institutions so we could begin transition of some tasks, which we did, 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 the way it was when al qaeda planned the 9 11 attacks there. And conducted the initial training. David you briefed president bush 43 and president obama. If they were taking an sat test, who would do better . [laug