joint chiefs chairmen mike mullen and defense secretary bob gates expressed strong concern for safety of the s.e.a.l.s. each of them gave a stark warning. >> from my perspective, it is time to stop talking. and we have talked far too much about this. we need to move on. it's a story that if we don't stop talking, it will never end. and it needs to. >> i'm very concerned about this. because we -- we won't to retain the capability to carry out these kinds of operations in the future. and when so much detail is available, it makes that both more difficult and riskier. now, with respect to the s.e.a.l.s, in my meeting with them the thursday after the operation, they did express concern not so much for themselves but for their families. and all i will say is that we have been taking a close look at that and we will do whatever is necessary. >> chris lawrence is in washington. he joins me now. chris, so explain this to me. here you've got the two top guy s in the pentagon objecting. whose decision has it been to release this information? >> reporter: that's the thing, everybody's making the decision for themselves. he's talking about you, me, government officials, people speaking on background inside the pentagon. look, we've heard details about this raid from the white house counterterrorism adviser, from cia director leon panetta. like i said, pentagon officials have spoken on background about it. even retired s.e.a.l.s have come forward to talk about some of the tactics they used and equipment they used in the past. what he's saying is, look, it's one step short of saying shut up, because he's saying that, now, too much has gotten out, and it's gotten to the point where you just cannot release any more information about this raid. >> chris, i rarely will disagree with you, but i think he did say shut up. he was doing it more politely, i suppose. in the speech he gave the other day, he said, we had an agreement in the situation room sunday not to talk about this and now everybody's gone out blabbing away. you know, different note -- do we have any information about specific threats that have been made about the s.e.a.l.s or their families? anything more tangible that we can say, man, this really is a crisis right now? >> nothing specific. and of course they are not going to talk about any additional security that they put on these s.e.a.l.s or their family to protect them, otherwise what's the point. but he did say when they met with the s.e.a.l. team, it was the members themselves who spoke up and said, look, we're a little worried about our faemzs. not so much ourselves, we're a little worried with our families because so much has gotten out about this raid. also, it's not just this raid. what the pentagon and some of the officials i've spoken to have talked about and are concerned about is, you know, we know exactly how many s.e.a.l.s assaulted that compound. how many s.e.a.l.s were on backup ready to come in. how they moved up the stairs. the fact they used a stealth helicopter. all these details. now the officials are saying, look, what if we've got to do this again? what if we have to go in the frontier region of pakistan and go after maybe the leader of the hakani network or another high-level figure? how are we going to do that if our technology is out there? hey, just to be fair, not to come off -- we shouldn't come off too hypocritical. look, it's me and you that are beating down our sources, trying to get all these detail, us, fox, "new york post," "new york times," "washington post." we've all been reporting on these details ourselves. so, yes, the government's leaking like crazy. we're asking for the details. >> look, that's exactly right. i think what confuses me is you have a white house that is participating in the dissemination of information and you have the senior military folks pushing back against the white house. so is the white house -- been asked, look, do you agree with secretary gates, is there, in fact, too much information, or are the folks in the white house defending the information they're giving out saying, look it's important for the world to know that we have this capability, so that they feel as though we can get them wherever they are? >> yeah, i don't think there's any sense they necessarily wanted the world to know about some of these capabilities. look, who knows, this helicopter, this stealth helicopter for example may have flown a dozen times before. it's highly unlikely this was the first time they ever put it in the air. until it actually clipped that wall and crashed, and we had video of it, we probably still would not know it exaisted. so i don't think anyone is out there saying we want the world to know about this technology and they're not necessarily pointing the finger just at the white house, but i think there's a feeling from the pentagon that people were so proud of what had happened that this mission came off and it had been such a long wait to get osama bin laden that people were enthusiastic. they were excited. they wanted to talk about this in a way that really you never hear this kind of detail about special ops missions. but now it has gotten to the point where they feel like so many details have been squeezed out of this mission that they literally, you know, have been given a playbook in a way of the kinds of missions that the s.e.a.l.s do. >> thank you, chris lawrence. the debate over how much is too much when it comes to sharing secrets with the public has been going on within the intelligence community for years. it's a debate that former cia officer jack rice has found himself in the middle of time and time again. he joins me live now from minneapolis. jack, thanks for being here. >> great to be with you. >> so let me get your perspective on this. have you ever seen this much information tumble out about a top secret mission, right after it happened, and such a media frenzy? >> no, not like this. but we're talking about $3 trillion, two wars, ten years. the u.s. government turning itself upside down, turning the world upside down. when you finally get the guy you're claiming this is all about, it's not shocking there's a bunch of people at the pentagon and the agency and the white house and everywhere else pounding their chest, talking about how great this was, so i don't think anybody should be shocked about that. >> the sense of rah-rah, we finally got this done, absolutely understandable. the thing that's always defined the cia in particular, the intelligence community, has been the discipline to keep secrets like this under wraps and that sort of need to know psychology and emotion is what has been per vase thrive. with all this stuff out there. if you were still in special ops, would you be troubled by this? >> not quite yet but they're right on the edge. you were right when you say it's not just shut up, it's probably shut the hell up. because the fear here is you're starting to talk about sources and methods. and that's the terms we use inside the intelligence community. you start getting close to talking about assets that were used. the methods that were actually going into this process. and the concern that this may actually stop future operations. we're not talking about osama bin laden now. we're talking about zawahiri, we're talking about others throughout the middle east we may have our eyes on. and that's what people are talking about inside the intelligence community. frankly, special ops at the pentagon too. >> you know, jack, one of the facts that came out that seemed it was inevitable it would, and chris made that point, when the helicopter crashed, pictures of it came out and people said, aha, this is a slightly different chopper. the information that came out about the safe house in abbottabad, that seemed to me to be a uniquely distinct piece of information. because who gained by that? now they start going back saying, who was there? that is the one that ticked me off and said, this is a problem. >> well, you know if you look over last few years, we can think about the situation with valerie plame. as a simple example, when that comes out too and you sort of hearing about the places she may have been, contacts she may have had, assets that may have been disclosed there, this is a perfect example of this concept of -- and the term we use is opsec, operational security, what comes out and what doesn't. when we started this conversation, we were talking about this idea of just how transparent this should be. if we're talking about freedom, how much should we actually make available? that has been an ongoing debate inside the cia across, frankly, the u.s. government, and that fight goes on right now, even sort of amongst the various organizations and within those organizations. >> well, let me ask you -- we can pursue that but i want to add a conspiracy theory. let me ask you this, how much of the so-called information we think we've gotten may, in fact, not be accurate? in other word, how much of it may be misinformation? maybe there was no safe house in abbottabad and this is something being told to send people down a dark well? is that a possibility as well? >> well, let's be clear here. i'm always careful in terms of what i can say. just because the government tell youls something doesn't necessarily make it true. boy, does that sound dark or what? >> guys from the cia sounding cynical like that, i'm shocked. when you're at the cia, having this discussion about transparency, that is a sort of theoretical conversation. where are those decisions made? how far up the ladder at the cia do you go? is it the deputy director, the general counsel, before somebody's saying, this can't get out there? how do you have that conversation? >> it cuts a couple different ways. you certainly see them at the direct ate level. the guys at the top of the heap politically. certainly at the director level. this comes frequently down from the white house itself, in terms of what comes out versus what should come out. but, again this is my opinion. one of the problems the intelligence community's had again and again and again is that they've tried to keep nothing out, they're trying to keep everything inside the billion. the problem with that is when we talk about representative democracy, the idea that the american people need to know, i think there are certain things the american people should know. in fact, i think the intelligence community actually hurts themselves sometimes because they're so concerned about security, so concerned about secrecy, sometimes overclassifying ridiculous things and in the end, the only thing the american people get is when the intelligence community screws up because it becomes public. the good stuff never gets out there the. i think there's a real problem with that too. >> i think that's right. part of what's going on here is there's been so much negative publicity about the cia, our intelligence, every time there's a failure, fingers are pointed. now you finally have a success. people do want to claim credit, and rightly so. then you have the guys in charge of the operation, mullen and gate, who are saying, wait a minute, guys, this is going to create problems. so things have got to stop right here. all right, jack rishgs thanks so much for being with us. >> thanks, eliot. coming up, we're winning the war in afghanistan. a prominent journalist says it's so and he's got some astonishing information to back up the claim. that story is next. but first, e.d. hill. >> we're talking about dominique strauss-kahn. if there's any clearer example, i can't figure one out, between what the united states holds valuable and what the french hold valuable. it is how we're treating the alleged victim in the sex scandal. the french press posts her name and many of them have posted her face. in america, we're trying to shield her. and one of the french editors for slate france said, we put her name out there because it's a common name. if it hadn't been so common, we wouldn't have put it out there. this is trying to help her save her reputation. which we don't understand here. there's a lot about this story that's confusing. >> not only confusing but as you say goes right to the vortex of the very emotional and different ideological approach to the idea of privacy. up next, could we actually beat the taliban? stay with us. th arthritis pain.. and a choice. take tylenol now, and maybe up to 8 in a day. or...choose aleve and 2 pills for a day free of pain. enjoy the flight. or...choose aleve and 2 pills for a day free of pain. ♪ ♪ when you're resonsible for this much of the team, you need a car you can count on. ♪ ♪ well, you know i love it too ♪ ♪ you love money ♪ well, you know i love it too ♪ ♪ i work so hard at my job ♪ and then i bring it home to you ♪ ♪ i love money in my pocket osama bin laden is dead and u.s. military commanders estimate fewer than 100 al qaeda members remain inside afghanistan. so why is afghanistan beginning to feel like obama's vietnam? now we're hearing we might actually be winning? we're joined by two men who have deep personal knowledge of the situation and very strong personal opinions. peter bergen is an al qaeda expert and cnn national security analyst. and sebastian junger is the author of "war," about troops in the korengal valley in afghanistan. you are two of the leading experts on not only counterinsurgency but afghanistan and warfare generally. peter, you have just written a blockbuster article from my perspective in "the new republic." i want to read this sentence. you say, when i look at the hopeful signs that are starting to emerge from the country and when i consider these indicators in tandem with the likely consequences of a hastiy exit, i do think the wise choice now is for the united states to stay. you're talking about afghanistan. i was completely shocked by this conclusion. first, what is winning? what does that mean in afghanistan? >> well, winning in afghanistan would mean leaving the country in a situation which it was in the 1970s, which was, you know, a very poor country, at peace with itself and its neighbors. existed within historical memory. i think when we overthrow somebody's government, we have a responsibility to pick up the pieces. and we've already run the experiment twice already of kind of washing our hands of the country. we did it in 1989. we did it in 2002 because of opposition of nation building by the bush administration. i think we owe it to the afghan people to get it right. >> you wrote "war," about -- you were literally embedded with the u.s. soldiers in the korengal valley and the day-by-day combat. we just withdrew from the valley. have we given up? do you agree with peter that we are in any way, shape or form winning this confrontation? >> well, here's the thing, the korengal valley, it's a six-mile long valley in afghanistan. it's really nome emblematic of the country. there are other valleys where they're not fighting at all. they pulled out of korengal because it sort of served its purpose. there were a lot of attacks coming out of the korengal to the pesh river valley and they put an american base there while they paved the road up the pesh and i think the commanders decide the benefit isn't worth the cost. >> let's look at the movie that was based on your writings that you and tim hetherington did that is gripping, the sense of interplay between the u.s. soldiers and the real afghan people. let's take a look at this. i think it shows folks what goes on. >> -- the information about -- he's the owner of the cow. >> the cow, the reason why we killed it, because it ran into our team wire. and it was mangled inside the wire. so we had to kill it to put it out of its misery because if we would have got it out, it would have been useless. >> they're asking -- it was -- >> illegal? >> yeah, like a -- >> to kill it? we're not going to be able to give them the money. if money is all he came for -- >> now, this captures, in a way, the real interplay between the soldiers and the afghan people. are we winning hearts minds in this context? >> well, there's many different scenes we could have shown. you know, there were scenes where there was a lot of really good feeling and then there was that and there were worst scenes than that. ultimately, it really isn't hearts minds in a sense. we don't have to have the afghans love us being there for it to work. they're very practical people. the thing that made them resistant to cooperating with the americans in the korengal really was that we didn't go in there with enough soldiers. i mean, we were there with 150 men, with a battalion, i think we could have done anything we wanted. we could have paveled the road, built the school, everything we said we'd try to do. and had we done that with 600 men, think the afghans on the ground would have bought into it. they all would want those things. they took a look at a company of men. i think they just shook their heads and said, this is not going to work. >> here's the toughest question. we can go in with a massive force and do the nation building you talk about as well. once we leave, what happens? does the taliban then re-emerge from the woods? you get the sense reading your book, the articles, watching the movie, they're sort of an omnipresent force. >> i had a conversation with a u.s. senator about this. i said, look, you have to answer the question, why is one taliban fighter worth about ten afghan national army soldiers? the same people, the same guys? and his answer was, well, the taliban believe in what they're fighting for. i think the problem is not a tactical military problem. i think while we're there, we can -- we can keep order in that country. but we have a finger in a dike. and i think ultimately it's a problem of cooperation in the government. until there's a government that serves the afghan people, that the afghan people can be proud of, they won't be willing to risk their lives fighting for it. we will always have to do that job for them. >> what is your sense -- having been in afghanistan so much, are the taliban parrit of any successor government? >> there's sort of two kinds of taliban. on the one hand, there's homegrown afghan-taliban. they're part of afghan society. i think they deserve some kind of consultation as long as it's in good faith by them. then there are the proxy forces of afghanistan. people like the hakani network, mullah omar who are essentially paid in forms in arm of the isir with the pakistani government. they do not have the afghan's people best wishes at heart. so when you negotiate with the taliban, you're not going to the haka ni network and saying what do you want to do in kabul? then if you have a conversation with the real afghan taliban, i think that's a legitimate process. >> i want to ask you a different kind of question. time runs short but you got close to the soldiers. you sort of absorbed their emotional content. if you asked them if they thought we were winning what do you think they would say? >> they where so focused on their job, you know, they were in the korengal valley, and they were winning for a year and then they left. that was how they saw it. i think the ones who sort of stepped back and looked at the broader war, they would probably look at the death of bin laden and say, wow, it was confusing for a while but it kind of worked. i think some of them do also realize the reason bin laden was in afghanistan was because it was a failed state. so you can kill bin laden, let it relapse into a failed state and you have the same old problem over again with the next bin laden. think some of them would realize there is a kind of logic to overseeing this a bit longer. >> and so last word to you, peter, your view would be if we used the death of bin laden as an excuse to leave without