I had been d well, in the office with my colleagues. I used to have a morning staff meeting in the white house. I was the special assistant to the president and senior director of the region that included afghanistan. Had my own staff meeting and the first plane hit the tower, to the i was on my way senior staff meeting at condi the National Security advisor chaired. Lost ught the plane had its way and hit the tower after the first attack, or the first incident. And then when i was sitting to left, and in the in f meeting which happened the operation area of the white house, the situation room, and gave her d in a note. The second plane hit the second tower, she closed her book and rushed out, and i went back to my office. Nd the world changed that day for me and for the United States. Host how long did it take for youd figure out that not only were born in afghanistan, you were a muslim that part ofity on the world . R. Khalilzad it took them a few days because id been so that ed in government and my background, escaped a lot of people and i remember at one point, there was andscussion of reaching out eaching out to the Northern Alliance because people didnt know how to reach them. The Northern Alliance claimed it was the legitimate government and it was somewhere in northwestern afghanistan that these people were, and i said, well, do you want me to him and the president ooked at me and said, zalmay, you know how to reach the president of the Northern Alliance . President , i do. Because in the 1980s, when i worked in the reagan administration, i was involved in our policies supporting the resistance movements against the soviets and mr. Ers y was one of the lead and i dealt a lot with them. To the i brought them hite house to see president bush after the he had succeeded president reagan at one point, and i had his private phone number, so that was a surprise, and later on, i remember that during the came to party, when i the president s christmas party, to the first me lady, saying, this is the guy ive been talking to you about. All of the commanders in afghanistan were fighting the in touch with them. So i exaggerated my role, think he was surprised. I was touched when one day when country is hink our blessed. Us, one is looking after watching our back, to have and ne of your background knowledge and commitment to the time, states at this there is a message there. Honored to hear that from him. Mr. Lamb you have the book, the envoy but in the back of the book, you tell us that eorge bush suggested to you to write a memoire. Why . Mr. Khalilzad he used to tease me, because the president s leadership was one that he selected the people, gave the erson a Broad Mission and then person eavily on that or advice, and gave him the room to maneuver to achieve that objective, and they always said, he wanted to know how i did some and hethings that i did, ould like to read that, condi rice and steve atley and others told me that, too, because there we had to hings that do in the initial days after 11 in terms of travels and meeting with people, that not details had been communicated so they felt this interesting memoire because i was doing things where to rubber meets the road, so speak, sort of in the theater, a the ground, dealing with variety of interesting and characters, a al ot of stories that are in the book about those characters and events that took place that have not been really a lot written on. Up on b i want to put the screen some of your background so people can know the different jobs that youve had and you can see there, we go back to 1985. Before then, you were special advisor to the under secretary of state for political ark fairs, policy planning, and director of strategy and doctrine and force structure, and 0305 ambassador ambassador to 20052007. Of all those jobs, which was the most interesting to you . Mr. Khalilzad they were all interesting in their own ways, but the one in afghanistan was rewarding ys the most because i had been born there, attention lways paid to afghanistan even when i was things. Her afghans felt that the had done something huge in the 1980s, and without help, they stood up to the soviet union. They did something that a lot of very smart people who were studying the soviet union believed would not happen, which them out, because this version of doctrine that once you go in, you dont leave at that time. Soviet union disintegrated, which was a huge achievement. Y got discredited and afghanistan may have but then we o that abandoned afghanistan afghansds, and a lot of got killed, their cities got destroyed in a civil war that occurred. So i had felt bad about that, given what we had done together. And after 9 11, to have had the opportunity to go back and help get a new constitution, get a new progress, to make was rewarding, and initially, i the job,tant to accept i said to the president when he asked me to do the job, i said remember, mr. President , i left do i do that you want to send me back . Nd he laughed and said, why dont you go with the president ial envoy, which was not on your chart. For a while, i was a special president ial envoy right after tan, and then nis iraqis, and d free they reacted very well to me. And the afghans. We did a lot, so that was a relatively easy job. It was a rewarding job. But i and enjoyed all my jobs ive been grateful for the opportunity that i was given. Mr. Lamb names like hamad right, and ill say it the current president. Malaki , and all the names americans have learned over the ears, how many of those folks did you know before all of this happened. Mr. Khalilzad well, i know alshaganearby i from the day we today. N in school hes president of afghanistan right now. Mr. Khalilzad exactly, and i came to america together in 1966. Most shocking experience of my life, given zone and been in a war there have been attempts to kill me but the most shocking xperience was coming from afghanistan to the United States to new york because i had never left afghanistan and i had lived a small town and to come to abal which was like a cosmopolitan city, which was in comparison small, and then to come to new york in the middle f the summer, heat and humidity, that i had not been used to. Afghanistan can get hot but its dry heat. I did not use the air conditioner. Air otel room it his own conditioning unit. I did not know how to operate a tub, and i bath could not sleep the first night because of the heat. I had not turned on the air then seeing new york, a vast city with all kinds and how america was was, and i ended up staying in a small town in Northern California called ceres, but we came on that trip together and known each other before, and we were in college together at the beirut, university of and again, i run into him when i , my eaching at columbia first job after i got my ph. D. From the university of chicago, e was doing his ph. D. At columbia university, so i have ashraf ghani for way over 40 years. Mr. Lamb on the dates for a finished high school where. Mr. Khalilzad in ceres, 1967. Ornia, in and went back to california, i went to school another six months or so and got a high from afghanistan well. Mr. Lamb and your next degree. Khalilzad from beirut mr. Lamb graduated when. Mr. Khalilzad in 1972. Lamb then what irk mr. Khalilzad got a masters. Mr. Lamb and then what. Mr. Khalilzad a ph. D. From university of chicago in 1979. Mr. Lamb i want to show you video of a man you mentioned in the book, theres tremendous connections with people in the nt. Ted states governme youll recognize him. Clip, only one we could find of what he sounded like. There are some parts of the different a law has from asia, inlaw, Central America and so on and here are some parts of the world where we have clear common interests as in the permission ts are here their interes more direct and massive than our than nd in such cases here are many lives have been coming to be recognized that, sharing the risks as well as the burdens with us is reasonable. Mr. Lamb who was he. Albert ilzad thats one of ourprofessor, Great Nuclear strategists and general. He was a professor at the university of chicago, and i albert wallstutter. Accidentally and and makeimes one encounter can a huge difference in ones life, getting youd think grades, getting good studying hard, those are important. They are. Sometimes, an event, an incident, an anticipated development, can also make a big and rence in your life albert made a big difference in my life. Second or third day at the university of chicago after school started, i was International House and i developed relations with a couple of other colleagues who lived there, and i was taking a class on s but the e politic professor just distributed the with us and the did not entirety l class the of the schedule, so i was dormitory, k to my the International House, when i ran into my friend in the hall at the ad met International House, and they said, why didnt you come . I told him i was going back to the dorm. They said, why dont you come to this professor . Very unusual, they said, the classical andled wars, and when he talks about president kennedy, he refers to him as jack. He calls kissinger henry. A man full of unusual stories. Enjoy just lchg to him. So i went in and said, why not . And sat in the back of the class, and he started when class ending to talk about the of nuclear war and e was talking about a theorists, anyone who believed that there was a fixed robability of war and over time, each years probabilities war ultimatelyar becomes inevitable. O i raised my hand and said, professor, isnt there a fixed probability of Permanent Peace at any time . Couldnt they, if you apply the get logic, and then we will the Permanent Peace at some point . Me, what was myd name, and i told him who i was, and he said, i want to talk with you after class. And when i talked with him, he take my have to eminar, rather than class, and i told him i wasnt even taking his class, but the rest is history. I took all of his classes, he me. A big impact on i shifted my area of interest. I became a strategist. A nuclear strategist. Then, he ed with him had a Company Called penuristics, that advised the defense department. I worked with them and helped them on some projects. There was one project where i was done and i couldnt see ecause the government classified it, and i i wasnt yet a citizen. So i couldnt read my own work until i becamele citizen, and i acquired clearances. Bert wawell, brilliant etter was a man who made a huge difference in the peace of the world by with a second strike requirement in the nuclear to a nucleareterrence in equation between us and the what the on, and requirement of a second strike he also worked hard towards the end of his life on including on issues, visiting iran under the shah,o did, because he was concerned Nuclear Program of iran at that time. O i learned a lot from him and his wife, roberta, who was a great scholar in her own right, and had worked lately on her but had done ism, something on the attack on pearl harbor warning. Mr. Lamb another disciple of Albert Wohlstetter was paul wofowitz. This man, it was from 2004, married his daughter. Watch this. In the early part of the dedicate your part of the book to mr. Wohlstetter. Who was he. He was a great man, a dear probably the most single influence on Strategic Thinking in this country in the period. He was chairman of the research corporation. E rand he was trained in mathematics, logic. Who was extraordinarily rigorous. He always asked the question, is this true . What would he have thought of hat we did in afghanistan and iraq . Mr. Khalilzad the first time in the pentagon, kuwait happened, nd we successfully pushed saddam out of kuwait. I used to get a lot of calls from albert at that time. Persistent. Convinced of came something, he wasnt rank conscious. He would call anyone and levels to keep pushing his point of view. At that time that the United States some of pursued saddam, and brought by t a change in iraq enabling iraqis to overthrow saddam, but by helping them with ot only arms, but with some u. S. Air power effectively would call me e paul almay, needs to wofowitz, who was under cheney, y of defense that theyre blowing it and suggested going the route he wanted, which was the combination of u. S. Air power to get rid aqis thank you problem in an enduring way. And i would say, let me advise you, albert, not to use the word that they are blowing it. I will facilitate an appointment with you with the secretary but the secretary and the chairman, think they have achieved the biggest thing since vietnam and n morality ofored the a armed forces and done great job of achieving against saddam. If you walk in there and tell them youve blown it, they wont your y welcoming of prescription or your ideas. Why dont you tell them youve you can do ot but event better. He said, zalmay, im not going but what im anything have told you, that theyre opportunity by ve pping where they ha stopped. So albert, im sure, would have what we critical of did in iraq, not perhaps in terms of the objective of overthrowing saddam because he saddam, but how we did it, he would have asked a questions, he would have been very vigorous in his questioning, and i suspect he different proposed a strategy. Mr. Lamb you talk about telling tories in this, and these are witters, onsec sec but one thing i want to get it one time, the the the Prime Minister of iraq was going to hang Saddam Hussein. Where were you and what role did you play in it . Mr. Khalilzad this was around and i had taken left iraq. Ff and mr. Lamb you were ambassador at the time. I was ambassador to iraq at the time, yes. From the person. Ho was our charge she had left behind margaret, prime had said the inister had called her and wanted us to turn over saddam to enforce the judgment of that he , which was hanged. E i was concerned about the time, or use the islamic haj , the n of the visits to mecca, was imminent, let me talk to maliki. So i called him and said, are you sure, mr. Prime minister, it that want to do quickly, because the islamic place and there to hange of festivities someone at that time. Usually, you part as as part of the estivities, you pardon them, its not a time you hang, based on islamic traditions. With me about exactly when this festivities begin because its different one day shia celebrating versus the sunnis celebrating it. And he also said that he had terrorists that the or extremists were going to take schools to bargain sooner we and the got dealt with this problem, the better. And so i said, let me talk to my washington and get back to you, Prime Minister. And i talked to tr rice, who was the secretary of state. Nd stephen hadley, who was the advisor on thety phone, and we discussed that i pointed out to them the risks in antagonizing and the broader islamec world, sunnis, we really needed suni support for iraq composition of and because of the shia, sunis as well that it would make reconciliation as well. They asked that we defer it to minister of iraq, that he country was sovereign, and if he judges at the end after to him the ibed potential risks, and he wants to do it, i told im that to baghdad turn him over. Saddam, in other words. Mr. Lamb how long did it take to execute him. Hours. Alilzad a few mr. Lamb as an you areor one thing, a suni, right. Mr. Lamb and maliki is a shia. Mr. Khalilzad right. Mr. Lamb and whats the difference. Ive asked that question to a has f guests but no one defined it, the difference sunni and a shia. Mr. Khalilzad about 97 the fundamental difference is that who was the legitimate successor to the prophet. When the prophet died, mohammed, should have succeeded him. Who hia believe that ali , was the soninlaw of the prophet prophet. Mr. Lamb mohammed ali . Mr. Khalilzad is mohammed ali, but ali, who was the first imam shias, he was married to the prophets daughter, that he, ali, his fathers name was abitalit. Talit, should be the successor. Sunnis believed, and this started right after the that the he prophet, community of the people around right to t had the appoint or select a successor, abubactor, the and s of the caliphateric, isis is talking about caliphate. Ing the mr. Lamb which means what. Mr. Khalilzad the ruler. The caliphate essentially means caliph. The that was the first offense that abubaka was nk that he usurper of the right successor to the prophet. There was aerwards, from of imams, who were the house of the prophet. They think succession like a happen, the ld hiite, within the house of the prophet, that is a fundamental to who was in there. A couple of different you pray, how do differences. E then it became much more onceficant to politically, ran embraced shiism as the state religion, with arabs and sunniism. Stly adopting some other differences are inheritance. In the sunni legal system, the daughter is not entitled to equal inheritance rights as the son. In shiaism, she is. That is why even some sunnis who have only daughters, in order to keep that wealth in the family, they become shiites so that their daughters can get all of their wealth rather than some of it going to the other relatives, because they did not have a son. There are some minor differences, but the fact that islam is the last religion, the perfect religion, the last word of god to man, and mohammed is the prophet, and the koran. Host you married a nonmuslim. Your two sons take her last name explain all that. Mr. Khalilzad this is to help the kids in their country, the United States, because khalilzad is not an easy name to pronounce. My wife was a feminist, and she thought that is not only is it right that they should have their mothers name, but also that it would make it easier for them. My last name being so hard to pronounce. Host their last name is benard. Go back to another story, the story of president joe biden. Mr. Khalilzad i have two stories about the current Vice President. One, when i was a special envoy in afghanistan, he came once. I was very impressed with him, number one, because the embassy was very rudimentary at the time. We all slept on the floor. He had brought his own bag and slept on the floor like i did. Host in the embassy . Mr. Khalilzad in the embassy, in the office. So, one day after his meeting that i did not go with him, he came back to tell me that he had caused me a huge problem,