Mr. Fuller, I read your CV this afternoon and I was impressed by your credentials. But what most got my attention was that you worked for the CIA for a long time. So you are an intelligence and information man. That tells me that you surely still have your old contacts who gave you the reports that you used for your evidence to the committee.
I will not be telling you anything you did not know when I say that the Vietnam war was not lost in Vietnam, but in America when the American people took a stand and decided that it was over. At least, that is what I think.
Is it your impression that, since the Vietnam War—and this still applies today—military doctrine has changed when it comes to information and propaganda as tools? It is refreshing to listen to you today because we have been discussing our involvement in Afghanistan, probably for years, and each time that a general, or a senior government official, or public servants come here, they tell us that extraordinary things are happening in Afghanistan and that we are heading down the road to democracy at top speed.
I would also like you to tell us if you think that a committee like ours can be on the right track if we are not given real information and if we do not have access to classified documents. In other words, we listen to people and trust in their good faith. So the senior people who appear before us are involved in a campaign of propaganda and manipulation, in my view, and I would like your view on it too.