Thank you, sir. That's a very important question.
Any government attempts to put the best face on its policies and its accomplishments.
Secondly, if I were asked to be in charge of the Afghan effort today, I would have to think positively about what I can do today to change this thing. It is, perhaps, a luxury of being an intelligence officer or intelligence analyst to have the freedom to look down the road regardless of the political implications of the analysis. This is why there is very frequently tension between intelligence organizations and policy-makers.
Yes, I think there has been a great effort by Washington to put a positive spin not only on Afghanistan but also on Iraq and many other situations in the area. This is always true, but I think it has been especially true in the last eight years.
But, sir, you wondered how you can be informed of the situation without classified documents. I have worked for 25 years with classified documents, and let me say that I do not think that classified documents contain necessary secrets for your understanding or my understanding of this particular problem. The secret information may sometimes be important as to where bin Laden may be hiding or where some military force is standing today for a military attack, in tactical terms. But in terms of understanding the broad trends, there is no intelligence that gives an answer to this question. All we can give is informed judgment, informed opinion. And informed people can disagree even about the way to interpret the facts.
My understanding of what is going on in Afghanistan today, or in Iraq or elsewhere, is based not at all on classified information. I see no classified information. I haven't seen classified information for 15 years.
But if we learn to think intelligently and look at a variety of sources.... On the Internet today, by the way, there is a remarkable variety of sources and good information about alternative views of the situation. If you look at the views of other countries—the English press, the Indian press in English, or things such as the Asia Times, which is published in east Asia in English and has an Indian-Chinese perspective that is markedly different and very well informed—they will give you some alternative perspectives.
I don't think you need any classified information to appreciate the grander problems that are involved in understanding this situation.