Instead, we did take our eye off the ball. We decided, instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, to go into Iraq. And today, unfortunately, if you look at the situation on the ground, it is a mess.
If today is anything like the typical day of the past 3 years, three American soldiers will die in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Taliban will get a little stronger in Afghanistan and the civil war will continue to be enhanced in Iraq.
We didn't do anything wrong, but among the lessons learned, given the magnitude of the problems we now face in Afghanistan, a major U.S. force on the ground would convince the world we were in for the long-haul recovery of a country devastated by 21 years of warfare.
Since the intervention in Afghanistan, we suddenly began to notice when, in political discussions, we found ourselves only among Europeans or Israelis.
Gen. Tommy Franks told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq - a war more than a year away.
I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth.
We ought to recognize that we have an offensive responsibility to take the war to the terrorists where they are. That responsibility has waned in the last year as military and intelligence resources were withdrawn from Afghanistan and Pakistan to be used in Iraq.
Where's the progress that we're going to see in Afghanistan? You have to keep public support both on the economy and the war or these things will really become troubling.
Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own.
We can't afford to see Afghanistan roll backwards into a failed state that could become a base from which terrorist campaigns can be launched anywhere in the world.
We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened.
There is a difference between a military mission and the aspiration for the long-term plans for the country. What we want is a stable enough Afghanistan, able to look after its own security so we can leave without the fear of it imploding... But let's be clear - it's not going to be perfect.
