few people know more about the depth and complexity of america's national
security than robert gates who spent nearly three decades at the cia and national security council
before running the pentagon under presidents george w bush and barack obama given the end
of the war in afghanistan tensions with china and deep divisions in this country we thought it'd be
worth hearing from the only secretary of defense to serve under presidents from different parties
gates is 78 and lives in washington state where he says he moved to get as far away
from washington d.c as possible he told us watching the chaos of the american withdrawal
from afghanistan on television made him feel sick the story will continue in a moment
it was really tough for a few days there i actually wasn't feeling very well and i realized
it was because of what was happening in kabul and i was just so low
about the way it had ended if you will and i guess the other the other feeling that
i had was that it probably did not need to have turned out that way prison biden said
any withdrawal is messy certainly the military considers the withdrawal the most dangerous
part of an operation but but they really had a lot of time to plan
beginning with the deal that president trump cut with the taliban so that was in february of 2020
robert gates who oversaw the wars in iraq and afghanistan from 2006 to 2011 told us president
trump failed to plan properly for the evacuation of afghans who'd helped the u.s fight the taliban
and gates also believes president biden didn't act quickly enough after announcing in april
he was pushing back president trump's deadline for the u.s withdrawal by four months it's time
for american troops to come home once president biden reaffirmed that there was going to be a firm
deadline date that's the point at which i think they should have begun bringing those people out
you'd have to be pretty naive not to assume things were going to go downhill once that withdrawal was
complete so the former president and president biden both share some responsibility in this
absolutely as for the collapse of the afghan government and security forces gates believes he
and others before him made critical mistakes and had the u.s built and trained the afghan military
i bear some responsibility for this it had started before i got there but i think that
we created an afghan military in our own image and one that required a lot more sophisticated
logistics and maintenance and support than say the taliban the taliban didn't have years of training
from foreign advisors they didn't know how to read we were teaching afghan troops how to read
before anything else well they needed to know how to read in order to operate the equipment we were
giving them instead of being light and tactical and basically self-resourced as the taliban were
we created a logistics heavy sophisticated equipment heavy military and when you pulled
that rug out from under them and you add on top of that the corruption of the senior military
leaders and so on it's not a surprise to me that the afghan army collapsed we will maintain the
fight against terrorism afghanistan president biden has given assurances that the u.s can
still target terrorists in afghanistan we have what's called over the horizon capabilities
which means we can strike terrorists and targets without american boots on the ground or very few
if needed but robert gates is skeptical the military refers to it is over the over the
rainbow because it's a fantasy this notion that you can carry out effective counterterrorism
in afghanistan from a great distance it's not a fantasy but it's just very very hard as evidenced
by the botched drone strike in kabul in the final days of the withdrawal the u.s military claimed
they'd killed an isis terrorist and turned out to be an afghan aid worker and seven children
if you don't have the kind of sources on the ground to have kind of real real-time
intelligence that allows you to target people it's very complicated if they can't get that right
a few blocks from the kabul airport how are you going to get something right over the horizon
exactly when he was secretary of defense gates would write personal condolence
letters to the families of fallen service members we wondered what he would say to
them now and to all who fought in afghanistan i would say that you accomplished your mission
there has not been a terrorist attack a successful foreign-based terrorist attack on the united
states since we went into afghanistan in 2001 what happens now that we're gone remains to be seen
before becoming secretary of defense gates spent nearly 27 years at the national security council
and the cia which he ran under president george h.w bush gates and president biden have crossed
paths for decades as he wrote about in 2014. you wrote joe biden was a man of integrity
still i think he's been wrong in nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue
over the past four decades i think he's gotten a lot wrong you're talking all through the years
as vice president and he opposed every one of ronald reagan's military programs to contest
the soviet union he opposed the first gulf war that list goes on now i will say
that in the in the obama administration he and i obviously had significant differences over
afghanistan but he and i did agree in our opposition to the intervention in libya and
frankly on issues relating to russia and china but do you think he made a mistake in afghanistan
in the way he handled the withdrawal yes do you think he believes he made a mistake
i'd i've worked for eight presidents anderson and i i've never encountered a single one of
them whoever whoever said well i really blew that one really is that really true never they
just don't do that you know deep in their heart they may know it but they won't never say it
do you think it would be better if they did i yes i think it would make them
more credible what's happened in afghanistan has been devastating for president biden domestically
can biden recover oh i think so i think that the submarine deal
between the united states the united kingdom and australia i think is a great strategic move
it sends a powerful message all around the world to china all around the world
including to china that the united states still has a lot of arrows in the quiver
and and that we will remain a force to be reckoned with in the western pacific
that deal to help australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines comes as china is increasingly
threatening taiwan if china moves on taiwan is that a field that the u.s would fight on there
are two strategies that we need to focus on one is deterrence strengthening our own military presence
in the region and the second piece of the strategy is to strengthen taiwan's ability to defend itself
internationally gates sees china as the preeminent military and economic threat to the united states
i think this is a place where president trump got it right he basically awakened americans and
i would say especially the business community to china that the assumptions about which we
had gotten wrong and the assumption for 40 years was that a richer china would be a freer china
and that's clearly not going to happen but there's another piece of this puzzle with china and that
is the economic side chinese now manage something like three dozen major ports around the world
they are the biggest trading partner of more than half of south america they are everywhere and
what are we doing in these non-military arenas to compete with the chinese robert gates has
always considered himself a republican but while he agreed with some of president trump's policies
he remains highly critical of the former president do you think the former president will run again
president trump i hope not why do you hope not i'm a strong believer in institutions whether it's the
intelligence community the defense department the state department the justice department the fbi
he disdains institutions and and i think he did a lot to weaken institutions you called him a
thin skin temperamental shoot from the hip and lip uninformed commander in chief too greater
risk for america you said i would not edit that at all what do you think the greatest threat to
democracy is in this country right now the extreme polarization that we're seeing the greatest
threat is found within the two square miles that encompass the white house and the capitol building
when you watch the insurrection on the capitol what do you think the attack on the capital
was the first time armed enemies of democracy had been in the capital since the war of 1812.
i mean seeing somebody parading through the capitol carrying a confederate flag
that never happened during the civil war what's worse the event itself or even now
all these months later to have members of congress trying to rewrite its history i don't understand
such a denial and these same people who were terrified on january 6 and whose lives were
in danger to now basically say well these are just your normal tourists the whole of
our society seems to be coming unhinged and there's just i've never seen so much hatred
and the continued propagation of former president trump's big lie about the election how big of
a national security threat is that for future elections it seems to me that it underscores the
theme that china is sounding around the world that the united states political system doesn't work
and that the united states is a declining power robert gates doesn't believe america's power is
declining but after serving under eight presidents and seeing up close what happened in afghanistan
and iraq he's come to accept the limits of america's military might you said one of the
enduring lessons of the cold war and the demise of the soviet union is that lasting change in
a country will come only from within i find that to be an extraordinary statement from
somebody who ran military interventions in countries you're saying that in the end from
the outside you cannot change a country i believe that and i think i think that you
know there are a handful of exceptions germany and japan after world war ii uh it are examples
but we had essentially destroyed both countries total defeat foreign policy at the end of a rifle
doesn't work you know one of my favorite quotes is from churchill
democracy is not a harlot to be picked up in the street at the point of a tommy gun
and i totally believe that uh-huh i'm not sure he could get away with saying that today
i don't think anybody ever accused him of being politically correct that's for sure
is there a gates doctrine i'm very much a believer in the importance of military power and in the
united states having predominant military power i also am firmly convinced that the use of the
military should be the very last resort in dealing with any international situation because no matter
why and how it starts no one can predict what will happen
robert gates on the future of afghanistan i think that the taliban are likely to get a
fair amount of assistance from china at 60minutesovertime.com