Wolfie on Afghanistan

Good interview with Paul Wolfowitz in the London Daily Telegraph. Here's an excerpt. The interviewer is Ahmed Rashid of the Far Eastern Economic Review.


Rashid: There is a kind of perception that DoD is dominating policymaking on this, particularly on Afghanistan, on this part of the world.

Wolfowitz: Certainly that's not a perception here.

Rashid: There's a perception outside Washington and a lot of people inside Washington think that.

Wolfowitz: The perception I have is that the President is dominating policy. It's his policies and there's a lot of healthy debate that goes into formulating them, which he encourages.

But I think there's -- even from the inside I have to tell you there's a great sense of cooperation with the State Department. I was just in Turkey accompanied by Marc Grossen the Under Secretary of State. We were constantly discussing what to do next. We were never in deep arguments. He was enormously helpful to me. That's, to me, the typical experience. But of course what makes for better journalism is when there's some degree of difference. But I would, certainly our view isn't that all those differences fall our way. I'll tell you that.