Q+A’s Guyon Espiner Interviewed Gen. Stanley Mcchrystal, Commander Of International Troops In Afghanistan, Last Weekend

Points of interest:

- International troops are now focused on working “shoulder-to-shoulder” with Afghan forces

- “I’m not prepared to say with confidence” that the Taliban has severed links with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan

- Who are international troops fighting? “People trying to take away the sovereignty of the government of Afghanistan”

- Is Osama bin Laden still alive and in Afghanistan? “I have no idea”

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

Gen. STANLEY McCHRYSTAL interviewed by GUYON ESPINER in Afghanistan

McChrystal: We have made an effort to change the way the Coalition interacts with the Afghan population to protect the people. We call that a counter-insurgency approach, but if you really break it down to it's basics, it's to operate in a way that protects Afghans, all Afghans from harm, both from the insurgency and from the mistakes that can be made. We were trying to connect the Afghan government to the Afghan people. We have changed the way that we interact with the Afghan military and police or Afghan National Security forces in what we call partnering, and from the most strategic level down the lowest level what we're trying to do now is operate in a way we call ??? which means shoulder to shoulder, and so at every level we train, plan together, operate together, live together and then we find together Coalition and Afghan forces are better.

Guyon: The initial obvious cause and effect was to squash Al Qaeda and to stop Afghanistan being a training base for terrorism because that affected America and the rest of the world. Do you believe the Taleban has severed all links with Al Qaeda now?

McChrystal: I'm not prepared to say that with confidence. We don't see the presence of large numbers of Al Qaeda inside of Afghanistan now. We do periodically see some. I think that the traditional relationship between Taleban particularly some of the senior leadership and Al Qaeda is something we have to assume still exists but something we also look at to see if there's been a shift.

Guyon: Because Taleban operate in Pakistan and other countries, yet we're not at war with them.

McChrystal: Taleban is almost a name that's lost some of it's meaning. There are different types of Taleban now, so instead of saying “you're a member of the Taleban” there's the Pakistani Taleban, there's the Afghan Taleban and within the Afghan Taleban there's the Katashura based Taleban there's the Peshawar Shura Taleban and there are people who are called Taleban who are insurgents of another flavour. So that particular name I think has lost some of it's precision.

Reporter: So what are you fighting?

McChrystal: We're fighting people who are trying to take away the sovereignty of the Government of Afghanistan. People who are trying to... Afghanistan is a constitution.. It's got a National Government which has been elected. It's got Institutions that are still growing, but they're existing, and we're fighting against people who are trying to undermine those.

Guyon: Do you believe that Osama Bin Laden is still alive?

McChrystal: I have no idea. I have no reason to believe that he is dead, but I certainly don't know either way.

Guyon: Are you still hunting him?

McChrystal: Well my job as Commander of ISAF is inside the Afghanistan alone. So within inside Afghanistan we go after any threats to the Government of Afghanistan or trans-national terrorists.

Guyon: Does that mean that you don't believe that he is in Afghanistan, that he's perhaps in Pakistan?

McChrystal: Well, I'm not prepared to say he's in any one place or another. I would say that if intelligence arose that he was in Afghanistan then he would become something that we would try and bring to justice.

Paul: And one last point, Guyon asked General McChrystal about the corruption that infests the Afghani Government led by Hamid Karzai. This is how he replied.

McChrystal: Let me put it this way. I don't believe the expectations in Afghanistan are for a huge levels of corruption. People talk of different cultures have acceptable levels of corruption. I think what the Afghans see right now is not acceptable to them and there are people in the country who they believe have taken unfair advantage of that. I don't know that there are any specific individuals in politics and whatnot that I would identify in that way but I would say that it's for the Afghans to make that choice.

ENDS

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