Richard Holbrooke: “There's no Ho Chi Minh. There's no Slobodan Milosevic. There's no Palestinian Authority.”

The success or failure of reconciliation efforts will be linked directly to the success of the military operations.

I share your astonishment that so little was done on this in the past, and I want to commend you and Senator Webb for continuing to push.

We have ended poppy eradication, a radical change, because all we were doing by eradicating poppy seeds--poppy crops--was driving farmers--poor farmers--into the hands of the Taliban.

Why are we in Afghanistan? The short, simple answer is: 9/11, direct threats to our national security interests.