June 30 and Beyond: What Happens After the U.S. Transfers Power to Iraq?

Transcript

KENNETH POLLACK: I want to start by saying that the honest answer, and I think we all have to be very humble about making these kind of prognostications, predictions, and recommendations because the honest answer is none of us really knows any more. The fact is that I think we had a pretty good sense going into the war what needed to be done, and I would argue that, looking back, the recommendations were right on the money. And if we had done them, I think we'd be in a lot better state than we're in today. But the simple fact of the matter is that those things weren't done, and we are where we are.

And a lot of the recommendations that I and other people all around Washington, all around Iraq, all around the world are making are mostly extrapolations from those early recommendations that we had. But the truth is that we've really lost our bearings. We are in a situation now in Iraq where we are terra incognita. We don't really know what the right answer is. And we all have different theories, but that's all that they are. They are theories. So, as I talk about my own thinking on this, please understand that I come from a sort of very humble perspective of I don't really know what the answer is, and I don't think anyone really knows.

About the best we can do is offer what seems to be the best prescription, given the different problems that we see out there. But given how far off the reservation, off of where we intended to be at this point in time as we are, it's very difficult to know exactly what the right answer is.

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