Oct. 26--On Oct. 14, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters Salena Zito and Carl Prine joined editor Frank Craig during a wide-ranging discussion with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq. Here is the complete transcript:

President George W. Bush and Congress have promoted Petraeus to lead the military's Central Command, which oversees not only the Iraq war, but also the battles in Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East.

SALENA ZITO: I understand that Iraq and Afghanistan are completely different battlefields. But could you name one, two or maybe three different things you would take from that success into Afghanistan?

DAVID PETRAEUS: Sure. Again, first is an awareness that every situation is unique. Each has its own context, its own circumstances and the key is for a counterinsurgent to have a truly nuanced understanding of each situation and then, of course, to craft a comprehensive approach. What we've relearned that in Iraq, certainly, is a recognition that security is essential, that it's critical.

It's the foundation for everything else, but it's not sufficient in and of itself. You need a comprehensive approach that strives to achieve unity of effort and an awareness that you have to do all that you can to ensure security for the people and to serve the people and to actually be seen to serve the people.

SALENA ZITO: Is that important? The visual part?

DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, it is. First, it's important to be truly serving the people. But it's also important, frankly, to be seen serving the people. And, again, this informs a lot of your other activities. It also informs how you use your very capabilities and your assets. There's a concern now, for example, of course, about civilian casualties in some of the operations. General (David) McKiernan has issued instructions to reduce the incidences of those civilian casualties through the use of air support and so on in a thoughtful and an appropriate way.

Other factors, if you will, translate into the recognition that if you want to secure a population you have to live with it; a recognition that you can't kill or capture your way out of a large insurgency, which is what is present in Afghanistan in a very different constellation of enemies, if you will, than what we had in Iraq, but still, again, two large insurgencies in each of those countries.

So there has to be some way of identifying and trying to separate from the population the 'irreconcilables' -- if you will, those who are never going to be part of the solution in Afghanistan. And they have to be killed, captured or run out of the country. Then, allowing -- in coordination with the government -- an outreach to those who might be part of the solution, and who might help actually to achieve not just security but the establishment of local governance, the restoration of basic services, the priming of the pump of local commerce, and so forth.

SALENA ZITO: So, that's what you were speaking about, last week, that at some low level you would talk to people in the Taliban. Because there are people who you can work with?

DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, we think so. Again, historically there are the really hard core insurgents or terrorists or extremists. Really, 'extremists' is a better term for that. But, beyond that, there are those who are less so, and what you're trying to do is encourage those who are less so to be, again, part of the solution instead of a continuing part of the problem.

Again, you have to know what you're doing. You have to truly have a very, very clear understanding of the different groups that are there.

In Iraq, we literally had a slide -- as always, if it's important it can be reduced to a Power Point slide in the military -- that had the Sunni extremists; you had the Shia extremists; and then it worked its way into the center, if you will, of the (society). And out on the fringe, if you will, are the true Sunni hard core extremists. These are al Qaeda, in particular foreign leaders.

And then it worked its way on in. You had Jaish al-Islami and Ansar al-Sunnah and Ansar al-Islam. You can tick them off for you here. We literally went after some of those who were, we felt, fence sitters -- in terms of the 'fence' being those who were irreconcilable or those who were reconcilable. And you worked on in, literally, to political parties.

And you had the same thing on the Shia side. You know, the truly hard core, if you will, 'special groups,' as they were called, and then working on in to the militias -- many of whom, actually, have reconciled with the new Iraq. They've realized that the route forward should be one that's legitimate, rather than illegitimate.

CARL PRINE: How is that 'route forward' going to go, general?

DAVID PETRAEUS: What's that?

CARL PRINE: How is that 'route forward' going to go? Because you've mentioned that a lot of the groups that have been brought 'in,' like the Sons of Iraq and other programs, well, a lot of critics have wondered if that's going to work out the way we expect it to work out.

DAVID PETRAEUS: Sons of Iraq?

CARL PRINE: Sons of Iraq and other groups that we developed as part of the 'route forward.'

DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, again, there will be plenty of emotion and tension and challenges and difficulties and recriminations and arguments and everything else. But, actually, so far, it's coming along. And that's what's going to be the way to go forward.

And, again, it won't be pretty. None of this is ever pretty. Nothing is pretty in situations like this. 'Iraqcracy' is not pretty. Arguably, our own democracy is not always completely pretty. The important feature of the situation today is that there's more shouting than shooting. And in fact this past week in Iraq -- the week that ended midnight Friday night when is when we hit the 'print' key, the 'end' key on a particular week's statistics -- was the lowest since January of 2004 in terms of security incidents.

That's attacks and also improvised explosive devices that are found instead of exploded. It's not to say there weren't high profile attacks because there were. It's not to say there weren't attacks that caused serious concern or that there aren't a number of security issues there.

But, again, the fact that Iraq has gone from, say, 180 attacks a day in June of 2007 to now, this past week, the low 20s is pretty significant.

By the way, it also allows you to focus much more precisely on what the continuing sources of security challenges are. You can in a much more rigorous manner put attention on those areas that matter. And, of course, an area right now is Northern Iraq and, as you've heard, an operation is pending there.

CARL PRINE: General McKiernan has talked about the need for more troops. And I imagine that if you're going to do a major population-centric campaign like you did in Iraq, you're going to need more troops in Afghanistan. Realistically, how are you going to get troops over there?

DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, I mean, troops are literally already moving over there. First, of course, we drew down the five 'Surge' Brigade Combat Teams -- two Marine battalions, a Marine Expeditionary Unit, Georgian Brigade, Polish contingent, Australian contingent, and so forth. And then, we have subsequently been in the process of redeploying -- or reducing -- about 8,000 more troops from Iraq by the end of January, early February.

That, obviously, frees up some additional forces for Afghanistan. And, indeed, they're going to go. Many of those will to go to Afghanistan, not Iraq.

Again, the way you tend to reduce is you don't just take a force and send it home. You just don't replace it. That's the way typically forces are often reduced. So you have that particular process that's ongoing. In addition, the Marines and the Army are both expanding, and that opens up opportunities -- as are Special Operations Forces of all different types, the very high end and also, if you will, the 'regular' Special Forces.

There's nothing 'regular' about them. They're all very special. But again the Special Forces, themselves, are expanding as are other components of the so-called 'SOF,' Rangers and others.

Again, that opens up other opportunities for modest increases. Some NATO nations have already sent additional forces and will send others. The Afghan National Army, of course, the Secretary of Defense announced that will be expanded in size, and you're probably looking at the same thing with the National Police.

Again, there might be some local solutions there that will be appropriate as well, and that will be another avenue to explore.

CARL PRINE: You said 'moderate increases' in troop levels. If someone were looking at Afghanistan a year out -- maybe it's unfair to ask this because you're not at Tampa officially...

DAVID PETRAEUS: It is.

CARL PRINE: Well, I'm going to ask the question anyway.

DAVID PETRAEUS: But I'm not going to answer it. But it was a good try.

Again, I'm not in the job yet. I wouldn't hazard to guess on the record. I wouldn't give a number, on the record, at this point and time. It would be premature and sort of inappropriate.

What's more important, frankly, is the request General McKiernan has made. Those are very clear, so the job of the US military is to figure out a way to provide those forces to him.

CARL PRINE: Are we getting enough from our NATO allies?

DAVID PETRAEUS: Well, Secretary (of Defense, Robert M.) Gates obviously has asked for more, which seems to indicate that there's certainly a need for more, again, from all quarters, not just NATO -- US, Afghan National Army and National Police and, again, perhaps some potential from local solutions along with the Afghan government, obviously.

SALENA ZITO: Speaking of the troops, when you went around and talked to talk to all the company commanders, privately, what are our future military leaders thinking? What were they thinking when they were there? What do you see as the future with the guys that you talked to?

DAVID PETRAEUS: First of all, they're extraordinary young leaders in the sense that they're the most experienced at that level that I think we've ever had in our military. I mean, you have company commanders who have two and, sometimes, three tours in a combat zone. And they have a degree of flexibility and adaptability that is essential for success in the kinds of endeavors we're engaged in in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They truly fit the description in our Leadership Manual of what we call 'Pentathlete Leaders.' That's what's required to, again, succeed in these kinds of very complex endeavors -- a leader who, to use a track and field analogy, is not just a sprinter, a shot-putter or a high jumper, but rather a leader who can do all of these things.

They, therefore, are 'pentathletes' in this sense: They can lead offensive operations, defensive operations, stability and support operations and -- oh, by the way -- they can literally turn on a dime.

If you talked, as I did, with the leaders after the Battle of Sadr City in March and April when you had very intense combat operations, and at the end -- when the militias and the 'special groups' decided this was not something they could win, and were losing the support of the Iraqi people, which was hugely their worst nightmare, and they decided to take a knee, basically, and to cease fire, after taking very significant losses.

When that happened, these young company commanders were in a position where, one day earlier they were in very intense small unit combat -- some of the most intense we've had in Iraq -- and the next day they're in very intense stability and support operations. They and their troopers made that transition literally overnight.

And also we now have the tools and the intellectual constructs. These individuals understand now how to do this that we frankly didn't have at the beginning in Iraq. We have the so-called 'CERP' money -- Commanders Emergency Reconstruction Program money -- the authority to spend that in appropriate manners with appropriate safeguards, but still to be able to do that fairly rapidly. The civil affairs and engineer assets and civilian agencies all working together with embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams at the Brigade headquarters level, with Human Terrain Teams helping out with bicultural, bilingual advisers -- all these assets working together, that can immediately swing into action, into what becomes a local, post-combat situation.

So, you've gone from this very, very heavy combat to equally heavy duty stability and support operations. So that's what these are, and they're extraordinary in that regard.

CARL PRINE: But you've heard these rumbling percolating up from the military, talking about the lack of abilities of certain units to do some of their core missions.

DAVID PETRAEUS: Look, I just don't buy much of that.