I'm living the dream.

There has, indeed, been very substantial progress in Iraq over the past year - violence is down by 80 percent, civilian deaths by about the same, and so on.

Iraq has gone from being on the brink to being on the mend, and it clearly has some big advantages.

Syria has allowed its soil to be transited by foreign fighters who have come from a variety of source countries in the Gulf area and in the - in North African countries.There are some signs that that may have been reduced somewhat in the last couple of months. We need to watch that a bit and see if that is the case.

I will not ever run for political office, I can assure you of that.

If you don't want to have to kill or capture every bad guy in the country, you have to reintegrate those who are willing to be reconciled and become part of the solution instead of a continued part of the problem. And then, above all, the resources.

I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I am a realist, and the reality in Iraq is that it has been very hard and it continues to be hard.