We obviously don't want to cause problems for the Afghan government, President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan people. In fact, we want them to support our efforts on their behalf and not see us as unwelcome occupiers.

Progress in Iraq has always been about teams of people and teams of teams - and ultimately about young men and women, Iraqi as well as people from the coalition.

Afghanistan has other enormous challenges as well, including a political system that is still very much developing, although there has been some progress in the past several years.

President Obama has said that our aspirations should be realistic. We are not going to turn one of the poorest countries in the world, that was plunged into 30 years of war, into an advanced, industrialized, Western-style democracy. What we want to achieve is Afghanistan's capacity to secure and govern itself.

This cannot be the United States being the air force for Shia militias, or a Shia on Sunni Arab fight.

Money can be a very important form of "ammunition," although we should never forget that when you're being shot at the most important ammunition is real ammunition.

After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.