A woman I loved [Andi Parhamovich] was killed in Baghdad in January 2007 – al-Qaeda in Iraq took credit for it … The memorial service with me crying over an empty coffin.

Johnny Apple, a New York Times correspondent, wrote a front-page story saying Afghanistan could be a quagmire and he was mocked and derided. What is certainly true is that all sorts of resources that would have been used in Afghanistan were diverted to Iraq. Would those resources have helped? Almost undoubtedly. Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.

A state department official once told me this about the role of the president. He said: "We wage war for realist reasons, we justify wars for idealist reasons, and it's the president's job to balance the two." I agree.

The only thing I've ever regretted is not writing more; not being more honest; not saying how it really is in Baghdad. It's hard to get there sometimes.

As the wealthiest country with all the blessings that we have, do we have an obligation to help the outside world? I think we do, as we have an obligation to help everyone within our own borders. The problem is that this automatically gets translated into: "What's the point of having a huge military if we can't bomb people?" That's the problem that I have. Our foreign policy is essentially our defense policy.

I want to be the greatest investigative reporter of my generation.

A woman I loved [Andi Parhamovich] was killed in Baghdad in January 2007 – al-Qaeda in Iraq took credit for it … The memorial service with me crying over an empty coffin.