I mean,you will have an Afghan government. There are two roads here. One is obviously a run-off election or a negotiated settlement. But what's most important about that process is that there's a credibility and a legitimacy to the government at the end of that process. So which road they choose, that's up to them. It must have - be legitimate and credible in the eyes of the Afghan people.

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

We need to deal with the problem of al Qaeda, make sure that they can't have a sanctuary in Afghanistan and guarantee that we have regional stabilization and particularly focused on Pakistan.

We have come a long way and we have a little further to go.

I hope President [Hamid] Karzai understands that our national security interests don't depend entirely on his decision there whether to allow a recount. Obviously the legitimacy of that government is an important component of it. My point is it shouldn't be the lynch pin for us deciding whether we're going to protect our national security interests in that region.

What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked 'a majority of the majority,' or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America's security foremost in mind?

Counting the numbers of troops is not going to define our success here.There is no military success, ultimately, to Afghanistan. The Afghans themselves are going to define what happens here. And we have to convince ourselves that we have a strategy in place that empowers them to do that and that is realistic in what our expectations are from them and on what schedule.