Looking Back on 9/11, the War on Terror, and the Invasion of Iraq

What do you consider to be your biggest failure as chairman?
I'm not saying it was a failure, but I am saying I wish I would have been more alert to a couple of things, especially looking backwards. In the transition from combat operations in Iraq to stability and reconstruction, we were lulled into the sense that this was going to be easy, because right after major combat, Iraq was pretty quiet. I think we could have done a better job at organizing.

Is there any advice you wish you had given?
"Mr. Secretary, I don't think we're properly organized for this." At the time, I thought we were, but looking back, we weren't. And I wish I'd have—we'd have—had people advising us. And there might have been those voices out there. Maybe we were deaf, I don't know. I think another area where we could have pressed the case maybe more is all the tough issues, a lot of them in the legal sphere, that came up after 9/11: What do you do with these people you scoop up off the battlefield? How do you handle them? What are their rights? I think we should have tried to open up the ideas to Congress on how to do it. They are really tough problems.