On This Week with Christiane Amanpour, National Security advisor Tom Donilon addresses the U.S. relationship with Pakistan after the revelation that Osama bin Laden was not only in Pakistan, but living in a town that was that country's equivalent of West Point. Amanpour wonders how the U.S. can trust them after this, and also pushes him on whether this means the U.S. will bring more troops home than planned:
AMANPOUR: But can you deal with these very people who you've had to deal with?
DONILON: Well, let's go -- let's go through that, yeah. I think that -- I think, though, on this issue, we need to work with them on a couple of things. First of all, we need to know how this happened and they need to know how this happened, if they weren't involved, right? They need to know how this happened.
Secondly, we need to work with them on assessing all the evidence out of that compound and all of the evidence associated with Osama bin Laden's presence there for six years. They have in their custody all the noncombatants from the compound, including three wives of Osama bin Laden. We've asked for access, obviously, to those -- to those folks.
They took additional materials. We talked to them first about the materials that we had. They had additional materials. We need access to that.
But I would be remiss if I didn't make another point. More people have died, right, more terrorists have died -- have died and been captured, excuse me, on Pakistan soil than any place else in the world. They have been an essential partner of ours in the war against Al Qaida and in our efforts against terrorism. And that really can't be dismissed.
This is an important relationship with the United States, so we need to assess this, Christiane, in a cool and calm way. And my job as national security adviser is to do this in a way that advances our interests.
AMANPOUR: If today the president had to make that decision to go after Zawahiri in Pakistan, would you tell the Pakistanis?
DONILON: Well, we'll have to look at the specifics of the operation. This really wasn't a matter of trusting or not trusting; it was a matter of operational security.
AMANPOUR: So would you do this again, then, in Pakistan, go in without telling them?
(CROSSTALK)
DONILON: It would depend on the operation, right? It would depend on the risk assessments, right? We do many, many joint operations with the Pakistanis. This was a singular operation, a very unique operation, indeed, the most important military operation that we've undertaken in a long, long time.
AMANPOUR: I have to ask you a final question.
DONILON: Of course.
AMANPOUR: You talked about the death of Osama bin Laden...
DONILON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: ... as a huge milestone on your mission to defeat Al Qaida.
DONILON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Your Afghanistan policy is about defeating Al Qaida.
DONILON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Does this mean that you will withdraw more troops?
DONILON: Well, what it means is this, that...
AMANPOUR: Because people are saying that now.
DONILON: Yeah. Yeah, I understand. It is a -- it's an important milestone toward strategic defeat and it's an important step towards our achieving our goals. And the president has laid out quite clearly and worked with our allies on this that we'll begin a withdrawal in July of X number of troops.
AMANPOUR: Will you bring more than you had expected?
DONILON: We haven't made those determinations yet, is the absolute honest answer.
AMANPOUR: Thanks so much for joining us.
DONILON: OK, thank you.
AMANPOUR: Thank you.
