Clinton To Try and Sell Obama Afghan War Strategy to NATO; Obama Focuses on Job Creation; One-On- One with Sec. Clinton; Missing Piece of the Job Puzzle
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING on this Friday. It's December 4th. I'm Kiran Chetry in New York. Hi, John.</s>JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, good morning to you, Kiran. I'm John Roberts outside of NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium where just a few minutes ago we wrapped up an interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This is a big day for her. She has come over to the NATO headquarters to try to cajole the other 27 members of the NATO alliance into providing more troops for Afghanistan. And it looks like she is going to come away with this conference with what she looked for if not more. The secretary general, Rasmussen, said just a few minutes ago that they have commitments, while not all have been made public, of some 7,000 NATO forces to go into Afghanistan to join the 30,000 American troops that will be deploying to Afghanistan in the next six months. The secretary of state and I sat down just a while ago to talk about that and many other things. But here's what she said on the troop front.</s>HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, as of right now, we have more than 5,000 committed. These include decisions by governments to keep troops that they were about to remove that they had sent only for the elections, plus new additional commitments. For example, today, we heard from the Italians and the Poles and the Slovakians and I'm probably forgetting some others, but we had some really positive, new commitments.</s>ROBERTS: As you wanted to get 7,000 troops, do you think that you'll get to that number? Might you get beyond it?</s>CLINTON: Well, what we've already said -- what we've always said is between 5,000 and 7,000, because that's what we assessed. But we're obviously looking for more commitments. We think more will be coming in the weeks ahead.</s>ROBERTS: And, again, just a few minutes ago, the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said that he has commitments of 7,000 troops. So it looks like the United States will get to that upper number and perhaps beyond that. But, of course, it's not all just military that will be the key to success in Afghanistan. The civilian component will be a big one as well. Our State Department correspondent Jill Dougherty is here along with me outside of NATO headquarters. Talk to us about that civilian component because it's one thing to have boots on the ground. But if we're looking at a transition to Afghan control, the civilian component is going to play a huge part whether or not Afghanistan makes it or slides back into chaos again as it did in the 1990s.</s>JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, John. You know, the point that the secretary is making and everybody is making here is the military can't do it alone, that you have to have the services for the civilians in Afghanistan that the government of Hamid Karzai is not providing. And if you don't have that, the citizens lose hope and they can turn to the Taliban. So that's what they believe -- that it's crucial to get people on the side of the government and away from the Taliban.</s>ROBERTS: Now in terms of getting people on the side of the government and away from the Taliban, there has to be good governance in place. People have to be able to trust the government, and we know that the secretary, when she went over to Afghanistan recently on the eve of Hamid Karzai's inauguration was very strong with him to say, you have to do something to root out corruption. And we understand that ISAF, even national security force there in Afghanistan may actually play a role in helping to root out corruption across the Afghan government. What do we know about that?</s>DOUGHERTY: Absolutely. It's very interesting and it's new that these ISAF forces, the trainers particularly, would be able to have actionable intelligence that they would collect and then they would give to the Afghan government and say, look, here is where the corruption is taking place. Now follow up with your promise to do something about it.</s>ROBERTS: So they would actually play an active role in rooting out corruption?</s>DOUGHERTY: Yes.</s>ROBERTS: That is a new role for the ISAF force.</s>DOUGHERTY: Quite different. Quite different, yes. Yes. And you know, John, there's another point that you can see emerging here. What they're trying to do -- what Secretary Clinton is trying to do and the president is trying to do is say, look, the military side is going to be relatively short term. We're talking about this July 2011 -- not a deadline but a beginning of the end. But you heard from Secretary Clinton in your interview the civilian part of it is going to be long term. So the message is going out to Pakistan and Afghanistan. We're in it for the long run, but not militarily, but in a development civilian side.</s>ROBERTS: Although they have made it clear though as well in the last few days that there may be some sort of residual force that stays in Afghanistan to back up the Afghan military and the Afghan police.</s>DOUGHERTY: Right.</s>ROBERTS: Now in terms of moving forward here with these forces, we have not heard from two of the big NATO countries, France and Germany. Where are they in terms of -- we talked to the secretary of state. The United States has asked France from somewhere around 1,500 troops. Where are France and Germany in terms of more commitments to the Afghan forces?</s>DOUGHERTY: The French, all they're saying at this point is we're in it for as long as it takes, but we're not going to give you anymore troops. However, behind the scenes, would you know that in some countries unnamed so far, there are some commitments but they can't talk about them publicly, because it's just too radioactive in their own countries. People are opposed to it. There's a lot of opposition. So they may be able to make the commitment here quietly and then later, especially in London the end of January, January 28th, there will be this other conference and maybe at that point they can make some type of public commitment. But the message that you're hearing from Clinton is ante up as many as you can right now because the sooner you get them over here, the sooner we get out.</s>ROBERTS: Yes. The other thing that we're hearing from Secretary Clinton as well is that while this is a transition to Afghan control, it is not an exit strategy. They're trying to dispel the notion that the United States is preparing to pep run from Afghanistan as it did back in 1989. Much more of that interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just ahead on the Most News in the Morning. But right now from Brussels and NATO headquarters, let's send it back to Kiran in New York -- Kiran.</s>CHETRY: John, thanks. And the other big story we're following this morning, President Obama shifting his attention to issue number one -- jobs. The White House is feeling the heat. Critics say the president spent too much time on health care and Afghanistan and too little on trying to get Americans back to work. Well, in just a few hours, the new numbers will be out and they're expected to show unemployment hovering still above 10 percent. That's the highest rate in more than a quarter century. So today, the president will kick off a multi-city tour beginning in Allentown, Pennsylvania and it's all about jobs. The same topic that dominated the White House summit yesterday.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We cannot hang back and hope for the best when we've seen the kinds of job losses that we've seen over the last year. I am not interested in taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to creating jobs. What I'm interested in is taking action right now to help businesses create jobs, right now in the near term.</s>CHETRY: Our Kate Bolduan is live at the White House. And, Kate, so the big question is how does the president's plan turn words into action when it comes to the job front?</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran. Well, it doesn't seem that that is quite clear at this point. It also seems that's the same question that the White House is asking as it turns to the public, private businesses and economists and experts looking for creative ways to spur job growth. At the same time as you were talking about, the White House is facing continued problems with record high unemployment. Yesterday, the president did say the private sector, private business would be key in this effort in spurring job growth and hiring. And talk at the summit included discussions of increased spending on infrastructure like roads and highways, increased spending on green technologies, weatherizing of homes as well as incentives and tax credits for businesses. And today, the president and the White House is kind of taking this message and taking these questions on the road, as you mentioned, in what's being billed as the main street tour. The president's heading to Allentown, Pennsylvania in the first of what's being expected to be several stops across the country in the coming months. And the White House says the president really wants to hear directly from the public about the economic challenges that they're facing. But the reality also here is that unemployment continues to be more and more of a political problem, a political headache for the White House. They not only want to show that they feel the pain of the American public as Americans struggle to find jobs and keep their jobs, but also that they're doing something about it. And it doesn't seem that there's quite a clear solution at this point.</s>CHETRY: And how are Republicans reacting to some of the president's job proposals? I mean, there has been talk of giving credits, you know, to new businesses that are willing to hire, perhaps suspending some taxes. How is that being received by the GOP?</s>BOLDUAN: Well, overall, especially looking at yesterday's job summit, Republicans are really hammering the White House saying that really these efforts are more PR than any real substance, they say. Listen here to House Republican Leader John Boehner.</s>JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: I can tell you that the policies being proposed by this administration and their Democrat allies here in Congress are causing employers to sit on their hands. They've got a stimulus bill that's not working, spending that's out of control, deficits that are out of control, a national energy tax, and now the government takeover of health care is causing employers to wonder what the policies here in Washington are going to mean to their future.</s>BOLDUAN: At the same time, the president is also taking some heat from members of his own party. Members coming out saying that they want the president in the White House to do more, to generate jobs. Talks of a comprehensive jobs package, but that, of course, is part of the discussion going forward, Kiran.</s>CHETRY: Kate Bolduan for us this morning in Washington, thanks. Also stay with us because we're going to be talking more about this. Coming up in about 20 minutes, we're going to break down some of the best ways that the administration can create jobs. We'll be speaking to Jill Schlesinger, editor-at-large for CBS MoneyWatch.com, and Peter Morici, professor at the University of Maryland. Also new this morning at nine minutes past the hour, the Secret Service is placing three agents now on administrative leave because of a security breach that allowed this couple to get into a White House state dinner without an invitation. They also declined to appear at a congressional hearing Thursday. House Homeland Security Committee is threatening to subpoena Tareq and Michaele Salahi. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan did testify at that hearing, saying his agency was solely to blame for the party crashing incident. Well, the Senate rejecting a plan from Senator John McCain to strip its health care reform bill of $400 billion in Medicare cuts. The vote pushes the plan forward instead of sending it back to the finance committee. Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell said the cuts amount to raiding Medicare to create a new government program, but Democrats are promising seniors that they will not lose any guaranteed benefits. The Washington Monument was the North Pole last night as the Obamas lit the nation's Christmas tree in D.C. The president joking about being technology challenged, but the lights came on. Sheryl Crow and former "American Idol" Jordin Sparks performed. Mrs. Obama also read "The Night Before Christmas" to the kids. Well, still ahead, some scary moments for Tennessee Senator Bob Corker's daughter. She was carjacked but police were able to quickly caught up with the suspects because of a device that she had in the car -- OnStar. We'll have more on that in a moment. Ten and a half minutes after the hour.