Well, bearing that in mind, how do you think the war on terror is going?

I think it's gone reasonably well, recognizing that we were never against the KGB. These guys were lucky but they were largely inept. And for all the talk about their sophistication and so forth, I think people were giving themselves a large measure of credit for being able to deal with the issue.

But the actual fact is, just like they said when they broke the code on Khalid Mohammed's laptop, it wasn't a very sophisticated code. It may have been encoded but it wasn't very sophisticated and they easily broke it. This is not the KGB we've been up against. So I don't want to diminish anything we've done, I think it's gone reasonably well -- we haven't been attacked again, and that's the way it should have been. I always felt that if we did things right we wouldn't be attacked again.

But is there anything you would do differently?

You should go back to my [Washington Monthly] article -- what I've said is international cooperation, harmonization of laws, and so forth. One of the things about the war on terror that I am disturbed about is that we've essentially suspended habeas corpus. Which is something that's only been done once in American history and then only for a very brief period.

When I go back and think about the atmosphere in which the PATRIOT Act was passed, it begs for a reconsideration and review. And it should be done. Law enforcement agencies will always chafe at any restriction whatsoever when they're in the business of trying to get their job done. But in practice we've always balanced the need for law enforcement with our own protection of our constitutional rights and that's a balance that will need to be reviewed.

Civil libertarians feel that the Democratic Party rolled over on a lot of that stuff when the PATRIOT Act came up. There have been a lot of criticisms of the Democratic Party in general on acquiescing to much that the Bush administration has done. I know that you haven't declared yourself a member of the party, though you voted in the Democratic Party in Arkansas in 2000, as I understand it ...

I did, I did.

So what do you think of the Democratic leadership?

I like them. I've got friends on both sides of the aisle. People voted as best they could under some very difficult circumstances to try to do the best they could for the country. And I wasn't there. In retrospect, now, as you look at it, given the success that we're having -- we'll see what happens here now, I know that [Homeland Security Secretary] Tom Ridge has warned today [Wednesday] that we're going to be attacked -- but after this episode passes, it will be appropriate to review the PATRIOT Act, what its plusses were, what its minuses were, and get the balance right. This is for America's long-term future if we're into this war.

Your book tells some stories about run-ins you had with military brass while you were in charge of NATO forces in Europe, like the time you gave a press conference, and Defense Secretary William Cohen had Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton deliver a rather harsh message to you ["Get your fucking face off the TV"] --

I gave a press conference in Brussels, and I was asked about the Serbs. [The reporter] heard one thing, it wasn't what I was saying, and the way the headline writer wrote it out made it look like the United States was failing in its war. And what Shelton told me is that in the White House meeting, Bill Clinton had read the article and said, "Well, he didn't say anything wrong there." Nonetheless, I got the guidance that you're referring to from Shelton.

Is there anything you would have done differently as commander of NATO forces in the Kosovo campaign?

We came forward and did the best we could at the time. Obviously, had we been able to discuss the option of ground troops earlier it maybe would have been easier to bring pressure on Milosevic. But we did succeed and I think that stands on its own merits.

The conservative Christopher Caldwell assessed your book and made a few critiques: He questioned your "attempt to leave the impression there was no coordination between the Croatian infantry assault on Serb positions in the Krajina in 1995 and American air attacks." He also wondered about your assertion that the June 1999 attacks by the Kosovo Liberation Army were made completely independent from what U.S. forces wanted to do, questioning why you didn't acknowledge that the U.S. coordinated with local ground forces.

The answer is, I didn't have anything to do with it. I was the first to ask to make that coordination and I was told no. So I don't know that was coordination -- and if there was, it was not authorized by me, so it would be a violation of the principle of command in theater.

But I'm not denying that the Albanians attacked, and though I didn't think it was a smart move I did try to use it.

In terms of the Croatians in 1995, I wasn't even commander then, so I had nothing to do with it. At the time I was with the joint staff back in Washington. I kept hearing stories that the CIA was doing things. But I didn't know anything about it, and I certainly wasn't doing any coordinating. And it's one of the things that, if they were doing it, I find it highly disturbing. Because you have to have unity of command in the theater, so if I didn't know of them doing it I hope they weren't. That's the kind of thing that leads to failure in war.

So in answer to the critic, I wasn't trying to strain credulity, I was just telling it like it was.

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