Denis McDonough speaks to Wolf Blitzer
Deputy national security adviser to President Obama Denis McDonough spoke with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer about Osama bin Laden’s death, the administration’s deliberations on releasing photos, the U.S.- Pakistan relationship and more. Part of this interview will air on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer – 5-7 p.m. ET . A highlight from the interview is after the jump.
Please credit all usage of the interview to CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
Highlight from Full Interview
THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, HOST: Are the Pakistani authorities allowing U.S. officials to join in the interrogation of the others who survived this attack at the compound in Pakistan?
DENIS MCDONOUGH, DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: You know, I don’t have anything firm on that, Wolf. But I have no reason to believe that they’re going to make that hard for us, if that’s the route we choose to go.
BLITZER: Because a lot of people are worried about Pakistan’s perhaps knowing about bin Laden’s presence there. Let me quote from Leon Panetta in this new interview he gave to “TIME” magazine, our sister publication.
He says this. He says: “It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission. They might alert the target,” meaning someone in Pakistan could tell bin Laden, you know what, the Americans are on the way, you’d better get out of there. Is — is that the nature of this relationship with Pakistan, you couldn’t even trust them to know what was going on? Talk a little bit about that.
MCDONOUGH: Well, the director’s recollection is certainly consistent with my own about that decision. But I will say a couple of things about the relationship with Pakistan, Wolf. We obviously recognize that nobody has sacrificed more in this war against al Qaeda than the Pakistanis. Al Qaeda had declared war, in fact, on the Pakistani government, have threatened and continues to threaten to try to get their hands on nuclear material in that country.
And so nobody is closer to the front lines, perhaps other than us, than the Pakistanis.
So they obviously have a lot at stake in this fight. So we’re going to continue to work with them and continue to try to partner with them against al Qaeda, because we recognize that it’s not only in our interests, but in their interests.
BLITZER: And you want..
MCDONOUGH: And…
BLITZER: — and you want the billions in U.S. aid to continue?
MCDONOUGH: Well, I think what we’ve seen is that the investments in their security have been investments in our security, Wolf. We’ll continue to try to work with them to train, to try to target the common threat that we face from al Qaeda. And we’ll continue to work with them. But, obviously, these are tough questions. We expect them to be answered. We expect the press to answer them. And, obviously, we’re sharing our answers on those questions with Congress, as well.
Nobody has greater concern about our ability to per — to perpe — to carry out the fight against Al Qaeda than the president. We’re going to continue to do that, either with our Pakistani friends or alone. But this is too big a fight for us to give it up.
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