Ret. Army Gen. McChrystal Visits CBS SUNDAY MORNING Today

Ret. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal admits that more than two years after he was forced to resign as commander in Afghanistan, he still feels the loss. McChrystal, who resigned after a magazine profile quoted members of his staff making derogatory comments about President Obama and other civilian leaders, tells David Martin, "I would be dishonest to say that I didn't lose something that, that means an awful lot to me. I'd be dishonest to say it still doesn't hurt."

In an interview for CBS SUNDAY MORNING WITH Charles Osgood to be broadcast today, Jan. 6, 2013 (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network, McChrystal tells Martin, "My whole life I'd expected that I could get killed in war. . . In my wildest dreams, I never once thought I could be accused of anything approaching disloyalty or disrespect."

President Obama accepted McChrystal's resignation in June 2010 following a story in Rolling Stone magazine in which one of his aides was quoted as saying "the boss was pretty disappointed" with the President. After 34 years in uniform, his life changed in an instant. "I'm not a soldier and everything that I think I am and everything that I had tried to be is at least in question," he says, adding he worried he had let his wife of 33 years down.

In a wide-ranging interview, McChrystal discusses his relationship with Obama, his thoughts on the brutality of war and his transformation of the Joint Special Operations Command into the organization that killed Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the shockingly ruthless leader of the insurgency in Iraq.

As he relates both in the interview and in his new book, McChrystal ordered an air strike on the house where Zarqawi was hiding knowing that his wife and children were there as well. Asked if getting Zarqawi was worth killing innocent people, McChrystal says, "I think it was necessary to stop him, so I didn't hesitate." And when it was over, McChrystal continues, "I looked down at Zarqawi and he looked exactly like Zarqawi. . . He was just dead. . . He's not an iconic terrorist at that point. He's a dead human being lying there in front of you and you don't spike the ball in the end zone."

Martin's profile of McChrystal will be broadcast today, Jan. 6, 2013 on CBS SUNDAY MORNING (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.

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