Anderson Cooper | BIO
AC360° Anchor

Anderson Cooper | BIO
AC360° Anchor

Program Note: Tune in tonight for more of Anderson’s interview with Former President Bill Clinton. AC360° 10 p.m. ET.

Former President Bill Clinton.

Anderson Cooper | BIO
AC360° Anchor

Anderson Cooper: You are focusing this year on women and girls and you are saying it’s not only a social issues but it’s also a business issue.

Bill Clinton: Absolutely, if you look in developing countries, there is a huge disconnect between work women do and the money they earn and the wealth they have. In general, women do two thirds of the work, earn ten percent of the income and own one percent of the property.

Bill Clinton: The more you put the girls of the world in school and give the young women access to the labor market, and then involve them in the business and political life of the country, the more stable the society is going to be, the more prosperous the society is going to be. And the less human trafficking you are going to have. So what we are trying to do is to address these issues in a way that people can see everyone benefits.

Bill Clinton: Last night, the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, talked about how in the last ten years after the genocide, fourteen or fifteen years now but in the last ten years they have almost quadrupled their per capita income.

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AC360° Anchor

Anderson Cooper: Senator McCain, many conservatives have blasted President Obama over the past two days at the U.N. Former U.N. Ambassador Bolton said of the president's message it was "extremely naive." Do you agree?

Senator McCain: Well I would like to hear the President mention that American blood and treasure was expended on behalf of Muslims and Operation Desert Storm, the same thing was in Kosovo, in Bosnia, and we have made sacrifices that we also hope will be recognized by the Arab world in particular and the entire world.

Anderson Cooper: Lets talk about Afghanistan. You support sending more troops. This counterinsurgency strategy, "Clear, Hold, and Build" clearly requires more troops. Anyone who goes there, we that ourselves two weeks ago on the ground in Helmand province with the Marines. Do we have the right strategy? In effect, there are a lot of people who say we are nation-building in Afghanistan with military personnel instead of civilians and on behalf of a government riddled with corruption.

Senator McCain: Well that's a big question, Anderson, and I'll try and make my answer short but I think what we are in engaged in is a counter-insurgency not counter-terrorism operational plan and once we make the areas secure then the people are able to make progress economically, politically, and every other way. But unless we do what we did in the surge in Iraq which is "Clear, Hold, and Secure" areas then it is very difficult to defeat an insurgency.

Former Presidential candidate and Senator John McCain.

Anderson Cooper: But in terms of the shear number of troops that that would require...in Helmand alone, the Taliban have just moved into other areas where we don't have enough forces to go into to clear and hold and secure and or build.

Senator McCain: Well it is going to be difficult and it will require a significant injection of troops I hope in keeping with General McChrystal's assessment. But there's also an advantage we have here which is people don't want the Taliban back so if we offer them an alternative of a safe and secure environment I think it can be successful. It's going to be long and hard and tough just like the surge in Iraq was, but I have confidence in our leadership, in General McChrystal and General Petraeus, and in their strategy.

Editor's Note: Many of you had a lot of questions to ask about the H1N1 flu vaccine after last night's AC360°. And we're still hearing a lot of comments about the abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard. What do you have to say? Let us know – we want to hear from you!
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I have read brief news several months ago on the problem of how big pharm. companies try to make sure that they benefit from the swine flu vaccine. A very simple question: Did WHO make an effort to organize a world-wide effort to coordinate and speed-up vaccine production? I heard about alternative faster methods of preparation of flu vaccine (e.g., Hungarians developed one – but their company did not get sample form this virus despite their repeated requests).

My husband's doctor has advised him to take a regular flu shot, but he is not recommending the Swine Flu vaccine, as it is not FDA approved and he is not planning on giving it to any of his patients when it becomes available.

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AC360° Anchor

An 11-year-old California girl snatched from the street in front of her house in 1991 had two children with the man accused of taking her and lived in a secret backyard shed, authorities said Thursday.

The 18-year mystery of what happened to Jaycee Dugard ended this week when a sex offender admitted to corrections authorities that he abducted her.

Since her kidnapping, Dugard has lived in her alleged abductor’s backyard, in a shed. All of this played out in a residential neighborhood.

We spoke to Ed Smart and his daughter Elizabeth. The Smarts lived through a similar nightmare, when Elizabeth was snatched from her bedroom in the middle of the night in 2002. She was found nine months later.

Elizabeth Smart and her father, Ed, speak to Anderson Cooper.

Anderson Cooper: Elizabeth from your own experiences, what do you think Jaycee is going through right now?

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