BLITZER: The White House is strongly denying reports that President Obama has decided to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, says the president will meet again tomorrow with his top national security team to discuss options. He says those reporting a decision has already been made, in his words, "don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about."

Matthew Hoh wants the president to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. He was a civilian officer working for the State Department in Afghanistan before resigning last month in protest of U.S. policy there. Before that, he served in Iraq as a U.S. Marine.

Matthew, thanks very much for coming in.

MATTHEW HOH, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEE: Thank you for having me.

BLITZER: If the president does decide to send another 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan beyond the 68,000 who are already there, why would that be a mistake?

HOH: Sure.

First, can I say happy birthday to the U.S. Marines Corps?

BLITZER: You can.

HOH: Particularly those Marines who are in harm's way today.

It would be a mistake because, first off, Afghanistan is in a civil war that's been going on since the '70s. All we're doing by our presence there is reinforcing one side of that civil war. So the other side sees our occupation as simply that -- an occupation -- and continues to fight us. Sending more troops is only going to exacerbate that or only going to fuel that insurgency.

Additionally, the way Al Qaeda exists as this ideological cloud- like organization that works worldwide and recruits worldwide, 60,000, 100,000 troops in Afghanistan has no bearing on the operations of Al Qaeda.

BLITZER: But if the U.S. were to pull out of Afghanistan, what's to say that Al Qaeda couldn't re-establish itself, as it established itself, there together with the Taliban, before 9/11?

HOH: Sure. First of all, I think -- and I think a lot of people agree with me -- that the links -- the hard links between Al Qaeda and the Taliban really didn't exist in 2001. They've been pushed together somewhat now.

BLITZER: Didn't the Taliban give Al Qaeda free reign to do what they wanted in Afghanistan before -- before 9/11?

HOH: They operated -- Al Qaeda operated out of there. However, I don't believe there was any connection between Mullah Omar's government, which is really anchored in Kandahar, as well as the Al Qaeda organization, which spent a lot of time up in Jalalabad.

BLITZER: That's a minority view you have, you know that there, because the widely held assumption in the U.S. intelligence community was that there was a direct link between the Taliban. They basically let the Al Qaeda operatives train in Afghanistan. They closed their eyes to that and they let them do whatever they wanted.

HOH: Sure. I don't believe that Taliban were involved in any of the planning of any of Al Qaeda's operations. I -- I don't believe that.

BLITZER: So there's a -- but you're making that distinction.

HOH: Yes.

BLITZER: That 9/11 was specifically the work of Al Qaeda, the Taliban didn't know about it?

HOH: Correct. BLITZER: That -- that's probably true.

HOH: Yes.

BLITZER: But the fact that Al Qaeda had the free reign in Afghanistan to plan for 9/11 without the Taliban interfering or doing anything to stop, you don't dispute that?

HOH: Well, that was nine years ago, too. And I think that Al Qaeda has evolved. After 9/11, after we chased Al Qaeda and the Taliban out of Afghanistan, I think Al Qaeda evolved. And they went onto the Internet. And now they really recruit worldwide. But even then, they were recruiting worldwide. Most of their operations (INAUDIBLE)...

BLITZER: Because they are in Pakistan now, much more than they are in Afghanistan or Somalia or Yemen, for that matter.

HOH: Sure.

BLITZER: But I guess the question is this -- and Chris Lawrence mentioned this in his report.

Should the U.S. or the West be reaching out to some Taliban elements right now to try to see if there's a deal there?

HOH: Absolutely. Absolutely. If you -- if you agree that Afghanistan is a civil war, that this has just been a continuation of the war that started in the '70s, you have to have political reconciliation.

BLITZER: So you don't see the Taliban simply as terrorists and the U.S. should never negotiate with terrorists?

HOH: No. But don't get me wrong, many members of the Taliban are horrible, brutal people. However, I don't believe they have any -- any interest in worldwide jihad. I think most of the Taliban -- the rank and file Taliban, most of them are only interested in their local communities (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: They would just treat the people in -- if they came back to power, the Taliban, they would treat women and girls, for example, as they did when they were in control, which was pitiful.

HOH: Which is horrible, absolutely horrible.

BLITZER: Are you willing to allow that to come back?

HOH: I don't believe it's in the interests of the United States to try and change cultural or societal structures within another country.

BLITZER: So we should basically walk away, you think?

HOH: Not walk away in the sense of throw everything to the side and not be involved in that region. I think our priorities should be the destruction of Al Qaeda. I think the fact that we have not killed bin Laden or Zawahari over the last eight years is a real shame. And I believe that leads credence to that organization and credibility. I think that should be our priority, just to kill that senior leadership.

BLITZER: You served in Iraq. You served for the State Department as a civilian employee in Afghanistan.

If you had a chance to speak directly to the president on the eve right now of his making this very important decision, what would you say to him?

Look into that camera...

HOH: Sure. And I want to...

BLITZER: ...and tell us what you would say to the president of the United States?

HOH: Sure. I would say, Mr. President, I understand the domestic political concerns that you have. However, this is an opportunity to be a great leader, to recognize the challenges that we are facing and the fact that it's a civil war. American combat troops are not defeating Al Qaeda by their presence in Afghanistan. All they are doing is just fighting people who are fighting us because we're occupying them.

We need to re-evaluate our strategy there and attack Al Qaeda as the organization that it is and not as we want it to be. And we have to realize that this is a civil war and more combat troops will only fuel the insurgency.

BLITZER: You -- you made that argument to Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. envoy for Afghanistan, in Iraq -- excuse me, Afghanistan and Pakistan, before you resigned, is that right?

HOH: Correct.

BLITZER: And what did -- how did he respond to it?

HOH: Oh, he -- he had read my resignation letter. And I think there was some agreement. And he -- I believe members of the administration within the State Department, as well as within the Department of Defense, have concerns about a counter-insurgency strategy will not work there.

BLITZER: How prevalent are your views within the State Department or the U.S. government, the military, the front line, for example, civilian and military who are serving in Afghanistan right now, based on your -- your months there?

HOH: Nothing -- nothing I wrote is origin -- original or unique to me. Nothing is novel. These are things that have been said by plenty of my colleagues, both military and civilian. I have gotten an overwhelming amount of support from active duty military stationed in Afghanistan right now, as well as my civilian counterparts -- guys who are doing jobs similar to me, that this is -- this is the reality on the ground there. Our presence there is not making America safer.

And, you know, another point I want to make, Wolf, if I can, is that we have to look at this on -- on a moral perspective and a philosophical perspective.

Do we want -- really want America's young men and women fighting and dying to prop up the Karzai regime, which is an illegitimate and corrupt kleptocracy?

And 5, 10, 15 years from now, are we going to be able to -- to look at ourselves and say this is the right thing to do, to lose young Americans in combat for the sake of the Karzai regime?

BLITZER: So you -- if the president sends thousands of additional troops and there are many more American casualties, they will have died in vain, is that what you're saying?

HOH: It's a -- that's a very difficult -- a very difficult question to answer. I just had a friend who was killed and I just had to go to his memorial service on Friday. And so it's very tough for me.

But -- and this might get long-winded, so I apologize -- to try and explain and how I feel about this.

Our -- our kids who die over there, our young men and women who die over there, they're dying alongside their buddies. These are professional warriors who are doing their jobs. They are doing their jobs with honor. And the only shame or the only dishonor is upon our policy makers or ourselves as a nation if we commit them to combat for reasons that are not in our own best interests, if we do them for reasons other than vital national security concerns.

BLITZER: Matthew Hoh, thanks very much for coming in.

HOH: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: You're going to continue to speak out?

HOH: Yes, I will. I will.

BLITZER: Appreciate it.

HOH: Thank you.