Transcript for March 19

REP. MURTHA: Look, what, what happens if we stay there? Let, let me tell you, a year from now, just like I said when I got—when I came back from Vietnam. A month later—now imagine this—a month later they have an election and, and we lose 38,000 people seven years later. I mean, the six-year interim, interim period between 1967 and 1972 we lose 38,000 people. So a year from now, you can be sit—you’ve heard what they’ve said, over and over again, how well it’s going. Incidents have increased, unemployment is 60 percent, oil production—all the things that I measure. When they say on, on the television or send us a letter telling us how well things are going, I said to the staff, go look at the economics statistics, tell me what the unemployment level, tell me the water production, tell me the oil production, tell me the electricity production, tell me the unemployment figures, and then we’ll know whether we’re making progress. Tell me the incidents. I mean, they—their measurement of the brigades is back and forth. They’ll say the brigades one month is 90 people, now there’s less than one brigade that can operate independently.

Let’s take Operation Swarmer. Now, they said a lot of Iraqis, more than half of them were Iraqis. American helicopters, American planning, American logistics, American artillery, American medical evacuation—everything was American. I mean, they don’t—the American people see it. They see these American helicopters. Do you think they fool the Americans when they say that? And one of the commanders said 75 percent of the country is going to be under control of the Iraqis and 75 percent of it is desert? I mean, give me a break. That’s part of the problem.

MR. RUSSERT: Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican Party, gave a speech last week, and this is what he said: “And do these Democrat leaders really think we would be safer by cutting and running in Iraq? Of course, they don’t call it cutting and running. They call it, ‘strategic redeployment,’” talking about your phrase. “The Democrats are great at this game. Before it was ‘strategic redeployment,’ it was ‘exit strategy.’ ... Would you buy a used car from this party? They say one thing come election time, but their records show that they mean—and will do—another. They were for the Iraq war before they were against it.”

REP. MURTHA: The majority of Democrats voted against the Iraq war.

MR. RUSSERT: In the House, but not in the Senate.

REP. MURTHA: In the House, in the House, 120 voted against it. But now, the, the, the problem is, that doesn’t win the war. That, that’s what happens. Every time—when I spoke out, the American public was for this war when I first spoke out. The majority of the public was for it. They were ahead of us, but, but they began to recognize this was rhetoric. You can’t win this with rhetoric. What the Republican chairman has no impact on me or anybody else as far as I’m concerned. This should not be political. When I go by the graveyard over there at Arlington, it doesn’t say Democrat or Republican, it says American. When I look at the graveyards, the veterans graveyards all over the world, it doesn’t say Democrat or Republican, it says American. That’s what we’re looking at. We’re looking at the mission for America, trying to get our troops redeployed so that they can live a normal life.

MR. RUSSERT: David Ignatius of The Washington Post has written a few columns from Iraq and here’s his latest. “There has been so much bad news out of Iraq lately that you have to pinch yourself when good things seem to be happening. But there are unmistakable signs here this week that Iraq’s political leaders are taking the first tentative steps toward forming a broad government of national unity that could reverse the country’s downward slide. ... For a change, pessimism isn’t necessarily the right bet for Iraq.” What if we got out quickly, prematurely, and in fact, you were wrong. The Iraqis did get it together and by the end of this year, had a national government, had a robust military, was able to take on the insurgency, and emerged as a forceful democracy?

REP. MURTHA: Tim, I haven’t been wrong yet. I, I put—take that back, when I voted for this war I was wrong. After that, I recognized I had to make a change in direction. I had, I had to make some, some strategic and tactical decisions which were entirely contrary to the way I normally operate. Normally, behind the scenes, you can get these kind of things straightened out. But when you have an, an administration that’s so isolated, insulated from the public, insulated from reality—this is not a rhetorical war, you have to make progress, and none of the things that I measure are progress. So our troops are caught in a civil war. Forty-two percent of them don’t even know what their mission is, and 70 percent want out of there.

Now, is it going to be a civil war? It’s already a civil war. Twenty-five thousand Iraqis are fighting with each other inside the country, the best estimates I see, less than 1,000 al-Qaida. The minute it’s over, they’ll, they’ll fight with each other, somebody will win, just like we did in our civil war, and they’ll lose a lot less people than we did in our civil war, and they’ll settle it themselves. I, I would like to be optimistic about it, but the figures don’t show it that way.

MR. RUSSERT: Some in the administration say the media is distorting the good news that’s coming out of Iraq.

REP. MURTHA: Well, they said the same thing about Vietnam. They said the same thing over and over and over about Vietnam. They said, “We’re winning the war in Vietnam.” That—you could go back and get quotes from Vietnam, and you’d see the same kind of, of, of reports, “The media’s the one that’s distorting; everything’s going fine in Vietnam.” Well, everything’s not going fine in Iraq. They have to realize that. When the whole world is against you, when our, our international reputation has been diminished so substantially, when all the countries in the, in the region say, “We’d be better off without us being in Iraq,” when the people themselves in Iraq say it, and American people say it, I mean who is right?

MR. RUSSERT: Despite all this, all these difficulties, look how the American people view the two parties. Which party do you trust to do a better job with Iraq? In January, 47 percent said the Democrats; 40 percent said the Republicans. Now it’s 42/42. And this: Who has a clear plan for handling Iraq? Yes, Bush administration has a clear plan, 34; no, 65. Democrats in Congress: 24 yes; 70 no. Why are the Democrats at a lower trust level than Republicans on the war?

REP. MURTHA: Well, let me tell you this, Tim. He’ll find out in November where the trust level is. He’ll find out if he doesn’t change course, if he doesn’t change direction, the Republicans in Congress will get a rude awakening and they know it. They see the unhappiness of the American people.

MR. RUSSERT: Will these midterm elections be a referendum on the war?

REP. MURTHA: It will be a referendum on the war and Katrina and the medical—the drug problem in, in Medicare, all those things, but mainly the war itself, because the rhetoric has not matched the outcome of the war.

MR. RUSSERT: Would the Democrats recapture control of both Houses?

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Remembering Tim Russert July 20: Al Gore, political roundtable July 13: Carly Fiorina, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), politcal roundtable June 29: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D-WY), Gov. Bill Ritter (D-CO), Chuck Todd June 22: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), political roundtable June 15 transcript, video NBC's Tom Brokaw to moderate 'Meet the Press' through election   Images: The life of the political journalist   Slideshow: A look back at 60 years of 'Meet the Press' Find ‘Meet the Press’ in your area Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: