Transcript for Aug. 20

MR. DAVID GREGORY: Our issues this Sunday: Day 1,251 of the war in Iraq.  Indications the insurgency has gotten worse, as the number of roadside bombs and attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces reach record levels; sectarian violence now claiming an average of more than 100 Iraqi civilians a day. Has a civil war already begun?

And here at home: less than 12 weeks until the midterm elections, and the debate over our involvement in Iraq is front and center.

(Videotape):

VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: A number of well-known Democrats have been talking about setting a deadline for withdrawal. That’s a bad idea.

(End of videotape)

MR. GREGORY: But is the U.S. winning? We’ll ask our guest, a man who ran for the White House in 2000 and will likely run again in 2008, an exclusive interview with Arizona Senator John McCain.

Then, insights and analysis from a scholar who met with President Bush this week, Vali Nasr, professor at the naval post-graduate school, and author of “The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future”; NBC News analyst and retired Army General Barry McCaffrey, who just returned from the region; and John Harwood of The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

But first, Senator John McCain.

Welcome back to MEET THE PRESS, Senator.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): Thank you, David.

MR. GREGORY: This was the story in The New York Times front page this week.  Let me put it on the screen. “The number of roadside bombs planted in Iraq rose in July to the highest monthly total of the war, offering more evidence that the anti-American insurgency has continued to strengthen despite the killing of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Along with a sharp increase sectarian attacks, the number of daily strikes against American and Iraqi security forces has doubled since January. ... ‘The insurgency,’” this article goes on from last Thursday, “‘has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high levels,’ said a senior Defense Department official. ... ‘The insurgency has more public support and is demonstrably more capable in numbers of people active and in its ability to direct violence than at any point in time.’” Senator, are we winning in Iraq?

SEN. McCAIN: I don’t think so, but I’m not sure that it’s turned into a civil war. We had testimony, as you know, from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Abizaid, the commander over there in the region, that it’s a possibility. That’s the first time that we have—at least from the administration’s viewpoint—faced this possibility. I don’t think we’re there yet, I agree with him, but I think the situation is very serious, it’s very dangerous. This Mahdi Army is now becoming more and more powerful. It’s interesting, the Sunnis now are the ones who are interested in us staying.  But it’s a very difficult situation. We’ve got to win, we do—still do not enough of the kind of troops we need over there, and it’s going to be a very difficult process.

MR. GREGORY: The president has said repeatedly that he has a strategy to win, that if his commanders want more forces, they will get them. Should more troops be sent?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I think it’s been well documented now that we didn’t have enough there from the beginning, that we allowed the looting, that we did not have control, particularly, of areas, such—in the Sunni Triangle, which led to us paying a very heavy price. We make mistakes in every war, and serious mistakes were made here. The question is, are we going to be able to bring the situation under control now? I still believe we can. I think part of it has to do with the Mahdi Army and Sadr. Sadr has got to be taken out of this equation and his militia has got to be addressed forcefully.

MR. GREGORY: But to do that, do you need more U.S. soldiers on the ground now?

SEN. McCAIN: I think so. I think so. We took troops from places like Ramadi, which are still not under control, to put them into Baghdad. We’ve had to send in additional troops as they are. All along, we have not had enough troops on the ground to control the situation. Many, many people knew that and it’s—we’re paying a very heavy price for it. But I want to emphasize that we cannot lose this. It will cause chaos in Iraq and in the region, and it’s—I still believe that we, we must prevail.

MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you about military strategy that you just alluded to a moment ago. Michael Gordon, Pentagon correspondent, just returned from Anbar Province. This is what he wrote in today’s New York Times Magazine.  We’ll put it on our screen. “Officially, the Bush administration’s strategy [on the ground in Iraq] is: Clear, hold and build. But with limited American forces to do any clearing, the war in western Iraq looks much more like hang on and hand over. Hang on against an insurgency that seems to be laying roadside bombs as quickly as they are discovered, and hand over to an Iraqi military that is still a work in progress.”

He talks about severe constraints: Iraqi bureaucracy, they’re not getting pay to the soldiers in time, they’re not getting food rations there, some of the food is spoiled, they’re not getting promotions in time, and some of their troops are simply AWOL. Are these troops actually standing up in Iraq?

SEN. McCAIN: I think they’re standing up much better than they were in the past. They’re doing a lot better job than they had in the past. The question is, is can they do the job completely, and the answer is no. When American troops are with them, they perform far better than by themselves. There are Iraqi battalions which are excellent, there are some that are poor.

But we—but the real problem is not so much the army as the police. The police have been taken over by militias in many areas of the country, whether it be Basra or others. That, combined with, with an Iranian influence, particularly in the southern region, leads to a very, very difficult situation. And when we move troops from one place to another, it’s not clear and hold, it’s clear and leave. And that never worked.

MR. GREGORY: Well, let’s talk about the movement of troops throughout the country. Earlier this month, you said the following about U.S. forces going back into Iraq, some 7,000 troops. Let’s watch.

(Videotape, August 3, 2006):

SEN. McCAIN: And what I worry about is we’re playing a game of Whack A Mole here. We move troops—it flares up, we move troops there.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Whack A Mole. What are you talking about? What’s the concern?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, there’s the, you know, the old arcade game where the head, and you bang it down, and another head pops up someplace else, and that’s basically what I was talking about, is that we have never had sufficient number of troops to clear and hold. The, what we call the oil spot strategy, which everybody knows is the successful way to combat an insurgency.  So we’ve had to move our troops around from one place to another.

Fallujah was allowed for a period of a couple of years to become the center for terrorist operations through an insurgency throughout Iraq. We had to go in there, and these brave Marines and Army people, I mean, that was one of the historic battles in Marine and Army history. Eighty-six killed, 1,000 wounded because we didn’t have enough troops to control Fallujah to start with.  That’s the object lesson. So then we had to move to Ramadi. Now, of course, Baghdad is the center of our attention now.

But I want to emphasize again, there are good things happening. We did have a free election, we do have a functioning government. Where—there are some parts of the country, particularly in the north, that things are good. It’s not all bad news. But it is a serious situation.

MR. GREGORY: But in the most dangerous parts of the country, you see this Whack-A-Mole approach. So what’s the consequence of that?

SEN. McCAIN: The consequences are is that we go in and we control an area for a short period of time and then we leave and then the insurgents filter back in. And...

MR. GREGORY: It’s not the right strategy, as far as you’re concerned?

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