Transcript for Aug. 20

SEN. McCAIN: Well, unfortunately, it’s been stated that that’s not their responsibility. Hezbollah, sooner or later, must be disarmed. If they aren’t, then we’re just in a pause between now and their next attack on the state of Israel. It’s just a fact. And so this is a very difficult and dicey time, but the sooner we get this peacekeeping force into southern Lebanon, which seems to be going all too slowly, the better things will look. But it’s going to be with us for a long time.

MR. GREGORY: I know you’ve just returned, you’ve been campaigning across the country for these midterm races. You also just returned from a trip to Iowa.  What is the state of your party, first, for these midterm elections?

SEN. McCAIN: It’s a very tough election coming up. Historically these second-term of incumbent president’s tough; the war is difficult; president’s not getting enough credit for a good economy, which we have today. This is going to be a tough election, and we ought to recognize that, and so we’re going to have to do everything we can to maintain our majorities in both houses. To think anything different, I think would be foolish.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think this midterm election will be a referendum on the war and the president?

SEN. McCAIN: I think in some parts of the country, it may be. But most of the times, we know that these elections are local, but it’s beginning to look more like some of them may be global. I mean, as far as impacted by Iraq.  But we’ll see. It’s going to be difficult. We’ve got to fight hard, we’ve got to win, and we need to keep both houses of Congress.

MR. GREGORY: Will you keep the Senate, do you think?

SEN. McCAIN: Yes.

MR. GREGORY: What about the House?

SEN. McCAIN: I think so, but I—it’s, it’s just too early. Some—you know, some of these races are so—too close to call right now. I think if we get out our party faithful and galvanize them, we can win again, but we should not underestimate the fact that we’re facing a tough challenge. But we’ve faced tough challenges in the past.

MR. GREGORY: I mentioned your trip out to Iowa, thinking ahead to 2008. Are you a front-runner?

SEN. McCAIN: I don’t know, but I had the privilege of meeting an 1190-pound pig named Waldo at the Iowa State Fair. It was one of the great fun experiences I’ve had.

MR. GREGORY: Was he supportive?

SEN. McCAIN: Talk about pork barrel spending, yeah. He said, he said, “Give me an earmark.”

MR. GREGORY: Senator John McCain.

SEN. McCAIN: Thank you.

MR. GREGORY: We’ll leave it there.

SEN. McCAIN: Thank you.

MR. GREGORY: Thank you for your views.

Coming next, Iraq, sectarian violence, the insurgency and the political fallout in 2006. Our roundtable with Dr. Vali Nasr, retired General Barry McCaffrey and John Harwood. It’s next.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: The war in Iraq, from a policy, military and political perspective. Right after this brief station break.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: And welcome all. Dr. Vali Nasr, you write in “The Shia Revival,” but also in an article in this month’s Foreign Affairs magazine, that the war in Iraq has profoundly changed the Middle East, but not in the way that the United States necessarily anticipated. We’ll put a piece of that article on our screen. You write, “When the U.S. government toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, it thought regime change would help bring democracy to Iraq and then to the rest of the region. The Bush administration thought of politics as the relationship between individuals and the state, and so it failed to recognize that people in the Middle East see politics also as the balance of power among communities. Rather than viewing the fall of Saddam as an occasion to create a liberal democracy, therefore, many Iraqis viewed it as an opportunity to redress injustices in the distribution of power among the country’s major communities. By liberating and empowering Iraq’s Shiite majority, the Bush administration helped launch a broad Shiite revival that will upset the sectarian balance in Iraq and the Middle East for years to come.” How upset is that balance right now, Dr. Nasr? Is it civil war?

DR. VALI NASR: Not yet, but it seems that all sides are acting as if they’re expecting it to happen. You know, building their forces, they’re trying to get a strong position within Baghdad itself, they’re ethnic cleansing the neighborhoods. And the forces that are keeping that country together are gradually losing ground to the forces that are pulling it apart.

MR. GREGORY: How badly did we miscalculate the way Iraqis would view the toppling of Saddam? In other words, did we miscalculate that they would think about being Iraqis before being Sunni or Shia?

DR. NASR: Right. We, we assumed that there is a uniform civil society and civil order in that country. We forgot that the last 10 years of Saddam’s rule were essentially a sectarian government and that once you take the pressure lid off, that what comes to the fore most immediately is the way in which each side has viewed its political position.

But also, we weren’t in it—we didn’t have sufficient troops, we didn’t have a plan to prevent this from festering and really growing roots. And now we’re sort of playing catch-up with the essential political momentum of this country, which is mostly sectarian.

MR. GREGORY: General Barry McCaffrey, we’re doing this in a military way, in large part. Our troops are not trained to referee a civil war. From a military point of view, as you come up with strategies, how do you navigate this current reality in Iraq?

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: Well, first of all, I’m not sure I know. You know, we’ve got some terrific leadership on the ground. Khalilzad, the ambassador, is brilliant. George Casey’s a very effective commander. We’ve got 135,000 troops, a lot of power on the ground. Having said that, there’s 27 million people. Dr. Nasr, I think, accurately articulated the political problem we’re facing. It’s not going to be solved—the battle of Baghdad won’t be solved by the United States Army. We’ve had 22,000 killed and wounded, two-thirds of our brigades, the ones that aren’t deployed, in the United States Army National Guard now, are not ready to fight. So the surge capability to deal with this from a military perspective is not there.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think more troops are needed at this point?

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