MTP Transcript for Oct. 1

PRES. MUSHARRAF: No, they can’t. They should not. Because again, it’s going to destabilize this region, and I agree with President Bush and whatever he’s doing. We cannot leave. Whatever has happened now has happened. Now we have to make sure that we stabilize and then come out. Otherwise, it has—its reverberation will be felt in the Gulf.

MR. RUSSERT: We thank you very much for joining us.

PRES. MUSHARRAF: Thank you very much.

MR. RUSSERT: Coming next, Iraq, the Bob Woodward book, the resignation of Republican Congressman Mark Foley. And today, all eyes on Ohio. Our MEET THE PRESS Senate Debate series continues with Senate candidates Republican Mike DeWine and Democrat Sherrod Brown. They are next, right here on MEET THE PRESS. A debate is coming up.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: It’s often said “As goes Ohio, goes the nation.” The Ohio U.S.  Senate debate. Republican Mike DeWine. Democrat Sherrod Brown. After this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Welcome, Republican incumbent Senator Mike DeWine, Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown, welcome both.

SEN. MIKE DeWINE (R-OH): Yep.

REP. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): Thank you, Tim.

SEN. DeWINE: Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me start with...

REP. BROWN: Nice to see you, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: Thank you. Let show you and start with Iraq. On Thursday, this was the president of the United States. Let’s listen.

(Videotape, Thursday):

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: Five years after 9/11, the worst attack on American homeland in our history, the Democrats offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing. The party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut-and-run.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Senator DeWine, “party of cut-and-run”? Is that appropriate and fair?

SEN. DeWINE: Tim, I don’t use that term at all. But there’s fundamental differences between how I think we need to proceed in Iraq and how...

MR. RUSSERT: Why don’t you use that term?

SEN. DeWINE: It’s just not a term that I use, “cut and run.”

MR. RUSSERT: Is it inappropriate?

SEN. DeWINE: I know what it means. I know what it means to people, but I, here’s—let me tell you what I believe and what I feel in my heart and what I think the evidence clearly shows. We cannot leave Iraq with the job undone, and we cannot set an artificial timetable. It would bring disaster, just to set a date that we will be out. It will embolden the insurgents, it will tell them when we will be gone. They just sit back and wait. That would be a mistake.

If you don’t believe me, look at what the three military leaders who came in and testified in front of the Democrat Senate committee the other day said.  General Batiste for example, General Eaton. They said they were very critical of the president, very critical of Rumsfeld, very critical of the conduct of the war. But when Hillary Clinton asked the question, the key question, really, Senator Clinton asked, “Shall we set a date, a date specific, to be out of Iraq?” they all said “No.” And the reasons they gave were, one, it would bring about chaos in Iraq; two, it would, it would, it would spread; three, the person—the country that would benefit the most would be Iran. And then it was also said, and I think absolutely correctly, that we would have in Iraq a situation like we had in the 1990s in Afghanistan, only it would be worse. It would become the focal point for the terrorists, a place where they could go, get sanctuary. It would be even worse, Tim, than Afghanistan because one of—the colonel who testified said, “Beirut’s on a major, major airline route. They won’t have any trouble getting there, it’s very easy.” So that’s what is, really, Tim, is at stake. These are not easy choices.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s at stake, Senator.

SEN. DeWINE: They’re tough questions.

MR. RUSSERT: But it begs the question, what do you do? Is status quo acceptable?

SEN. DeWINE: No. What, what we do is—I think General McCaffrey has pointed out one of the things that we have to do a much better job of is to make sure that the Iraqi military has the real equipment they need. It is very expensive for us to be there. We are losing precious lives of Americans, many from Ohio. We need to give them the equipment, pay the price, give them the equipment. We also need to continue to train them. And once they are to a point where they can take this over, we’re out of there. We want to be gone.  No one wants to be out of there any more, any more than...

MR. RUSSERT: Months or years?

SEN. DeWINE: Tim, there again, you cannot set the, the date. You can’t say, “We’re going to be out by a certain date,” because it emboldens. What—all I’m saying is we need, and I’m following what everybody who has looked at this seriously says, whether they were for us getting in or not, we cannot leave by setting an artificial date. What we have to do is let the facts on the ground control.

MR. RUSSERT: Congressman Brown, headlines everywhere here. Here’s David Ignatius in The Washington Post. “The Big Question Democrats Are Ducking.” The hard question, “What do we do in Iraq?” We know you’re opposed to the war, but what specifically do you do now?

REP. BROWN: First it’s a question of accountability and a question of competence. Every—we all know, everyone knows now, the book that just mentioned by Bob Woodward, “State of Denial,” the book, “Fiasco,” the new National Intelligence estimates all say that, that the administration, that particularly Cheney and Rumsfeld, either muzzled or ignored—muzzled the military, muzzled the intelligence or, or ignored their advice. People who sit on the Intelligence Committees, like Mike DeWine, simply haven’t done their jobs. They’ve not demanded accountability. They, they, they didn’t listen to the questions of—on weapons of mass destruction. They didn’t demand that the president come up with a plan to win, a plan to provide body armor for our troops, and way more people died than needed to because of that.  They didn’t demand any—how—a plan to reconstruct Iraq and rebuild Iraq, and then they didn’t demand an exit—any kind of exit strategy.

MR. RUSSERT: Assuming all that’s true, what do we do now?

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