MTP Transcript for Oct. 1

REP. BROWN: What we do is we, we pressure, we force, we push the Iraqis to build the security forces, the military and the police security forces that they need to build. Mike DeWine and the administration is just saying “status quo, just stay the course.” They’re not advocating any real change. They’ve been saying for three years that things were doing well. They’ve clearly, even with the differences in the administration as that book points out that you mention, they, they, they clearly haven’t really made any real changes in what we’re doing in Iraq. I think once we, we push them in a serious way, we push them and pressure them to compromise—the Iraqis, the Sunnis and the Shiites—and we say to the military, we instruct the military that we want to exit Iraq within a year and a half to two years, and we tell them that we order the military, we instruct the military to, to come up with a plan within that year and a half to two years specifically at what, at what speed, and that the troops exit Iraq in the most orderly and safe way for Americans.

MR. RUSSERT: You—if you had your way, you had suggested the troops be out this year, by the fall of ‘06. What would’ve happened to Iraq if the troops left right now?

REP. BROWN: No, I, I suggested—I didn’t suggest that.

MR. RUSSERT: A year ago.

REP. BROWN: I suggested a year ago that the president come up with a plan to begin the exit—the, the withdrawal of troops and then it, then it would be within a year or so. Now, obviously, you can’t bring them out right now.  I’ve never said, “Bring them out today.” I say we need to order the military, instruct the military over the next year and a half or two years to come up with the exit strategy to do it in the safest, most orderly way. Otherwise, otherwise, Tim, the, this, the policy is just “stay the course.” And that’s clearly not working. Two—in, in—you know, we—again, we’ve not—we’ve an Intelligence Committee that hasn’t asked the tough questions. It’s not demanded any real accountability. And we’ve had this war prosecuted so incompetently and ineptly as a result.

MR. RUSSERT: Back in October in ‘03, about six months into the war, you voted against $87 billion to fund the war. Would you consider, if the president does not change the course and you’re elected to the U.S. Senate, measures to cut off funding for the war?

REP. BROWN: No, I would not vote against the troops in the field.

MR. RUSSERT: Why did you do that in ‘03?

REP. BROWN: I voted against the $87 billion because there was a better way to do it. Much of that $87 billion went to Halliburton and went to Bechtel and went to Parsons, and it was not—there was no accountability. It was a blank check. I wanted $87 billion, the money, to go to the troops for body armor. I spoke out on body armor in committee over, over and over, questioned people like administrator Paul Bremer. And today Mike DeWine is running ads on television saying that I voted against the $87 billion. He should be ashamed of himself for that because he knows I was speaking out...

SEN. DeWINE: Sherrod...

REP. BROWN: ...on the 87 billion...

SEN. DeWINE: Sherrod...

REP. BROWN: ...way earlier than he was.

SEN. DeWINE: Oh!

REP. BROWN: And that I was pushing our—he sent people to war without the proper body armor. I said to Colin Powell, I said to administrator Bremer, I wrote letters to President Bush in early 2003 before we were at war, saying it’s time you made sure you answered these questions about body armor, about how many troops, about exit strategy, about how much it’s going to cost. And if he had done that in the, in the Intelligence Committee, if he had asked those same questions, we would have a safer America today.

SEN. DeWINE: Sherrod...

MR. RUSSERT: A chance to respond.

SEN. DeWINE: ...you are absolutely unbelievable. I cannot believe you...

REP. BROWN: This is the same guy...

SEN. DeWINE: Can I finish?

REP. BROWN: ...that ran...

SEN. DeWINE: Can I finish? Can I finish? You had your turn.

REP. BROWN: OK, fair enough.

SEN. DeWINE: You are absolutely unbelievable. How can you say this when you, Sherrod, voted five different times against funding for body armor when it really counted, when it was real money? You voted five times against body armor. And this is a long pattern, Tim, that this congressman has, with all due respect. Fifteen different times he has voted against funding for the military when it really counted in the, in the final vote. But it’s a long history, a long pattern. With all due respect...

REP. BROWN: Mike, you know better than to say things like that.

SEN. DeWINE: ...let me finish—let me just finish.

REP. BROWN: But you do know better than to say things like that.

SEN. DeWINE: Now let me finish. Now you let me finish now. Now you let me finish and then we’ll, we’ll go. It’s a long history, Sherrod, that you have.  You do not understand that this is a global war on terror. If you, if you—Tim, if he’d understand...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, this—stop—but senator, this is important, because the National Intelligence Estimate came out talking about a cause celebre. And this is what it said. “The Iraq conflict has become the cause celebre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.” Has in fact the Iraq war made us less safe, created more terrorists than we’ve killed?

SEN. DeWINE: Tim, I think the National Intelligence Estimate said it very well. I think it is correct. It said a number of things. One, it said, as you pointed out, there was—it’s become a cause celebre, I think that’s the right word. The jihadists, the people who want to kill us, always have a cause. Osama bin Laden’s cause before he, he went in and did September 11^th was that we had troops in the, in the, in the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia.  They have other reasons. They say Israel. They say that we have troops other places. So it is all—it is always something. But the, but the key finding, seems to me in that NIE, is they said, “If the jihadists are successful in Iraq, they will be emboldened and there will be more of them. If they’re unsuccessful, there will be fewer of them.” That to me is future-looking, Tim, and I think that is very instructive and it goes along with what the three military leaders who testified in front of the Democrats had the same plot, same plot in mind.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to, I want to look to the, I want to look to the future, but I just want to button this up because I think it’s an important question for the voters of Ohio and the debate across the country. If the CIA came to you back in October of 2003 and said—October of 2002 and said, “Saddam Hussein does not have weapons of mass destruction,” would you have still voted to go into Iraq?

SEN. DeWINE: No. I think...

MR. RUSSERT: So, so you regret your vote?

SEN. DeWINE: No. I think that, Tim, that the evidence—I’ve said this many times—the evidence that we would have never even had a vote. It would never have been presented by the president, we never would have had a vote. But saying that does not mean that our troops have not done a magnificent job, nor does it mean that the world is not better off for having Saddam Hussein—this man who had developed chemical weapons and biological weapons in the past—the world is better off, Tim, for him being gone.

One of the things that the Iraqi survey group that went in afterwards said, when they said they didn’t have the weapons of mass destruction, but they said two other things that are very, very interesting. They said, one, he continued to have the capability, the scientists, and—to, to develop them in the future. And second, he had the will and inclination to do it.

MR. RUSSERT: So you stand by...

SEN. DeWINE: Two very...

MR. RUSSERT: ...you stand by your vote?

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