MTP Transcript for Oct. 1

SEN. DeWINE: On what we knew at the time. But I will say again, Tim, that if we knew that at the time, my—the tipping point for me, as I think it would have been for most Americans, was, based on Saddam’s history, what we knew about this man, this man who had, who had—that gassed the Kurds, 20,000 of them; this man who, who had, who had hidden from the U.N. for years and years and years what he had; defied 16 U.N. resolutions. Our intelligence—and it wasn’t just the intelligence that Mike DeWine had, it was intelligence that Tony Blair had, Great Britain’s Tony, the same intelligence that Bill Clinton had. We all had the same intelligence. The intelligence committee said, “This man has weapons of mass destruction.” Knowing that, there was no choice at that point but to make that decision. But the intelligence was bad.

MR. RUSSERT: You, you believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?

REP. BROWN: I voted against the war because the president hadn’t proved, the president hadn’t proved it.

SEN. DeWINE: What’s the answer to that? What’s the answer?MR. RUSSERT: But you did believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?

REP. BROWN: I wasn’t sure. And I think the president did not prove, nor did Colin Powell, prove to the American public or to the Congress. Apparently he proved it to, to Mike DeWine and the Intelligence Committee, who believed it.

SEN. DeWINE: Well, he proved it to Bill Clinton, he proved it to Bill Clinton. And you know that, Sherrod.

REP. BROWN: But he, he—it’s pretty clear—you always, you always say he proved it to Bill Clinton, to Bill Clinton. I’ve heard it before. But the funda—look at the real fundamental...

SEN. DeWINE: Well, look at the 198--90--but Tim, look at the 1998 speech that Bill Clinton gave where he laid out the case against Saddam. I’m not saying Bill Clinton would’ve gone into war or not. That’s not the question.  The question is...

REP. BROWN: Well, the...

SEN. DeWINE: ...what was the intelligence estimate that made Bill Clinton believe it? And he clearly did.

MR. RUSSERT: The policy, the policy of the Clinton administration was regime change in Iraq. You agreed with that?

REP. BROWN: And the policy of regime...

SEN. DeWINE: And you voted for regime change.

REP. BROWN: And the policy of regime change, but we were, we were changing the regime by what we were doing with the inspections, and the president should have let the inspections work. We, we would’ve overthrown Saddam Hussein, ultimately...

SEN. DeWINE: How?

REP. BROWN: ...by, by sanctions, by what we were doing. But, but the, the real fundamental thing is...

MR. RUSSERT: Without military action?

REP. BROWN: Well, I don’t know. We might have. But we didn’t need to go into Iraq at that time, and that’s been proven.

The, the, the fundamental difference on, on this whole war on terror that Mike DeWine sits on the Intelligence Committee for 12 years. It’s clear that, that he has failed on that committee. But the fundamental difference on the war on terror is, is look at how the United States has lost its focus. Look what’s happened in Afghanistan. The Taliban is stronger than it’s been at any time in five years. We know that more poppies are grown to--95 percent of the poppies in the, in the world are grown in Afghanistan. We’re not supporting a moderate democratic government as well as we should in Afghanistan.

And then it’s not just in Afghanistan that, that, that we’ve lost our focus that’s caused, caused al-Qaeda to be stronger. Go look at what we’ve done in the United States. We’ve failed to protect our nuclear facilities, our water systems, our chemical plants. We tell our grandmothers to take their shoes off at the airport, yet we inspect fewer than 10 percent of cargo containers that come into our ports, that come across I-70 in the heart of Ohio, that come across the turnpike in I-90. And we’ve—the, the intelligence operation in this country coupled with the loss of focus because of the war in Iraq has made the United States less safe.

And that’s—so the question always, whom do you trust? Whom—Mike DeWine’s been on the Intelligence Committee for 12 years. Whom do you trust to wage the war on terror? Somebody that’s going to keep his focus on al-Qaeda, on protecting the United States of America, or somebody that’s just saying, “Status quo in Iraq, status quo, status quo.”

SEN. DeWINE: All right, let me answer that.

MR. RUSSERT: All right, let me, let me...

SEN. DeWINE: Let me answer the “who do you trust question,” if I could.

Could I just answer that question?

MR. RUSSERT: All right, Senator, then I want to move to the future.

SEN. DeWINE: I’ll be brief. I’ll try to be brief.

MR. RUSSERT: Please.

SEN. DeWINE: Do you trust a man who, during the 1990s, when we were hit in the World Trade Center, Khobar Towers, USS Cole, all during the 1990s—it was clear what the terrorists were trying to do—this man voted 10 separate times to cut, to cut our intelligence spending. The majority of those times to put in...

REP. BROWN: Mike, Mike, you know better than that.

SEN. DeWINE: No, the truth.

REP. BROWN: You know, you know better than that, Mike.

SEN. DeWINE: You...

REP. BROWN: You’ve been to the Senate for 12 years,

SEN. DeWINE: You—can I finish? Can I finish?

REP. BROWN: ...you’ve been an Ohio state senator, you know better than making charges like that...

SEN. DeWINE: Can I finish? Tim, let me just, let me just...

REP. BROWN: ...that are just unsubstantiated.

SEN. DeWINE: You’re unbelievable again. Ten different times, the roll call was there. You...

REP. BROWN: I joined, I joined Porter Gauss and Jim Sensenbrenner, the author of the Patriot Act...

SEN. DeWINE: Tim, Tim, let me ask him a question. Let me ask him a question. Tim...

REP. BROWN: ...because we knew that the...

SEN. DeWINE: Ten different times you voted.

REP. BROWN: ...that the intelligence operations in our government where he sat on the committee...

MR. RUSSERT: All right. All right, all right.

REP. BROWN: ...our intelligence operations were aimed...

MR. RUSSERT: All right.

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