MTP Transcript for Oct. 8

SEN. TALENT: Well, I think we have to be there until the mission is done. I mean, as the national intelligence estimate said, if we complete this mission, it’s going to be a huge victory for us. If we don’t, it’s going to be a setback. And that’s true for every one of the fronts in the war on terror.  Now, I think we have made progress in training up this army.

MR. RUSSERT: So four or five years?

SEN. TALENT: No, I...

MR. RUSSERT: If, if that...

SEN. TALENT: It’s not going to—you’d have to—it’s not going to take that long. But I think we’re going to have to...

MR. RUSSERT: Not, not to take long for what?

SEN. TALENT: For us to complete our part of the mission.

MR. RUSSERT: And what’s that?

SEN. TALENT: To train up an Iraq—this is the part that requires large numbers of American troops—to train up an Iraqi army that’s capable of doing for itself what it’s now doing in partnership with us, it’ll still require logistical support, embedded advisers, helos, medevacs, that sort of thing.

MR. RUSSERT: So you’d be surprised if it took more than two years?

SEN. TALENT: Well, I think—I’m not going to tie myself to a timetable, Tim, but I think—look, the security piece, the training-up piece, that’s the piece that’s going to be done first. Our Army knows how to fight and knows how to train people to fight. That’s why we’ve made the progress that we’ve made in training up that army.

MR. RUSSERT: When you voted for the war in 2002, did you believe 145,000 troops would be still on the ground in October 2006?

SEN. TALENT: No. I think, I think at the time, the administration and many underestimated the time it would take to stabilize the central part of the country.

MR. RUSSERT: Including you?

SEN. TALENT: I did not think it would take this long, no.

MR. RUSSERT: Knowing what you know today, knowing what you know today, that Saddam did not have the weapons of destruction that our intelligence agencies thought he had, if you knew that today, would you still vote for the war?

SEN. TALENT: Well, yeah, I mean, I think...

MR. RUSSERT: You still would?

SEN. TALENT: ...it was the—I think it was the only possible strategic choice. Look, Saddam had been an organic threat in the region for a long time. He represented a threat to us. That threat is now gone. Tim, look at what’s not happening.

MR. RUSSERT: But Senator, isn’t it an important question: if, if, if the CIA said to you, “Saddam does not have weapons of biological, chemical, or a nuclear program,” you would still vote for the war?

SEN. TALENT: Well, he wanted them. He was trying to get rid of economic sanctions. He would’ve had $70-a-barrel oil. He’d have been competing with—I mean, if action had not been taken to remove Saddam, the same people who are being critical of what’s going on in Iraq now would be screaming that we’d left him in power. We’d have another Iran there. That threat’s been removed.

MR. RUSSERT: Ms. McCaskill, you said this. “We should redeploy our troops strategically within the region over a two-year time frame.” What does that mean?

MS. McCASKILL: Well, we have—you know, as a daughter of rural Missouri, we have a saying, “If you’re in a hole, you need to quit digging.” We have now trained 300,000 Iraqi troops. We have a civil war. We—this idea that we’re creating a democracy that’s going to be our ally in the war on terror? We have a government that’s reinstituted Saddam Hussein’s laws to put journalists in prison.

MR. RUSSERT: No, but you said you would “redeploy our troops strategically within the region.” What does that mean?

MS. McCASKILL: We need, we need to listen to our military, and over a two-year framework, give or take, time period that they say, we need to move—Afghanistan, we need troops in Afghanistan right now. We didn’t finish the job there. We are—the Taliban is back. We need to move troops into Afghanistan. We need to move into Kuwait. We need to move into Qatar.  Representative...

MR. RUSSERT: So you would take the 145,000 American troops, put them in Kuwait, put them in Qatar, put them in Afghanistan?

MS. McCASKILL: Over a period of time. I’m not talking about immediately.

I’m not talking about tomorrow. We need to give the Iraqi government notice.  We are breeding a culture of dependence; we are not breeding a democracy. The elected leaders of Iraq, Tim, have come out in favor of Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that invaded our ally.

MR. RUSSERT: Are you sure those countries would take our troops?

MS. McCASKILL: I believe that, certainly, I know that the NATO command would take our troops in Afghanistan. They need more.

MR. RUSSERT: But there’s 145,000. If we withdraw the American troops within two years and full-blown civil war erupts in Iraq, full-blown civil war, creating a haven similar to Afghanistan of the ‘90s, what do you do then?

MS. McCASKILL: Well, I think then that military leaders need to advise us.  These decisions are now being made. You know, steadfastness has turned into stubbornness. And this is about politics instead of sound foreign policy.

You know, I don’t support the release of classified information. Anybody who releases classified information should be held accountable. But we shouldn’t start blaming the journalists. That’s what they’re doing in Iraq right now.  They’re putting journalists in prison that disagree with this government.

This is not an American democracy.

MR. RUSSERT: The president says he’s listening to the advice of the military commanders.

MS. McCASKILL: Well, you know, we respect the military in Missouri. It is a historic moment in our country, never before in our country, have we seen generals, retired general after retired general that had been on the ground in Iraq, that came out publicly and criticized the commander chief—in chief at the time of conflict. That is unprecedented in our country. Listening to them and realizing that we have not been leveled with, the American people.

And Senator Talent has sat on the Armed Services Committee for four years and is not asking the questions about accountability. We should be saying, “How do we get out of this mess?” Not “This is a good policy, a sound policy, we need to continue down this road.”

MR. RUSSERT: You were asked how you would have voted in the Senate in 2002, and you said, “It’s not clear to me how I would’ve voted.”

MS. McCASKILL: Well, I’m certainly not going to Monday morning quarterback the senators and congressmen that voted for this war. I’ve never seen what they saw. Knowing what we know now, absolutely not. And frankly, I’m surprised that Senator Talent would say that knowing what we know now, knowing what is going on in Iraq right now, knowing that we are not more secure and more stable as a result of this conflict, that he agrees that we should repeat that mistake if it came along again.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, you seem...

SEN. TALENT: It’s not about a series of political slogans, it’s about completing the mission. Now, if you support an artificial timetable for withdrawal, it’s like Eisenhower saying after D-Day, “Look, we’re going to get to Berlin, but if we’re not there by Christmas, we’re going home.” It’s a political compromise, it’s not a policy.

MS. McCASKILL: You know...

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