MTP Transcript for Oct. 29

REP. CARDIN: It’s going to look a lot better than it looks today, because...

LT. GOV. STEELE: And what is that? What is that? Please tell us what that is. What do you see Iraq looking like?

REP. CARDIN: ...because we will have — it will be...

LT. GOV. STEELE: If you start with your plan to redeploy the troops and to drawn down — I presume this would happen as soon as you take control of the Congress, and that would be what, January? So let’s start from that timetable. What does Iraq look like on the last day when the last soldiers leave?

REP. CARDIN: On the first day that we start bringing our troops home, the international community will know that we’re no longer looking at Iraq as an occupational force, that we want to engage the international community and we want a political and diplomatic solution. On the last day — and I hope there will be a last day in a, in a reasonable period of time — we will have been successful in engaging the international community for a stable Iraq, where Iraq respects the, the differences among the Sunnis and the Shiites and the Kurds...

LT. GOV. STEELE: This is...

REP. CARDIN: ...so that you develop a political solution to end the civil war and you negotiate a cease-fire with the militia.

LT. GOV. STEELE: This is so much inside noise.

MR. RUSSERT: But Mr. Steele, I asked you if the status quo was the same six months from now, you said “Get out.” So what would Iraq look like six months from now?

LT. GOV. STEELE: I, I said what, what — and what — and that’s my point. Between now and that point in time, this administration, with the leadership of the Congress and certainly with our State Department and, and Defense Departments, need to put the pressure where it belongs: on the Iraqi government. When you have the prime minister of Iraq starts waffling and saying — that causes me concern. Are you, are you serious about the effort on the ground? Look, our, our soldiers are not police officers. They should not be engaged in a police action. As you, as you sit on the threshold of a civil war, you — as you sit on, on the threshold of the tensions between Shia and, and Sunni, that is the responsibility of the government of Iraq to make sure that their folks are stepping into that breach...(unintelligible).

MR. RUSSERT: But if you get in six months, the way you said you might if, in fact, status quo remains, what do you leave behind?

LT. GOV. STEELE: Well, that’s — but that’s the question. I think what we need to make sure we leave behind in Iraq is an ally, not an enemy. And I think what we need to do is make certain that, whether it’s looking at the Biden plan in terms of a trifurcation or looking at a whole Iraq, this is the conversation we need to get into right now that we haven’t. What we have done, ostensibly, for the last three years, is slowly march towards nothing. And that’s been all — that’s always been my concern. What has been the prosecution for the peace? How do we get to a point where we can see demonstrable benchmarks? Now, for example, Tim, a few weeks ago, the Iraqi government took control of its military. That is a notable benchmark. But there are so many others that we need to reach, and so many others that we have to do, that together will move us in a direction towards putting in place a stable Iraq that we can rely on as an ally, and not just sort of, “Well, we withdraw the troops or we don’t fund them.” That is not the strategy. What is your, what is your goal to put the pressure on the Iraqi government?

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