MTP Transcript for Nov. 19

MR. KOPPEL: That’s the debate. And, you know, the problem now is, now the Democrats have influence, and they’re going to have to deal with it. And I was at least reassured to hear the two senators-elect this morning in effect make that—especially Senator-Elect Webb, who obviously has had more opportunity, I think, to deal with foreign policy issues than Senator-Elect Tester. But the fact of the matter is, you can’t just pull the U.S. troops out of there in the next four to six months. Could you, for the sake of symbolism, begin to, to draw a few of them out? Yes. But that symbolism is going to have effect not only here in the United States, it’s also going to have effect over there in the Persian Gulf.

MR. RUSSERT: Robin Wright, you cover this government, the State Department.  You’re watching very closely Jim Baker, Lee Hamilton, the study group. Robert Gates replacing Donald Rumsfeld. Back in Bush 41, who reported to Robert Gates in the National Security Council? Condoleezza Rice, the current secretary of state. Do you believe that what the Baker group recommends will be adopted by this administration, and what do you think they might recommend?

MS. WRIGHT: Oh, I don’t think necessarily they will be adopted. I think one of the most interesting things to happen over the past week is that the Bush administration on Tuesday launched its own debate—own review. It pulled together the secretary of state, the Defense Department, the CIA, and under Stephen Hadley are organizing a very fast review, trying to come out at the same time that the Iraq Study Group comes out with its recommendations for the very reason that it doesn’t want to feel that this is the only plan on the table. It wants to be able to say—to pick and choose, basically, to say, “Well, there’s some good ideas here; we’d like to blend it with our own thinking,” because, because of the very discussion we’ve had: What do you do about Iran and Syria? The administration argues they’ve tried that route.  They’ve been open to discussions, and that they haven’t found either the Iranians or the Syrians willing to come to the table on reasonable terms, as they see it. And so this is a way of skirting that issue and, and taking a much more narrow focus.

I think the Iraq Study Group is looking at, as you called it, the bigger game, whether it includes the Arab/Israeli conflict, is uncertain, but it clearly is looking at the neighbors and the regional component of it, whereas the Bush administration’s really trying to fine-tune its program.

MR. RUSSERT: The candidates for president in ‘08, Democrat and Republican, overseeing an exit strategy from Iraq?

MR. KOPPEL: Clearly going to be trying to do that. Whether in fact we will have withdrawn most or all of our troops from Iraq by the time 2008 rolls around, I don’t know.

One quick point I do want to make, and that is very few people seem to recall that Bush 41, the elder President Bush, and Colin Powell, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, kept U.S. troops from going all the way up to Baghdad, kept U.S. forces from overthrowing Saddam Hussein, during Operation: Desert Storm for one principal reason: to keep Iran in check.  We’ve done the Iranians a huge favor.

MR. RUSSERT: And the secretary of defense back then was Dick Cheney.

MR. KOPPEL: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: Robin Wright, thank you. We’ll keep reading you in The Washington Post. Ted Koppel, tonight, Discovery Channel, 9 to 11. Thank you for this good work, and come back whenever you have something like this. It makes us all proud.

MR. KOPPEL: Thank you. Thanks very much.

MR. RUSSERT: Coming next, our MEET THE PRESS MINUTE with noted economist Dr.Milton Friedman. Is it possible to forecast an economic turnaround? Right after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Deficits, tax cuts, inflation, interest rates, unemployment—all on the minds of Americans in the midst of a recession in the spring of 1982.

(Videotape, March 21, 1982):

MR. BILL MONROE: Our guest today on MEET THE PRESS is economist Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board.

MR. MARVIN KALB: Dr. Friedman, you are speaking with a great deal of confidence and you are clearly a world-renowned economist. With that in mind, could you please tell us when there will be a turnaround in the economy in this country?

DR. MILTON FRIEDMAN: If you were—if I were to say to you, “You are a world-renowned meteorologist. Would you tell me when there’s going to be a rain in the next two days,” would you think that that was a contradiction to the statement? The forecasting of short-run changes in economic activity is by no means a science. It’s not something in which we are a really able to make very good predictions. I think there’s a fair chance that when the historians of business cycles come to look at this period, they will say that the bottom was already reached in January. But that may be wrong. It’s not the kind of statement in which I would want to have a great deal of confidence.

MR. KALB: So what you’re really telling us is that, deep down, you don’t know right now when this is going to turn around?

DR. FRIEDMAN: Nobody knows. Nobody knows. knows.

MR. KALB: Nobody knows.

DR. FRIEDMAN: Nobody knows.

MR. KALB: Not even the president and his people when they say...

DR. FRIEDMAN: Nobody knows exactly when it’s going to turn around.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Economists, meteorologists, political pundits, do they ever get it right? The economy did slowly start to turn around at the end of that year, and for the next 92 months, the U.S. enjoyed one of the longest sustained peace-time economic growth periods in history. Milton Friedman, one of our most well-known economists of all time, died this week at the age of 94.

And we’ll be right back.

TEXT: Milton Friedman 1912-2006

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Check out the MEET THE PRESS Web site where you can now download both audio and video of the entire program to your computer or MP3 player. The MEET THE PRESS netcast and new video podcast all at mtp.msnbc.com.

That’s all for today. We’ll be back next week. Have a great Thanksgiving.

If it’s Sunday, it’s MEET THE PRESS.

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