MTP Transcript for Dec. 3

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: The president digs in on Iraq.

(Videotape):

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: I know there’s a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there’s going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq. We’re going to stay in Iraq to get the job done.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Democrats grow more uneasy.

(Videotape, November 16, 2006):

REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD): Mr. President, we need to make a transition in Iraq.

It is not working. We need to change the policy, not stay the course.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: And on Tuesday, Senate confirmation hearings begin for Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. With us: the national security adviser to the president, Stephen Hadley; and the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican John Warner of Virginia and Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan.

Then, 27 years ago, President Jimmy Carter brokered an historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. He has written a provocative new book on the still-unresolved problems in the Middle East, “Palestine Peace, Not Apartheid.”

But first, the national security adviser to President Bush is here.

Welcome, Stephen Hadley.

MR. STEPHEN HADLEY: Nice to be here. Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: Headlines in The New York Times and across the country:

“Rumsfeld Memo Proposed ‘Major Adjustment in Iraq.’” The secretary of defense wrote a memo the day before the election saying we needed major adjustments in our Iraq strategy. Does the president agree?

MR. HADLEY: The president has said that what is going on in Iraq is not going well enough or fast enough. The president said we need to make changes. Some of those changes are going to be significant changes. The goal, he has said, remains the same. It’s a goal that we share, that Iraqis share: an Iraq—a democratic Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself and an ally in the war on terror. But obviously what we need is an a—is an approach going forward that increases the prospects of success, that can confront both the new challenges we face in terms of rise of sectarian violence, and also the new tools we have to deal with those challenges in terms of a unity government coming out of an election which 16 million people in Iraq voted, and a government that wants to take more responsibility for dealing with the situation in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: One of the things that Mr. Rumsfeld suggests in his memo—a day before the election—was redeployment. A quick reaction forces, take U.S. troops out of Iraq, put them into Kuwait, surrounding areas. When the Democrats suggested that, they were accused by your White House of cutting and running.

MR. HADLEY: I think maybe you misunderstand a little bit what the memo was about. The president, as you know, before that date had called for a review of where we were heading in our approach and the way forward on Iraq. It drew on work that had already been started in a number of agencies in the government. And one of the things the president said is, “I want to look at new ideas, I want to have an open door to ideas.” And what I think that Rumsfeld memo represents is kind of a laundry list of ideas that have been considered. Some he, he put, as he said, above the line, some of them he put below the line, but it was an effort, I think, to broaden the aperture of the debate. It was a useful memo, and we used it in that way to trigger discussions. But this was not a game plan or a set of—an effort to sort of try to set out the way forward in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: He does say in the memo, “Perhaps we should consider taking our hand off the bicycle seat and letting the Iraqis ride alone,” suggesting the Iraqis are children who are being trained by the U.S. to ride a bike.

MR. HADLEY: I think what’s interesting about the meeting the president had with Prime Minister Maliki this week in Amman, Jordan, is that it was Prime Minister Maliki who came in to the president and said, “We in the Iraqi unity government are ready to take more responsibility for our own future.” He talked about the results of a joint review that has been done to accelerate the transition of security responsibility to Iraqis. He talked about the things he wants to do to increase the Iraqi contribution to stabilizing the situation in Baghdad, to move the economic reform. This is a government that wants to take more responsibility but is lacking in the capabilities to do it. And one of the things the president and prime minister talked about is how we can help the Iraqi government get the capabilities so that they can succeed.

MR. RUSSERT: It is strange that the day before the election the secretary of defense is saying we need major adjustments, and you just confirmed that, and yet in the lead-up to the election, the president never suggested we needed major readjustments—or adjustments in our Iraqi policy. He was saying we were making progress.

MR. HADLEY: We are making progress, but one of the things the president has said consistently, that we need to make adjustments, and we have been making adjustments...

MR. RUSSERT: But these are major...

MR. HADLEY: ...as the situation changes on the ground, and based on what we learn.

MR. RUSSERT: Was the president saying one thing publicly to the voters while you and Donald Rumsfeld were saying another thing privately inside the White House?

MR. HADLEY: The president has been talking about making changes, and has been making changes throughout. We basically, as you know, about 18 months to two years ago, revamped the way we were training and restructuring and helping the Iraqis to strengthen the security forces. We changed the way we’re doing reconstruction, moving away from large projects to small projects that can build stabilities in local areas.

We have made adjustments as we’ve learned on the job and as—also as the Iraqi situation has changed. And the point I would say, when the president talked recently about a new phase in Iraq, it is a function of both new challenges in terms of sectarian violence, and new opportunities reflected by a unity government that wants to take more responsibility. We’ve been making changes, and what the president has made clear is we’re going to be making changes in the future.

MR. RUSSERT: On Thursday, this meeting with the president and the prime minister of Iraq in Amman, Jordan—there they are greeting each other. The day before, these were the headlines, a memo that you wrote, “Bush Adviser’s Memo Cites Doubts About Iraqi Leader.” And let me read part of that memo for you and our viewers. “The reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action.” “Ignorant of what’s going on,” “does not have the capability.” Do you stand by those words?

MR. HADLEY: The president sent me over to Iraq to make an assessment of the situation there as part of the overall review he asked for. And, of course, as I’ve just said, key to success is going to be the performance of this new government. I made an assessment, raised a number of questions, hard questions that should have been raised, but if you look at that memo and if you look at what the president said in the press conference after the meeting with Prime Minister Maliki, it is clear that this government shares our objective for an—for Iraq and has the will and desire to take responsibility. What the rest of that memo is about and what the conversation the president and the prime minister had was the need to get greater capabilities so that the Iraqi government can succeed. And that’s really the focus of our effort.

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