MTP Transcript for Dec. 3

MR. RUSSERT: USA Today described the dilemma confronting our country, Senator Warner, and I want to share with both our senators and our viewers. “All the options carry downsides and dangers. Withdraw U.S. troops quickly and court chaos, the White House warns. Send more troops to secure Baghdad and strain a U.S. military that’s already stretched thin, the Pentagon says. Appeal to Iran for help and hear demands that Washington in turn ease its objections to Tehran’s nuclear program, diplomats predict. Divide Iraq into autonomous regions and give al-Qaeda terrorists a safe haven in Sunni territory, the administration says. The war has become a Rubik’s Cube: Move to fix one side of the puzzle and another side is upended.” Do you agree with that?

SEN. WARNER: Clearly there are a lot of problems out there, and there’s no option and I think the Baker-Hamilton report will show this. That was a conscientious effort by well-meaning, well-trained, well-experienced citizens, voluntarily, to try and reach a consensus. We don’t have it before us, but they did reach a consensus, they did look at all the options, and much of what you described there was before that group. But the thing about it is, little no was—little noticed was the United Nations Security Council on the 28^th of this month—that is, November. They said that this problem in Iraq affects the security of the whole world. They just didn’t limit it to the region, the national security of the whole world. And we have to come up with a solution to this problem, and we’re doing it.

MR. RUSSERT: Would it be better—would it be more helpful, when you talk about bipartisanship, if the president called in Democrats and Republicans and said, “You know, I’ve made big mistakes. I’ve made misjudgments on weapons of mass destruction, on troop levels, on cost of the war, on sectarian violence, about greeted as liberators. I admit I have made some really big mistakes.” Would that be helpful?

SEN. WARNER: Look, I said in my first comment here, come—when the new Congress comes in, recognizing that the new leadership is a result of the people. After all, our Constitution set up the executive branch, the Congress, but the people have the power in this country. They spoke. And he should come up and talk to the joint leadership, House and Senate, and the Democrats and the Republicans. I don’t know...

MR. RUSSERT: And acknowledge failure?

SEN. WARNER: I don’t know they’d have to acknowledge it all, he said it, in

effect, “I’m not pleased with what’s going on, nor am I pleased with the speed

by which corrections are taking place.” It’s per...

MR. RUSSERT: What should the president say?

SEN. WARNER: Let’s look forward not backward to solve this problem, which is really one of moderation in the Muslim world against the extremists in the Muslim world, whether it’s Lebanon, whether it’s Iraq, or whether it’s the Palestinian situation.

MR. RUSSERT: But as I hear it, Senator Warner and Senator Levin, the country Democrats are listening, and they want to be brought in to the table. And yet they’re not willing to put something on the table unless the president seems to make some admissions. Is that fair?

SEN. LEVIN: No. He’s not going to make admissions, he’s not capable of admitting mistakes. What we have put on the table is a proposal. Democratic leaders have put a proposal on the table. By the way, there are risks no matter what course we take, because obviously the Iraq policy has been such a terrible mistake; poorly handled, poorly conceived, a mistake going in, that’s overboard. Democrats and Republicans want us to try to maximize the chances of success. No matter what course we take, there’s going to be risks. But the current course is a failure, we’ve got to change it.

Here’s what we’ve proposed. We’ve proposed that the Iraqis be told that in four to six months, we’re going to begin a phased redeployment of American troops from Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: The president’s rejected that.

SEN. LEVIN: I know the president’s rejected that. He’s rejected everything that reflects on his policy, or that suggests that his policy is wrong, or that we got to change course. He, he says over and over again, “We’re going to be in Iraq as long as the Iraqis want us.” That is an abdication, number one, of policy on our part. But worse, it’s the wrong message to the Iraqis. It tells them that it’s not their responsibility, it’s ours.

Tim, we’ve got to shift the responsibility to the Iraqis. The Democratic proposal is a modest one. It is not precipitous. It’s been characterized as cut and run. It is not. It simply says to the Iraqis, “Folks, you say, your prime minister says that the problem in Iraq is political.” Our military leaders say that there’s no military solution to Iraq. You put those two facts together—Maliki’s statement that the problem is political, with the, I think, fact that there’s no military solution. We have got to shift the onus to the Iraqis to solve their political problems. We cannot save them from themselves, Tim. And we should give them four to six months, and then we will begin a redeployment of American forces. Give them that much time to solve the problem, which they acknowledge is a political problem, not a military problem.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Levin has laid out the Democratic plan. Baker-Hamilton is suggesting, we have reported, a redeployment. Could you buy into a redeployment of American troops in significant numbers next year, Senator Warner?

SEN. WARNER: I think that we have to look at all the options, and as chairman of this committee until my good friend takes over in January, I want to make sure that we look at all options, we don’t seize on one right now. I come back again and again to the importance of our president to go before the new Congress, the joint leadership, bipartisan, Republicans and Democrats of both houses, share with them the, the fruit of his thinking, this concentrated effort that he and his colleagues in the administration have done, and see if we can’t form a consensus that the Congress and the president moves out jointly on. We have a moral obligation to these brave young men and women of the Armed Forces, whose loss of life and loss of limb is a heavy burden on this country. We have an obligation to the people of this country, who spoke in this election. And we better darn well pay attention to what they’re saying.

SEN. LEVIN: And we, we share that feeling, by the way, strongly.

MR. RUSSERT: On Tuesday—Tuesday you’ll have the confirmation hearings for Robert Gates to be the new—the nominee to be secretary of defense. Senator Levin, I want to bring you back to November 5, 1991, when Mr. Gates was nominated to be director of the CIA, and you had reservations about his conduct with Iran-Contra. But separate the issue and focus on his integrity. And this is what Carl Levin said about Robert Gates: “I am left with the feeling that Robert Gates has not been fully forthcoming with the Senate as to his recollections of the events of the Iran-Contra affair. ... I have remaining doubts about Mr. Gates’ candor with the Senate. I cannot vote to confirm him.” If you did not trust him or believe him or respect his candor under oath, how can you possibly vote for him?

SEN. LEVIN: Well, because I want to take the whole picture into account, I want to take the 15 years since then into account. I want to see how he deals with the problem which existed back then, which was that he was not candid about Iran-Contra in his recollection. There’s a lot of other issues that we face and we need a change in that department. We’ve got to have a change in Iraq policy. We have to have someone who will speak truth to power and not just tell the president what he wants to hear.

By the way, it was not just me who had problems with the candor. It was, for instance, Secretary Shultz, who felt that Mr. Gates, when he was the deputy to Mr. Casey at the head of CIA manipulated intelligence in order to support a particular policy of Casey’s. We have to go into that...(unintelligible).

MR. RUSSERT: Are you going to go into this issue?

SEN. LEVIN: Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: You think he’ll be confirmed?

SEN. LEVIN: I just—I, I think it’s likely he’ll be confirmed, but it’s very important that there be a thorough process, and I want to give our chairman credit for making sure that there is a thorough process.

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