MTP Transcript for Dec. 10

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: The Iraq Study Group releases its report.

(Videotape):

MR. LEE HAMILTON: The situation in Iraq is very grave and deteriorating.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: They receive high praise and strong criticism.

(Videotape):

SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): This may be the last best chance we have to get it right in Iraq.

(End videotape)

(Videotape):

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): This is a recipe that will lead to, sooner or later, our defeat in Iraq.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: With us, the chairmen of the study: former Secretary of State James Baker and former

chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee Lee Hamilton.

And what a difference a midterm election makes.

(Videotape, October 25, 2006):

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: Absolutely we’re winning.

(End videotape)

(Videotape, December 5, 2006):

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI): Do you believe that we are currently winning in Iraq?

MR. ROBERT GATES: No, sir.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: With us: former member of Secretary Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board, Ambassador

Ken Adelman; military historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Dr. Eliot Cohen; the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Richard Haass; and the author of the best-selling book “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq,” Tom Ricks of The Washington Post.

But first, we are joined by the co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group, James Baker, Lee Hamilton. Good morning and welcome both.

Mr. Hamilton, let me start with you. You used the words “grave,” “deteriorating”; the report says, “dire.” What’s the factual basis for such a factual assessment of the situation on the ground in Iraq?

MR. HAMILTON: The factual basis, Tim, is almost every metric you can come up with: violence is increasing, fragmentation of the militias, Shia against Shia, Shia against Sunni, and more American casualties, basic services of government not being delivered, and neighborhoods falling apart, casualties going up. Everywhere you look, it’s dire, it’s grave, it is deteriorating, and in a sense, the question may be, “Can we stop the deterioration?” not “Can we improve it?”

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Baker, on page 94 of your report you write, “There is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq. ... Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals.” You’re suggesting very strongly that there was a deliberate attempt to underreport the level of violence in Iraq. Why? MR. JAMES BAKER: Well, we don’t say it was a deliberate attempt, Tim. We do say we think that it was, in fact, to some extent, underreported through the mechanism of what constituted an event or an incident—whether someone was wounded or killed, as opposed to whether an attempt was being made.

This is simply something that we—that we learned during the period of four or five days we spent in, in Baghdad.

MR. RUSSERT: But they pick out a particular day in July where they say there were 93 attacks. In fact, there were 1,100. All the while, Mr. Secretary, the American people were being told that we were winning, that we were in the last throes of the insurgency, that we were making progress. Was there not a disconnect between what the American people were being told by the administration and the facts on the ground?

MR. BAKER: Well, Tim, that’s the reason we have that—that’s the reason we mention that, that particular item in the report. The fact of the matter is, though, we don’t have a—if you read the assessment, indeed it is—it is serious, it is grave, it is dire. But we don’t spend any time wringing our hands about what might or might not have happened in the past, other than to say, “For the future, here’s the way we ought to proceed.”

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Hamilton, you say that—before Congress that we have weeks, perhaps days. Do you believe that the government of Prime Minister Maliki could very well fall?

MR. HAMILTON: Lot of things bad can happen there, and the fall of that government is certainly one of them. We are where we are. That’s a democratically elected government, he is in power. He has not taken the steps we’d like him to take, but the fact of the matter is, he’s there. And so our whole proposal is to deal with the real world—both in Washington and in Baghdad—and to say, “OK, this is where we are.” What we want to try to do is strengthen this government, because we have a shared interest in bringing this war to a conclusion, and to do it in a way that protects the interests of both nations.

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post on Thursday said this: “What’s missing from the study group report, unfortunately, is any evaluation of what should be done if the new strategy doesn’t work - if, despite the stepped-up training, diplomacy and pressure for Iraqi political reconciliation, the incipient civil war intensifies or the army and government remain too weak to survive on their own.”

MR. HAMILTON: Well, you can’t make a proposal with alternatives. You’ve got to make a recommendation for public policy. We can’t put out a report and say, “A, this is one way to go. If that doesn’t work, go B. If B doesn’t work, go C.” We have to make a proposal for the existing situation as it is, and give it our best shot, if you would. We can’t issue a proposal in the alternative.

MR. BAKER: The minute we did that, if we issued an alternative approach, Tim, everybody would discount the, the approach we think ought to be taken.

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