MTP Transcript for Dec. 10

MR. RUSSERT: You wouldn’t send more troops in?

MR. HAASS: I would perhaps do it for a short amount of time, a surge, as part, again, of this narrative, as part of saying, “We’ve gone the extra mile.: I want to take away the arguments, quite honestly, from the critics of the report. I want to take away the argument that if Iraq turns out as badly as I fear it might, I want to take away the argument that it was because of what we didn’t do. If Iraq doesn’t work, I think it’s incredibly important for the future of the Middle East and for the future of American foreign policy around the world that the principle lesson not be that the United States is unreliable or we lacked staying power. “If only we’d done a little bit more for a little bit longer it would’ve succeeded.” To me, it is essentially important for the future of this country that Iraq be seen, if you will, as Iraq’s failure, not as America’s failure.

MR. RUSSERT: Dr. Cohen, your son has served bravely in Iraq. If the president picked up the phone this morning and said, “All right, Dr. Cohen, tell me what to do. As a father, as a military historian, what do I do?”

MR. COHEN: I think the first thing I’d say is, “I’m going to separate out what I say as a father and what I say as a military historian or commentator.” That’s a separate issue.

MR. RUSSERT: Fair enough.

MR. COHEN: What I would say is, “The first thing, Mr. President, you have to decide what you are capable of doing. And that means, among other things, how energetic are you willing to, to be in getting your bureaucracy to do the things that we already say that we’re doing, or that we ought to be doing.”

And I, I find it appalling, for example, our troops are still driving around in humvees now that we’ve slapped some armor on them. These are vehicles that are not designed to withstand the blasts of roadside bombs. There are commercially available vehicles that are. And yet, somehow, three and a half years after going into this kind of war, we still don’t have them. That, that’s symptomatic of a larger problem. That is, getting the bureaucracy to do the things that it needs to do.

Second thing I think I would say, in terms of broad strategy, that we are clearly at a crossroads. And there are two basic courses of action. One is, essentially, just limiting our losses and getting out, and there is a intellectually respectable argument for that. And the other is trying to win. And, and honestly, I’d rather win than control the narrative at the moment.

If we can win, I think what it would require would be something like this: First, it’s going to require a lot more money, and it’s going to require a substantial increase in the size of the American military. I suspect it will require a substantial surge—at least in the short term—in the Baghdad area. I, I disagree a little bit with Tom. I think 8,000 troops is not very much, you couldn’t really expect that to influence the violence in Baghdad.

MR. RUSSERT: What number are you talking about?

MR. COHEN: I suspect we’re probably talking about 20,000 or 30,000, something along those lines, a much more substantial kind of—kind of increase. The report is right in emphasizing training. But again, you know, the administration has been saying training is job one. But if you get down and talk to military trainers, as I have—both there and here—what you see is we say we’re going to have a dozen advisers embedded in each Iraqi battalion, we usually have about eight or nine. And what they will tell you is we need 35, 50, maybe even 70. It’s hard to make the bureaucracy do it. The institutions will not want to do that, for perfectly understandable reasons. The part of what we need here is—this is as much an issue of drive and grip and, and vigor in, in trying to do the things that we’re going to say we’re doing. The last point I would make is, in terms of our dealings with the Iraqis, we do need an alternative option. We do have to be able to confront them, saying, “Look, if you are not willing to go along with, for example, us vetting commanders in the Iraqi security forces and exercising considerable influence over promotion, we will leave you to chaos.” And that’s a useful threat to have with the Syrians and the Iranians. It’s the only threat at the moment, honestly, that we have with the Syrians and the Iranians. And you have to be prepared to follow through on that. But, but this idea...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, what’s wrong with chaos for the Syrians, Syrians and Iranians?

MR. COHEN: For the Syrians and Iranians, I think, real chaos is a little bit more of a mess than, than they really want. The, the problem with the report is it implies that somehow, without any incentives beyond wanting to help us, you can get them to cooperate. And I think that’s absurd. I—frankly, I would prefer much more direct means of pressure on the Syrians and Iranians, but I don’t think at the moment— at the moment that we have them.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Adelman, the president talks about a secure country, a safe environment that can govern itself, and an ally in the war on terror. When Prime Minister Maliki was here with his foreign policy advisers, I asked them repeatedly, did they think that Hezbollah was a terrorist group. And they said, “Well, we’re not in a position to say—make a comment like that.” The speaker of the parliament of Iraq said the violence was caused by Israel and Jewish agents. Will Iraq truly be an ally of the United States in the war on terror, or will it be more closely aligned with Iran?

MR. ADELMAN: I would—I would say that we have to walk before it runs, and they don’t need a foreign policy right now, Tim, with all due respect. They need some kind of coherence and some kind of ability to run the country, which they’re not doing.

Now, I differ a little bit with my friend Richard Haass in saying that, you know, we have to structure ourselves to get into the politics of blamesmanship on this, and I do believe that we, we owe it to the troops there—and especially to the Iraqis, and—to go one last try to get Baghdad to turn around. And I believe a surge—not with 6,000, but something like 20,000 to 30,000--some of them coming into the country, some of them in less used places around the country—and a general there on the ground— probably different than the generals we have there, to tell you the truth, who have tried and served and, and very patriotic, but have not got the job done—to turn it around so that the momentum is our way within six months. Now, if that doesn’t work, then, then we should just get out of there, because then we’re endangering a lot of lives.

Let me make one more point, and that is when Eliot Cohen says that the implementation of this has been awful, that’s an understatement. This Iraqi report gives an example, Tim, that just breaks your heart. In the thousand-person U.S. Embassy in Baghdad today, there’s six people, six people who speak fluent Arabic. Now, this is not Chiluba, this is not, you know, an obscure language. This is one of the great languages of the world. And out of 1,000, we don’t have any more than six people who can speak the language where they are? How can you, how can the president hear that, how can anybody in the U.S. government hear that and not be totally ashamed by the unseriousness of this effort? It also makes the point that in the Defense Intelligence Agency, less than 10 analysts have been looking at this insurgency for two years or so. Less than 10. And this is what’s killing 100 Americans a month, and 100 Iraqis a day. I mean, it is just—it just breaks your heart.