MTP Transcript for Dec. 17

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: the president explores new options for Iraq.

(Videotape):

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: I’m not going to be rushed into making a difficult decision.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: The tension between the First Amendment and the war on terror. And will this man, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, run for president of the United States? With us: our guest, Newt Gingrich.

Then, is there any good options for Iraq? And how will the war in Iraq affect Republicans and Democrats in the 2008 race for the White House? Insight and analysis from two columnists for The New York Times, David Brooks and Tom Friedman.

But first, for four years, he was speaker of the House of Representatives, he’s been touring the country contemplating a run for the White House, talking about American solutions. He’s with us this morning.

Newt Gingrich, welcome back.

FMR. REP. NEWT GINGRICH (R-GA): It’s good to be here.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me start with Iraq, on the minds of all Americans, and show them what you said a few weeks ago up in New Hampshire. “Former House speaker Newt Gingrich told a New Hampshire audience that unless the Bush administration admits that the war in Iraq is a ‘failure,’ it will never develop a strategy to leave the country successfully.” Why is the war a failure?

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: Well, the war’s a failure in part because the strategy, as I told you on this show in December of ‘03, has been wrong consistently, it’s been a strategy that was far too American. Second, it’s a, it’s a failure because the instruments of national power don’t work. And it’s important to understand we all focus on Maliki’s government. The, the Baker-Hamilton Commission reports that out of 1,000 people in the American Embassy, 33 speak Arabic, eight of them fluently. Now, at some point we have to have a national conversation about the fact that, outside of the uniform military, none of the instruments of national power work, and they need to be fundamentally overhauled. This isn’t about policy. It’s as though you wanted to go to Boston, I wanted to go to Los Angeles, and the car standing outside was broken. Doesn’t matter what our policy agreement is, the car doesn’t run.

And so I think the administration shouldn’t just focus narrowly on Iraq, they should look, first of all, at the larger war, which does include Iran, it does include North Korea, it does include al-Qaeda. And they should look second at what are the strategic changes necessary to win in Iraq? And if you have to do that, how are you going to get the job done when Treasury doesn’t work, Justice doesn’t work, State doesn’t work, intelligence doesn’t work? And this is a very severe problem for our effectiveness.

MR. RUSSERT: When you were here in October of—December of ‘03, however, you were very supportive of the war, concerned about where it was heading, but supportive of it. Let me show you what you said and come back and talk about it.

(Videotape, December 7, 2003):

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: I don’t believe we should be arguing about American commitment in Iraq. The only exit strategy in Iraq is victory. Now, if that’s true, then we should be able to reassure every Iraqi we’re not leaving till the bad guys are defeated.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: “The only exit strategy is victory. We’re not leaving till the”...

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: I believe that today.

MR. RUSSERT: So what do you do, send more troops?

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: You, you only—look, the president’s got to make a very hard decision, and that’s why I used the word “failure.” This president is a very proud, very stubborn man, has to come to grips with the fact that the policy he has followed—with all good intention—is not succeeding. Now, if that’s true, it should be possible to build a bipartisan commitment to rethink from the ground up what we’re doing, how we do it, and what it takes. And it’s not just 30,000 more troops or not, it’s very important to surge troops if they’re going to bridge to a better future. But unless you’re going to design that better future—let me give you a simple example where Hillary Clinton and I ended up in agreement at a meeting on this topic. I’m a relatively conservative Republican, I think you’d accept that statement, I believe a Franklin Delano Roosevelt civil conversation corps designed to mop up every young Iraqi male who’s unemployed would be as big a strategic step in Iraq towards victory as whether you have more troops or fewer troops. The fact you have 60 percent unemployment among young males in Iraq is a disaster.

Now, if we can’t—but we have no instrument of national power today other than the military that could possibly run a program that was a civil conservation corps for young Iraqis, and that would be an example of a totally different approach that would, I think, work significantly, that’s a component of how you get to a stable self-governing, self-defending Iraqi future. But the challenge I have for all of our good friends who are honest, well-meaning people, who say, “Well, we can afford to run, we can afford to leave, we can afford this,” describe the cost of, of defeat.

In 1979 under Jimmy Carter, America was seen as weak; there were hostages held in Iran against all international law, there was an American Embassy under siege in Pakistan, there was an American ambassador killed in, in, in Afghanistan. If we summarily get beaten in Iraq, and what’s what we’re talking about, if we are defeated in Iraq, there are not enough Marine elements in the world to evacuate the embassies that’ll come under siege.

MR. RUSSERT: So in order to avoid defeat, would you send more troops—American troops to secure Baghdad?

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: I would send more troops if it was in a context of a new strategy with a dramatically new commitment, with a bipartisan resolution in the Congress. I mean, the center of gravity for American policy right now is the president finding a bipartisan agreement in the Congress in the first two or three months to send a signal to the world that it is America’s—this, this can’t be Bush’s war. This is either an American commitment to victory or it is a defeat. And if the Democrats decide it’s a defeat, fine, then let’s—then let’s withdraw. And when we withdraw, let’s understand why we withdrew. But stubbornness is not a strategy.

MR. RUSSERT: When the war was first conceived, you were on the Defense Policy Board of Secretary Rumsfeld. I went back and re-read Michael Gordon’s book, “Cobra II,” and you’re—play a role in that. Let me share that with you and our viewers and come back and talk about it. “At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld and his advisers saw that the plan [to invade Iraq] was at a formative stage and that this was the time to shape it. Newt Gingrich was one of them. The former House Republican leader ... had Rumsfeld’s ear. Gingrich had been appointed by Rumsfeld to the Defense Policy Board. ...

“As the Pentagon’s focus shifted to Iraq, [retired Navy Admiral Doug] Macgregor received a call from Gingrich, who told him that Rumsfeld was frustrated with the military’s suggestion that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to defeat and occupy Iraq. ... Gingrich asked Macgregor to draft a briefing, which the former lawmaker could quietly slip to Rumsfeld. ... [Macgregor] argued that the Army, properly restructured, could attack Baghdad with 50,000 troops and win within two weeks.”

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