MTP Transcript for Feb. 18, 2007

MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned Congressman John Murtha. Let me show you what he is proposing. John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said he would “attach language to a war funding bill that would prohibit the redeployment of units that have been at home for less than a year, stop the extension of tours beyond 12 months, and prohibit units from shipping out if they do not train with all of their equipment. His aim, he made clear, is ... to ‘stop the surge.’”

Does the president support the Murtha language?

MR. SNOW: No. But, I mean, look, the notion, I think it’s been referred to by some as a slow bleed. That’s not—the president believes that what you need to do if you support the troops, is to provide the reinforcement for the people who are already on the ground to get the job done and finish the job. But he also—look, we’re not in the business of trying to pick personal fights with members of Congress. We think it’s important to do two things: Number one, to have a sensible and full debate about this because the nation deserves it, and also to realize that on a lot of the basics, people agree. I mean, people do agree that the Iraqis need to step up.

And I think there’s also increasing understanding, Tim, of the fact that if you have failure in Iraq, what does it mean? It means that you have the possibility of al-Qaeda setting up shop in Anbar province, having its own place for spreading and training terror all over the world, and also having access to billions of dollars in revenue that will enable it to buy weapons systems it can’t have. It creates a vacuum in the south that will allow Iran—would permit Iran to be adventurous, and to put pressure on other neighbors. It means that you could have problems in the north with the Turks and the Kurds. And finally, if you’re a gulf state, and you see the United States leave without success, are you going to rely on the United States for security? No. So what it does is it weakens us economically and strategically. We can’t afford that, and that’s why the president’s committed to succeeding in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: So he welcomes the debate on funding?

MR. SNOW: Yeah. I mean, look, it’s going to happen, and I think it’s also important for people to realize that we’re having a debate right now about failing to fund a program that is just now beginning to be implemented. You had the Senate, by an 81 to nothing vote, vote for General David Petraeus. And David Petraeus says, “I need these forces.” And as the president pointed out the other day, it would mark the first time in American history that the United States Senate voted for somebody, and then didn’t give him precisely the forces that he thought were necessarily to complete the mission.

MR. RUSSERT: Congressman Murtha will say, “I want to limit tours in Iraq to 12 months, and I want to make sure anyone who goes there is fully trained and has the equipment necessary to do the job.” What’s wrong with that?

MR. SNOW: Yeah. No, the commanders say the same thing. As a matter of fact, they will be fully trained and fully equipped. If you take a look at, for instance, at the schedule for getting equipment into the field, it’s going to be there. When it comes to trying to find ways to make sure that people have more time at home, what has the president done? He’s said, “You know what? We need 65,000 new members of the Army, we need another 27,000 Marines.” That’s another one of the things that’s provided in that budget that he wants Congress to approve soon.

MR. RUSSERT: The other day you were asked about pre-war planning, and how it had been overly optimistic, and then you said this. “I’m not sure anything went wrong.”

MR. SNOW: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: Is that your view of the war in Iraq?

MR. SNOW: Well, no. I’m putting it this way. When you say not sure anything went wrong, what I was referring to is the notion that somehow somebody’s going to have perfect foresight of what’s going to happen in a time of war. The old cliche is that battle plans never survive first contact with the enemy. So what happened is people came together and put together what they thought was their best estimate was of what was likely to happen. Interestingly, I mean, you, on your own network, in 2004, talked about the fact that the war itself was not an issue because it’s been seen as a big success to that junction. It’s very difficult for people to—for anybody to anticipate anything that’s going to happen on a battlefield. What is important in a time of war is to realize that you have to have the capability, the flexibility and determination to meet the challenge as the enemy responds. The idea that we would be down to 5,000 now, boy, don’t we all wish it was true, but it’s not.

MR. RUSSERT: But it was weapons of mass destruction, the cost of the war, the size of the military force necessary, the level of sectarian violence. All those assumptions were just wrong.

MR. SNOW: Well, let’s—the size of the Army, if you take a look at it, you had a three-and-a-half-week march to, march to Baghdad that was unprecedented in the annals of military history, and I’ll let other people litigate the issue of whether they think there should have been a larger standing force at the time. The fact is, we now have a challenge in the year 2007...

MR. RUSSERT: But things did go wrong.

MR. SNOW: Yeah. Of course. It’s a war, things always go wrong. As a matter of fact, it happens in every war. But I’ll tell you, you want something to go wrong? Have the United States leave before the job’s done in Iraq, and invite al-Qaeda—give al-Qaeda the biggest recruiting tool of all, which is to say we made the Americans leave. Osama bin Laden cited the American departure from Somalia as the way to recruit and train people for September 11^th. We know as a point of fact that, that they see this as a place where they’re going to make their stand. It’s our determination that it will be their last stand.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask a question about Iran, because it’s very much on people’s mind. Last week there was a briefing by defense analysts about the EFPs, explosively formed penetrators...

MR. SNOW: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...roadside bombs. And here’s how it was reported: “The [defense] analyst said [that] meant direction for the operation was ‘coming from the highest levels of the Iranian government.’”

MR. SNOW: Yep.

MR. RUSSERT: The very next day, Peter Pace, the ranking military man in America, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se, knows about this. It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it’s clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.”

Overruling the defense analysts. The next day, you went to the podium and seemed to overrule Peter—General Pace. You said:

“Do we have a signed piece of paper from Mr. Khomeini or from President Ahmadinejad signing off on this? No. But are the Quds forces part of the government? The answer is yes. I think this ends up being a semantic dispute about senior levels of the government. And the fact is, the government knows about it.”

MR. SNOW: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: Again, Pace. Here he is:

“That does not translate that the Iranian government, per se, for sure, is directly in doing this.”

Who’s right, you or General Pace?

MR. SNOW: We’re actually both right, because General Pace then held a press conference with Secretary Gates subsequently. And what did he say? He said, “We know the government’s involved, we know the Quds force is a part of the government,” and he explained as I did at the press conference. I didn’t want to put words in his mouth, but I sort of thought this was what he meant, that he didn’t know if one of the top two or three members of the government was directly involved for writing orders. But the Quds forces are part of the Revolutionary Guard, which answers to senior levels of government. So it turns out that I was correct. It was a semantic dispute...(unintelligible).

MR. RUSSERT: So General Pace is wrong?

MR. SNOW: No, General Pace, General Pace agrees with what I said.

MR. RUSSERT: So you were right and he was wrong?

MR. SNOW: No, we were both right. What you’re trying to do—here, let me, if you don’t mind, I brought my research and I’ll go ahead and bring in the General Pace comments.

MR. RUSSERT: No—all right, but let me, let me, let me—this is what Senator Chris Dodd, a Democrat who’s running for president, the way he framed it:

“I’m deeply troubled by this administration’s escalating rhetoric against Iran, especially intelligence from unnamed officials that is not fully documented. It is frighteningly reminiscent of the pattern we saw in the drumbeat that led to the war with Iraq.”

MR. SNOW: Well, I—again, I understand that Senator Dodd’s running for higher office, but if you go back and you look what General Pace—here’s what he said: “What I tried to say is that I’m talking about the top two or three people in the government.” He said, “We do not have proof that those people are directly doing it.” He said, “We know that those Iranians are Quds force members. Those are facts.”

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