MTP Transcript for Feb. 18, 2007

MR. RUSSERT: But the point is, the president seems to welcome this debate on funding because he believes, as Mr. Snow repeatedly said, overwhelmingly, the American people do not want to withhold funding for the troops on the ground. Would the Democrats be willing to use the purse strings, the power you have, to stop funding the new surge of troops in Iraq?

SEN. REED: I think we’ve begun a process with this, these series of votes. First, clearly, on a bipartisan basis, a majority of the House and the Senate opposes the president’s strategy. That’s a clarion call, I think, for him to change the strategy. Second, we’re sitting down already with Senator Reid and Senator Biden, Senator Dodd, many others, and trying to work out a new approach. I think it begins with refocusing the mission and then resourcing that mission. Down the road, will we consider issues with respect to funding? I think so. But we’ll never compromise the ability of American soldiers to protect themselves. That’s something that I won’t do; that’s something that I believe Chuck won’t do.

What the president is doing is inviting a debate. I think it’s a false debate. The debate is about taking away resources that will protect troops. We won’t do that. But we have to change the strategy for the long term interests of this country, and for, I think, success. Success not measured in the president’s terms, but success in terms of much more stable region in the Middle East.

MR. RUSSERT: Is there a concern that the funding of the troops is a political radioactive issue that could backfire on the Democrats?

SEN. REED: Well, I don’t think it’s a concern that it’s a radioactive issue, but the president is inviting a debate and citing polls. There’s no American, and I don’t think there’s any senator, that’s consciously going to take away equipment, training dollars for American personnel. And again, this is the administration that went into this operation without a good plan for an occupation, went in without sufficient armored humvees, without body armor for troops, without training in counterinsurgency operations, despite the conventional success of that march into Baghdad. This is an administration that has persistently overstressed the Army. Chuck and I, in 2003, made the first proposal to increase the size of the Army. It’s only within several months that the president has embraced the idea of a larger Army. So their attention to the needs of the military, I think could be faulted significantly. And now they want to use the Army and the funding as a sort of political crutch.

MR. RUSSERT: On the issue of the funding, a fellow Vietnam veteran, Sam Johnson of Texas, POW, went to the House floor and said this. Let’s watch:

(Videotape, February 16, 2007):

REP. SAM JOHNSON (R-TX): We POWs were still in Vietnam when Washington cut the funding for Vietnam. I know what it does to morale and mission success.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: That would be very much the debate you would hear if you tampered with the funding for this war, no?

SEN. HAGEL: Well, that’s what a debate is about. The president himself has welcomed this debate. The president himself, in his words, has said if there are alternatives, if there are suggestions, if we should be doing something better, I want to hear about it. Tony Snow talked about some of those things. So that’s what a debate’s about, and there’ll be various points of view. But we must have the debate, we can’t run from it and defer it. Because again, I think when we look at not just the most immediate component of this, and that being Iraq, but when you look at the larger context of the Middle East, where’s our new diplomatic initiatives? Where are, are the new efforts that are being made economically? Where are our allies and our friends in the Middle East? What’s their position on, for example, a regional security conference? We’re just focused on the military. The military is not going to decide the outcome in Iraq. I think that is complete folly. It will be the Iraqi people, it will be the neighbors of Iraq that will make that decision. We can help, but we can’t impose our will, our government, our standards, never have been able to, on anyone. So we have got to have, just as the Baker-Hamilton Commission report noted in its 79 recommendations, a new comprehensive package. That will be part of the debate, and certainly everybody will have their opportunity to register their thoughts on this.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Reed, Iran—what is your reaction to the emphasis this administration has had on Iran and the roadside explosives this past week?

SEN. REED: Well, I was in Iraq a year ago, and military leaders showed me some of these projectiles, so the administration has known of this for many, many months. Bringing it out today I think is an attempt really to try to change some of the issues here in Washington more than the issues here in Iraq and Iran, get attention away from the, from the issues of strategy within Iraq. And I think we have to protect our forces, we have to interdict these supplies. But I’m nervous, as many others are, about this as a prelude to more comprehensive action against the Iranians in the military. And I think the military, from my—who I talked to, are very concerned, because they know, given our involvement in Iraq, we are not as strategically well placed to deal with the Iranians today. This is one of the consequences of this failed strategy the president has. Of a concentration of 140,000 Americans in a very difficult civil war in Iraq, we don’t have the strategic and military flexibility to deal with Iran. So the president, I think, is making a—making noise, but I, I think it’s more to divert us away from the issues within Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you agree with that?

SEN. HAGEL: Well, I would approach it this way. And I had an opportunity to speak with the president’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, yesterday morning, and we spent a good amount of time talking about Iran. I can’t obviously share with you all that conversation. But I’m somewhat encouraged with what I heard from Mr. Hadley yesterday morning, that the administration not only accept—accepts the understanding of a larger context in dealing with Iran, the Middle East—which includes Iraq, obviously the Israeli-Palestinian issue the secretary of state is dealing with today in the Middle East.

But Iran is complicated. The fact is, Iran is probably the most powerful nation in the Middle East, probably has the most influence in Iraq of any nation, is not going away. It’s a reality, we’re going to have to engage them. Baker-Hamilton report suggested that, as others. Some of us have been saying that from some time. How are we—how are we enhancing our relationship? How are things getting better? Are they getting better? No, they’re getting worse. I would just remind all—all of us that Ronald Reagan used the evil empire definition of the Soviet Union, speech after speech, but yet he sat down with Gorbachev. They almost came to an agreement on abolishing nuclear weapons. But he engaged, he understood the need for diplomacy. And that’s the missing component, in my opinion.

MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned Ronald Reagan. Vice President Cheney invoked Ronald Reagan about you in Newsweek magazine. “I believe firmly in Ronald Reagan’s 11^th Commandment: Thou shall not speak ill of a fellow Republican. But it’s very hard sometimes to adhere to that where Chuck Hagel is involved.”

SEN. HAGEL: Well, I can’t answer for the vice president’s comments, but I do find that a bit puzzling, because I noted two weeks ago, Congressional Quarterly rated the 100 United States senators on their support of the Bush administration’s policies in the Senate last year, 30 votes. The senior senator from Nebraska was the number one supporter of George Bush’s policies in the Senate last year. Now, my friend Jack Reed will move further away from me hearing that. But I can’t answer to the vice president. I certainly never said anything about him or anyone else, I don’t get personal and that’s the way I leave it.

MR. RUSSERT: You said last month you would decide this month whether you were going to run for president in 2008. Will you?

SEN. HAGEL: I’ll make a decision within a couple of weeks, and make that public.

MR. RUSSERT: Is there room for an anti-war candidate in the Republican primary field?

SEN. HAGEL: Well, I don’t, and wouldn’t, consider myself an anti-war candidate if I sought the nomination for president in the Republican Party. It’s bigger than just the war. We’ve got entitlement issues, we’ve got tax issues, we’ve got environmental issues, health care issues.

MR. RUSSERT: But it is the number one issue.

SEN. HAGEL: It is the number one issue. And if I ran for the president, I would put forth a plan as to how do we get out of Iraq, what do we do about the Middle East. I don’t think you can talk about Iraq without talking about the composite dynamic of the Middle East. But I’ll, I’ll you know and that decision and announcement will come within a couple of weeks.

MR. RUSSERT: Will it take Republicans going to George W. Bush rather than Democrats to have a significant alteration in the course in the war in Iraq?

SEN. REED: I think Republican influence on the president might be more decisive than the Democratic voices, because frankly, he probably assumes that Republicans will support him—they have for so many years now—and when they begin to question seriously, as many are, his policies, I think that’ll have an effect. I hope it has an effect. I think the biggest development this weekend is this emerging bipartisan opposition to the president’s policies. I think if it was just strictly Democrat he would dismiss it as partisan. In fact, many Americans would dismiss it as just partisanship. But when you see a majority of Senate—majority in the Senate...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, it’s seven Republicans in the Senate and 17 in the House.

SEN. REED: Well, that’s—that’s progress. The last cloture vote we didn’t have seven Republicans.

SEN. HAGEL: You know, Tim, war does not discriminate as to casualties. Republicans, Independents, agnostics, Bolsheviks, Democrats, all die in war. And that’s what the polls show very clearly across America today, about position on where we are in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Chuck Hagel and Senator Jack Reed, thanks for your views.

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