MTP Transcript for Feb. 25, 2007

SEN. LEVIN: Well, that’s not where I’m coming from, because I—my concerns are exactly the two that I mentioned. It’s not a fear of—politically of doing it. It’s the wrong thing to do morally in terms of the message it sends to the troop—troops, but it also would strengthen the president because he would use the defeat of that resolution as proof that the Senate or the Congress supports his policies, and the majority do not. And we ought to be allowed to vote by majority vote on this question: Do we favor a surge? Do we favor changing the mission? That’s what the Republicans will not let us vote on. They’re afraid of having the majority of the Senate vote as the majority of the House did in opposition to the surge of the president.

MR. RUSSERT: You need 60 votes to break a filibuster. Do you have 60 votes?

SEN. LEVIN: Not yet, but there’s, I think, growing concern among the Republicans about plunging our troops in the middle of a civil war, in the middle of Baghdad. This is not a surge so much as it is a plunge into Baghdad and, and into a middle of a civil war.

MR. RUSSERT: Now, some Democrats have expressed reluctance about your proposal. This is Congressman Chet Edwards of Texas. He says, “I think Congress begins to skate on thin ice when we start to micromanage troop deployments and rotations.” Fair point?

SEN. LEVIN: I don’t think so. I think Congress has at least a joint role in determining, determining what the mission is. How the mission is carried out is where you get into the presidential authority. But what the mission is, it seems to me, is as much a congressional determination as it is a presidential determination.

MR. RUSSERT: Aren’t you tying the hands of the commander in chief?

SEN. LEVIN: Well, we hope to put a cap on the number of troops. If I had my way, I would cap them. Of course, if I had my way, we never would have gone there to begin with. But, of course, we’re trying to tie the hands of the president and his policy. We’re trying to change the policy. And if someone wants to call that tying the hands instead of changing the policy, yeah, the president needs a check and a balance. This president hasn’t had one, hasn’t listened to others, including his top military commanders, and it’s about time he did. And Congress, I think, has the responsibility, not just the power, the responsibility to speak out and to change the course when you have a failing course, which is what we’re on in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: As you well know, if one Democratic senator decided to cross the aisle and caucus with the Republicans, the Republicans would become the majority party in the Senate. You would no longer be the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. This is what Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut, told Time magazine: “The Democrats’ 2000 candidate for vice president is the only party member in the Senate supporting President Bush’s Iraq policy and says” he’s “‘very troubled about the direction’” of the Democratic Party’s “‘heading on foreign policy generally.’ ... Lieberman says leaving the Democratic Party is a ‘very remote possibility.’” Is it worth risking losing control of the Senate by losing Joe Lieberman, by pushing the legislation that you are?

SEN. LEVIN: Joe Lieberman is a person of conscience. He votes his conscience. We all, I hope, vote our conscience, and I think he respects that in others. I think, when he says that leaving the Democratic Party is remote, I believe that it’s clearly true. I know him, I like him, I’m a good friend of Joe Lieberman’s, and I would say it is remote, providing we vote our conscience. I think Joe Lieberman will respect that. He is a Democrat, and I expect him to remain a Democrat.

MR. RUSSERT: But if the Congress—the Democrats—every Democrat but Joe Lieberman said we want to withdrawal most of the troops out by March of 2008, might that cause him to bolt the party?

SEN. LEVIN: I don’t think so. It’s a conscience vote.

MR. RUSSERT: Vice President Cheney talked about Democrats this way: “I think, in fact, if we’re to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we’ll do is validate the al-Qaida strategy. The al-Qaida strategy is to break the will of the American people, try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they” will “win because we quit.” Is your proposal, in effect, embracing the al-Qaida strategy?

SEN. LEVIN: No, quite the opposite. Our proposal is an effort to try to succeed in Iraq. Vice President Cheney’s credibility is pretty close to zero. He’s the one who said that the insurgency was in its last throes. He’s the one who hyped the intelligence before the war. So I don’t think that his comments carry an awful lot of weight with the American people.

But more importantly, the strategy which has been followed is a losing strategy. It is a failing strategy. And if we want to succeed in Iraq—in Iraq, we’ve got to find ways to change that strategy. And the only way we’re going to change it, the only chance we have of success—of success in Iraq, the only hope is to force the Iraqi leaders to reach a political settlement. Everybody says that, and if we just continue to have an open-ended commitment, more and more troops going into Iraq, it takes the pressure off the Iraqi leaders, it gives them the impression that, somehow or other, their future is in our hands, when their—when their responsibility is to put together a country; it is not our responsibility.

So I think he’s wrong about his strategy. I think he’s wrong about al-Qaida. I think al-Qaida likes us in Iraq. I think, when we’re in Iraq, a Western occupation of a Muslim country for four-years-plus now, al-Qaida, I believe, has the target that that they want, has the propaganda that they want, and it plays right into their hands. So I disagree with his analysis, but he doesn’t have much credibility left, in any event.

MR. RUSSERT: When the Democrats are accused of validating the al-Qaida strategy, or emboldening the enemy, or the Wall Street Journal calling you a coward, how do you deal with that politically?

SEN. LEVIN: Well, we, first of all, state what we believe and have the American people judge as to whether or not it’s important to change course in Iraq. This is a war, and politics really have no place in a war. We’re talking life and death, not just for people and families, but for our nation. And we owe it to this nation to give the best advice we possibly can and make the best decisions we possibly can. And to heck with the politics here, we’re in the middle of a war.

MR. RUSSERT: If, in fact, we withdrew most of the troops out by March of 2008, your goal, and all-out civil war broke out, complete, total chaos in Iraq, what do you do then?

SEN. LEVIN: Well, that’s where we’re heading now. And that’s what—where I think the supporters of the president’s policy are so wrong. What they say is that pulling the troops out will lead to a civil war, where, as a matter of fact, that’s the direction we’re heading with all of our troops in and more troops coming in. That’s the—that’s the path we’re on, is towards an all-out civil war and chaos. And we’ve got to change that path, and we’ve got to force the Iraqi leaders to take the responsibility by not taking them off the hook by providing more and more troops, but by forcing them, by saying, “Look, we’re going to reduce some troops; we’re going to leave a limited presence here,” and that limited presence, I think, can address the issue that you talk about, to an extent. But, obviously, there’s risk in either direction. But the known risk is the failing path that we’re on now, and what is, it seems to me, essential is that we change that course and not deepen our military involvement, which is what the president wants to do.

MR. RUSSERT: If we became convinced, after we left, that Iraq had become a haven for terrorists for planning attacks on Europe and the United States, would you be prepared to send troops back in?

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