MTP Transcript for Mar. 18, 2007

MR. PERLE: Right.

REP. SESTAK: ...and then to be able to handle the entire security environment.

FMR. REP. DeLAY: Where are going to deploy to? Answer the question. Where are you...

MR. PERLE: Redeploy...

REP. SESTAK: Oman, Bahrain, at home to get our...

FMR. REP. DeLAY: They haven't...(unintelligible)...that.

REP. SESTAK: Yes, sir, we have bases there.

FMR. REP. DeLAY: They have not accepted this redeployment.

REP. SESTAK: We have aircraft carriers...

MR. PERLE: Why not--why not bring them back home? Redeploy...

REP. SESTAK: We do need to bring some home to get our forces ready again.

MR. PERLE: Redeploy--redeploy is a euphemism for cutting and running and you know it.

REP. SESTAK: No.

MR. PERLE: You use the term redeploy. Explain to me why having American troops sitting in Oman is going to affect the outcome in Iraq and give us a prospect of success in Iraq.

Offscreen Voice: The war on terror.

REP. SESTAK: One of--one--one of the great tragedies of this war is it's diverted our attention from Iran. What happened here is we outsourced our leadership to Iran to the European Union six years ago. We need to remain in that region because there are interests. I asked General Eikenberry, outgoing three- star general from Afghanistan, "General, does Iran at times work towards the same interest we have in Afghanistan?" The answer was yes. It doesn't want the Taliban there, it doesn't want al-Qaeda there. It has put $300 million to $500 million in roads for stability. There are interests that can be commensurate with ours. For instance, Syria had troops alongside us going into Iraq, so remaining in the region and ensuring that the influence of Iran does not control that region is extremely important.

MR. PERLE: Did you--did you ask General Eikenberry whether he thought American troops in Oman would help us win in Afghanistan?

REP. SESTAK: I asked him if more troops in Afghanistan...

MR. PERLE: Would it help us win in Afghanistan?

REP. SESTAK: ...I ask...

MR. PERLE: Of course they won't.

REP. SESTAK: Yes, I did.

MR. PERLE: And they won't help us win in Iraq either.

REP. SESTAK: I said--I said would more troops in Afghanistan help? The answer is yes. U.S. generals have asked for that.

MR. RUSSERT: Let--let me just...

MR. PERLE: But you're talking about Oman, not about Afghanistan.

MR. RUSSERT: Let, let...

MR. PERLE: Ask him if more troops in Oman...

REP. SESTAK: It's called presence.

MR. PERLE: ...is going to help win in Afghanistan.

REP. SESTAK: But that's where you have bases so that you are able to redeploy at--within the region.

MR. RUSSERT: Four years into the war there are many critics, Congressman DeLay, who are saying that leading up to the war, the debate in Congress, when you were majority leader and the president and the vice president came forward and said, "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, and we will find them. We do not need several hundred thousand troops as General Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, said. Lawrence Lindsay, the chief economic adviser of the White House was dismissed because he said the war may cost $200 billion. There would not be sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites. Based on all those, what we now can see were misjudgments, are you willing to concede that serious errors and mistakes were made and perhaps those who are now criticizing the management of the war have the opportunity to be listened to as providing an alternative to something that has gone wrong?

FMR. REP. DeLAY: Well I think I feel the same way as, as, as most of the American people, and that is we're frustrated that it's not over in, in Iraq, that we haven't been able to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish as fast as we are. I'm not...

MR. RUSSERT: But in--but in--but in your book, you praise Secretary Rumsfeld and said he gave strong and effective leadership.

FMR. REP. DeLAY: If--Tim, if I could finish my answer, I, I--I'll be glad to answer your question.

MR. RUSSERT: Please.

FMR. REP. DeLAY: The premise of your question is always put forward without the rest of the story. And maybe we ought to have Paul Harvey here to, to talk about the rest of the story. As I was in Congress voting for this resolution, I understood it as the war on terror, not just going into Iraq. That there were indications that it was Saddam Hussein, and certainly he's not--he wasn't a stupid man. It was in his best interest to, to participate in one way or another in this war on terror on the wrong side. And, and there were training camps in--we found out. He had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. He had the capability, and it's very easy, especially--and look what's happening right now. Chlorine being used. And you don't think if he--that over time, if we did not go in there, he would not have been helping the terrorists around the world against the Satan United States that's giving him so much trouble, that invaded his country and stopped him from taking Kuwait, and the multiple resolutions that he violated and thumbed his nose at the world. And there's just all kinds of other reasons. But the real point is, is the main focus was the Middle East for the war on terror. There were more leaders and terrorists in the Middle East, and we had to go in there as part of the war on terror. Secondarily, it was good that we eliminated this despot, this disgusting dictator Saddam Hussein.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Andrews, in the same vein, those who, who opposed the war, like yourself, and said you weren't sure whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction at the levels being suggested, that it would take more troops, and there would be sectarian violence, all that's true. But, now there, what would happen if we left immediately?

FMR. REP. ANDREWS: Well, first of all, no one is talking about leaving immediately. We're talking about...

MR. RUSSERT: Within, within a year.

FMR. REP. ANDREWS: ...what--OK, fine. What we believe, what our coalition believes very strongly, we should take all the resources that we have available, we should take them and use the time that is necessary for a safe and secure redeployment out of Iraq. That would stabilize--first of all, it would take our kids out of harm's way who find themselves in the middle of a civil war. You know, I debated right here on this--on this program before the war, and Mr. Perle and I debated on other, other programs, and I remember Mr. Perle saying, "You know, I will not be surprised that a year from now there'll be a boulevard in Baghdad named after George W. Bush."

You know, if you use common sense, before you go into a war of choice of your timing, you should at least think about and be prepared for the worst happening. We said "What"--and I asked Mr. Perle, "What happens when we're five years into the war and we're a, a military occupation in the middle of one of the most volatile regions in the world? What then?" And, and we were summarily dismissed. What's happened is, as a result, hundreds of our kids have died only because they didn't have the necessary protective equipment that would otherwise have kept them alive. Now they're being asked to stay in a civil war, to be combatants in a civil war, in an absolutely impossible position where they don't know looking left and right whether who's next to them is an enemy or, or, or an ally.

This is an impossible situation, Tim. We know that there is no military solution, only a political one. And as the--and as several generals who have been on the ground--General Casey, General Abizaid--has, has said that we, by increasing our troop levels, we are taking away the basic conditions that are required for a political settlement. It's not fair, it's not right. And all of those who dismissed all the concerns that we made in the years back, back then are now the biggest champions of keeping those kids in that impossible situation. And it's our kids, our soldiers who are paying the price.

MR. PERLE: Well, I'm, I'm not going to debate your characterization of the history of our previous exchanges, which I think are...

FMR. REP. ANDREWS: (Unintelligible).

MR. PERLE: ...which I think are not accurate. I never anticipated a five year occupation. There was nothing inevitable about a five year occupation.

FMR. REP. ANDREWS: Should've been planned for.

MR. RUSSERT: In fact, you were quoted as saying if you were Delphic that you probably would not have gone into Iraq?

MR. PERLE: Well, no. I think--I think Saddam Hussein posed a threat that had to be dealt with, and I think the decision to remove him was a correct decision. I think there were lots of things subsequent to his removal that might well have been--should have been done differently. But the fact is he posed a threat. Let me quote--I don't usually quote Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, but on this occasion I will. These are his words. "The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." This was not an eccentric view. This was certainly not a Republican view. It was a widely accepted view.

MR. RUSSERT: But he did vote against the war.

MR. PERLE: This was his view of it. Remember Vice President Gore? I'm quoting him. "We know that Saddam has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout the country. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."

Tim, we went into Iraq to defend this country against the threat that, after 9/11, we understood to be an intolerable threat. That is that Saddam Hussein, with a history of weapons of mass destruction, with known ties to terrorists, might use that weapons capability by placing it in the hand of terrorists. We were right to take that threat seriously. Now we find we're in a difficult situation, and it makes no sense to abandon this fight without giving the new strategy a chance to succeed. It's accepting defeat unnecessarily, and it will be a catastrophe in the continuing war against terrorists who want to destroy us.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Delay, you raise an interesting point in an interview--in your political column. You talked about congressmen advocating withdrawal, and you conclude by saying, "Yes, I am questioning their patriotism." Why is that?

FMR. REP. DeLAY: Well, I--it, it is my opinion that when you go to war, we ought to all come together. You can debate going to war, that's a legitimate debate. But once you have our soldiers and our, our young people dying on the battlefield, we should come together, and we shouldn't have what we had yesterday on the Mall of, of, of--in Washington, D.C. When the--those are not, in my mind--my opinion, patriots that are talking about impeaching the commander in chief, that are--that are--work as, as Tom's group works....

MR. RUSSERT: But setting a date for--is setting a date for withdrawal...

FMR. REP. DeLAY: ...every step of the day, undermine--I think it's aiding and abetting the enemy. When you tell the enemy what your strategy is, that's aiding and abetting the enemy because they can use that strategy to come back and harm your soldiers.

REP. SESTAK: Tim, I spent 31 years in the service of our nation leading men and women into combat in war. And I always assumed, at least I always hoped, that the men and women back here, the policy makers, day in and day out, were spending hours, weeks, debating about the best use of this national treasure. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it best a few weeks ago when he said, as someone asked him about this debate and what's going on in the House, he said, "Our men and women of our military are educated. They understand the democratic process." I remember when working for President Clinton as director of defense policy, when I didn't agree with you, Tom, but that there was the Buyer Amendment to stop in a year any more funding for our troops in Bosnia. And then there was, in 1999, the effort not to place any more troops not--in Kosovo. While I may have disagreed with you, I respected your office, that that is the constitutional duty of Congress, to take pride for the common defense.

FMR. REP. DeLAY: Joe, you're a congressman. Go back to Iraq and talk to those same soldiers and you'll get exactly a different response from those soldiers.

REP. SESTAK: I talk to them, Tom. I talk to them all the time.

MR. RUSSERT: To be continued.

FMR. REP. DeLAY: I do, too.

MR. RUSSERT: To, to, to be continued. "No Retreat, No Surrender" is your book, Congressman DeLay. Some interesting things about Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, George Bush in this book that...

FMR. REP. DeLAY: It's history as I lived it.

MR. RUSSERT: Tom DeLay, thank you very much.

FMR. REP. DeLAY: Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: Congressman, thank you very much.

FMR. REP. ANDREWS: Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Perle, thank you. Congressman, thank you. We'll be right back.

                               (Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: On MSNBC tomorrow, all day coverage on the war in Iraq, the fourth anniversary. Join me and our NBC News team beginning at 9 a.m. Eastern tomorrow as we report on the war, four years, all day long, MSNBC, msnbc.com. Also, as we mentioned when he was here a few weeks ago, NBC News senior Middle East correspondent Richard Engel, his special "War Zone Diary" debuts this Wednesday night on MSNBC at 10 p.m. Eastern.

That's all for today. If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Oct. 5: Paul Begala, Mike Murphy, Chuck Todd, David Gregory, Gwen Ifill, Peggy Noonan and David Yepsen Sept. 28: Fmr. President Bill Clinton, Steve Schmidt, David Axelrod, Rep. Mark Udall (D), Fmr. Rep. Bob Schaffer (R) Sept. 21: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, N.Y.C. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Steve Pearlstein, Steve Liesman, Erin Burnett Sept. 14: Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Bob Woodward, Chuck Todd Sept. 7: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Tom Friedman Aug. 31: Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), political roundtable Aug. 24: Caroline Kennedy, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), political roundtable Aug. 17: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gov. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), political roundtable Remembering Tim Russert   Images: The life of the political journalist Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: