‘Meet the Press’ transcript for May 20, 2007

SEN. DODD: Well, well, it’s—I don’t think you have to ask the question hypothetically, that’s what’s going on today. Sixty-thousand Iraqis have lost their lives over the last four years, two million have left the country, a million more displaced within the country. I don’t know what the paper said this morning, but how many more lost their lives yesterday? I’m talking about Iraqis in this particular case. So it seems to me the issue of chaos, it’s already upon us here. You’re looking at a, at a conflict—we always talk about the conflict in the Middle East being an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What we fail to understand, there’s been significant conflict within the Muslim world for years; going back to 1632, in fact, when you trace, trace the history of the conflict between the Shias and Sunni populations.

We’re in the middle of a civil war. And this is the point where I think Newt and I really probably part ways on this, talking about winning or losing in Iraq. This is a civil war in the country. It is a civil war. We’re in the middle of a civil war. This is not the United States vs. some sole enemy in the place there. Yes, there are elements of al-Qaeda there, I know that. But the conflict is fundamentally one between Shias and Sunnis. Kurds are involved as well, but principally Shias and Sunnis. No one has ever suggested—none of our top military people have ever suggested from day one that there was a military solution to this. In fact, major military leaders have been highly critical of the Bush administration for embracing this notion that there was somehow going to be a military victory here. I don’t believe that. I don’t think most people do. There’s a political diplomatic solution to this, if we give it some space and an opportunity to succeed. I can’t guarantee it, Tim, that if we, if we adopt what I’m suggesting—and that is leaving within a year, militarily leaving within the year—that there won’t be problems that come afterwards. This much I do know: The status quo is doing great damage to that country and great damage to the United States. The moral authority’s been shot on this thing, terribly.

What Newt just said is absolutely correct, these other issues we’ve got to focus our attention on. Our military people tell us today, Lord forbid that we were faced with a major military challenge tonight, all of us agreed that the only legitimate response is a military one, we’d be hard pressed to respond to it. That’s public testimony of our senior military people in this country. That’s very, very dangerous, and this, this, this notion that we’re so wedded to be engaged in this civil conflict in Iraq is doing us great damage. That’s why I’m advocating this time certain.

MR. GINGRICH: But notice, there are two things there. First of all, even if you accept that this is a civil war, people have won civil wars. I devoted three novels about winning the American Civil War. And the fact is, civil wars are hard. But we also—I just did a novel on Pearl Harbor and the Second World War. The Second World War was hard. Guadalcanal was hard. If we’d had today’s Congress during Guadalcanal, the number of people who had said beating the Japanese is too hard, let’s find a negotiated peace, would have been amazing.

SEN. DODD: I disagree with that.

MR. GINGRICH: But there’s a course—we are, we are in a worldwide war, and, and I’m going to use a word that seems to be unfashionable in Washington. We need to think about winning this worldwide war. We need to understand that every week that goes by there are more young people recruited into al-Qaeda and into, into the various Iranian terrorist organizations. We just saw a video of a 12-year-old in Pakistan beheading a man.

So let me start with this, because here’s what happened, and this is what, frankly, the Congress does to people. You have a freely elected democratic government in, in Colombia waging a campaign, but it’s, it’s a tough campaign. So the president of Colombia, democratically elected president, becomes persona non grata. Al Gore won’t even appear with him on the same stage because the tone of the government’s inappropriate, OK? So if we were to pull out of Iraq, and you suddenly had the chaos that Tim described, the next battle cry would be cut off the funding because the pro-American side would end up doing things that were “inappropriate.” And then you’d say well, if only somebody perfect were in charge with a perfect government.

Now, let me point out, this is a Democratic Congress, which has not passed a single one of Nancy Pelosi’s hundred day—hundred hour six items. Not a single one’s gone into law. It’s a Democratic Congress, which in its first four months has passed 26 bills, 12 of which are renaming federal buildings. And I think to set one standard for the Iraqi parliament and a totally lower standard for the American government after 225 years of practice is fundamentally flawed. Either we’re for our allies winning, we should do what it takes for our allies to win, we should actually be in the attitude of winning the war—which we did in less than four years in World War II—or we should recognize, after five and a half years from 9/11, we are, in fact, on a worldwide basis, slowly, gradually losing the fight against terrorism and the fight against dictatorship.

MR. RUSSERT: But specifically, how would you win the war in Iraq militarily?

MR. GINGRICH: First of all, you, you would empower General Petraeus. You’d pass the supplemental immediately. You’d give him the money. Second, you would encourage the Iraqis to triple the size of their regular army. Third, you would, you would encourage the development of a, of a military tribunal system to lock people up the way Abraham Lincoln would’ve done it. Fourth, you would establish a nationwide ID card with biometrics so you can actually track everybody in the country. Fifth, you would make sure that the State Department actually staffed the embassy with people in favor of winning the war and you actually had your fully, fully equipped intelligence and economic development teams. Six, you would say to the Iranians, “If you don’t cut off everything you’re doing, we’ll begin to bring enormous pressure to bear with you,” if necessary, blockading the flow of gasoline into Iran, which has to import 40 percent of its gasoline because it only has one refinery in the entire country.

So I would take—I would lean forward and say to the world, “We are, by George, going to make sure that the allies of America and the forces of freedom win, and we are the most powerful nation in history, and we have more than enough assets to do this.” And we ought to do what it takes to win, not tolerate legislating defeat.

SEN. DODD: Well, what you’re suggesting, first, is terribly naive to assume that all of these things are going to happen with a government that even, to this day, can’t even leave the green zone to get out and function. I just met with some soldiers at, at Walter Reed a few weeks ago, and, listening to them, young Americans coming back, and to quote them almost exactly, Tim, “We’ll go in, we’ll spend a month and a half securing an area out here.” And these are young men very proud of their service, by the way. “Go into an area, secure it, take a month and a half to do it.” And to quote him, “an hour and a half after we leave, an hour and a half after we leave, it’s right back where it was. And senator,” he said, “they know where the IEDs are, they know where the ammu-dumps are, and they won’t even tell us where they are today.” You’ve got almost 80 percent of the population of that country thinks we’re the source of their chaos. A majority in the parliament called for a date certain forced to leave. Two billion dollars a week, $8 billion a month, and exactly the point Newt is making I agree with here. The war on terror’s the legitimate war. We’re, we’re, we’re building an army of radicals and the generation coming along, as a result of the legitimacy of the effort engaged in Iraq. The former commandant of the Marine Corps made that point in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post last week here. We’re losing that particular area, Newt. You cannot continue here having this...

MR. GINGRICH: Well...

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