‘Meet the Press’ transcript for May 20, 2007

SEN. DODD: And they’re asking us to do it for them.

MR. RUSSERT: Another, I think, concern Americans have is that four years into the war, there are only 6,000 Iraqi troops...

MR. GINGRICH: Ready to right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...who are fully trained...

MR. GINGRICH: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: ...independent outside of American support. And people question why is that? Why are the Iraqis apparently unwilling to step up and shed blood...

MR. GINGRICH: It’s just—look, we, we have these stunningly self-destructive reporting systems where you say what is an American quality brigade and could this brigade operate with no support, no communications, no logistics? And so some guy checks a box. The fact is there are about 139,000 Iraqi troops who are out on patrol with Americans who are risking their lives. The fact is the Iraqis are taking a lot more casualties than we are. And there’s something wrong—and again this goes back to Colombia as a totally different place that has the same problem. People in local countries with relatively weak governments, with dramatically lower standards than the U.S., people who are standing next to us getting killed are dishonored. We say, “Oh, that’s not really good enough.” There are—look at all the Iraqis who walked to vote risking death. Look at all the Iraqis who have now twice voted, including Iraqi women who were engaged. Look, all these people—the same thing in Afghanistan where women knew the Taliban was going to target to kill them. I think sometimes we got to honor our—imagine the Second World War. You say, “Well what have the British done recently? Why are we helping Great Britain, or what, what have the Greeks done or the Poles done or the Belgians done?”

SEN. DODD: But the distinction—the distinction...

MR. GINGRICH: I mean, I just...

SEN. DODD: The distinction, you know—the survey done, I think, by NBC and The Wall Street Journal, over 50 percent of Iraqis thinks it’s all right to kill Americans serving there. I don’t—if we go back to the American Revolution I doubt you would have had 51 percent of the Americans saying it’s all right to kill the French coming here. The distinctions—and let me mention the Uribe issue, because I’ve been deeply involved in that one for a long time, and I happen to like President Uribe. I’ve known him for a long time.

But we discovered recently that a lot of our funds are going in are supporting operations that are deeply engaged in the drug trafficking. Part of the, the military that have gone off and formed these death squads down there that are causing more difficulty and expanding the ranks of the FARC in many ways. So the question’s being raised about how U.S. dollars are being used in Colombia is not illegitimate questions here when it comes to these kind of activities. I want the FARC to be defeated. I want that country to be whole again. Colombians have been through a dreadful decades of hard work. But the idea that you don’t raise a concern about how dollars are being spent in these areas I think is something that needs to be addressed.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me go back to Iraq and give each of you a chance, in the closing minutes.

Speaker Gingrich, if we set a firm date for withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq, what happens?

MR. GINGRICH: I believe we send a signal to enemies to wait patiently and destroy the country as soon as we leave. I believe we send a signal to our own troops to cease patrolling and do everything you can not to be the last person killed on behalf of something that Congress has decried will be a defeat. I think we send a signal to our allies around the world that we’re unreliable. And I think that we have dramatically expanded the excitement and incentives of the terrorists, both in the Iranian-funded Shia wing and in the Saudi-funded Sunni wing of al-Qaeda. And I think you’ll see a dramatic upsurge. And a simple way to measure this, watch what our enemies say. If this Congress passes a definitive end of American involvement, every enemy we have on the planet will exalt, and every terrorist group on the planet will claim it’s an enormous victory, and they will increase their recruiting. And as New Jersey should just have taught us, they don’t plan to stop in Baghdad. They are coming here as soon as they can get here.

MR. RUSSERT: Can you respond to that?

SEN. DODD: Yeah, I—in fact, I think just the opposite. I think the very things you’re talking about, you have the opposite reaction here. I think the world is waiting for the United States to lead again with bold leadership in the country. It’s deeply worried about security, deeply worried about global terrorism, and looks on—over this landscape of the world, says only one country can lead, it’s the United States. The Chinese aren’t going to do it, the Russians aren’t going to do it, the Indians aren’t going to do it, not in the foreseeable future. It’s going to be the United States.

We’re bogged down in a situation here where we’re losing credibility, we’re losing our moral value. The great moral reputation of the United States has suffered terribly as a result of this. That’s a critical element and was critical in building the relationships that allowed us to develop the kind of international cooperation absolutely essential if you’re going to deal with global terrorism. So my view is here, it’s time for us to say that there’s a new mission here, a new direction, a change in course here that will allow, I think, the possibility of Iraqis to decide they want to be a country. Allow us to encourage the moderate Arab states in the region to assume greater responsibility for their neighborhood than they presently are. I think the real opportunity, if you engage not as a—not as an end, but as a means to deal with the Iranian-Syrian issue, as we finally did in North Korea, you open up the, the perspective here—the prospects, rather, of a wider, better set of alternatives for the United States and our allies around the world. That, at least, is a real opportunity. The status quo and escalating this conflict in Iraq on the assumption there’s a military solution, I think has been disproven and discredited by most major people who’ve looked at this, and I think they’re right.

MR. RUSSERT: Thank you both for making your views intelligently and passionately and in a civil environment. We appreciate it very much.

Speaker Gingrich, before you go, your new book, you co-authored “Pearl Harbor.” We know you’re an accomplished author. But we’re curious about whether you’re a candidate. Let me show you what you said here, and this—trace trace this very quickly. In ‘03, December, “I doubt it very much,” running for president. Then in May of ‘06, “I doubt it.” Then in December of ‘06, “Of course I’m thinking about it.” And last week, “It is a great possibility.”

As we sit on this day, May 20^th, 2007, will Newt Gingrich run for president?

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