‘Meet the Press’ transcript for July 8, 2007

MR. DAVID GREGORY:  Our issues this Sunday:  What now in Iraq?  With public support for the war waning, another Republican senator calls for a change in the president’s strategy.

(Videotape)

SEN. PETE DOMENICI:  We need a new strategy for Iraq that forces the Iraqi government to do more or else.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  Our guest, one of the first GOP senators to say no to the president’s troop surge, the senior senator from Nebraska, Chuck Hagel.

And in our political roundtable, Bill and Hillary Clinton campaign together in Iowa.  One-time Republican front-runner John McCain struggles to keep his campaign afloat.  And the president commutes the prison sentence of “Scooter” Libby.  Insights and analysis on a busy political week from David Brooks of The New York Times, Anne Kornblut of The Washington Post, Todd Purdum of Vanity Fair and Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post.

But first, the war in Iraq.  And with us is Republican Senator of Nebraska Chuck Hagel.

Senator, welcome.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R-NE):  David, thank you.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me begin with a stark picture of reality on the ground in Iraq and show our viewers what some of the statistics are.  U.S. troops killed in Iraq to date, since the start of the war, 3,601; since the beginning of the so-called troop surge, the president’s strategy announced back in February, 518.  And this, this morning from The Washington Post about the administration, trimming, sort of shaving the yardstick for gains in Iraq, the reporting from The Washington Post:  “The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals or timelines President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in U.S. policy, according to senior administration officials.” What troubles you about this reality?

SEN. HAGEL:  What troubles me most is the fact that we are not focused on the real issue here.  We have been captive to a violent—continuous cycle of uncontrollable violence produced by a sectarian war, a civil war.  As General Petraeus has said, he’s said it in a number of settings, committee hearings, others, there will be no military solution in Iraq.  Well, of course there will not be.  Our focus should be on a political accommodation.  In order to break this cycle of violence, to stop it, and there will be no other way to do this, is to find some way to focus our resources and harness our energies and the energies of the region and the international community on that, that focused issue.  Now, is there a role for our military?  Of course there is. But we can’t continue to put our people in the middle of a civil war and think that this is going to get better or your going to improve the situation.

MR. GREGORY:  But, senator, the president has argued that political accommodation, political reconciliation can only happen when there is a level of stability and security in the country for that to emerge.  That still hasn’t been accomplished yet.

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, I think we have inverted the process.  Of course, security and stability that requires a military force is part of that.  But parallel to that, but more central to that, is how do you get to the core issue here, and that is, how do you break the cycle of violence?  And until we regionalize and internationalize this, and how—until we go after that accommodation, for example, we’re not only not making progress or seeing progress made by the Iraqis, but they’re going backward.  There was a report last night that there may be a test vote in the 275-member parliament in Iraq next week about whether they have confidence in the Maliki government.  If the Maliki government would not get a vote of confidence, that would be disastrous.

MR. GREGORY:  Let’s provide some context here.  Seventy-four members of parliament have boycotted, as you say, the 275-member body.  There’s 12 ministers from the 38-member Cabinet no longer attending Cabinet meetings. There was an oil revenue law where they would share between Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites that was passed but without Sunni participation, which renders it virtually meaningless, and the agreement on the oil revenue part has still not been struck.  So this is that fundamental question for the government of Nouri al-Maliki:  Can he actually govern a unity government?  Do you still have confidence in his ability to do that?

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, it’s not so much do I have confidence; it’s not even so much does the United States have confidence.  Those are uncontrollables that, that we can’t, we, we can’t control, we must factor in.  But some things we can control, and we do also know that the, the political support for this war is gone.  It’s eroding.  It’s eroding in the Republican Party.  That’s a reality.  So we’re going to have to move towards some new strategy, some new policy that must be focused on political accommodation.  And I don’t see any other way out of this.  If, for no other reason, David, as the generals have told us, when, when we get to April of next year, the rotation cycle will be so damaged that we won’t have the manpower to be able to continue to extend these deployments, and we just won’t have the capability to be where we are today.  Now, that’s a reality.  That, that isn’t subjective, that’s a reality. We need to get out ahead of this.  We need to bring in the regional justice—the Baker-Hamilton report noted—the regional formalization of, of a regional security effort, internationalize this, probably, as I’ve said, through a international mediator under the auspices of the United Nations. We’re not only not making progress, but we’re going backwards by every measurement in Iraq.

MR. GREGORY:  That, that prescription that you talk about, you wrote about this week in the Financial Times in an op-ed piece, and in that you also say, “If there’s Iraqi resistance to the idea of an international mediator coming in trying to strike a deal on political reconciliation between Sunni, Shia and Kurd, that we should be clear with Iraq’s leaders,” you wrote, “that this initiative is a condition of a continued U.S. support.”

SEN. HAGEL:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  So take the American face off of this both militarily and politically, in your judgment, but really force their hand at some kind of political agreement.

SEN. HAGEL:  Well, as I’ve said from the beginning, and I wasn’t the only one to say this, the outcome in Iraq will be determined by the Iraqis.  It’s not going to be determined by the United States.  We can help, we can support, and we have a role.  Obviously we have an interest.  We are where we are.  We’ve got a mess on our hands in Iraq.  We have done so much to undermine our own interests and influence in the Middle East, we’re going to have to find some new high ground here.

One thing we cannot continue to do, the American people won’t allow it, the Congress won’t, is to continue to put our men and women in the middle of a civil war.  Our policies first, for the United States, should be worthy of the sacrifices our men and women make.  It is not today.  It is not a workable policy.  So that means we’re going to have to shift.  That’s what the Pete Domenici piece was about.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

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