‘Meet the Press’ transcript for July 15, 2007

MR. TIM RUSSERT:  Our issues this Sunday:  The president digs in on Iraq.

(Videotape)

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH:  I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war. I think they ought to be funding our troops.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Passionate words in the Senate from a Democrat.

(Videotape)

SEN. JIM WEBB (D-VA):  This deck of cards is coming crashing down, and it’s landing heavily on the heads of the soldiers and the Marines who have been deployed again and again.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  And the Republicans.

(Videotape)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC):  I believe we can destroy al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the surge has made that possible.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia, Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina square off on Iraq.

Then, insights and analysis from two veteran political strategists, Republican Mike Murphy and Democrat Bob Shrum, and two veteran political reporters, Al Hunt of Bloomberg News and Robert Novak of the Chicago Sun-Times and author of “The Prince of Darkness:  50 Years Reporting in Washington.”

But first, Iraq.  And with us are two key members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Democratic Senator Jim Webb and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who just returned last week from a trip to Iraq.

Gentlemen, welcome both.  Let me begin by showing, one more time, the president’s comments on Thursday at his news conference.  Let’s watch.

(Videotape, Thursday)

PRES. BUSH:  I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war.  I think they ought to be funding our troops.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Senator Webb, are you trying to run the war?

SEN. WEBB:  No, I don’t think that there is a war, to start off with.  I think that this has been a botched occupation.  It’s been going on for four years after the purely military part of it was done.  This administration has failed in terms of bringing the right diplomatic formula to the table. We—all of the things that people like myself were predicting would happen if we went into Iraq are the—exactly the sorts of things that the president and the small group of people who have sort of rallied around him are saying will happen if we leave.  We were saying that Iran would be empowered, we were saying that international terrorism would be empowered, we were saying that the reputation of the United States would be diminished around the world, and we were saying the region would become more unstable.  So we’ve reached the point, and I see, with what Senator Warner and Senator Lugar have introduced, that there’s a good, strong feeling among the Republicans as well, we’ve reached the point where we have to come together as a Congress and attempt to bring some order into this.

MR. RUSSERT:  Are you trying to wrest control of the war from the President, in effect, along with the Republicans?

SEN. WEBB:  No.  I, I think that any administrative discretion, any executive power, has its limits.  And the Congress has the authority, not only to appropriate, but to put conditions on, for instance, how our troops are being used.  You can go back, for instance, on the—if you want to look at the amendment that I offered, which Senator Graham and other opposed even though we got 56 votes, the, the provision goes back to something that the Congress did when Harry Truman was president when they were sending troops to Korea who had not been trained and the Congress stepped in and said you can’t send anybody overseas until they’ve been in the military for 120 days.  We’re trying to do this on the other end.  Four years into a war you have to be able to put some rational limits on how our troops are being used.  We’ve got soldiers and Marines right now who are spending more time in Iraq than they are in the states, and the executive branch isn’t speaking up.  The Congress has the constitutional power to do so, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

MR. RUSSERT:  I’m going to get to your amendment in just a second.

But I want to ask Senator Graham, Senator Lugar, Senator Warner have stepped forward and said we should have another vote, in effect, another reauthorization of this war.  And secondly, as early as January of ‘08, perhaps have a redeployment of troops in Iraq.  Do you support Senator Lugar and Senator Warner?

SEN. GRAHAM:  No.  I respect them very much, and I believe their idea is for the president to come up with a plan B.  They said, “The surge is not working. In October, tell us about how you would redeploy troops with a different mission.” You know, control al-Qaeda.  They say nothing about the Iranian influence.  It basically takes us back to the old strategy.  And the one thing I’ve done on this program and others is declare the old strategy of fighting behind walls and training as being ineffective.  The new strategy of getting more combat power where al-Qaeda and others reside, I think has been enormously successful.  But as to whether it’s a war or an occupation, in my view this is very much part of a global struggle.  Al-Qaeda has come to Iraq. Bin Laden has said this is the equivalent to the third world war.  Baghdad’s going to be the center of the caliphy—caliphate.  We have just passed unanimously, in a resolution, saying that we’re in a proxy war with Iran.  So what’s going on in Iraq is not about us wanting to own Iraq; it’s about us supporting a form of moderation not known to the Mideast.  Why does al-Qaeda come?  They come to destroy this infant democracy.  That’s, that’s part of their agenda is to fight moderation where it exists.  Why does Iran kill Americans?  Why are they trying to drive us out?  Because their biggest nightmare is a functioning democracy on their border.  So this is very much a gigantic struggle between moderation and extremists.  And those who want to withdraw or have operational control reside in the Senate, I think you’re making a mistake for the ages.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me turn specifically to Senator Webb’s amendment, and this is how it’s described.  “The [Webb] amendment said any armed services member deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan would have the same amount of time at home that they serve overseas before being redeployed.  It also required that no troops, including those in reserve and National Guard units, could be redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan within three years of their previous deployment.” An attempt to reduce the strain, obviously, on military families.

When Congressman Murtha of Pennsylvania introduced similar legislation in the House, it was described as a slow bleed, an attempt, in effect, to micromanage the war and bring the war to an end by limiting the number of troops that were available.  Was that your intent?

SEN. WEBB:  No.  Congressman Murtha’s provision had a lot of restraints on it, and I think you could argue that it was micromanagement.  They had equipment restraints on it, they had unit readiness indicators on it.  And, and let me say, I used to do this for a living.  I did this for three years when I was assistant secretary of defense.  I had the first 120 days of war, how you, how you lay out the transition from, from peacetime to wartime, how you merge the Reserves in with the Guard, etc.  And what I did was I tried to take the one unassailable fact here, and that is that four years into this environment we’re—we’ve been experimenting with one different operational requirement vs.  another.  I was going to say strategy, but this is not strategy.  And at a minimum we have to be able to say that if you’re going to do this, if you, if you want to stay in Iraq for five, 10 more years like Senator Graham does, or if you want to get out within a couple of months like Congressman Murtha does, we have to put some restraints on how our troops are being used.

And, by the way, I, I want to just respond really quickly to a couple of things that Senator Graham said.  You know, he says, al-Qaeda has come to Iraq.  That is true.  There is no greater recruiting tool for Iraq—for, for al-Qaeda than the United States being in Iraq.  Al-Qaeda was not operating in Iraq before we got there.  And, you know, this resolution that we supposedly passed, where we were saying we’re in a proxy war with Iran, that was some whereas clause way up, when we basically said that the ambassador to Iraq has to tell us whether Iran is tactically involved.  It’s pretty noteworthy to point out that, in terms of Iraq, more than half of the extremists in the Sunni areas are Saudis.  So what we’re seeing in Iraq is the countries that have historical ties with these different ethnic groups are, in fact, involved, but that is not the same thing as saying we’re in a proxy war with Iran.

MR. RUSSERT:  Senator Graham, you said this about Congress—Senator Webb’s amendment:  “It would have been a nightmare for the ages if Congress had passed the Webb amendment and it became law, because you’d have deployment by polls.” The Army missed its recruiting goals in June.  Seventy-two percent of the soldiers in Iraq are members of the U.S. Army.  Is the Army being broken by this war, and why not give these Army members and their families a year off after being deployed for a year?

SEN. GRAHAM:  Worst thing I think we could do in this war or any other war is start micromanaging deployment of forces by the Congress.  The operational control of the war residing in the Senate or the House would be a nightmare. Politicians are worried about the next election.  Commanders need troops based on what happens on the ground.  So I think any idea that basically allows senators and congressman to start commanding troops should, should fail and will fail.

As far as the stress of the military, it has been an enormously difficult war. And I was in Baghdad on July the Fourth of this year.  We had the highest re-enlistment—the largest re-enlistment ceremony in a wartime environment known to our country.  The one thing I can tell you about our troops, they are doing things we’ve never done before, because there’s more of them.  The surge is producing results.  The biggest result from these brave men and women’s new effort is that the Sunnis who’ve tasted al-Qaeda’s life in the Sunni part of Iraq, Anbar province—when he was running for the Senate, it was declared lost.  Well, it has, it has been recaptured.  And the people living in Anbar have chosen to align themselves with us, because al-Qaeda overplayed their hand.  The military is not the problem.  The military will do what they’re capable of doing only if we stand behind them.  The problem is trying to politicize this war, have decisions made in Congress that affect military operations.  I will not vote for anything until generous—General Petraeus passes on it.  No senator, no congressman—no matter how much I respect you—you’re not going to be able, in my opinion, to give the advice that General Petraeus can give, and I’m going to wait till he comes back and listen to his advice and not some politician.

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