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‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Sept. 16, 2007
SEN. McCAIN: Good.
SEN. KERRY: ...asked him about—John McCain asked him about being a central front. And he said, “How do you know it’s a central front?” And he said, “Because I talked to the head of the national intelligence and another general, and they tell me al-Qaeda says it is their central front.” Now, al-Qaeda can choose to make it their central front, but we’re not leaving al-Qaeda to that front. Everything in the Democratic proposal that has 52 votes, a majority of the Senate, says we will leave troops to continue to chase al-Qaeda. That’s number one.
Number two, Tim, al-Qaeda views Shia as apostates. They are not legitimate Muslims. The fact is you’re better off as a Christian or as a Jew than as a Shia in the eyes of al-Qaeda. And Iran, linked as it is already to Maliki, who was in Iran a month ago, holding hands with the leader of Iraq, they’re already linked. The Shia will never allow al-Qaeda to take over Iraq. The Kurds will never allow al-Qaeda to take over Iraq. That’s 80 to 85 percent of the country. And the Sunni in Anbar have now decided they don’t want al-Qaeda. We are the attraction for al-Qaeda. And if we begin to reduce our footprint, as the Iraq Study Group has said we should do, as General Jones said we should do, as those seven soldiers of the 82nd Airborne, two of whom were just recently killed, wrote in The New York Times the other day, as we should do, then al-Qaeda, believe me, will be driven out by the Iraqis themselves.
SEN. McCAIN: Surely you don’t believe that General Petraeus reaches his conclusions by talking to somebody. He lives and works there.
SEN. KERRY: I’m quoting what General Petraeus said.
SEN. McCAIN: Gen-oh please.
SEN. KERRY: I’m quoting what he said to you, John.
SEN. McCAIN: General Petraeus, General Petraeus has said hundreds of times that it is the central front in the war against terror in al-Qaeda...
SEN. KERRY: I’m just quoting what he said to you.
SEN. McCAIN: ...because of the conditions, because of the conditions on the ground and you are quoting him incorrectly, and...
SEN. KERRY: No, I’m quoting him absolutely correctly.
SEN. McCAIN: ...selectively. No.
SEN. KERRY: And moreover, you’re not answering the fundamental issue.
SEN. McCAIN: But the fact is, but the fact is when, when, when Senator Kerry says that we will just take care of al-Qaeda, then you go into a place where they’re fighting. “Excuse me, sir. Are you al-Qaeda or Sunni or Shia?” Please. We’ve got to have sufficient—and General Jones did say if we set a date for withdrawal, and it’s on the record, if we set a date of—for withdrawal...
SEN. KERRY: Yes it is.
SEN. McCAIN: ...then the United States security interests will be negatively impacted and harmed in the area, as well as Iraq.
SEN. KERRY: Once again, you use the words withdrawal.
SEN. McCAIN: So please don’t misquote General Jones again, please.
SEN. KERRY: We will have troops in Iraq.
SEN. McCAIN: You are setting a date for withdrawal.
SEN. KERRY: We have all acknowledged that there will be some troops there to finish the training, finish standing them up.
MR. RUSSERT: How many?
SEN. KERRY: To chase al-Qaeda.
MR. RUSSERT: How many American troops?
SEN. KERRY: I can’t tell you precisely, Tim. That does depend on what happens on the ground. But I know this, that if you don’t begin to change the equation where Iraqis have the ability now just to rest on American presence and make no decisions, nothing is going to happen. And the fact is, you have to change it. Moreover, we are—you know, what John and others who talk about surrender and talk about, you know, withdrawal and leaving it to these disasters, they hold up a specter of the disaster, but then they do nothing to mitigate the potential of that disaster happening. The fact is Iran loves our being bogged down in Iraq. Al-Qaeda loves our being bogged down in Iraq. We are, as our own National Intelligence Estimate said, attracting more terrorists because we are in Iraq. We need to get out of Iraq in order to be stronger to deal with Iran, in order to deal with Hezbollah and Hamas, to regain our credibility in the region. And I believe, very deeply, they understand power. If we were to announce that we’re changing the equation—yes, we’ll be there to protect our interests; yes, we’ll be there to prevent chaos and genocide; yes, we’ll be there to protect Iran from actually coming into the country. There are plenty of ways to create a new security arrangement. General Tony Zinni and others have laid out those ways, but we’re not pursuing them today. We have one strategy. We’ve gone back now to stay the course, and the American people rejected stay the course.
MR. RUSSERT: What’s wrong with that?
SEN. McCAIN: I hope, I hope that next week you’ll take 60 seconds and get the quotes from General Jones, who said if we set a date for withdrawal, it will harm the United States’ national security...
SEN. KERRY: I’m not arguing that. He did say that.
SEN. McCAIN: ...interest in the region; and General Petraeus, his comments as to why he believes that al-Qaeda is now the central Iraqi...
MR. RUSSERT: General Jones did say that, but he said something else, and let me start with that...
SEN. McCAIN: Sure.
MR. RUSSERT: ...Senator McCain. “Although the administration has said repeatedly that security improvements will create ‘breathing space’ for Iraqi sectarian and political forces to move” towards “national reconciliation, the Jones commission turns that equation on its head, saying that long-term security advances are impossible without political progress. Despite all that remains to be done on the military front,” the Jones commission “says, ‘the single most important event that could immediately and favorably affect Iraq’s direction and security is political reconciliation. Sustained progress within the Iraqi Security Forces depends on such’” an “‘agreement.’” So the president’s strategy has been...
SEN. McCAIN: Now, now wait a minute. First of all, that’s a Washington Post story interpretation of General Jones’ report.
MR. RUSSERT: He was on this program last week and acknowledged that’s exactly...
SEN. McCAIN: Yes. And he acknowledged exactly that. And he also acknowledged that without the, the military security situation, it was also impossible for...
MR. RUSSERT: But...
SEN. McCAIN: ...the political situation...
MR. RUSSERT: But what he said was...
SEN. McCAIN: ...to move forward.
MR. RUSSERT: ...the current administration...
SEN. McCAIN: And he also said that...
MR. RUSSERT: Let me just finish, because he said the current administration’s thinking is that you cannot have political reconciliation without first having security. He says it’s the opposite, that you cannot have security...
SEN. McCAIN: He doesn’t say it’s the opposite.
MR. RUSSERT: ...unless you have political reconciliation.
SEN. McCAIN: Tim, I’ve known Jim Jones for 30 years. It’s not what he’s saying. What he’s saying is we have to have now political progress; and he, like all of us, are very frustrated by the lack of political progress, that the Maliki government has not done the things we want them to do. And we have every right to expect it and, unless there is political progress, that we are not going to succeed in Iraq. We all understand that. We all comprehend that. But you—any counterinsurgency expert will tell you that you have to have a military security environment on the ground, and then the other aspects of it move forward. And I think it is moving forward, but it’s hard, and it’s tough, and it’s long, and it’s full of disappointments. And to say that somehow with a few troops that we can handle this situation of Iranian further incursion into southern Iraq, the—of the Syrians continuing their dislocation in the region in support of Hezbollah and Hamas, I think is a basic misreading of the security situation we face when we, “withdraw,” as is what the Democrats and John Kerry wants us to do.
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Lindsey Graham, a close friend and colleague of yours, said that if we do not have progress, reconciliation within the next 90 days, Iraq very well could be considered a failed state. Do you...
SEN. McCAIN: I think...
MR. RUSSERT: ...agree with that?
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