SEN. McCAIN: ...I hope that we will have the patience and the understanding on the part of the American people that they’ve made great sacrifice and all of us are saddened by it. But I hope we can also point out the consequences of failure, which is what the Democrats are proposing now.

SEN. KERRY: Listen to that. You just said the Democrats are proposing failure. We’ve had...

SEN. McCAIN: Yeah. (Unintelligible)...failure.

SEN. KERRY: ...four and a half years of failure. The Republicans stood up and cheered for Rumsfeld, who had a policy of not enough troops. To his credit, John at least said he needs more troops. But the fact is they’ve supported every step of this president, misleading America about the course of this war. Last January the president stood up to Americans. You know what he said, Tim? He said, “We will hold them accountable to their benchmarks.” They’re not holding them accountable. They have no means of holding them accountable because they’ve said we’re going to stay there with 130,000 troops into next summer. They have no leverage.

We are not proposing failure, as John loves to assert and Republicans loves to assert. We are proposing a way to strengthen America in the region. We’re proposing a way to, in fact, make Iraq successful to the degree that it can be by playing to the real undercurrents of their, of their cultural and historical divisions. Nothing in the surge addresses the question of Shia, Sunni divide. Nothing in the surge is going to resolve the fundamental reluctance of Iraqi politicians to make a decision, Tim.

Now, we’re not talking about abandoning the place. Why do the Republicans have a complete inability to envision a foreign policy, as we used to have, Republican and Democrat alike, which plays to our strengths and builds alliances with other countries? Bring the United Nations back in. Bring the neighbors into this. Have a standing summit in a standing conference where we resolve these differences as best as can be. The United States can’t do it alone. And we have to change the equation so we regain leverage and initiative. That’s not walking away, that’s walking forward and putting us in a stronger posture.

SEN. McCAIN: In the—in my study of military history, I never heard of a withdrawal and a reduction of military presence as being a winning strategy. The fact is that we are succeeding. That’s the thing that the Democrats won’t realize. And of course I’m saying it’s a, it’s a recipe for failure. Of course history teaches me and others, including virtually every other expert on national security that if we announce withdrawal, we will, we will fail and we will see catastrophic consequences.

I, of course, not only said we needed more troops, I said we needed a new strategy, and the strategy that’s being employed now, which has only been in effect for some six months. And of course Americans are frustrated, and they’re saddened. But to somehow allege that we can affect events on the ground with less troops and less presence when the surge is what has changed the equation on the ground, defies real depiction of the facts on the ground.

SEN. KERRY: Wait a minute, wait a minute.

SEN. McCAIN: And the facts on the ground are that we are seeing military success, and almost everybody acknowledges that.

SEN. KERRY: Where’s the, where’s the less...

SEN. McCAIN: There’s significant military success.

SEN. KERRY: Supposedly, we’re training Iraqi troops, Tim.

SEN. McCAIN: And they’re doing much better.

SEN. KERRY: Supposedly, there are supposed to be enough troops—the Iraqi prime minister said they can stand up with their own security by this November. We’re talking about a transition policy that goes into next spring. Are you telling me that after five and a half years of war, which is what it will be next spring, Iraqis can’t have people capable of walking their streets with a gun and keeping peace? Please.

SEN. McCAIN: I’m telling you...

SEN. KERRY: How can they assert that after all of these years of—you train an American recruit and in four or five months you can have them on a battlefield.

SEN. McCAIN: I’m telling you there were colossal failures in the training of the Iraqis under former Secretary Rumsfeld, and I’m telling...

SEN. KERRY: And General Petraeus, who was in charge of it.

SEN. McCAIN: I’m telling you right now that Iraqi and American soldiers and Marines are fighting together in neighborhoods in Baghdad and Anbar and other places, and we are proud of the work that the Iraqi military is doing, and they’re getting better every day. And I’m convinced that, in a relatively short period of time, they will take over more and more of those responsibilities as they were. And I think it’s wrong to denigrate the sacrifices that Iraqi soldiers are making right now on behalf of their country...

SEN. KERRY: Nobody denigrated them.

SEN. McCAIN: That—you’re saying they’re ineffective. They are effective, and they’re fighting alongside of Americans, and I’m proud of them.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator McCain...

SEN. KERRY: I never used the word “ineffective.”

SEN. McCAIN: And I’m proud of them.

SEN. KERRY: What I said is they are not standing up at the levels that they should be...

SEN. McCAIN: They are standing up well. They are standing up well.

SEN. KERRY: ...after four and a half years of training. We were told by Secretary Rice at our committee earlier this year that 120,000 were trained and ready to go. General Petraeus, when I visited with him in Iraq, told me he would have a hundred and some thousand ready to go two years ago. Now, how many times do they get to change the goal posts and change the policy and move it to a different place? Where is the accountability for the benchmarks? The—no young American soldier should give their life or limb in order to have Iraqi politicians continue to delay making fundamental decisions. That’s what this is about.

MR. RUSSERT: President Bush said we will have an enduring relationship with Iraq and that there’ll be troops in Iraq after his presidency. Do you agree?

SEN. KERRY: Yes.

CONTINUED

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