‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Oct. 28, 2007

Our young men and women are doing an incredible job.  I’ve been there many times, I have great respect for the work they’re doing.  But I think we’re all coming to the conclusion that as long as we continue to be engaged in a military—civil war, rather, in the country, the ability for us to sort that out—just even recent articles will indicate here—we’re arming Sunnis in Anbar province to kill Shias.  And around Baghdad here, the Shias are keeping the Sunnis out of the police departments here.  We’re basically acting like a, a bouncer in a bar brawl in a sense, here, with both sides trying to keep them apart from each other.  The Iraqis have to decide whether or not they want to be a nation-state or not.  That’s not a decision for us to make.  We can create space for them, we can help them get there, but ultimately they have to make that decision.  They’re not making it.  And I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to possibly get them to move in that direction is to say with clarity that our military participation in your country is coming to a close.

You asked the question the other night at Dartmouth College here, of all of the candidates, will you commit that by the end of your first term in 2013 we’ll have our troops out of there?  I was stunned to hear three of the so-called leading candidates say they would not make that commitment.  When you asked me the question, I said I will.  In fact, I hope we have it completed by 2009, and you can do it safely and securely for our troops here. So, in the past, I have been reluctant to support time certains—deadlines, if you will.  But I came to the conclusion almost a year ago—in fact, I was here, having just come back from, from Baghdad.  We talked at this table.  And I met with young soldiers over there who said this is just not working.  We need to change this policy.  I think we want some decisive action here, we want some clarity on this.  We’re not getting it.  In my view, we should be changing the fundamental policy.  That is not to walk away diplomatically from the region.  There are many things we can do, Tim, to make a difference.  But I think we’re, we’re deluding ourselves in believing that $10 billion a month, almost 4,000 lives lost, almost 29,000 injured, 80 to 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives, four million have left the country.  Listen to the ground—troops on the ground.  They will tell you over and over again, despite the fact their willingness to serve, this is not going well at all, and it’s affecting us everywhere else in the world, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT:  You said the other day, “All that loss for what?” Do you believe that the troops have died in vain?

SEN. DODD:  No, I don’t.  And I don’t think it’s a question of winning or losing.  Baker-Hamilton, other reports have pointed out there was no military solution here.  You can’t win or lose where your goal was never to have a victory here.  Our, our operation was to create the space for the Iraqis to be able to come to some reconciliation, both politically and religiously.  The American president, the vice president, leading military figures, members of Congress have begged the Iraqi leadership to reconcile their differences. This past summer they took a month-long vacation after, once again, we plead with them to try and work things out and come together.  I don’t think we can arrange that for them any longer.

MR. RUSSERT:  But answer that question.  “All that loss for what?” What did they die for?

SEN. DODD:  Well, listen.  I don’t think soldiers who do their job every day die in vain.  They were asked to do a job here.

MR. RUSSERT:  So what did they die for?

SEN. DODD:  Well, hopefully to create some space in Iraq here for they—for them to come together, so the state should have a chance of succeeding.

MR. RUSSERT:  You, you said in April something that you had not said before—and let me play it for you—from Southern New Hampshire University. Here’s Chris Dodd.

(Videotape, April 20, 2007)

SEN. DODD:  You’re never going to convince me that the war in Iraq was exclusive about democracy and about Saddam Hussein.  It was about oil.  Don’t have any doubts about it.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  “It was about oil.  Don’t have any doubts about it.” You never mentioned oil until April of this year.

SEN. DODD:  Well, not publicly.  But certainly I think that was one of the major factors.  Someone said to me in New Hampshire, in fact, that very state, some weeks before, if Iraq were growing turnips and not having oil, was there likely we’d have been there as strong as we were?  And I suspect that’s the case.  Alan Greenspan said the same thing before.

MR. RUSSERT:  But why didn’t you say that back in ‘02?

SEN. DODD:  Well, good question.  I mean, that was one of the reasons I think we were there.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me ask you about your comments about how safe we are.

SEN. DODD:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you believe we are safer now, as a country, with Saddam gone?

SEN. DODD:  I, I think we’re better off without him there.  But if that—if the question ends there, then it’s not...

MR. RUSSERT:  But are we safer?

SEN. DODD:  Well, I don’t think we’re safer in the sense with all that’s happened afterwards.  If, if—you can’t disregard what’s happened afterwards here.  The fact that we didn’t—we weren’t able to build the kind of society in Iraq, or at least help them achieve that result certainly has made us less safe.  I think the answer that General Petraeus gave when John Warner asked him the very simple question “Are we safer?” And he said, “I don’t know,” I think he was being candid in that answer to that question.  And frankly I don’t think we are.  That’s my conclusion.  When you raise your right hand on January 20^th, 2009, you’re going to be asked to swear to two things:  that is protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and to protect our country from enemies both foreign and domestic, in effect keeping us safer. And, Tim, I don’t think we are safer.

MR. RUSSERT:  But in December of ‘03, again, Chris Dodd, “Of course, we’re safer with Saddam gone.”

SEN. DODD:  Well, again, I think you could make a case then, but certainly we’ve learned since then.  I mean, this is taking snapshots of a moment in time.  Since then we’ve learned we’re not—we’re a lot less safer.  We’ve turned Iraq into a petri dish for jihadists and terrorists that didn’t exist in December of ‘03.  It’s become a more dangerous place in part, I think, because we failed to understand that the Iraqis were not going to jump to a political conclusion of reconciliation.  And, as a result, we’ve become a lure, in a sense, attracting these elements that come into that country and pose additional risks.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you voted for the war, you voted for funding for the war. You were against timetables for withdrawal of troops.  Then you became a presidential candidate, and suddenly it was about oil and you were against the funding and you were for timetables.

SEN. DODD:  No, Tim, that’s...

MR. RUSSERT:  Is that political expediency?

SEN. DODD:  No, no, no, let’s go back, as I’ve said earlier to you, in September of ‘04, I said I wish we had the vote back, it was a mistake, it was wrong.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you kept voting for the funding.

SEN. DODD:  Well, did vote for funding along the way because the argument was we were trying to get this—get a decent conclusion to this here.  And then a year ago when I was there and came back, drew the conclusion, as many others have along the way here, that this is just not working here.  And my view was, at that point and is today, that Congress has one responsibility.  If the policy has failed and it’s not working, that we ought to terminate the funding for it here.  Clearly the administration doesn’t want to do that, not likely to do it, so it’s up to the Congress to achieve that result.

MR. RUSSERT:  And no political expediency?

SEN. DODD:  No, none at all, Tim.  I think this is a process here you go through as you make decisions what you think is right on this thing here. I—early on, look, from the very beginning, even in October of ‘02, recognized there were maybe better ways of dealing with this.  Certainly in March said the same thing.  Pointed out the problems with the funding, the lack of oversight, all the way through the process.  Made the point that I thought we should have had more troops on the ground going in than we did.  Tried four different occasions to get decent body armor with votes on the floor of the United States Senate.  There’s been a pattern here of expressing my growing concern about how this has been conducted, along with many others, not exclusively so, and have reached the conclusion at this point that the best way for us to deal with this is to terminate that funding, paid for with a safe redeployment of our forces out of, out of Iraq.  That to me—ultimately we’re going to do it, Tim.  At some point we will.  How many more lives have to be lost, how much more damage to our country do we have to go through before we arrive at that conclusion?  Ultimately we will.  I think we ought to do it now rather than wait till later.

MR. RUSSERT:  After September 11^th, the government went to many of the private telecom companies in our country and asked them for information, data. The government said they were legally justified to it.  They wanted to see if there was a nexus between international terrorists and some phone calls made back here to the United States.  You have been very outspoken about giving those companies immunity from any kind of prosecution, even though they were doing what the government asked them to do.  Senator Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democratic on Senate intelligence, has a view much different from yours.  This is what Rockefeller says:  “We recognize that private companies who received legal assurances from the highest levels of government should not be dragged through the courts for their help with national security.  The onus is on the administration, not the companies, to ensure that the request is on strong legal footing, and if it’s not,” it’s “the administration that should be held accountable.” Why you going after these companies for doing what they thought was in the public interest?

SEN. DODD:  Well, because not all of them did.  There were companies that didn’t comply with that request.  They said, “Give us a court order and we’ll turn over documents.” The court order was never forthcoming here.  These companies have very strong, good legal departments here.  The idea that companies would turn over thousands, if not millions, of private records, of individuals without a court order is an invasion of that privacy, in my view. There’s a, there’s a way to do this, a legal way to do this.  They decided not to do it.  They decided they were going to turn over the—these records without any court order whatsoever.  That is dangerous in my view.  There’s been a consistent pattern by this administration on—to, to, to basically trample on the constitutional rights of people.  We’ve seen it from the very beginning here.  That’s of great concern to me, Tim.  I’m probably spending more time in this campaign talking about that than any other candidate.  As I pointed out earlier, when you raise your right hand and take the oath of office, you swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States.  And I think we’re being asked a false dichotomy.  The dichotomy goes something like this:  In order to be safer, we’re going to have to give up some rights.  I think that’s a very dangerous proposal here, and too many people are succumbing to it.  And I refuse to do so here.  If you’re turning over these documents without a court order, Lord only knows what’s in these documents, how much information is there.  It seems to me that if you do that, then you have to pay a price for doing so, in my view, so I’m going to vehemently oppose legislation here that would go forward.

The other good parts of this bill, Jay Rockefeller and Kit Bond have done a good job, in my view, with the FISA legislation generally.  But the idea you get retroactive immunity to some companies who decided to succumb to the administration’s request.  Those that did not, in a sense, have been, I’m told by some, have paid a price financially because they wouldn’t step up to the plate and do what the administration asked them to do.  Habeas corpus.

MR. RUSSERT:  What price did they pay?

SEN. DODD:  Well, economically, there’ve been some talk of Qwest has suffered economically.

MR. RUSSERT:  How?

SEN. DODD:  Well, certain, certain, certain contracts and others that they’ve suffered from.  That’s, that’s the reports.

MR. RUSSERT:  You mean the government punished them?

SEN. DODD:  That’s what we’ve heard, as well.

MR. RUSSERT:  Can you prove that?

SEN. DODD:  Well, it’s—those are the allegations out there.  And again, point out to you, not all companies followed that request.  They said, “Look, give us a court order.” That’s a basic requirement in these kind of things.

MR. RUSSERT:  There’ve been suggestions that you exploited this issue politically for your presidential run, and, and they point to this.  Here’s your Web site.  “Restore the Constitution.  We did it!  You helped us meet our $100,000 goal in 36 hours.  Let’s keep it going.” You used it as a fund-raising tool.

SEN. DODD:  Well, no, we get people, people stepped up to the plate through the Internet and contributed and were helpful in the campaign.

MR. RUSSERT:  But tied specifically to your criticism of that legislation.

SEN. DODD:  Well, the, the point is here, look, Tim, this is a serious issue here that requires a serious response, and I believe, going back, the military commission’s active a year ago.  I think the only person speaking out as strongly as I have against these actions here, this consistent erosion here that worry me very, very much about what’s happening to our Constitution.  But I’ve been asked the question, what’s the first thing I would do on January 20^th, 2009, the consistent answer I’ve given is restore the Constitution.  I’m very worried about where we’re headed with all of this.

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