MSNBC Meet The Press-Transcript

MSNBC Meet The Press-Transcript

MR. RUSSERT: Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, Democratic Senator Jack Reed on Iraq after this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: And we are back. Senator Hagel, Senator Reed, welcome both.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R-NE): Thank you.

SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: The House over-the majority, solid majority, said no to president's troop surge in Iraq, 56 Senators on record, including you, Senator Hagel, one of seven Republicans, saying the president should not do this. What message does that send to the world? What message does that send to the troops?

SEN. HAGEL: Well, first, this is a democracy, and the Congress not only has a constitutional responsibility to engage in matters of war, but also a moral responsibility. We've been at war for four years. It has taken a heavy toll on this country in both American lives and treasure. I think we have a situation in Iraq that is far worse today than it was a year ago, four years ago. I think the Middle East today is the most combustible it's ever been. It is time for the Congress to be part of the decision making process. The American people want it that way, that's why you have a Congress. We're Article I of the, of the Constitution. We tried a monarchy once, it didn't work very well. So we have an obligation to those, first of all, servicemen and their families, the ones we ask to make the sacrifice. They deserve a policy worthy of their sacrifices. And I don't believe that policy is now in existence. So the Congress must be part of this debate now.

As far as supporting our troops, our troops understand this. I was in Vietnam in 1968, I would have welcomed, in 1968, the Congress that held hearings, that looked at what was going on in 1968 in Vietnam. They understand what this is about. And I, I think it's really scurrilous for those to try to divide this country and say we don't support our troops, or we're less than enthusiastic, that's just not true. I, I get e-mails, I get conversations through phone calls, personal relationships from people who were there, their parents, their spouses. This is not a matter of either you just continue to stay the course, which some want to do, or take another look at it. These troops deserve better, and I think the American people expect better and will demand better.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Reed, let me bring up a point that was raised by Tony Snow, and by John McCain in the Armed Services Committee hearing with General Petraeus. You voted to confirm General Petraeus to head the unit-oversee our troops in Iraq, along with Senator Hagel. Senator McCain asked this question: "Suppose we send you over to your new job ... only we tell you that you can't have any additional troops. Can you get your job done?" Lieutenant General Petraeus: 'No, sir.'" Why would you vote to confirm him and then oppose giving him the troops he says he needs to get the job done?

SEN. REED: Well, this issue is about the president's plan, not General Petraeus' plan. General Petraeus is a competent officer. And frankly, he was confirmed because of his competence, his experience, his ability. But this issue, this debate is about the president's plan. I think the president's plan is wrong, I think it's been wrong since the beginning. I voted against the operation in October of 2002. I think we have to get the president to change course, to adopt a strategy that's consistent with long-term goals and values of the United States. So to raise the issue, I think it's just absolutely illogical that well, you can't send a competent military officer over there, it misses the point. The point is the president has to change course. We have to have a strategy involving diplomacy, involving more than just the military.

The president's talked from-for years now about standing up the Iraqi security forces, getting the economy of Iraq going, making the Iraqi government make hard, political decisions. One component of that is military. He fails miserably on many other components: the reconstruction, the political decision making of the Iraqi government.

MR. RUSSERT: What does the Senate do now? The filibuster has worked, preventing this vote of a nonbinding resolution. Congressman John Murtha of the House side said this:

"His plans for placing conditions on how President George W. Bush can spend $93.4 billion in new combat funds would effectively stop an American troop buildup. 'They won't be able to continue. They won't be able to do the deployment. They won't have the equipment, they don't have the training and they won't be able to do the work.' ...

"As the chairman of a House of Representatives panel that oversees military spending, Murtha plans to advance legislation next month attaching strings to the additional war funds Bush requested on February 5."

Senator Hagel, will you support Congressman Murtha's approach that say no one can spend more than a year in Iraq, and they're not going there without the proper training and equipment, which in effect-in Murtha's words-would stop the surge?

SEN. HAGEL: Well, first, I think Congressman Murtha makes some very valid points. Many of the points that he makes in what I assume, as you note, he is going to propose, were the result of questions that some of us asked four years ago. For example, the tempo of troops. How can you continue to have that kind of rotation schedule? Not many people listen. Now, when the House passes whatever they're going to pass, it will come over to the Senate, as you note; we'll take a look at it, and we'll have that debate. That debate will be forced on us. We need to have that debate.

This debate, partly, is not about supporting the troops there. Now, of course we're going to support the troops. There isn't anybody in the House or Senate that would vote otherwise. What this debate is about right now is a continuation and an escalation of American military involvement in Iraq, putting young men and women in the middle of a sectarian, an intra-sectarian civil war. That's what this debate is really about. So, yes, I'm going to look very carefully at Congressman Murtha's points. And again, when you...

MR. RUSSERT: And you may be open to them?

SEN. HAGEL: And I'd be open to it. Just one other thing on this. When the outgoing chief of staff of the United States Army testified before Senator Reed's Armed Services Committee this week, and he, in his words, said that this is just the tip of the iceberg. The damage that we're doing to our force structure because of these third and fourth rotations in Iraq, we're decimating our National Guard here in this country. What we're doing to the equipment of the Marines and the Army. Somebody better get a hold of this, and Murtha's right, I think, in a lot of the points he makes.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Reed, would you be open to Congressman Murtha's taking funding down unless the troops met certain requirements of training?

SEN. REED: Well, I, I noticed Tony Snow agreed with that, saying that the president's not going to send troops in without training, without equipment, etc.

MR. RUSSERT: But the president's going to oppose Congressman Murtha's attempt to limit funding. Would you support limiting funding for the troops involved in the surge?

SEN. REED: Well, I think the critical issue here is getting the mission right and to fund those, those missions appropriately. The missions that we should concentrate on are going after al-Qaeda, security, building up the Iraqi security forces, maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq. But conducting an operation in the midst of a civil war in Baghdad is one I don't think is going to help us in the long run. I think we have to look, as Senator Hagel suggested, about funding. But I think we have to focus most critically on the missions, and guaranteeing to our troops that those missions with-that are in the interest to the United States will be funded.

MR. RUSSERT: But the point is, the president seems to welcome this debate on funding because he believes, as Mr. Snow repeatedly said, overwhelmingly, the American people do not want to withhold funding for the troops on the ground. Would the Democrats be willing to use the purse strings, the power you have, to stop funding the new surge of troops in Iraq?

SEN. REED: I think we've begun a process with this, these series of votes. First, clearly, on a bipartisan basis, a majority of the House and the Senate opposes the president's strategy. That's a clarion call, I think, for him to change the strategy. Second, we're sitting down already with Senator Reid and Senator Biden, Senator Dodd, many others, and trying to work out a new approach. I think it begins with refocusing the mission and then resourcing that mission. Down the road, will we consider issues with respect to funding? I think so. But we'll never compromise the ability of American soldiers to protect themselves. That's something that I won't do; that's something that I believe Chuck won't do.

What the president is doing is inviting a debate. I think it's a false debate. The debate is about taking away resources that will protect troops. We won't do that. But we have to change the strategy for the long term interests of this country, and for, I think, success. Success not measured in the president's terms, but success in terms of much more stable region in the Middle East.

MR. RUSSERT: Is there a concern that the funding of the troops is a political radioactive issue that could backfire on the Democrats?

SEN. REED: Well, I don't think it's a concern that it's a radioactive issue, but the president is inviting a debate and citing polls. There's no American, and I don't think there's any senator, that's consciously going to take away equipment, training dollars for American personnel. And again, this is the administration that went into this operation without a good plan for an occupation, went in without sufficient armored humvees, without body armor for troops, without training in counterinsurgency operations, despite the conventional success of that march into Baghdad. This is an administration that has persistently overstressed the Army. Chuck and I, in 2003, made the first proposal to increase the size of the Army. It's only within several months that the president has embraced the idea of a larger Army. So their attention to the needs of the military, I think could be faulted significantly. And now they want to use the Army and the funding as a sort of political crutch.

MR. RUSSERT: On the issue of the funding, a fellow Vietnam veteran, Sam Johnson of Texas, POW, went to the House floor and said this. Let's watch:

(Videotape, February 16, 2007):

REP. SAM JOHNSON (R-TX): We POWs were still in Vietnam when Washington cut the funding for Vietnam. I know what it does to morale and mission success.

MR. RUSSERT: That would be very much the debate you would hear if you tampered with the funding for this war, no?

SEN. HAGEL: Well, that's what a debate is about. The president himself has welcomed this debate. The president himself, in his words, has said if there are alternatives, if there are suggestions, if we should be doing something better, I want to hear about it. Tony Snow talked about some of those things. So that's what a debate's about, and there'll be various points of view. But we must have the debate, we can't run from it and defer it. Because again, I think when we look at not just the most immediate component of this, and that being Iraq, but when you look at the larger context of the Middle East, where's our new diplomatic initiatives? Where are, are the new efforts that are being made economically? Where are our allies and our friends in the Middle East? What's their position on, for example, a regional security conference? We're just focused on the military. The military is not going to decide the outcome in Iraq. I think that is complete folly. It will be the Iraqi people, it will be the neighbors of Iraq that will make that decision. We can help, but we can't impose our will, our government, our standards, never have been able to, on anyone. So we have got to have, just as the Baker-Hamilton Commission report noted in its 79 recommendations, a new comprehensive package. That will be part of the debate, and certainly everybody will have their opportunity to register their thoughts on this.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Reed, Iran-what is your reaction to the emphasis this administration has had on Iran and the roadside explosives this past week?

SEN. REED: Well, I was in Iraq a year ago, and military leaders showed me some of these projectiles, so the administration has known of this for many, many months. Bringing it out today I think is an attempt really to try to change some of the issues here in Washington more than the issues here in Iraq and Iran, get attention away from the, from the issues of strategy within Iraq. And I think we have to protect our forces, we have to interdict these supplies. But I'm nervous, as many others are, about this as a prelude to more comprehensive action against the Iranians in the military. And I think the military, from my-who I talked to, are very concerned, because they know, given our involvement in Iraq, we are not as strategically well placed to deal with the Iranians today. This is one of the consequences of this failed strategy the president has. Of a concentration of 140,000 Americans in a very difficult civil war in Iraq, we don't have the strategic and military flexibility to deal with Iran. So the president, I think, is making a-making noise, but I, I think it's more to divert us away from the issues within Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you agree with that?

SEN. HAGEL: Well, I would approach it this way. And I had an opportunity to speak with the president's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, yesterday morning, and we spent a good amount of time talking about Iran. I can't obviously share with you all that conversation. But I'm somewhat encouraged with what I heard from Mr. Hadley yesterday morning, that the administration not only accept-accepts the understanding of a larger context in dealing with Iran, the Middle East-which includes Iraq, obviously the Israeli-Palestinian issue the secretary of state is dealing with today in the Middle East.

But Iran is complicated. The fact is, Iran is probably the most powerful nation in the Middle East, probably has the most influence in Iraq of any nation, is not going away. It's a reality, we're going to have to engage them. Baker-Hamilton report suggested that, as others. Some of us have been saying that from some time. How are we-how are we enhancing our relationship? How are things getting better? Are they getting better? No, they're getting worse. I would just remind all-all of us that Ronald Reagan used the evil empire definition of the Soviet Union, speech after speech, but yet he sat down with Gorbachev. They almost came to an agreement on abolishing nuclear weapons. But he engaged, he understood the need for diplomacy. And that's the missing component, in my opinion.

MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned Ronald Reagan. Vice President Cheney invoked Ronald Reagan about you in Newsweek magazine. "I believe firmly in Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment: Thou shall not speak ill of a fellow Republican. But it's very hard sometimes to adhere to that where Chuck Hagel is involved."

SEN. HAGEL: Well, I can't answer for the vice president's comments, but I do find that a bit puzzling, because I noted two weeks ago, Congressional Quarterly rated the 100 United States senators on their support of the Bush administration's policies in the Senate last year, 30 votes. The senior senator from Nebraska was the number one supporter of George Bush's policies in the Senate last year. Now, my friend Jack Reed will move further away from me hearing that. But I can't answer to the vice president. I certainly never said anything about him or anyone else, I don't get personal and that's the way I leave it.

MR. RUSSERT: You said last month you would decide this month whether you were going to run for president in 2008. Will you?

SEN. HAGEL: I'll make a decision within a couple of weeks, and make that public.

MR. RUSSERT: Is there room for an anti-war candidate in the Republican primary field?

SEN. HAGEL: Well, I don't, and wouldn't, consider myself an anti-war candidate if I sought the nomination for president in the Republican Party. It's bigger than just the war. We've got entitlement issues, we've got tax issues, we've got environmental issues, health care issues.

MR. RUSSERT: But it is the number one issue.

SEN. HAGEL: It is the number one issue. And if I ran for the president, I would put forth a plan as to how do we get out of Iraq, what do we do about the Middle East. I don't think you can talk about Iraq without talking about the composite dynamic of the Middle East. But I'll, I'll you know and that decision and announcement will come within a couple of weeks.

MR. RUSSERT: Will it take Republicans going to George W. Bush rather than Democrats to have a significant alteration in the course in the war in Iraq?

SEN. REED: I think Republican influence on the president might be more decisive than the Democratic voices, because frankly, he probably assumes that Republicans will support him-they have for so many years now-and when they begin to question seriously, as many are, his policies, I think that'll have an effect. I hope it has an effect. I think the biggest development this weekend is this emerging bipartisan opposition to the president's policies. I think if it was just strictly Democrat he would dismiss it as partisan. In fact, many Americans would dismiss it as just partisanship. But when you see a majority of Senate-majority in the Senate...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, it's seven Republicans in the Senate and 17 in the House.

SEN. REED: Well, that's-that's progress. The last cloture vote we didn't have seven Republicans.

SEN. HAGEL: You know, Tim, war does not discriminate as to casualties. Republicans, Independents, agnostics, Bolsheviks, Democrats, all die in war. And that's what the polls show very clearly across America today, about position on where we are in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Chuck Hagel and Senator Jack Reed, thanks for your views.

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