This week with George Stephanopoulos - Transcript
SHOW: THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (10:30 AM ET) - ABC
August 15, 2004 Sunday
HEADLINE: HEADLINERS JOE BIDEN, CHUCK HAGEL
(Off Camera) In the headlines, President Bush is visiting Florida today to get a firsthand look at the devastation caused by Hurricane Charley. The death toll is now at 13 and officials expect several billion dollars in property damage. And now to that breaking news from Baghdad where at least two people are dead after a mortar attack just yards away from a conference called to pick a national assembly that would supervise next year's elections. And in Najaf, a series of explosions around the cemetery where rebels loyal to Moqtada al Sadr have been fighting with US and Iraqi forces. Prime Minister Allawi is ordering new Iraqi army units to the city after the collapse of truce talks yesterday. And Najaf's police chief has told all foreign media to leave the city because he can no longer guarantee their safety, which brings us to our headliners from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden of Delaware and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. Gentlemen, welcome. And Senator Biden, let me begin with you. We have more explosions in Baghdad this morning. Protests at the national conference. Fighting has broken out in about a dozen cities in Iraq right now and it appears to be a deadly standoff in Najaf. Is the security situation out of control?
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN, DEMOCRAT, DELAWARE
Well, it's not out of control but this is predictable, George. I mean, this is the first in the process of this electoral, the end date of November, excuse me December of '05 this assembly gets picked first. It's predictable, they'd do everything they could to try to disrupt it, the real test to me, George, is that Allawi, the new prime minister is going to take the 5,000 to 7,000 army forces, the only trained forces he has, he's gonna take over the Najaf effort. In fact if he is able to crush that insurgency using those forces he will have gained a significant political and substantive momentum and if he fails and we have to be the ones to go in there and back him up or they don't fight, then it's going to be a Katie-bar-the-door. This is, to me, this is the next big thing to look at in terms of what's likely to happen in the next month.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Hagel, it may be the next big thing but the dilemma facing Prime Minister Allawi is quite acute. On the one hand as Senator Biden points out, he has to show strength against Moqtada al Sadr. On the other hand even if he goes in with Iraqi forces it's gonna risk a backlash across the entire Shiite community.
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL, REPUBLICAN, NEBRASKA
Well, ultimately, George, just as Senator Biden pointed out, success in Iraq will be decided by the Iraqi people. It is still uncertain how that all works out, and as Senator Biden has suggested, this is a very significant test for the prime minister and his government. We can help support. We can do the things that we have been doing, and we'll continue to do but in the end it will be the Iraqi people supporting this government or not that will determine the fate of Iraq.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) But the Iraqi people don't necessarily, Senator Biden, support the idea of going into Najaf, in fact, the vice president has come out against it in the national conference.
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN
Well, that's true, George, but he's got a dilemma here. He either basically surrenders co-control of the future of Iraq to Sadr and his militia or he takes control. The alternative is for us to go in and do that. If we get in near that shrine, we're gonna do damage to that shrine, we find ourselves in a position not only in more trouble in Iraq but throughout the entire Muslim world. So this is a consequence of us giving sovereignty to Allawi but not capacity. This is a reflection of the failure of the administration's year-long effort after Saddam's statue came down and I can't say it any other way. I mean, they have miscalculated at every step what was needed including the force structure going in and the force structure to follow. You even see now they're talking about taking 70,000 troops out of Europe and other places, clearly, part of that motivation has to be they're thinking they're gonna have to put more troops in the region. This is all after the fact. I'm wondering what is Bush's plan here? I mean, what is the plan? Where do we go from here?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Well, that's a good question. I want to get to that in a minute, but first, Senator Hagel, let me just focus on this question of Moqtada al Sadr. Do you believe that Prime Minister Allawi has any choice right now but to take him out? He's tried negotiating. Is force now the only option?
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
Well, it appears that it is, George. I don't have all the facts. None of us do. These are decisions that are always imperfect and imprecise, but the fact is, he cannot defer this decision. He has to act. Senator Biden referred to this earlier in the larger universe of leadership, the people of Iraq are watching this, and the future of Iraq much hinges on this decision, so I think the prime minister is in a very difficult spot, but there will be more difficult spots, and this is one of those situations wherever you go there are no good options. This is a problem. And it's going to continue to be a problem. We've got ourselves in a situation where this is going to be ultimately again as I said determined by the Iraqi people, but in the process, every decision counts, so I suspect that the prime minister is now without any options except to probably use force and use that force directed by the interim Iraqi government and Iraqi forces, not American forces, because it will just accelerate the problems and exacerbate the depth of the anti-Americanism and anti- occupation sensibility in Iraq if the American forces are at the front end of this and I think the prime minister understands that.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Biden, let me turn to the question you raise. You've been saying for a long time that you expected a surge in American troops around the elections, November, December, January. But we're seeing so much fighting now in so many different cities, is now the time to have that uptick?
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN
Well, quite frankly, as you know, I've been saying for over a year we should have had more force in there now, last month, the month before. I think it's the mix of our forces important as well. We have the wrong mix in there because of the poor planning. And so I think there is a need for force. And George, look, the president finally went to the United Nations belatedly, a year late, gets a resolution calling for the UN Security Council to support the political process, security forces, trainers, UN protection, et cetera, and not a single solitary foreign country has lifted a hand to help so far. They've not done a darned thing and they voted for this and this requires some leadership here, and we, they can't sit in the sidelines any longer. Look, initially we thought there would be somewhere between 300 and 500 UN forces to come in to do a whole myriad of things, I got them written down here from pull off the election to coordinate the delivery of reconstruction, et cetera. And they're now committing 35, 3-5, because there's no force to protect them and so there's, there is a need for more force protection including a much more rapid training, serious training of Iraqi police and Iraqi military and I quite frankly don't know what the president's plan is here. I don't know how he plans on doing this.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Hagel, do you know what the president's plan is?
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
Well, I don't think the president has just like the prime minister, many options here. The fact is we are where we are. And you can't unwind this. You can't go back to 12 months ago and say, gee, I think we should have calibrated a little differently. We've got a big problem on our hands. Many of us were concerned before going into Iraq and questioned a lot of these things before we went into Iraq about are we prepared for an occupation force? Are we prepared for all the uncontrollables and unknowns? But Senator Biden has covered that but we now move forward, and we go to where we are today, August 15th.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) And on August 15th, do we need more troops?
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
We have got a situation not just in Iraq but this is a regional issue, too, and we're decoupling I think some of our focus here from the larger stability/security issues of the Middle East so we've got to see it in the total universe, not just our presence in Iraq, but the fact is, if you do put more troops in, then you sink deeper into that terrible word quagmire and it is not unlike what we found in Vietnam over years, you just keep putting more and more troops in, propping up governments, propping up governments and in the end if the people are not with you, you lose so it's a tough situation for both President Bush and the prime minister.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) So are you for putting more troops in now or against it?
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
I'm sorry, George. I didn't hear you.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Are you for putting more troops in now or against it?
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
Well, I think we have to rely on our commanders' analysis on the ground. I think we should be careful with that, that those commanders are not nuanced or compromised by the civilian leadership in the Pentagon saying, well, I've said we'll listen to the commanders, but, wink, wink, the commanders say we don't need more troops. This is a time for uniformed military to show some courage and step up and say either we do or we don't but be honest, because, because this is going to have tremendous consequences that go well beyond Iraq, whatever decisions we make. We cannot lose in Iraq, in the Middle East because if we do, we will open up a generation of problems here that we can't, any of us quite comprehend. It is now very much up to the courage and the leadership of the uniformed military to be very straight with our policymakers.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Finally, excuse me, Senator Biden, one more point there because president Bush is taking aim at Senator Kerry's plan. Senator Kerry's suggestion that he would be able to reduce, have significant reductions in troops within six months of being elected. I want to show you what President Bush said and get you to respond.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, UNITED STATES
We all want the mission to be completed as quickly as possible. But we want the mission to be completed. Secondly, the mission is not going to be completed as quickly as possible if the enemy thinks that we're going to be removing a substantial number of troops in six months.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Doesn't he have a point?
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN
Yeah, he does have a point. That's not what John said, though. I spoke with John Kerry. Because I heard that and I quite frankly called him. And he said look, the caveats he put out there were simple. He said if in fact he were president he would expect he would have been able to get more of our European allies to step up to the ball and provide forces, a greater involvement of NATO and of the Arab countries and if that occurred he would be able to begin to draw down American forces but he also said that if he, if he inherits in January 20th if he's sworn in as president of the United States a circumstance where it's totally deteriorated he has totally different options he has to face. The irony here is, George, this is a lot more than troops. For example, we appropriated $18.5 billion to reconstruct Iraq. Chiarelli, the commander of the first cavalry, a guy can shoot straight, a hard, tough military guy says I need more money in Sadr City fix the sewage, to take out the garbage. That helps me keep my guys from getting killed. You know what we've spent? We have spent less than a billion dollars so far out there. It's incompetence. It's incompetence now so the president, what's his plan? What are we going to do, Mr. President, beyond troops, in addition to troops. What are you going to do? He was going to give us six additional speeches, George. Where are the speeches? He was going to tell us about what he was going to do in Iraq. Other than attacking Kerry and Kerry attacking him, I wish that somebody would come and tell at least me what, in fact, he has in mind.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Okay, Senator Biden, Senator Hagel, thank you both very much. We'll be back with Fareed Zakaria, George Will and Dan Senor.