CNN Daybreak Transcript

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0502/01/lad.02.html
Let's head live to Washington and Congressman Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California. He serves on the House International Relations Committee. Welcome.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Carol, welcome to you, and good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid delivered the Democratic pre-buttal before the National Press Club yesterday. But why didn't they wait until after the president's State of the Union as usual?

SCHIFF: Well, actually there's a new tradition of offering the pre-buttal. Every side wants to get out their message as quickly as they can. So, both Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi got out early and tried to articulate the Democratic message.

And I think what Democrats really want to hear from the president is how are we going to build upon this really remarkable election in Iraq. And it was a wonderful, wonderful election. We were all, I think, delighted to see Iraqis turn out in relatively high numbers at the risk of their own lives. It's really a tribute to the Iraqi people.

And more importantly, it's a tribute to the American soldiers that are out there in harm's way every day. They did an incredible job in securing that country so elections could take place. And...

COSTELLO: And on the topic of soldiers and our troops over there, one of the topics touched on in the pre-buttal is troop strength in Iraq. Let's listen to Senator Reid.

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SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Because this administration's policies have left our troops stretched too thin and shouldering far too much the burden, we need to add to our troop levels. We need to do this by making sure that our people, our military, have enough soldiers to do the job, both in Iraq and around the world in our war on terror. What this means is increasing our Army and Marines by at least 40,000 troops over the next two years.

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COSTELLO: Now, that comment comes at a time after those wonderful Iraqi elections. And many say it's time to reduce troops in Iraq. Forty thousand, really?

SCHIFF: I think actually Senator Reid is exactly right. And what we're talking about is increasing the overall troop strength of the American armed forces, not necessarily the troops in Iraq.

The problem is that we are putting such a strain on our Guard and Reserves that are being called up time and time again. The Guard and Reservists are really becoming regulars in the military forces. That was not their expectation. A lot are being taken away from their jobs, from their families, for extended periods. And, unfortunately, we have the Army very close to a breaking point. We're already seeing real trouble with the recruitment and retention. When we generally have people that are leaving the active duty, they often will join the Reserves and the Guards.

COSTELLO: So, where do you find...

SCHIFF: But they're not joining in the same numbers.

COSTELLO: So, where do you find 40,000 more troops? Where do you find these people?

SCHIFF: Well, we're going to have to do aggressive recruiting and incentive programs to attract new people to come into the service. But this, I think, extraordinarily important. I would go beyond. I think we probably need to add closer to 25,000 troops a year for several years just to keep up with the commitments that we've undertaken.

But I think also Senator Reid in his speech talked about the need for the president to really develop a clear plan for how are we going to train-up, stand up the Iraqi military forces.

When I was in Iraq and met with General Portrais (ph), who at the time was in charge of that effort, it looked promising. But those promises haven't been kept. We haven't been able to bring those troops up to strength, and that's the key ultimately to our being able to leave Iraq.

COSTELLO: Well, you have to admit, though, they did pretty darn good during the elections, because the Iraqis were the ones at the polling stations closest to them.

SCHIFF: Well, the elections were wonderful. But, you know, it's very important that we not have another mission accomplished moment, where we think that the war is essentially over, the political struggle has ended, as we saw in the bombing that you just reported from Erbil. The violence goes on. It's likely to continue.

And I think we've missed a great opportunity the first time the president declared mission accomplished not to bring the rest of the world in, not to really internationalize the work in Iraq.

We had a wonderful election on Saturday in Iraq. Let's use the momentum of that election, not only to bring all of the parties in Iraq together-the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Kurds and others-but also to bring the nations of the world back together into playing a positive and a constructive role in Iraq. This really ought to be a great opportunity to bring the world together and bring Iraq back together.

COSTELLO: All right, Congressman Schiff, thank you for joining DAYBREAK this morning. We appreciate it.

SCHIFF: You're welcome. Thank you, Carol.