MSNBC Hardball - Transcript

MSNBC Hardball - Transcript
Wednesday, November 30, 2005

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MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia attended President Bush‘s speech today at the Naval Academy. He‘s also chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

You know, when you passed that resolution, that bipartisan resolution a few weeks ago—

SEN. JOHN WARNER, CHMN, ARMED SERVICES CMTE: Seventy-nine votes.

MATTHEWS: -- very strong resolution—you called for a significant transition in Iraq next year. Did you hear that in the president‘s speech today, a significant transition in Iraq toward Iraqi responsibility?

WARNER: I heard it both in the president‘s remarks and the secretary of Defense. That bipartisan document was to send a strong message to the Iraqi people, "We‘re going to give you that support you needed, but you‘ve got to redouble, you‘ve got to triple your efforts to begin to pick up the responsibility of training the forces and rebuilding your infrastructure to exercise full sovereignty over that nation."

MATTHEWS: Did you hear that today from the president? I only heard his commitment from our end.

WARNER: You bet. But I had an opportunity to visit with him afterwards. He‘s going to do four speeches in the next three weeks. And he‘s taking segment one—and he did it very well—talking about the progress we made in the training of the forces. Segment two is the subject about trying to get unification between the government of the Sunnis, Shi‘a and the whole group—and Kurds.

MATTHEWS: Should that be our job as Americans, to try and build a country in Iraq?

WARNER: No, but we help them build their own country and make their own decisions.

MATTHEWS: Jack Murtha just said we shouldn‘t be in a shooting war between the Shia and the Sunnis. We should only be there in a, kind of a potential decision. In other words, we‘re ready to move, we can project our strength if there‘s actual terrorists there from outside. We should hit them. But we shouldn‘t be shooting at Sunnis, simply because they don‘t want to be ruled by the Shia. He said that shouldn‘t be our job of our military.

WARNER: I listened to that part as I was waiting to come in. And I have a great deal of respect for my good friend Jack and he is, we‘re both former Marines. But listen, the point is, pulling our folks out across another border—the fundamental thing in military operations is you don‘t give up the high ground when you‘ve got it, to fight yourself back in. That‘s No. 1.

Two, you cannot neatly sort out among these insurgents, and I still call them insurgents, the guys that are causing all the problems. The ones that come from across the borders, or internally, fighting among themselves, Iraqis. It‘s not a neat distinction that any trooper, going down to clear out a village, can make that decision.

So we‘re there, and we‘ve got to as our president did today, send a strong message to the troops, to the Iraqi people, that we‘re with you. The next four to six months, Chris, is critical.

MATTHEWS: How long can the president sustain this position that we‘re there interminably, that we‘re going to stay until we get the job done? That‘s a strong position, you‘ve got to respect that. I do, I just love clarity, I love it when somebody says what they believe.

He didn‘t say, we‘ll get out in two or three years, or five or seven years. He said, "we‘ll get out when we have a democracy that can defend itself. The Democrats aren‘t that clear, although Murtha‘s damn clear. He says six months, we‘re out of there. But is that—in your state, we just had an election in Virginia, we all live around that state. Your state went Democrat, Virginia Beach went Democrat for the first time since ‘81, The tenth, Davis‘s district went Democrat. What‘s going on here?

WARNER: You don‘t have to tell me, what‘s the question.

MATTHEWS: Well do you think the country is rallying to the president?

WARNER: What‘s the alternative? I think the president did a good job today. I think in the next few weeks, you‘re going to see an improvement. And the answer to your question is, what is the alternative?

MATTHEWS: Murtha‘s decision.

WARNER: No, no, no. The alternative, if we do not press and succeed in the goals, working with the Iraqis and coalition forces, that whole region will implode. You‘ll bring about civil war in Iraq, you‘ll destabilize all of the countries around, you‘ll put Israel in a very tenuous and vulnerable position. We have no alternative.

MATTHEWS: How is this hurting Israel if they‘re...

WARNER: Because it‘s bring terrorism back here, home.

MATTHEWS: OK, if Arabs are fighting Arabs, doesn‘t that make Israel vulnerable? Doesn‘t that make them better off?

WARNER: You cannot let that nation fall into the hands of the al-Zarqawis, the Osama bin Ladens. It would become an enormous training camp for all types of people.

MATTHEWS: Even if one side won that civil war, why would they let a training camp remain there?

WARNER: The civil war would just devastate this country. There‘s no alternative. We have got to see this thing through, to help the Iraqi people establish full sovereignty.

MATTHEWS: The president said today, very directly and Jack Murtha challenged it, in fact, he said he didn‘t believe it. The president said all the generals in the field over there, people like Casey, George Casey, all they have to do is call me up and say they need more troops, and I‘ll send them. Have you ever heard this?

WARNER: Oh, many times.

MATTHEWS: They don‘t need more troops?

WARNER: Look, I‘ve been in the debates myself with Abizaid and Casey. I‘ve been there six times. That question comes up repeatedly. And I disagree with my good friend, Murtha. It is an accurate answer that the president gives, that he will provide more troops if those generals request them.

But right now, I think we‘re focusing on maintaining the force that we have, having a reduction which reduces the buildup we‘re doing for the elections, on December 15. That‘ll come down about 10 or 15 maybe 20,000...

MATTHEWS: ... high at 130s?

WARNER: Go to about 138 and continue at that level.

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the report, it‘s a little bit smaller issue here—I don‘t consider it anywhere as important as the war. But the "L.A. Times" report, Mr. Chairman, that said that the U.S. military men and women uniform people, are writing news articles. Phony news articles for Iraqi newspapers that are translated into Arabic and building up. In other words, they‘re P.R. material. Should we be doing propaganda?

WARNER: Chris, I saw that for the first time today. And as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, we‘ll look into that because I‘m concerned that our credibility abroad is very important. And if we‘re manufacturing things or taking our wonderful troops and trying to translate their ideas into something that‘s more our idea, rather than the trooper‘s idea, then I think we should be looking at it.

MATTHEWS: Should we be telling the Iraqis what‘s going on in there by propaganda? Should we be using the local newspapers in Iraq to plant stories written by our soldiers?

WARNER: Chris, neither you nor I can sort this out. I‘ve got to look into it. But we do not want our credibility hurt.

MATTHEWS: Have you talked to the Pentagon about this, because they‘re not saying anything.

WARNER: I was with the secretary of defense today. We didn‘t have a chance to cover that, but I will look into it.

MATTHEWS: Is he there for the rest of the term, do you believe?

WARNER: I think it‘s important that the person of the president‘s choice, and he is it—I work with him regularly, we make it work together. We have our differences, but we get along and we work it together.

It‘s the president‘s choice, and frankly, I think he would be well advised to see this thing to the point where we can begin that long last. Maybe not declare victory, but say our basic goals are being achieved.

MATTHEWS: One of the promises of the Defense Department, which you oversee, was that this war would be paid for by the Iraqi oil.

WARNER: No, I remember Wolfowitz said that.

MATTHEWS: Wolfowitz said that, and apparently—I saw another article in the same piece, that Rummy backed that up—Rumsfeld backed that up.

What happened? Was that just a sales pitch for the war? What happened to the idea they‘d pay? Why do we have to pay? You‘ve got another supplemental coming down the line, the president announced today:

$3.9 billion on top of the $18 billion that Murtha talked about it. It never ends, it‘s a money pit.

WARNER: Chris, I study military history. No war has ever been fought without some misjudgments and mistakes being made.

MATTHEWS: Do you think that promise was a credible promise?

WARNER: That‘s a clear misinformation. It was the best estimate at that time.

MATTHEWS: That they would pay for the whole thing?

WARNER: That they would pay for it. But that turned not to be true. We‘re spending $6 billion a month of the U.S. taxpayer funds on this conflict.

MATTHEWS: I mean, the question is, if you bought a car and they said it‘s going to give you 30 miles to the gallon and it gives you three, you wouldn‘t buy a car from the same crowd again, would you? I mean these people are making commitments like, the Iraqis are going to treat us as liberators when we get there, we‘re in a war. We‘re going to have WMD when there. All these commitments—are you still trusting the military, the civilian leadership of the Pentagon?

WARNER: The answer is yes. Chris, I freely acknowledge that some misstatements and mistakes were made in the past. There will be plenty of time to debate that. And we should have a strong debate on those issues. And we did experience it.

That‘s one of the reasons I‘m so pleased with the president‘s speech today, because given the background of what we did in Congress, whether it was my amendment, the 79 votes or Jack Murtha‘s amendment where 400 House voted against it, we needed to send a strong message to our troops, to the nations of the world. We are still going to work with the Iraqi people and back our troops and let the Iraqis achieve that goal, and take charge of that land. Then the conditions will allow us to formulate some plans for the timetable of withdrawal. No timetables now.

MATTHEWS: Senator Warner of Virginia, thank now for coming over.

Thank you, John Warner, for coming over here.

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