Senators John McCain and Bob Graham discuss funding the war in Iraq
NBC News Transcripts
Meet the Press
October 19, 2003 Sunday
HEADLINE: Senators John McCain and Bob Graham discuss funding the war in Iraq
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Bob Graham, you voted against the $87 billion in funding the president had requested for Iraq. You heard Senator Ted Stevens earlier in the soundbite saying that to vote against that money was not to support the men and women on the ground in Iraq. How can you disagree with that?
SEN. BOB GRAHAM, (D-FL): Tim, first, I'm very pleased to be here with my good friend and thoughtful American, John McCain, to discuss this important issue. But I come to a different conclusion. Based on the question of which course of action will allow us to leave Iraq honorably and expeditiously, I think the current course, which is to do it alone, to ask for another $87 billion that will largely take any pressure off this administration to negotiate seriously for internationalization of the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq is a course of action for a much prolonged U.S. stay in Iraq.
I think that the only way in which we are going to leave with honor and with expedition is to add to the U.S. forces, a significant number of international forces which will both bring the total numbers up to what's required to secure the peace in Iraq and to provide additional other troops who will be able to relieve the U.S. troops who are now carrying virtually the whole burden. This is very similar to what happened in places like Bosnia, where it started with a substantial U.S. presence and gradually it was internationalized. I think we should do the same thing in Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: But if every Senator had voted the way you did, would our troops be left with nothing on the ground?
SEN. GRAHAM: No, we would have had enough to have continued to support the troops at the current level, which is approximately $1 billion a week, for a reasonable period of time for the administration to re-engaged with the international community, to develop a resolution in the United Nations which not only could receive a unanimous vote but it could also result in some actual troops on the ground and francs or rupees into the treasury to support the reconstruction. The interesting thing last week was, yes, the U.N. passed a resolution, and then immediately thereafter, countries like Russia, France, Germany, Pakistan all stated that they would not send any troops and they would not provide any of the financing.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, if they're not going to provide any of the financing or send any of the troops, and if you didn't want to fund or increase funding for the American troops, we're left with nothing.
SEN. GRAHAM: No, because I believe that if we were willing to share responsibility with other countries, if we're asking them to take on some of this burden, the burden, as you described, of the shooting gallery which Iraq has become and the financial burden of Iraq, that we would be able to get other countries to join us and bring some of their troops. And I hope that we could get as many as 100,000-plus non-U.S. troops in Iraq to both increase the numbers to the level necessary to secure Iraq, and second, provide some relief for the U.S. troops who have been there a long, long time under very danger circumstances.
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MR. RUSSERT: Senator Graham, let me show you a survey from the Stars & Stripes newspaper which is funded in part by the Pentagon. "How do you rate your military unit's moral?" This is asking U.S. service members in Iraq. Low, 49 percent; average, 34 percent; high, 16 percent. How much does that concern you?
SEN. GRAHAM: Well, it concerns me a great deal because there are other consequences to our unwillingness to share responsibility and, thus, get others to accept part of the burden of occupation and rebuilding of Iraq, and one of them is that I am concerned about a loss of domestic support for the war in Iraq, that we may be going on a track similar to that which we did in Vietnam. As recently as April of this year, 75 percent of the American people supported our position in Iraq. As of October the 14th, it was down to less than 50 percent. And this report from the morale of the troops is very worrisome, about an erosion of support for the war among those who are actually bearing the burden of the war.
And let me add one other issue. We've essentially abandoned the war on terror since the spring of 2002. We have made very limited progress other than capturing a few of the Taliban and al-Qaeda leadership. We need to get re-engaged on this war on terror. The terrorists are becoming more dangerous. They're now targeting U.S. citizens in Israel, as they did a few days ago. The groups that are being given sanctuary in Syria have grown in strength while we have not laid a glove on them. I think we need, as part of our strategy of an honorable and expeditious exit from Iraq, to restart the war on terror.
MR. RUSSERT: In fact, you have said that we are approaching a 21st century sequel to Vietnam and called Iraq a quagmire. That's a little strong, isn't it?
SEN. GRAHAM: I think it's absolutely descriptive, that it is a quagmire. We're losing one soldier a day. We had, I believe on Thursday or Friday of this week, four soldiers killed. We're having 10 Americans maimed per day. We're spending a billion dollars a week, and under this appropriation, it will go up to $1.3 billion a week. This is a quagmire. And if we don't have a strategy to exit honorably and expeditiously, I think it has the fingerprints of another Vietnam.
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MR. RUSSERT: General Wesley Clark is quoted today in Time magazine, an aide to him is saying that General Clark would have voted against the $87 billion. How would you respond to that, Senator McCain?
SEN. McCAIN: I would respond that General Clark knows better.
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Graham?
SEN. GRAHAM: All right. Tim, first, I don't believe our options are to either pay up alone, go it alone in Iraq or get out. There are other countries in the world which have an interest in what's going to happen in Iraq, important allies which have real capability to help finance and provide troops in Iraq. What's happening now is this administration wants to maintain full control over the political and economic circumstances of an occupied Iraq and has been unwilling to enter into those sharings of responsibility which are concurrent with the sharings of burden in Iraq.
Second, going back to an earlier question about this issue of whether we should try to finance some of this reconstruction by loans, the practical effect of us making all of our money grants is to increase the security of the loans, which are currently outstanding, from a number of other countries. One of the things that inflames me is the fact that if one of those countries which has a major debt position with Iraq is a country which, at the least, cooperated with and may have been complicit with the terrorists who led the attack on September 11, and now we're about to use American taxpayers' money to secure their loan. It's outrageous that we are acting in a manner that's requiring the American taxpayers, really, the children and grandchildren of the American taxpayers, since we're not proposing to finance this war now but rather we're adding it to the national debt...
MR. RUSSERT: Right.
SEN. GRAHAM: ...to do so to the benefit of a country which has not been an ally of the United States.
MR. RUSSERT: Both of you were very outspoken for a national commission to look into the events of September 11. As you know, the Bush administration initially opposed such an idea. Tom Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who is chairman of that commission, had some very strong comments this week, and let me show you both on our board here: "Agency Has Kean Feeling Frustrated; Key 9/11 Documents Still Not Handed Over. The problem; The [9/11] panel is still trying to gain access to intelligence reports that might shed some light on the Sept. 11 attacks. The day also found the usually affable Tom Kean barely hiding his frustration as another obstacle blocked efforts to obtain documents his commission wants in order to look into how the 19 Islamic militants managed to hijack four jetliners and kill more than 3,000 people two years ago."
Senator Graham, is the administration stonewalling this commission?
SEN. GRAHAM: Well, that's exactly what they did to our congressional bipartisan, bicameral commission which spent a year looking into the events leading up to 9/11, and we had some ability to counteract the administration through our involvement in appropriations and other matters. This commission is naked out there alone. In our case, even after we finished the report, what I considered to be the most significant chapter, the chapter about foreign involvement in the incidents leading up to 9/11 and the administration's involvement in actions subsequent to September the 11th was totally censured, and I would bet that this commission, if it gets into those issues, is going to find the same result, withholding important information from the American people.
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MR. RUSSERT: Senator Bob Graham, Ed Gillespie, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, had this to say about you the other day: "I think a lot of Florida voters have looked up and are wondering, 'Who is this person? This is not the person we voted for repeatedly for statewide office.' I think a lot of the support that Bob Graham has enjoyed from independent voters and, frankly, many Republican voters in the past is not going to be there for him next November and he's very likely to be defeated," if, in fact, you run for re-election as senator from Florida.
SEN. GRAHAM: Tim, the reason that I felt so passionate and have expressed myself with, I hope, clarity, is the fact that I think this country has tremendous opportunities. America is a great country. The Cold War is over. We have passed through the period of increasing the productivity of our economy. We have a tremendous future ahead of us, if we don't fall into the wrong track. And I think, as Senator McCain just said, it is the wrong track to be adding these enormous amounts to our national debt. It is the wrong track to not pursue aggressively the war on terror, where we could eliminate the people who really have the capability of killing Americans. Those are the messages that I tried to carry in my presidential campaign and will continue, whether it's on the Senate floor or in a campaign.
MR. RUSSERT: But do you believe your pointed criticisms of the president will harm you with Independent and Republican voters in Florida when you run for re-election?
SEN. GRAHAM: I think the American people, and certainly Floridians, want their leaders to be frank and to talk about the facts as they see them and the judgments that they apply to those facts. I believe that this administration, in case after case, whether it's from the environment to the economy to our national security, has given the American people misleading information and then based a policy on that information. That is not the standard that this great nation expects of its president.
MR. RUSSERT: So you will be running?
SEN. GRAHAM: I will make a decision in the next period as to what my political future will be, but whatever it is, I will continue to speak out strongly about the opportunities that America has and how we are now squandering those opportunities by the actions of this administration.