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This is part of the transcript with Tim Russert interviewing Sen. Carl Levin ( D-MI ) about the Democrats plan to change the war authority given to Bush in order to cut back our mission in Iraq to more of a training and support role while hunting al-Qaida.
NBC's Meet The Press Feb 25, 2007
But first, this week Democratic senators will seek to repeal the authority many of them gave to the president four years ago to go to war in Iraq. With us, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan.
Welcome.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI): Thank you, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: What are you going to do?
SEN. LEVIN: Hopefully, we’re going to come up with a resolution which is going to modify, in effect, the previous resolution, which was very broad, told the president that he had authority to do basically whatever he wanted to in Iraq, and to come up with wording which would modify that broad resolution and broad authority so that we would be in a supporting role, rather than a in combat role, in Iraq. Things have changed in Iraq. We don’t believe that it’s going to be possible to remove all of our troops from Iraq because there’s going to be a limited purpose that they’re going to need to serve, including a training, continued training of the Iraqi army, support for logistics in the Iraqi army, a counterterrorism purpose or a mission because there’s about 5,000 al-Qaida in Iraq. So we want to—we want to transform, or we want to modify that earlier resolution to more limited purpose. That is our goal. We hope to pick up some Republicans; we don’t know if we will. But the final drafting is going on this weekend.
MR. RUSSERT: Will you set a goal for withdrawing combat troops?
SEN. LEVIN: We would. We would follow basically the pattern which was set or proposed by the Iraq Study Group, which was to set a goal for the removal of combat troops, as you put it correctly, by March of next year.
MR. RUSSERT: What about the notion that Democrats are afraid politically to cut off funding?
SEN. LEVIN: Well, that’s not where I’m coming from, because I—my concerns are exactly the two that I mentioned. It’s not a fear of—politically of doing it. It’s the wrong thing to do morally in terms of the message it sends to the troop—troops, but it also would strengthen the president because he would use the defeat of that resolution as proof that the Senate or the Congress supports his policies, and the majority do not. And we ought to be allowed to vote by majority vote on this question: Do we favor a surge? Do we favor changing the mission? That’s what the Republicans will not let us vote on. They’re afraid of having the majority of the Senate vote as the majority of the House did in opposition to the surge of the president.
MR. RUSSERT: You need 60 votes to break a filibuster. Do you have 60 votes?
SEN. LEVIN: Not yet, but there’s, I think, growing concern among the Republicans about plunging our troops in the middle of a civil war, in the middle of Baghdad. This is not a surge so much as it is a plunge into Baghdad and, and into a middle of a civil war.
MR. RUSSERT: Aren’t you tying the hands of the commander in chief?
SEN. LEVIN: Well, we hope to put a cap on the number of troops. If I had my way, I would cap them. Of course, if I had my way, we never would have gone there to begin with. But, of course, we’re trying to tie the hands of the president and his policy. We’re trying to change the policy. And if someone wants to call that tying the hands instead of changing the policy, yeah, the president needs a check and a balance. This president hasn’t had one, hasn’t listened to others, including his top military commanders, and it’s about time he did. And Congress, I think, has the responsibility, not just the power, the responsibility to speak out and to change the course when you have a failing course, which is what we’re on in Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: Vice President Cheney talked about Democrats this way: “I think, in fact, if we’re to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we’ll do is validate the al-Qaida strategy. The al-Qaida strategy is to break the will of the American people, try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they” will “win because we quit.” Is your proposal, in effect, embracing the al-Qaida strategy?
SEN. LEVIN: No, quite the opposite. Our proposal is an effort to try to succeed in Iraq. Vice President Cheney’s credibility is pretty close to zero. He’s the one who said that the insurgency was in its last throes. He’s the one who hyped the intelligence before the war. So I don’t think that his comments carry an awful lot of weight with the American people.
But more importantly, the strategy which has been followed is a losing strategy. It is a failing strategy. And if we want to succeed in Iraq—in Iraq, we’ve got to find ways to change that strategy. And the only way we’re going to change it, the only chance we have of success—of success in Iraq, the only hope is to force the Iraqi leaders to reach a political settlement. Everybody says that, and if we just continue to have an open-ended commitment, more and more troops going into Iraq, it takes the pressure off the Iraqi leaders, it gives them the impression that, somehow or other, their future is in our hands, when their—when their responsibility is to put together a country; it is not our responsibility.
So I think he’s wrong about his strategy. I think he’s wrong about al-Qaida. I think al-Qaida likes us in Iraq. I think, when we’re in Iraq, a Western occupation of a Muslim country for four-years-plus now, al-Qaida, I believe, has the target that that they want, has the propaganda that they want, and it plays right into their hands. So I disagree with his analysis, but he doesn’t have much credibility left, in any event.
MR. RUSSERT: When the Democrats are accused of validating the al-Qaida strategy, or emboldening the enemy, or the Wall Street Journal calling you a coward, how do you deal with that politically?
SEN. LEVIN: Well, we, first of all, state what we believe and have the American people judge as to whether or not it’s important to change course in Iraq. This is a war, and politics really have no place in a war. We’re talking life and death, not just for people and families, but for our nation. And we owe it to this nation to give the best advice we possibly can and make the best decisions we possibly can. And to heck with the politics here, we’re in the middle of a war.
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