|
Edited on Tue Sep-26-06 06:04 PM by blm
Sounds like Imus has come around to Kerry's plan for setting a date - that's not a small thing in media reality world, because then Imus harasses lawmakers to come around to his view.
heh - oh well - with corpmedia, you have to count your luck on one hand.
KERRY: Haven't decided yet, but, yes, I am thinking very seriously about it; talking to a lot of people as I go around the country, and I've been very encouraged by the responses.
Look, I know there's an initial -- you know, there's an initial, sort of, cynicism or skepticism, the sort of quick take, Hey, the guy ran, he lost, whatever. But I think that in the end we did a lot of things right. We made a few mistakes. We came very, very close against an incumbent president in a time of war. And I feel more experienced, more prepared, and I feel a greater urgency to the agenda I fought for.
So I'm not ready to make that decision, but I've had a good reaction.
IMUS: I just can't understand why do you want to go through that again.
KERRY: Because the issues are so critical, Don. And if you'll -- I mean, just look at something like Iraq. I mean, Iraq is falling apart around these guys. We've got young kids going over there putting their lives on the line for a policy that's bankrupt.
And I think you have to set a deadline. A deadline is the only way to get Iraqis to stand up for Iraq, to get them to go out and fight so that our troops aren't being blown up while they squabble and duck and delay. And I think it's wrong.
And now you have this national intelligence estimate -- you know, at the moment that I had my resolution on the floor of the Senate about setting a date, the administration was arguing at that very time, Well, we're going to be probably pulling troops out over the course of next year. Don't set a date. And they were saying then it's the center of the war on terror.
Now we know that at the very same moment they were saying that they were being told by their own intelligence people that, no, not only is it not the center, it is creating greater problems in the war on terror and it's creating terrorists.
I'm tired of being misled and lied to like the rest of the American people are tired of it, and we've got to get a policy that works.
IMUS: You know, when you first made that proposal about a date and were criticized for it -- a lot of people -- it's not important what I think, but we, obviously, were sitting here talking about it. And I was debating about whether I thought it was a good idea. Then I got to thinking about it. In almost every aspect of life -- I mean, if somebody in your staff, if you tell them to do something and you don't tell them when you want it, you'll never get it.
KERRY: I agree with that. And, look, a date is the key to getting Iraqis to stand up for themselves. Every time the president says, We'll stay as long as it takes, he empowers the Iraqis to say, We'll take as long as we want. And it's human nature.
If you don't give them -- if you don't leverage their willingness to stand up, if you don't set that kind of a goal, if you don't concentrate the focus of the government on a transition, if you don't say to the rest of the world and the region, Hey, the United States is actually going to start changing this dynamic -- we better get serious about being involved here.
And also, Don, the date is not just set in a vacuum. The date is linked to holding a summit, which I've been calling for for almost three years now -- that you have to have the proper diplomacy to resolve the differences between Shia and Sunni, if they're resolvable, or you may wind up having to go down a different kind of road.
But the point is you can't get anywhere, you can't get to where you have to go unless you resolve the political differences. Condoleezza Rice, General Casey, every observer has said you can't solve this militarily. It has to be solved through the politics and diplomacy. And yet there isn't any of that kind of major diplomacy.
And if you talk to the leaders around the region and those who are involved, they desperately want some kind of serious effort to resolve those differences and create a new security arrangement for the region.
IMUS: I can't see, though, when we set a date, they don't -- well, they do whatever they do and we leave and -- I don't see a good outcome. Do you?
KERRY: Well, I think it's going to be very, very difficult because the administration, by ignoring everybody's advice and turning their backs on all of the best intelligence and analyses beforehand, have unleashed pent up forces that were held down for hundreds of years. I mean, this struggle between Shia and Sunni is bigger than just Iraq. What you really have is a whole bunch of countries around there who are Sunni who have a stake in this outcome because they're fearful of the Shia linkage to Iran. And that's really the larger problem that has not been addressed by the administration.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
