60 Minutes Interview -- ABRIDGED - Democratic Underground

A-Schwarzenegger

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Mon Jan-15-07 05:29 PM
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60 Minutes Interview -- ABRIDGED

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And America has gone ahead. People are, you know, helping their neighbors.

The Iraq War hadn't gone as well as I had hoped at this point in time. And people are, you know, people are discouraged. They don't approve of where we are. And so I think it's where the country is.

You know, Scott, I thought a lot about different options. I think about it a lot, about different options. In other words, there's a lot of reasons that I know we must succeed.

No question in my mind. And I know this is hard for some Americans to understand.

They'll be able to find more suiciders. They'll have resources at their availability. And I fully understand that.

We didn't find the weapons we thought we would find. No question decisions have made things unstable. Listen, I'd like to see stability and a unified Iraq. You know, we've been through this before. Using bad language was a mistake.

And the temptation is gonna find scapegoats. Well, if the people want a scapegoat, they got one right here in me 'cause it's my decisions.

Let's let the historians work it out. That we didn't do a better job or they didn't do a better job? Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. That's the problem here in America.

I told him it's time to get going. What they'd do is, we're going after this killer, and they say, well he's, for political reasons, don't. Killer is a killer.

But the problem is, is that the sectarian violence in Baghdad started getting out of control so they fell behind the power curve.

Anybody who murders innocent people or frustrating the ambitions of the Iraqi people and the United States. And we killed them, as you recall.

I saw some of it. Obviously could have handled this thing a lot better. They could have handled it a lot better. In other words, I'm not a revengeful person. Somebody showed me parts of it. I didn't wanna watch the whole thing. I wasn't sure what to anticipate beyond the yelling and stuff like that. And I didn't. Yeah. Yes. I didn't.

But what's deafening is those who say "we can't afford to fail and here's the plan that will cause us not to fail." Frankly, that's not their responsibility.

I strongly reject that this administration hasn't been straight with the American people. Scott, all I can do is just tell the truth, tell people exactly what's on my mind, which is what I do.

There was an intelligence failure, which we're trying to address. But I was as surprised as anybody he didn't have them.

I wondered what went wrong, because you can't conduct this war on terror unless you've got good intelligence. And so the first thing I did was I put a commission together to take a good, hard look at what did go wrong. I wasn't happy. The different reports, the different investigations. You know, those guys that went over there on behalf of the agency, they came back and made their report, pretty well convinced me that the intelligence was wrong.

We'll know pretty soon. And so we'll have a pretty good indication pretty early. I'd say months as to whether or not the will is there and whether or not they're putting in the capability they said they would do.

I'm not a lawyer. So act of war is kind of a . . . I'm not exactly sure how you define that. Let me just say it's unacceptable.

I'd say, first of all, "You've made terrible choices for your people. You've isolated your nation. You've taken a nation of proud and honorable people, and you've made your country the pariah of the world. You've defied international accord. And you're slowly but surely isolating yourself."

Let me correct something on this connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. I always said we never had evidence that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on 9/11. And so I don't know who continues to say that. But rather than debating the past, let me get back to the question.

When I make up my mind, I expect them to salute and say, "Yes, sir, Mr. President."

I'm gonna have to keep explaining. And I gotta keep explaining. Scott, sometimes you're the commander-in-chief, sometimes you're the educator-in-chief, and a lot of times you're both when it comes to war. And I've just gotta continue to take my message to the people and to explain to them. And it's very important for me to continue to explain.