NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript

Interview

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MR. GREGORY: We are back, joined now by two military veterans and members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Democrat from Rhode Island, Senator Jack Reed, and Democrat from Virginia, Senator Jim Webb.

Welcome to both of you.

SEN. JIM WEBB (D-VA): Thank you.

MR. GREGORY: The debate on Afghanistan continues, and this is what the president announced this week in his speech. I'll put it up on the screen so our viewers can see. In terms of the drawdown, nearly 100,000 there now. Due to be withdrawn by the end of this year is 10,000. And then those surge troops in total will be out by the end of next summer. Public opinion certainly on the side of a faster withdraw. The latest Pew poll shows that rather clearly with a majority, 56 percent, saying remove troops as soon as possible.

Senator Reed, did the president simply make a political decision here and say, "It's time to get out"?

SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): No, I don't think so. He made a very difficult decision in 2009 at his speech at West Point about a strategy taking down al-Qaeda, building up the Afghani army, and beginning to reduce our forces in July of this year. And he's following through on that strategy. And I think the pace is appropriate. It recognizes that we do have to maintain a presence there, but that presence is changing very quickly to an Afghan-led presence.

MR. GREGORY: The, the problem, Senator Webb, is that, in the view of many, he rolled the military here. The military made a recommendation, don't pull out so fast. General Petraeus, our commander on the ground, is going to become the new head of the CIA, spoke on Capitol Hill this week, and he talked about that disagreement. Watch.

(Videotape, Thursday)

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS: The ultimate decision was a more aggressive formulation, if you will, in terms of the timeline than what we had recommended. Again, that is understandable in the sense that there are broader considerations beyond just those of a military commander.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: What are those broader considerations for the president?

SEN. WEBB: Well, first of all, I have met very few generals in my life who didn't want more troops. And the president is the commander in chief, as the Republicans are so often quick to point out when he makes decisions that other people get upset with. When I look at this, first of all, I don't want to second guess decisions that were made with a great deal of, of consultation with military leaders, with, with political leaders, and with diplomats. My concern on this is that we, we do have to get back to rebuilding our country, and this model, per se, is not the model of the future. Secretary Gates said that a couple of months ago.

MR. GREGORY: Big land army.

SEN. WEBB: The Afghan--yes. It's not the model of the future. And we, right now, are in a situation where we have to look at this in terms of our broader national security interests in addition to the nation-building questions. We still have 45,000 troops in Iraq. They're supposed to be out by the end of the year. I'm not holding my breath. We have this new situation in Libya where the president made a unilateral decision, which I, among others, have serious problems with. And most importantly, because this is something that does not get discussed, as we have focused for the last 10 years on this part of the world, our situation in East Asia with respect to China and China's expansionist military activities has deteriorated. We are at a point in the South China Sea right now where we are approaching a Munich moment with China, and it's not being discussed.

MR. GREGORY: We'll get back to that, but I want to also keep the framing here about what's going on inside the Democratic Party. You're both Democrats, of course. We spoke on our weekly conversation that we call Press Pass, which is available on our blog and our Web site, with Barbara Lee, the California Democrat in the House. And I asked her about whether there was that political will among liberals to keep funding the war in Afghanistan. This is how she responded.
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(Videotape, Thursday)

MR. GREGORY: You would vote to end funding now.

REP. BARBARA LEE (D-CA): Oh yes. I'm going to offer an amendment to do that. That doesn't mean I do not want to--and I'm going to make sure we have enough funding to protect our troops and provide for what they need and to bring them home safely and orderly. But we need to cut the funding, and as an appropriator, that's my job. That's Congress's job. We have to use the power of the purse strings to do what we need to do to ensure our national security and the economic security of our young men and women in uniform, and the economic security of our country.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Senator Reed, there's a lot of people, particularly in the Democratic Party, that say, "Look, bin Laden is dead. Al-Qaeda is not a presence in Afghanistan. We have got to draw this down much more quickly than we're doing now. There is still something that's vague about what the mission remains."

SEN. REED: No, I think there's a great deal of frustration in the country, not just the Democratic Party. And particularly on Afghanistan because it's been 10 years, but it's been 10 years of literally starting and stopping. I think the president has laid out a very clear strategy. We are coming out of Afghanistan. We are shifting our--the emphasis and, indeed, shifting the, the, we hope, the requirements to support the troops there to the Afghanis. He's done the same thing, as he pledged in the campaign, to bring our troops out of Iraq.

MR. GREGORY: But is it really that clear? I mean, Senator Webb, the mission, what we're actually still doing there, seems a bit unclear. Gene Robinson wrote the following in his column on--in The Washington Post on Friday: "Perhaps most disheartening thing," he wrote, "about Obama's speech was the absence of fresh thinking, or even clear thinking. It was hard to tell whether he was sticking with his counterinsurgency strategy or switching to a counterterrorism approach - or, perhaps, doing a little bit of both. There was no evidence he had considered the possibility that the war is being perpetuated not by rational pursuit of our national interests but by its own inertia." Is it too much compromise here that leaves us with an unclear way forward?

SEN. WEBB: Well, I, I think there is a legitimate question about what the endpoint could be or should be. On the other hand, we don't want it to be a negative endpoint in--given what we have put into it. So I think this is a, sort of a very careful process that has, has resulted in the president's decision, and it's time based. Let's--or it's time and circumstances based. I mean, that's one thing that Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen have been very clear about. So it could be quicker. We just don't want to be in a process, from my perspective, of sending the wrong signals to people like the Taliban, who we are asking to become part of the, the endpoint in the negotiating process.

MR. GREGORY: Well, and that's a really important point. I mean, I've been saying all week, "Keep your eye on the diplomacy here." The Taliban, our enemy there, is really the key in many ways, Senator Reed, to the future. They're going to have to come back and be part of some sort of government in Afghanistan with a central government. Pakistanis have to be involved. Where does that rank on our priority list right now?

SEN. REED: Well, that should be at the very top of our priorities. As we shift out of, of a military-led presence, we have to have a strong diplomatic-led presence, and it has to be regional. It has to re-engage the Taliban, who are willing to reject the, the radical theories and come back and, and be partners in a government in Afghanistan. It, it has to involve the Pakistanis. And, in fact, one of the reasons why we have to be, I think, somewhat measured as we do come out, and we are coming out, is because you have great instability not just in Afghanistan, but Pakistan. And you have a country that has nuclear weapons, you have long-term animosities between the Pakistanis and the Indians. So we do have to pursue a much more aggressive diplomatic approach.

But I think the key here is within Afghanistan we're no longer, I think, talking about nation-building. We're talking about stabilization. We're talking about creating a military force that can stabilize that country and, and take the lead from us, and continue--and I think we have to continue to have some type of presence there, slim down, so that we can strike any type of extremist group that has threatened the United States.
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MR. GREGORY: But--and that--we--but we don't have stability yet. Senator McCain and other Republicans warn about withdrawing and what the consequences of that could be. David Rohde with The New York Times, who was held captive there in Pakistan and, and wrote a book about that experience, also talked about the consequences of leaving without stability, Senator Reed, to your point. And this is a portion of what he writes: "At the same time, simply walking away from Afghanistan and Pakistan and hoping for the best is not an option in an increasingly interconnected world. ... Based on my experience in the tribal areas, a sweeping Taliban victory in Afghanistan would embolden hard-line militants who hope to forcibly impose sharia law across the Islamic world. Their belief that they can defeat Westerners who fear death and are unwilling to endure sacrifice will be reaffirmed. It will also send a signal to moderate Muslims that the United States will not stand by them. No clear answer has emerged to the question ... how can religious extremism be countered?"

Senator Webb, in, in our war weariness in this country, do we risk not stabilizing the country and getting this kind of result, where ultimately the Taliban wins?

SEN. WEBB: I, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think very many people are, are willing to accept that result. At the same time, that doesn't mean that the model we're using is an appropriate model even, even in the future in Afghanistan. And one of the key points, because I, I would--this is an area that Senator Reed and I may, may disagree on--I don't believe we need a permanent presence in Afghanistan or in Iraq. I think it's counterproductive to what we are trying to do strategically. It's enormously costly. And again, we are ignoring--excuse me--we are ignoring the realities of a very serious emergence in Asia that has--will have more impact on our strategic future than anything going on in this region.

MR. GREGORY: What about Libya, Senator Reed? Can I get your opinion on that?

SEN. REED: Well, let me just, quickly...

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

SEN. REED: I join--I don't think we need a permanent presence in Iraq, and I think we need a presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. But that presence, hopefully, one day is going to be diplomatic more than military. But if we need military options to go in, we have to have those options.

MR. GREGORY: Can I ask you quickly about Libya? Mixed signals being sent to the president about the mission there. Are you concerned about what we're doing?

SEN. REED: I think the president would have been better served to more thoughtfully come up and ask for a resolution in favor of his activities. Now, with the House vote, it's so confused. The--no support, but they're still going to fund the operation. I hope in the Senate we can pass a, a Kerry-McCain resolution. But...

MR. GREGORY: That would give another year for operations as they now stand.

SEN. REED: It would give, give certain, give approval for the continued limited operation. We have no ground troops, no intention to put ground troops in. We're supporting NATO. We're doing that because there are two U.N. resolutions, there's an Arab League resolution. This is a very unusual moment where the Arab League, the United Nations, the European community are all committed to trying to get rid of Khaddafy. And...

MR. GREGORY: Is, is this the right fight? We're still there. This was supposed to get him out sooner.

SEN. WEBB: We--nobody wants to see Khaddafy remain in power, but that's totally--a totally different question as to how the United States should be involved. With respect to the United Nations resolutions, the, the Security Council vote was taken with the abstention of Brazil, Russia, India, China and Germany. This wasn't the U.N. saying this is a great thing to do. And the president did not come to the Congress, and he also--the, the reasons that he used for going in defy historical precedent. We weren't under attack, we weren't under a imminent attack, we weren't honoring treaty commitments, we weren't rescuing Americans. So, on the one hand, there's a very serious issue of precedent here. And on the other, we need to be clear that once Khaddafy's gone we won't have Americans in there as a peacekeeping force. We, we've got to stop this addiction. We've got to start focusing on our true strategic interests.

MR. GREGORY: And would you vote to, to cut off funding for the operation if it came to that?

SEN. WEBB: Senator Lugar, Senator Lugar is putting a series of amendments together on the, on the Kerry-McCain legislation which I'm going to support. I think he has had the wisest brain on this problem in the Senate.

MR. GREGORY: And what would be the bottom line of that?

SEN. WEBB: Clearly say no ground troops. There's like six or seven amendments that are be--still being worked up. But I think his approach is, is rational, and the one the Senate needs to take.

MR. GREGORY: All right, we're going to leave it there. Senators, thank you both...

SEN. REED: Thank you.

SEN. WEBB: Yeah.

MR. GREGORY: ...very much this morning.

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