Today - Transcript

SHOW: Today 7:00 AM EST NBC

November 8, 2004 Monday

HEADLINE: Senator Lindsey Graham, Senate Armed Services Committee, discusses the timing and importance of the assault on Fallujah

ANCHORS: MATT LAUER, KATIE COURIC

BODY:

MATT LAUER, co-host:

Senator Lindsey Graham is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator Graham, good morning to you.

Senator LINDSEY GRAHAM (Republican, South Carolina): Good morning, Matt.

LAUER: Let me ask you about the timing of this. It comes a week after US elections, and critics are saying that US officials didn't want to run the risk of more soldiers dying, more images of wounded and-and killed soldiers from the battlefield in Iraq prior to those elections. Is that a fair assessment, in your opinion?

Sen. GRAHAM: Well, I think it's pretty clear to anybody who was watching the elections that there was going to be a major operation in Fallujah. What we've tried to do with Prime Minister Allawi is negotiate a political settlement like we did in-in the south with al-Sadr, and it just hasn't worked. And we've probably put this battle off too long.

LAUER: Yeah. I mean, this has been...

Sen. GRAHAM: But now is the time.

LAUER: ...this has been a hot bed of-of insurgent activity...

Sen. GRAHAM: Yeah.

LAUER: ...for a long time.

Sen. GRAHAM: Yeah.

LAUER: It does appear...

Sen. GRAHAM: Right.

LAUER: ...this has been much delayed.

Sen. GRAHAM: Well, it's been delayed with the hope of trying to find a political settlement. We did that with Prime Minister Allawi in the south with al-Sadr. It just hasn't worked here. But the-now the day of reckoning is here, that's the bottom line.

LAUER: You know, a lot of people are worried that because the build-up to this assault, Senator, took so long and-and it was talked about so often over the last several months that many of these insurgents have now fanned out and are in other cities and towns waiting to fight another day. Is that a real fear?

Sen. GRAHAM: Well, it is a real fear. I mean, the bottom line is that when you see forces congregate and start to organize you shouldn't let that happen. But there's a political dynamic here that you can't ignore. We've tried to empower the moderate forces in Iraq and throughout the Mideast to deal with these folks, and we have to let them sort of pave the way. Militarily it will be a joint operation. Politically, we've given a lot of authority to Prime Minister Allawi to avoid this day, but we were unsuccessful. So, yes, we've put it off too long, I think, in the past. But now we're going to clean up this mess.

LAUER: And recent history would tell us that these insurgents really don't want to get into a pitched battle with US forces.

Sen. GRAHAM: Right.

LAUER: They'd rather fan out and fight a guerrilla war over the next several months or years.

Sen. GRAHAM: Well, there's a certainly dynamic of that for sure. Samarra we saw some reinsurgence of the insurgents, but the terrorists in Fallujah are probably going to stand their ground, fight and die. And we need to be prepared for that mentally. But war on terror is-is on display today because what's going on today is moderate forces, pro-democracy Iraqis, who are going to fight and die today and throughout this week to dislodge terrorists who want to destroy democracy. So this is really just not about Iraq, it truly is a pitch battle in the war on terror between moderate forces and extremist terrorists who want to destroy democracy.

LAUER: The-the elections in Iraq are just more than a couple of months away, and-and the situation in Iraq right now is difficult because insurgents have stepped up the violence.

Sen. GRAHAM: Mm-hmm.

LAUER: They overran a couple of police stations over the weekend...

Sen. GRAHAM: right.

LAUER: ...and executed some 22 Iraqi police officers. They tried to assassinate the interim finance minister. Car bombings. There's a state of emergency. Can legitimate elections really be held under those conditions?

Sen. GRAHAM: No, but the way you confront those conditions is go after the people who are creating the chaos. The story, I think, from Fallujah is will the Iraqi military and police units perform better than they did in April? Are they better trained? Are they better equipped? And are they motivated to fight and die for their country? At the end of the day we can't kill these terrorists in enough numbers to win this war. We have to get the capacity to the Iraqi people, moderate forces in Iraq, to take over their country. That's what Fallujah is about. It's impossible to have elections where you've got thousands of armed terrorists trying to destroy the country and the infrastructure of democracy. The day of reckoning is here. This is a defining moment not only in Iraq, but in the war on terror.

LAUER: Senator Lindsey Graham.

Senator, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.

Sen. GRAHAM: Thank you.