Webb on Bush's Plan: "It Doesn't Bring a Lot to the Table"

Question by Gwen Ifel: Senator Webb, do you believe your colleagues' response that what the President has laid out is actually the correct path?

Webb:  Well, I think the problem that we have right now is the same problem we've had for the last 5 years.  That is, that this Administration has never laid out a clear strategy that the American people can understand that has an end point.  And in a lot of ways, this is just a lot more flailing around.  We want a good solution, but the only way that we can really get a good solution to the situation in Iraq is to go to some sort of a regional approach where we can get the diplomatic forces to the table. In many ways this reminds me of the situation in Lebanon when I was in Lebanon for the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour back in 1983.  You've got a very fragile government, you have a group of militia forces based on ethnicity around them. We've got a brain drain and a talent drain going out which is creating a sort of reverse entropy in terms of the ability to affect problems and with talented people being around it. And then with this fragile government you've got two things that are happening. The first is that we are trying to put demands on it when it can't really control the country.  And the second thing is that it leads more and more to the notion that we're going to have outside intervention from countries in the region.  We keep hearing these news reports, particularly from the Administration, where they're sounding the alarm bell of the Saudis doing something and the Iranians possibly doing something. And the way to address that is instead of allowing the centrifugal forces of chaos to bring these countries into Iraq, we need to do it with American leadership so that we can have a diplomatic structure where these other countries will begin to take some ownership of the result.  We can't do this by ourselves. And we're not hearing that from the Administration.  We're hearing it on the tactical response; you know, that the the troop levels in Iraq have varied from say 112[,000] to 160,000 over a number of years.  This is another one of these tactical responses to a situation that is regional in nature and has grave overtones for the United States.
Question from Gwen Ifel: Well, let me ask Senator Webb whether his will be part of the support for it, and if indeed you do support this resolution, what about the answer to Sen. Thune's question, "What else?"

Webb: There are many "what elses." The difficulty with this Administration is they have defined a win on their own terms and very narrowly. You know, the scenario for the possible ramifications of a pullout basically from our allies and from our friends in the region is based on the fact that we would do that precipitously. But if we did this in a way where we had a diplomatic umbrella, where we had the involvement of the other countries in a solution, that is not something that's going to happen.  And, in fact, sooner or later we are going to leave.  Because the other side of this equation is that there will never be true peace in Iraq as long as there are American combat forces in the streets of Iraq. There never will be.  So we have to work toward that point and the way that we do that is with international involvement, with diplomatic involvement.  And with respect to this particular plan, what is it?  It's, you know, we're spending a lot of time talking to it. But it's very marginal, it's tactical, it doesn't bring a lot to the table.  To say that this is the only alternative is to deny the fact that there's a lot of creative energy out here if people will listen to it. 

With respect to the Kennedy proposal, I agree with Senator Kennedy that...it's basically what is called a retrenchment, an appropriations retrenchment. It is an appropriate power of the Congress to do that. It's very difficult to apply it to the situations that they are talking about right now.  But I'll tell you one thing, I do not see myself voting for any more money for these reconstruction and economic projects inside Iraq when we've got places like New Orleans that haven't gotten help.  I mean, we haven't been able to see a bottom line from the nearly half a trillion dollars that have gone into Iraq.  Support the troops, yes. But the rest of this stuff?  I believe that Americans believe in the free marketplace...Iraq is a very entrepreurial culture and they can solve a lot of these problems themselves.

Question from Gwen Ifel: Senator Webb, do you think there are sufficient benchmarks in there for the Iraqis?

Webb: Well, let me say this...there's two concerns that I have here.  The first is that, in this debate - and, as you may know, I was an early warning voice saying that it was a strategic error for us to invade Iraq in the first place - in this debate we tend to focus on the solution inside Iraq as a microcosm, when as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, this now has very large regional and international overtones.  And we have to do more in that side of it rather than accepting the terrain of this debate the way the Administration has presented it as projects inside Iraq. I mean, that's my first concern on this.

And then, the second concern is...you know, the President tonight, one thing that he said that jumped out at me was when he said that, in talking about the present government, that if they don't act, then they may lose the support of the Iraqi people.  And again, we have to realize that this government by itself is a very fragile government, and there's only so much pressure that the United States can put on it.  I'm not sure that they have the ability to control events in Iraq in the way that we are expecting them to based on this speech.  Do we really think they're going to take full control of all the provinces in Iraq by November?  If that's the promise that this Administration is making, we should be seeing some really dramatic changes over the next month or so.

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