Matthews: Recap of presidential candidates at AFSCME forum
Posted: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 6:11 PM by Hardball
Chris Matthews
I began today at 8 AM moderating a presidential candidate forum for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. I asked each of the candidates to offer a specific strategy for removing troops from Iraq. Here’s what they told me:
Senator Hillary Clinton:
Called for removing the bulk of American forces “starting right now,” leaving a small residual force to meet certain “specific missions.”
“Well, I’ve been saving for some time that we need to bring our combat troops home from Iraq, starting right now. I would not wait. I would begin to get them out of the multi-sided, sectarian civil war that they are part of.
“I have, for some time, said that we may still have remaining vital national security interests that are important to America. You know, we cannot let Al Qaeda have a staging ground in Iraq. And, finally, we have made common cause with some of the Iraqis themselves in Al Anbar province so that they are actually working with American forces against Al Qaeda. That doesn’t take a lot of American forces but I think we have to look carefully about continuing that. We also have to look at how the Kurds are being treated. We also have to pay attention to Iranian influence. I don’t know that we need very many troops to do that. And finally we will have to protect our interests. We will have an embassy there. And if the Iraqi government does get its act together, we may have a continuing training mission. But that’s a limited number of troops with very specific missions; no permanent bases, no permanent occupation.”
Senator Barack Obama:
Called for a phased redeployment of US forces out of Iraq.
“We have no good options in Iraq left. We’ve got bad options and worse options. The best option I believe is to make certain that we begin a phased redeployment, that we’re as careful getting out as we were careless getting in.
“But that we start bringing our troops home and send the signal to the Iraqi people and most importantly to the factions that are still warring in Iraq there is not going to be a military solution to the problems there. There are only political accommodations to be had.”
Senator John Edwards:
Pull US forces out of Iraq but maintain a military “presence in the region.”
“If I were president of the United States today, what I would do is draw 40,000 to 50,000 troops out of Iraq immediately, out of the north and south. I would continue to draw combat troops out of Iraq over the course of about the next 10 months.
“I would get the Sunni and Shia leadership engages in serious discussions to see if they can reach some kind of political solutions, political reconciliation. Because without that, there’s never going to be peace in Iraq.”
“Here’s what I’d do: As America pulls its combat troops out of Iraq, we’re going to have to maintain a presence in the region, which means we probably need to rapid deployment force in Kuwait. If the Jordanians would allow us to station troops there, we may have to put troops in Jordan. We’re going to have to fortify our position in Afghanistan. The Taliban is re-emerging. The heroin trade is way up. We need a naval presence in the Persian Gulf. And if we maintain our embassy in Baghdad, which I think we should do, we’re going to have to have some troops there to protect the embassy.”
Governor Bill Richardson:
“I would withdraw all of our forces without any residual troops by the end of this calendar year.”
“It is my view that any kind of rebuilding of America’s foreign policy, dealing with the Israel-Palestinian issue, with nuclear proliferation, with international terrorism, can only happen after we withdraw from this obsessive, disastrous policy in Iraq.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich:
“We need a president who can defend our country, but also who knows when war is wrong and is ready to say so when it counts, not four years later, not five years later, who doesn’t say, ‘Look, I’m against war but I’d vote to fund the war,’ but stands for peace.”
“It’s predicated on the Congress telling the president no more funds for the war. At that point, President Bush must go to the international community to put together a peacekeeping and security force, which won’t be done until we end the occupation and indicate an intention to end the occupation and close the bases, an international force which moves in as our troops leave because our troops have to leave.”
