crossposted on the Forward Together Blog.
Governor Warner is wrapping up a two day visit to Iowa where he campaigned for Congressman Leonard Boswell. The DeMoines Register, and Associated Press have coverage of the trip. Political Forecast has a report from the Boswell fundraiser.
This morning NPR aired an interview of Governor Warner by Steve Inskeep (audio file available). NPR also has an analysis of the inteview.
Here’s an excerpt:
INSKEEP: Let me ask about another issue where it would seem that voters are not satisfied entirely with the president’s performance but they’ve been reluctant to embrace Democrats. What would a Democratic president do differently? What could a Democratic president do differently in 2009 in Iraq?
WARNER: First of all, get rid of Secretary Rumsfeld. It’s remarkable in my mind that the architect of this war — where we have inappropriate use of intelligence information, selective leaks, no plan for what we do after we take out Saddam Hussein, no ability to actually build any kind of regional effort to find a stable Iraq — is still calling the shots. I for one, as you see now increasing numbers of our very military leaders who have been tasked with doing this enormously challenging job — and by the way, the military has done their job; they took out Saddam Hussein, they took out the command and control of the Baathist Party and the Iraqi army — what they’ve not had is the kind of support, I think, from this administration that they deserve. What I think we need to do going forward is, we need to look at this through the very pragmatic view of what is in America’s best long-term interest. A failed Iraq is not in America’s best long-term interest. This I don’t believe was about al-Qaida to start with. But now, a failed Iraq could be a haven for al-Qaida, and other foreign terrorists is not in our interest. A failed Iraq that could end up becoming a client state of Iran, a vehicle for Iranian expansionism in the region, is not in our interest. What do we need to do? The one shining spot from this administration is in our ambassador in Iraq, Khalilzad, who is actually trying to force the Iraqis into a unity government where you don’t have militia leaders controlling, for example, the defense industry or the defense ministry or the interior ministry, where he’s trying to bring in the rest of the region. I think going forward, what we need is a true unity government that where the Iraqi man on the street feels some sense of security. The Iraqis need to step up in terms of their own security forces. And No. 3, we’ve got to look at how we cannot simply make this an American problem. A regional contact group similar to North Korea, potentially a U.N. high commissioner — some way to have more international responsibility in terms of how we end up with simply a stable Iraq and then how we can then exit the country and leave the country in no worse shape, at least in terms of threatening to America and destabilizing to the region, than before we went in.
INSKEEP: No worse shape? Are you saying maybe we have to lower the bar, lower the standard a little bit to the point where the United States would be willing to get out?
WARNER: I have not been one of those, and I understand the frustration that many Americans of both parties feel. I’m not one that believes we can set an arbitrary deadline. But I think if we don’t see the Iraqis themselves come together in weeks, not months, in terms of forming this unity government and then if we don’t see measurable progress in months, not years, after this government is formed, then I think have to look at a way to get out. We don’t need American troops simply playing referee inside a civil war in Iraq. But we have paid close to 2,400 lives, close to 13,000 American wounded. Our military sacrifice has been enormous. We need to do all we can, and, unfortunately, the window is closing, to make sure that there is at least a stable Iraq. I think the notion that somehow a democratic Iraq was going to lead this widespread democratization effort all across the Middle East.. That… needs to no longer be one of our primary goals. Our goal ought to be what’s in America’s best interest and that is stable and a way to get our troops home.