MSNBC Hardball - Transcript

MSNBC  

SHOW: HARDBALL 19:00

BYLINE: Chris Matthews; Lawrence O'Donnell; Howard Fineman

GUESTS: Ann Coulter; Lewis Black; Dick Armey; Rahm Emanuel; Roy Blunt; Mitch McConnell

HIGHLIGHT:
HARDBALL debate: Should students be suspended for minor dress code violations? In the "Political Buzz," should the Democrats support the $87 billion Iraq package?

BODY:
MATTHEWS: Let me -- Hold on, gentlemen. Both of you, Congressman Emanuel and Congressman Blunt. Please stay with us. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has just come back from Iraq.

Sir, give us a gut check on what you saw over there.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: Well, nine out of 10 things that are happening in Iraq are positive. But unfortunately, I think I they teach you guys in journalism school that only bad news is news.

The kids are, you know, waving at us, giving thumbs up. The markets are opening along the streets. We do have a violence problem, but, boy, it's not nearly as violent for the average Iraqi as when Saddam was there, because he murdered 300,000 Iraqis during his tenure. So even on the violence index, compared to the Saddam period, for the average Iraqi, it is a much more peaceful country.

MATTHEWS: Well, the average American, according to the latest Gallup poll, 57 percent to 41 percent, about, well, 6-4, something like that, believe that we shouldn't be spending this $87 billion.

Why can't this country borrow the money from us and pay it back in oil? Why should we fix up their country and then have them sell oil to us and we pay for the oil?

MCCONNELL: Well, we didn't go in there to put this poor country that had been exploited for a quarter of a century into further debt. They still have enormous debts, but...

MATTHEWS: Why put us into debt? We're in debt.

MCCONNELL: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Our country is in debt in trillions of dollars of debt we owe.

MCCONNELL: Do I get to answer this?

MATTHEWS: Yes. But you say we're putting them in debt. I'm sorry, Senator, we're in debt.

MCCONNELL: Yes, I know.

MATTHEWS: And we're running a $500 billion deficit every year and you're acting like we're rich. And all we're doing is borrowing more money to give it to them so they can sell our oil back to us. I mean, it seems...

MCCONNELL: We didn't ask at the beginning of World War II how much it was going to cost.

The key to bringing the soldiers home -- Look at the package, Chris: $87 billion; $66 billion of it is for troops. Troops are very, very expensive. The way to get the troops home is to work on the reconstruction side.

And we don't need to send the Iraqis the bill for getting this country up and running. We will save an enormous amount of money by preventing the kind of terrorism, particularly on our own soil, that we have experienced in the last couple of years on 9/11.

So, the key to this is getting the Iraqis up and running. That's how we get the troops home. That's how we prevent having to expend way more money.

MATTHEWS: Well, isn't it a case that OPEC oil, the oil we will buy eventually from Iraq, will be at market value? They're not going to give us any break, are they? Yet we're giving them a break up to the tune of $20 billion, and you say we shouldn't stick them with the bill.

Why should we stick people who live in hopeless economic areas of the Northeast of the United States, the Midwest, all these rustbelt towns where people are out of work in West Virginia and places like North Carolina? All these people out of work, they're getting stuck with the bill.

MCCONNELL: How much is a free Iraq worth? I think it's worth a lot. We got rid of one of the world greatest tyrants, somebody who...

EMANUEL: Mitch, that is not the choice. Senator?

MCCONNELL: How much is it worth, Chris, to prevent the next 9/11 here at home? That cost us way more, recovering from that, either by government expenditures or what it cost the economy.

EMANUEL: Senator...

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you this, Senator. We have spent all this money -- if we had attacked Iraq two years before 9/11 and we'd spent all this money over there, it would not have stopped 9/11. Because 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq, and you know it, Senator. Nothing to do with it.

EMANUEL: Senator -- Chris, one point here. In the first Gulf War, it cost $60 billion and the United States only paid $5 billion. It was right to kick Iraq out of Kuwait in the first Gulf War.

This is not whether it's right to free Iraq. It's why the United States has to bear all the price and the burden. And the fact is...

MCCONNELL: We don't have to bear the entire burden. We're going to have a donor conference in Spain in a couple of weeks.

EMANUEL: Senator...

MCCONNELL: And if we want to have more contributions like the Japanese are going to make, the worst thing would be to say we're going to send the Iraqis the bill for the reconstruction.

We want to be able to say to other countries, make it in the form of a grant. Let's give this country a chance to get up and run as a free Iraq, right in the heart of the Middle East.

EMANUEL: Send the bill to the American people.

MCCONNELL: We'll all reap enormous benefits from that.

MATTHEWS: Can I ask you one more question, Senator McConnell? Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations, said the latest U.S. resolution on Iraq does not give sovereignty to Iraq.

You just said a free Iraq. According to Kofi Annan's reading of it, we continue to be the occupying force of Iraq throughout the time we're there. We are the government of Iraq as long as we're occupying that country. How can you call it a free Iraq if we're calling the shots?

MCCONNELL: Look, I don't know how many democracies there are in the U.N., but we understand what a democracy is. And that's what you're going to have in Iraq in the coming months and years.

MATTHEWS: When will we stop calling the shots?

MCCONNELL: They'll have their own constitution. They're going to draft their own constitution they way they want it. They're going to have their own elections.

We're helping them get a security force up so they can deal with these terrorist threats and the dead-enders, the Ba'athists who want power back, who aren't just attacking American troops. More Iraqis have been killed by the dead-enders than Americans.

MATTHEWS: I guess we have to leave now. But Senator, I still think the question is open. When are we going to stop telling them what to do, and when does it become a free Iraq? When do you estimate that will be?

MCCONNELL: Within the next year or so. They're going to be -- We're in the process of transitioning. That's what the Iraqi governing council is. It's the beginning of a democracy. There are already local government people elected up in Mosul in the north. This is springing up everywhere.

MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much, as always, Senator Mitch McConnell. Thank you for joining us on HARDBALL.