MSNBC Hardball-Transcript

MSNBC Hardball-Transcript

MATTHEWS: Thank you, David Shuster.

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine met with President Bush on Monday. She also visited top U.S. commanders in Iraq last month, as well as Iraq Prime Minister Maliki. And she‘s a member of the armed services committee. Senator Collins, would you vote for the surge in troops to Iraq?

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS ®, MAINE: I think having a surge in Baghdad would be a mistake. We do need more troops in the Anbar Province to take advantage of some recent positive developments in which local tribal leaders are helping us in the fight against al Qaeda. The fight in the west is not sectarian, but in Baghdad it is. And I don‘t think more American troops are the answer.

MATTHEWS: Is the president listening to your consultation when you go to see him? Does he say, let me hear what you think, senator?

COLLINS: Yes, he did. And I give the president credit for widely consulting. I suspect I‘m not going to agree with where he comes down, but we did talk at length about my recent trip when I was at the White House on Monday and I gave him my best judgment.

It was interesting because he agreed with me that we need to put more pressure on the prime minister to forge the political solutions that are necessary to finally end the sectarian violence. But he and I disagree on the best way to achieve that goal.

MATTHEWS: What do you think will be the impact of sending 15,000 more troops or 16,000 more troops into Baghdad, American GIs, what would be the impact?

COLLINS: My worry is they‘ll just become targets, hated by both sides. I think it‘s the Iraqis themselves that need to step up to the plate in Baghdad. When you have sectarian violence, it calls for a political, not a military solution. And that‘s why I distinguish from the fight out west which isn‘t sectarian. It‘s with foreign fighters and al Qaeda. There, more troops would make a difference so we can take advantage of that promising development. But in Baghdad, it does not make sense in my view.

MATTHEWS: Does the president agree with you that there are different situations in different parts of Iraq?

COLLINS: Yes, he does. I told him I was struck during my trip by how different the war is depending on whether you‘re in Baghdad, Ramadi, or Basra. Very different challenges depending on what part of the country you are in and I don‘t think you can have a one size fits all strategy.

MATTHEWS: Until recently, the president said he was taking the advice of the generals. Would you say that the generals want us to go into Baghdad with more troops?

COLLINS: I found that the American commanders were really mixed on this issue. One commander with whom I talked in Baghdad told me that a jobs program would do far more good than more troops. He said that many young Iraqi men were joining the militias and planting roadside bombs simply because they were desperate for money because they‘d been unemployed for so long.

So that was a view that I heard from one American commander. In addition, General Abizaid, who has testified before the Armed Services Committee, said that we needed more Iraqi troops. He did not call for more American troops.

MATTHEWS: The president often talks about the dangers of pulling our troops out of Iraq as if that would be the worst possible situation for the world. But what good do you see coming of us staying in there saying the rest of the president‘s term? If we keep our troops in force in Iraq, in fact add these new troops, how will things be better in two years than they are right now if we leave right now or we leave in two years?

COLLINS: Well, that‘s the big question, and I don‘t think there is an easy answer. Out in the west, I do think, because it‘s not a sectarian fight, because it‘s a fight with al Qaeda, I think more troops could make a difference because the local tribal leaders are now on our side.

In Baghdad, I think we should be withdrawing troops because I think that ironically the presence of more troops lessens the pressure on the prime minister to make the tough decisions that he needs to make to more fully integrate the Sunnis into the power structure.

I also think the Iraqis need to make a change in their oil law so that all of the residents of Iraq own the oil and have a stake in the future of the country and in the oil infrastructure.

Those kinds of decisions need to be made by the Iraqis themselves, and I worry that the presence of additional troops delays the day when the prime minister makes the tough compromises that are going to be necessary.

MATTHEWS: Senator Collins, it looks like the Senate is going to vote within two weeks on a resolution, a sense of the Senate resolution, opposed to the surge of troops, the 20 some extra thousand troops. Will you vote for that sense of the Senate resolution?

COLLINS: I‘m going to wait and see what the resolution says. Some of them would cut off funding. I don‘t think that that makes sense. I don‘t want to cut off funds to our troops that are there.

Who is to say exactly what the right number of troops is right now? If we embed troops the way the Iraq Study Group has suggested, we may need to send more troops for force protection. So I don‘t want to tie the president‘s hands that way. On the other hand, I am going to make very clear that I do not support a surge of 20,000 troops into Baghdad.

MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Susan Collins, a member of the Armed Services Committee. Susan Collins, of course, is a senator—a Republican senator from the state of Maine.

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