MSNBC - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC

MS. BRZEZINSKI: John McCain isn't backing down from his stance on the war. Instead he used Tuesday's hearing as a ready-made platform to take on his Democratic opponents.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: (From videotape.) Our goal -- my goal is an Iraq that no longer needs American troops. And I believe we can achieve that goal perhaps sooner than many imagine. But I also believe that the promise of withdrawal of our forces regardless of the consequences would constitute a failure of political and moral leadership.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune is a member of the Armed Services Committee. He's also a McCain supporter and he joins me now.

Thanks for coming on the show this hour, Senator.

SEN. THUNE: Good morning, Mika.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: I want to show you a little bit of what McCain said yesterday -- a little bit more from the hearing. Then I've got a question exactly about that.

Take a listen.

SEN. MCCAIN: (From videotape.) While the job of bringing security to Iraq is not finished as the recent fighting in Basra and elsewhere vividly demonstrated, we're no longer staring into the abyss of defeat and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Senator, explain to me if you could and to our viewers as well, what does success look like?

SEN. THUNE: Well, I think Senator McCain has -- is touched on a theme there that's important for the American people to understand and that is that the surge has worked. And I think success means an Iraq that is stable enough not to become a training ground for terrorist organizations like al Qaeda to plan and launch attacks against the United States and our allies.

And I think it's a growing economy which we're seeing there -- GDP growth is up, inflation is under control. There's political progress -- provincial elections are scheduled for this fall, a number of legislative initiatives have been adopted -- a lot of progress has been made since the last time we heard from General Petraeus.

And I think Senator McCain touched on that by saying that, yes, there's a lot of work ahead of us but at least we are not staring into defeat. We have an opportunity to succeed here and we need to make sure that we do everything possible to allow that to happen.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: All right.

Senator, this is -- look at this poll, it's a Gallup poll -- it shows 60 percent of voters favor a timetable withdrawal; one-third of Republicans support the idea, but you've got a majority of Democrats and particularly Independents who are behind it.

But my question to you really looks down the road at our troops and there's this whole argument about, you know, whether or not certain members of Congress or certain politicians are supporting our troops. But then you also hear reports that our forces are wearing thin. And I wonder if supporting them would be taking care of the injured and not sending more off to a potentially endless war where they'll lose their lives or if supporting the troops is continuing this. I mean, is there an argument to be made that at some point we have to tactically decide that we cannot sustain this?

SEN. THUNE: I think that -- and General Petraeus made this very clear yesterday that one of the consequences of this is we are seeing strain on our troops. And there's no question about that.

And, Mika, we have an obligation and a responsibility as a country to take care of those troops when they come back. But at the same time -- and I asked this question last week at a hearing and raised it again yesterday with General Petraeus about the readiness of our troops. He says this is the best Army that we've had in his 34 years of service.

And I think what we have to do is we've got to add to end strength; we've got to add Marines, and -- (inaudible) --. And we are doing that, increasing the number of our troops. We've got to get more sharing of responsibilities in place like Afghanistan; NATO has to step up more. And we've got to address this issue of dwell times which the president is going to announce that they're going to reduce the troop length from 15 months down to 12 months.

Those are all things that I think will help address this. There's no question about this -- we're putting a lot of pressure on our troops but they're doing a magnificent job of carrying the battle there. We've got to care for them when they come home and we've got to make sure we're taking the necessary steps so that they don't get stretched too thin and we don't see these strains become a major problem for our future readiness.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: All right.

Senator, thank you very much for coming on the show this hour.

Senator Thune, a John McCain supporter.

SEN. THUNE: Thanks, Mika.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Look forward to talking to you again soon, sir.

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