MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
Interview
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SCHULTZ: Joining us tonight, Congressman John Garamendi of California. Congressman, good to have you with us.
What`s your response to this kind of ramped up rhetoric that we`re getting?
I`m not here to say that the American people tonight on this program that ISIS isn`t a problem, but it sure is something we`re getting the same old 2002, 2003 ramped up talking points. Do you think the American people are getting a fair description of what`s actually happening?
REP. JOHN GARAMENDI, (D) CALIFORNIA: Not from those fellas. There`s no doubt that ISIS is a threat. There`s no doubt that Al-Qaeda remains a threat and Boko Haram and others. There are many, many organizations around this world that are threatening in multiple ways. Certainly kidnappings, we hear about bombings in various parts. Unfortunately, we haven`t had much of that except for the issue, the item in Boston.
But we need to be alert. We need to be on our guard always. We also need to understand that our government, the president and our military is taking action. Maybe we want to find out what that action is. You ask the folks that came under the attack of the American war planes as they try the Mosul Dam or move on to Erbil. We are there. We are providing a very, very important moment for the Iraqis, for the Kurds and for the other threatened countries in that area to get their act together and then all of us together deal with the ISIS.
There`s no way we can do this by ourselves, but in concert with those
countries and those elements, we can and we will succeed.
SCHULTZ: I mean, I view John McCain as a very bitter man for losing the election in 2008. He can`t get away from that. He claims that if we had left a residual force in Iraq and come to a security forces agreement that ISIS wouldn`t be where they are right now. Do you agree with that?
GARAMENDI: If we had never gone into Iraq, ISIS wouldn`t exist today.
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
GARAMENDI: And so, let`s go back to where we really got off the track. We went into Iraq for reasons that were at least not true, if not outright fraudulent, and we wound up totally destabilizing that country and the region around it.
SCHULTZ: So.
GARAMENDI: So, that`s why you got to start this discussion.
SCHULTZ: So, when you have the chairman of the House Intel Committee saying a one plane ticket away from hitting America. What`s changed? I mean, hasn`t that always been the case? I mean, for us to be vigilant and on guard and protect the homeland? Has our security change since ISIS become more powerful and more resourceful?
GARAMENDI: No. It has not. We would continue to the same things we did before. Good intelligence. We had this shoe bomber and that was dealt with. There are many different kinds of threats and we need to be very much on our guard. We need to have the intelligence overseas and we need to have the security on the airlines in and out of this nation. And we also need to be aware that we do have home grown terrorist in our own nation not because they`ve gone off to Iraq to fight, but because they are here and disinfected for any number of reasons.
So, we have to be on guard everywhere along the line. But be very, very careful about the slippery slope to war and you want to be very careful. We want -- Revenge is an emotion to be sure but to go to war on revenge? Don`t do that. Go to war if you must because you are seriously threaten at the moment there`s a problem. That problem can and it`s now being dealt with, with air strikes and pulling together the countries and those who are threatened by ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the Middle East and that certainly involves the Gulf States, some of whom continue to support financially ISIS and Al-Qaeda. And we got to pull those folks away from that and make sure that they no longer do that because ultimately, they, too will be at risk if this cancer continues to grow.
At the moment, we`ve stabilized the situation at least in Iraq, giving the Iraqi government a chance to organize itself which it is doing, new government will be in place by the 10th of September, hopefully, no longer Maliki but rather a more broadly based government that has an opportunity.
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
GARAMENDI: . to pull the Sunnis back into the fault (ph) and have a united government. Will it happen? Let`s be hopeful.
SCHULTZ: And finally, Congressman, we hear Senators Graham and McCain saying that we just can`t hit Iraq, that we just can`t hit ISIS and Iraq. We need to go into Syria, your response to that?
GARAMENDI: Well, my response is the same as a couple of weeks ago.
SCHULTZ: Sure.
GARAMENDI: . when I was asked this question that these guys are willing to bomb everybody any place. You got to careful. Syria has an air defense system, a very robust air defense system. It happens to have been supplied by the Russians. Are we going to go in there with our airplanes and put our people at risk? We would need to be very, very much aware. Syria is not Iraq and Syria has its own air defense system. So, be cautious, be careful, there are things we can`t do, there are things we have done. And we tried to get hostages back with a very specific effort with our special forces, it didn`t work but there are things that we can do.
But watch out, you send the airplanes into a place that has very sophisticated air defense systems, I think we want to be cautious.
SCHULTZ: OK. Congressman John Garamendi of California on armed services, good to have you with us tonight, sir, I appreciate it.
GARAMENDI: Thank you, Ed.
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