Guest: Dutch Ruppersberger, Debra Saunders, Jim Warren, Dana Milbank, Richard Armitage
CAMPBELL BROWN, GUEST HOST: Tonight, have Iraqi insurgents shaken American confidence? We ask deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage. It‘s time for HARDBALL.
Good evening. I‘m Campbell Brown, sitting in for Chris Matthews. President Bush today held his final news conference of the year, and he gave his vote of confidence to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When I asked the secretary—the secretary to stay on as secretary of defense, I was very pleased when he said yes. And I asked him to stay on because I understand the nature of the job of the secretary of defense, and I believe he‘s doing a really fine job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: We‘ll have more on the president‘s news conference later. But first, my interview with the No. 2 official at the State Department, departing Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage. I began by asking him about Iraq and whether next month‘s election will take place in light of this weekend‘s violence, and the execution-style killing of three election workers in broad daylight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD ARMITAGE, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: I think we can pull it off with the strength and determination and courage of the Iraqi people. Everything you say is exactly true. But equally true is the fact that people are lining up to vote and lining up to become candidates in the face of this intimidation.
BROWN: But not all are. The Sunnis aren‘t.
ARMITAGE: I think it‘s a little soon to make that judgment. You‘ve got a month or so before elections. Many of the Sunnis have indicated they will participate. I think the job of the interim government and the international community is to make sure that elections are available for the widest variety of peoples.
BROWN: But how do you convince people—I mean, this is the hearts and minds question—but to say, go to the polls on January 30th and vote when people are thinking, if I do, I may well die.
ARMITAGE: You had the same situation in Afghanistan. The fact of the matter was, the combination of provisional security at the polling places and a desire that lay within the hearts of the people of Afghanistan drove them to the polls. And we‘re counting on the same situation here in Iraq.
BROWN: But why not delay the election to try—six months, a year, to create a situation where there is less violence and you could ensure more Sunni participation?
ARMITAGE: I‘m not sure that‘s the case. I think you might make just the opposite argument. If you delay the elections, the insurgents win, the interim government loses. The worst thing in the world for an Iraqi is to seen as weak and feckless, and this government won‘t be seen as weak and feckless.
BROWN: It wouldn‘t be a blow to the insurgency to be able to ensure more Sunni participation?
ARMITAGE: Quite the contrary. These folks want to make sure that no elections take place. And a delay will only feed their ardor.
BROWN: Let me ask you about reports that Syria is aiding the insurgency. The president said today, “when I expect these countries to honor the political process in Iraq, I meant it.” What does that mean?
ARMITAGE: Well, I think his words stand on their own. The question for Syria is whether they‘re going to come to the conclusion that there is going to be an Iraq next door to them. And this is going to be an Iraq which is free and open. The question for Syria to ask is whether they want to have as their neighbor a country which is friendly and open to them. It is not beyond, the comprehension I think of us aside, to realize that the Iraqi government is going to be one with whom he‘s going to have to deal. And so he‘s got to toughen up along the borders, he‘s got to knuckle down those people who are allowing former regime elements to work out of Syria.
BROWN: But is this a diplomatic problem, of the U.S. talking to Syria? Or is this potentially a military problem?
ARMITAGE: All options are obviously on the table. We don‘t want to make it a military problem. We have spoken to the Syrians, as the president indicated. Moreover, the Iraqi government, they‘ve spoken to the Syrians. And they‘ve taken some action. They just haven‘t taken sufficient action yet.
BROWN: How worried are you about Iranian influence in this election?
ARMITAGE: I‘m fairly worried. The Iranians have a lot of money.
They have got a lot of interest, particularly in the southern part of Iraq. And we‘ve seen their intelligence agents quite active there. So one has to be worried.
BROWN: What is the U.S. doing about it?
ARMITAGE: Well, I think you, in the first instance, look to the Iraqi government. I think if you look in the south and look at Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani, who himself is an Iranian, he has spoken out quite forcefully about the need for foreigners to get out of the elections and let Iraqis decide Iraqi future. That‘s a pretty good basis to start.
BROWN: But that doesn‘t change the fact that the biggest coalition of Shia in this election, the leader of that coalition has very strong ties to Tehran. It is going to take more than just speaking out.
ARMITAGE: Well, it is one thing to have ties to Tehran. It‘s another to be a wholly owned subsidiary, which I don‘t think you‘re suggesting. It is clear that Iran and Iraq are going to have to live next to each other. That Iran wants an Iraq, which is somewhat friendly to it, not a military threat. I think the same could be said of Iraq desiring that of Iran.
I think the government you‘re going to end up with in Iraq is one that will be slightly Islamic, but certainly not resembling in any way the theocracy of Iran‘s.
BROWN: Expound on that. Slightly Islamic. What do you mean? Is that acceptable?
ARMITAGE: Sure, it is acceptable. If it is acceptable to the Iraqi people, it is acceptable to us, certainly.
BROWN: But slightly Islamic?
ARMITAGE: Well, I think that you can expect a government that has adherence to the Islamic faith and not totally secular. I don‘t predict anything like Sharia law or something of that nature at all. But I think we‘ll have the cast of the government will be slightly, as I say, Islamic. Which is not a threat.
BROWN: Sitting here right now, when the decision was made to go to war, did you think that we would be facing the situation we‘re facing today? Was that on anyone‘s list of possible scenarios?
ARMITAGE: We had done a study called the Future of Iraq Project here at the Department of State. It took about a year to complete, at the participation of many in government and many Iraqi expatriates. And many problems were foreseen in that, including looting, which is one of the first things that happened following the arrival in Baghdad.
BROWN: Well, be reflective, because you‘re out of here soon. What was the biggest mistake?
ARMITAGE: Being reflective means I get a chance at self-immolation. So I‘ll try to avoid that. But there were a lot of mistakes. I think the one that we made was to underestimate the biggest one, the virulence of the insurgency and the virulence of the nationalistic movement.
BROWN: What would you do differently?
ARMITAGE: I can‘t put the genie back in the bottle. I think we have no other course now but to follow through, have these elections, which would be the beginning of a process, not the end of a process. But it will be the beginning of a process in which Iraqis are taking an ever greater hold of their own future, that is putting their own hands on the tiller of their future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We‘ll be back with the State Department‘s Richard Armitage and we‘ll get his comment on the words and actions of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. I‘m Campbell Brown, and you‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I‘m Campbell Brown, and coming up on HARDBALL, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage says he was surprised by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld‘s comment to a soldier. HARDBALL returns after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Welcome back to HARDBALL. This weekend Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said he has no confidence in the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. I asked deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage what he thinks of the criticism directed at Rumsfeld.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD ARMITAGE, DEP. SECRETARY OF STATE: I think he‘s a bit of a lightning rod these days. It must be hard to get up and go to work.
BROWN: A lot of it is coming from pro-war Republicans.
ARMITAGE: No one is pro-war.
BROWN: Who were originally supportive of the plan to go into Iraq.
ARMITAGE: I think they have a lot of questions and they deserve their important questions and they deserve to be answered. The secretary of defense is going to try to answer them.
BROWN: What was your reaction when you heard him answer the question from that soldier, that Tennessee national guardsman who asked about the lack of armor?
ARMITAGE: I was very surprised. I was very surprised that the soldier didn‘t have the armor and I was very surprised at the answer.
BROWN: Why? Explain that.
ARMITAGE: I think that I question what our leaders in the field, the officers who are preparing to lead these men into battle have been doing. If they‘re going to battle without the equipment they need then someone should be talking about it. The president of the United States has made it very clear. Our soldiers will get what they need to do the job we ask of them.
BROWN: Is this Secretary Rumsfeld‘s responsibility? Does the buck stop with him?
ARMITAGE: In theory it does stop with him. But there are a lot of weigh stations before you get to him. I think people all the way up and down should be looking at what they were doing and what they can do to better serve our troops.
BROWN: How did this happen? You‘re a soldier. You worked at the department of defense. How did we get to this point where the soldiers are challenging him about the support, the kind of support they have on the ground?
ARMITAGE: I can‘t say. I defer to the department of defense. I don‘t find anything strange in a soldier standing up, to use your words, challenging the secretary of defense. Our soldiers are pretty upfront, tell it like it is folks. They always have been. As far back as I go in the military and I was quite proud of the young man.
BROWN: Do you think soldiers right now have the support they need?
The equipment and support?
ARMITAGE: I‘ll tell you what I‘m sure of. If they don‘t have it, they‘re in the process of getting it. Particularly after the very strict orders given by the president.
BROWN: What did you think about the reports that Secretary Rumsfeld was not personally signing these condolence letters to families of soldiers killed in Iraq?
ARMITAGE: You know, I defer to him. I think that he probably came up with the idea that he should acknowledge the sacrifice of these soldiers and acknowledge to their families. And I‘m sure that the system probably took over. I know that he said he‘s going to sign them now. That‘s a good thing.
BROWN: Do you think that part of the reason for all this criticism being directed at him right now is that people are just fed up with the war and with how things are going and are looking for a place to place blame?
ARMITAGE: I don‘t know if they‘re fed up or not. You can look at this or that poll. I think the fact is that we started this. The president is keen to see it through. He even said this morning, he won‘t stop until the job is done. I think the fact that it is a long and difficult time does wear on people. I don‘t think that people are fed up. I think they know what we‘re undertaking is a huge endeavor. But ultimately, it will come out right. It has to come out right because of the sacrifice of these soldiers. We can leave it no other way than coming out right.
BROWN: Why are you leaving the state department?
ARMITAGE: There‘s a time to carry arms, which the secretary and I have done. There‘s a time to stack arms in front of the camp fire. I think it is time. The secretary has been very clear from the beginning that he thought, from somewhere during the first four years, he thought that a new team would be a good thing. We‘ve accomplished a lot. I‘m proud of it. It time to take a break and let someone else with new ideas come in.
BROWN: Would you have stayed if Secretary Powell had stuck around?
ARMITAGE: Well, you know, we‘re kind of like Balkan policy. In together, out together. And it was a two for one deal. I would have done whatever he wanted me to do.
BROWN: Would Secretary Powell have considered staying if the president had asked him to?
ARMITAGE: I think we‘ll leave that with the president and Secretary Powell.
BROWN: What kind of secretary of state do you think Dr. Condoleezza Rice is going to be?
ARMITAGE: I‘m pretty excited about her ability here to use her very excellent relationship with the president to nudge forward our diplomacy. I think that this relationship can be very helpful to the men and women of the department of state, to get the resources that we need to have this first rate diplomatic group here.
BROWN: A lot of people have said, because of her relationship with the president, because they‘re personally close, she has his ear in a way that most people don‘t, that she will be an extraordinarily powerful secretary of state. Maybe more so than Powell. Do you agree with that?
ARMITAGE: I hope so. I hope she is extraordinarily powerful and she uses the power to effect the foreign policy goals of the United States. You‘re not going to catch me saying that anyone was superior to Secretary Powell. I think if you go around the world and talk to his colleagues, to a person, they‘ll tell that he‘s the most skilled diplomat, indeed as skilled a diplomat as he was a soldier.
BROWN: What advice would you give her?
ARMITAGE: As secretary of state? I think to really respect the institution of the department of state, the men and women who serve just as valiantly as our soldiers do. They serve in the same places our soldiers do with one major difference. They don‘t have guns.
BROWN: Right. What is she—what do you think her biggest challenge is coming into this job?
ARMITAGE: I think it is a two-pronged challenge. One, to try to develop the proper resources for this department of state at a time when the president is really intent on cutting our deficit in a meaningful way. That will be a real challenge. The second is to not try to do her job the way Colin Powell did it. But do it the way that Condoleezza Rice is. In other words, be her own person. And whenever you come into someone who has been successful to the job of someone who has been successful, there‘s a bit of a tendency to try to do it like that person did. But I think that she‘s fully up to the challenge.
BROWN: We‘re going to take another quick break. We‘ll be back in just a moment again with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Welcome back. More now of my interview with outgoing Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. I asked him whether he was frustrated he didn‘t accomplish more trying to bring some resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARMITAGE: It is a larger grid that I have. But I‘m comforted by the fact that after the elections on January 9th, the Palestinian elections, that for the first time in several years, there‘s a cause for a small dose of optimism.
BROWN: Why do you say that?
ARMITAGE: Well, first of all, we could not deal, nor could the Israelis deal with Yasser Arafat. He‘s gone on. We‘ll have an elected president of the Palestinian people. I think if it goes the way I think it may go, someone who has eschewed violence and the gun for a diplomatic track, and that‘s a pretty good start.
BROWN: Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, has said that he would like—still believes there could be a Palestinian state within a year. Is that realistic?
ARMITAGE: Well, we had originally—when the president made his June 24th, 2002 speech, thought that this might be accomplished in two or three years. And if there‘s good will, gosh, it sure could. But I think that‘s very optimistic.
I think I would be most satisfied with just the process, which is transparent, in which Palestinians can daily take more charge of their lives and their territory and the Israelis can be daily more sure of their own security.
BROWN: Were insiders here at the State Department frustrated at all by what many viewed as sort of unwavering allegiance by the president to Ariel Sharon?
ARMITAGE: It has always been a case here that here at the Department of State, many of the Arabists have been unhappy with that unquestioned support for the state of Israel. It‘s not Ariel Sharon per se. It is the state of Israel. But it is the fact of political life. And I think it is part of our history. And it is not going to change. And everyone has come to grips with that.
BROWN: There were a lot of reports, you certainly read many of them, about the battles within the war cabinet, particularly Secretary Powell taking on the rest. How bad was it? And you can give some perspective to this, given all the various jobs that you‘ve had in government.
ARMITAGE: Well, I think in one way, it wasn‘t bad at all. I‘m a veteran of the Weinberger-Schulz battles, with two generals would get out for breakfast and they‘re fighting about the menu. But I think that—yes, of course there were battles. And there were large battles and strongly held views. And you‘d better be damn glad that we had those battles, because that‘s the only way you can flesh out all the aspects of a problem in front of the president to get a decision from the president. My point of view, we did pretty well.
BROWN: Well, I was going to say, overall, though, did diplomacy lose out?
ARMITAGE: Diplomacy won a lot of things. If you look at the run-up even to Iraq, which I think you‘re really referring to, we had some fantastic diplomacy with the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, unanimously voted by the Security Council. The India-Pakistan situation. This was diplomacy. Libya, it was diplomacy. The treaty of Moscow was diplomacy. The expansion of NATO was diplomacy. The resolution of the EP-3 issue with China was diplomacy. So I‘m hard-pressed to think that the diplomacy lost out.
BROWN: But you can‘t pretend that our relationship with countries like France and Germany, with much of Europe, hasn‘t been frayed, damaged by the process? If that, how do you repair that?
ARMITAGE: Of course, it takes two to tango, first of all. I would be very loathe to put all the blame on the United States. You repair it, however, by doing exactly what the president is doing, he‘s reaching out to Gerhard Schroeder. He‘s going to be visiting Germany in February. And you start the process of repair.
But equally, you might point out some of the successes of diplomacy, where things are not frayed, such as our relationship with China, such as our unparalleled relationship with Japan.
BROWN: Let‘s talk about the Ukraine for a second.
ARMITAGE: Sure.
BROWN: The two candidates are debating tonight, I believe, as we look to a election in that country. Give me your take on that, generally.
ARMITAGE: Well, we‘ve got a favorite candidate.
BROWN: Clearly.
ARMITAGE: Yeah. It‘s the people of Ukraine. That‘s our candidate. So we have a feeling this time that because of the international inspection, if you will, of this election on 26th of December, that the people of Ukraine are finally going to catch a break and they‘ll have a transparent election. And then we‘ll have an opportunity to have the kind of relationship with Ukraine that I think the Ukrainians deserve and we deserve.
BROWN: Do you think the U.S. jumped the gun a little bit in welcoming Russian President Putin with such open arms and having learned a lesson from this process relating to the Ukraine?
ARMITAGE: You‘re talking about originally at the beginning of the administration, welcoming Mr. Putin? I don‘t know. I think I would say that the relationship that the president and Mr. Putin have, and the relationship that Secretary Powell has had with his various counterparts enabled us to talk in a straightforward fashion with the Russians, and to disagree with them on many occasions without being disagreeable, and they with us.
As we move forward, there are a lot of questions about Russia that we all have. We‘re not sure of the direction Mr. Putin is going in, and we would like a little more transparency. And these are things that Secretary Powell was able to speak in Bulgaria to his colleague Sergey Lavrov. I‘ve spoken to my colleagues very straightforwardly about these matters, and the president will speak to Mr. Putin in the same manner.
BROWN: OK. You told me you‘re out of here on the 20th. What are you doing next?
ARMITAGE: I‘m trying to start a small business, not unlike the one I had before, and from time to time, I‘ll pop my head up over the parapet and have a thing or two to say about the great events of our time.
BROWN: We hope you‘ll sit down with us again.
ARMITAGE: Thank you very much.
BROWN: Secretary Armitage, always good to talk to you.
And we‘ll be back with more HARDBALL on MSNBC.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I‘m Campbell Brown. And this half-hour on HARDBALL, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gets a vote of confidence from the president today. But will it stop the congressional drumbeat against him?
But first, let‘s check in with the MSNBC News Desk.
(NEWSBREAK)
BROWN: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
In recent weeks, two top Senate Republicans have openly criticized Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld has been under fire for months over Iraq. And this weekend, there was a new controversy over condolence letters to the families of soldiers killed.
HARDBALL correspondent David Shuster has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID SHUSTER, NBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Under fire from Congress, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today received a personal boost from President Bush.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have seen the anguish in the—or heard their anguish in his voice and seen his eyes when we talk about the danger in Iraq and the fact that youngsters are over there in harm‘s way. And he‘s a good, decent man. He‘s a caring fellow.
SHUSTER: The latest controversy over Rumsfeld involves his reliance on a machine to affix his signature on U.S. troop condolence letter. The Pentagon has sent more than 1,300 such letters. And this weekend, Rumsfeld critics were infuriated by what they called his insensitivity.
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL ®, NEBRASKA: My goodness, that‘s the least that we could expect out of the secretary of defense, is having some personal attention paid by him. The president, I understand, signs personal letters, each letter to a family member. The president signs. If the president of the United States can find time to do that, why can‘t the secretary of defense?
SHUSTER: The Pentagon says Rumsfeld will now sign the letters personally. But this follows a torrent of criticism over Rumsfeld‘s seemingly flippant response to a U.S. soldier headed to Iraq concerned about shortages in vehicle armor.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: As you know, you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.
SHUSTER: The problem is that the war began at a time chosen by the administration. And miscalculations on a host of issues have left members of the president‘s own party infuriated. Senator John McCain said recently he had lost confidence in Rumsfeld. Senator Trent Lott said Rumsfeld should be replaced. And as for Democrats...
SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: The president makes these decisions. Granted, he delegates them to Secretary Rumsfeld. But, you know, the—it‘s just an arrogance of not acknowledging that there‘s been any mistake on anything. And people are dying.
SHUSTER: But the Bush administration did receive some breathing room on Sunday from two top Senate chairmen.
SEN. RICHARD LUGAR ®, INDIANA: The fact is to change of leadership in the Pentagon at this point might be as disruptive as trying to get somebody in homeland defense. We really cannot go through that ordeal.
SEN. JOHN WARNER ®, VIRGINIA: We‘re at war. And you‘re right, Dick. We should not at this point in time entertain any idea of changing those responsibilities in the Pentagon.
SHUSTER (on camera): There may be another calculation as well. Rumsfeld, once he sees a problem, is viewed as somebody who takes action quickly. And that could be especially valuable to some members of Congress who clearly now have Rumsfeld‘s ear and want more influence in President Bush‘s second term.
I‘m David Shuster for HARDBALL in Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And we‘re joined right now by Congressman REP. Dutch Ruppersberger, who recently returned from Iraq.
Congressman, good evening to you. Thanks for joining us.
REP. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER (D), MARYLAND: Good evening, Campbell.
BROWN: Since there is so much criticism of Secretary Rumsfeld coming from Capitol Hill right now, let me get you on the record. Do you think he should stay on the job?
RUPPERSBERGER: Well, first thing, I think it‘s not about the person as much as the policy. And if we‘re going to make a change, we are going to have to change the policy.
I don‘t think there should be any change made at this point with respect to Secretary Rumsfeld until after the election on January the 30th. And then, after that time, I think the president needs to evaluate where we‘re going. And we need to change the policy, because what we‘re doing now is not working.
BROWN: Well, aside from the policy, though, is this just about changing horses in mid-race? Or do you think he‘s doing a solid job?
RUPPERSBERGER: I think Secretary Rumsfeld is a very strong leader.
As we have seen, he is insensitive to certain situations. I think he needs to listen to his generals a little bit more. And I think he needs to listen to Congress. As an example, Congress has been very concerned about the resources that have been given to our troops. First, it was the vests. And then, secondly, it was the Humvees.
But Secretary Rumsfeld is a strong leader. He has reacted and he is doing what he needs to do at this point. But, right now, we have a serious problem in Iraq. I was in Iraq eight months ago and then four weeks ago. And there‘s a lot—it‘s a lot different between eight months and four weeks. It‘s very dangerous and we need to make sure that we start changing policies.
One of the policies I feel strongly about is that we need to have the
Iraqi military and police officers trained so that they can provide
security.
BROWN: But what isn‘t the administration doing in your view to make that happen? The president in his news conference today conceded that that was a problem. What else can they do?
RUPPERSBERGER: Well, I think, first, the president needs to understand needs to understand that we have made some mistakes.
Unfortunately, we always talk about our mistakes and we don‘t learn from our mistakes. I think one of the things that we need to do that is very important is the training, as I said before, with the Iraqis, with their police and also their military. Right now, Germany has said that they will train Iraqi military and police officers. And France is considering it. I think that‘s a change in policy.
And if we‘re going to change Secretary Rumsfeld, then we need to make sure that we have somebody in there that will reach out and start working a coalition, so that it is just not American men and women that are being killed over there trying to provide security.
BROWN: Well, let‘s talk about American troops. And I want to go back to Rumsfeld for a second, because you talked about the need for him to work better with Congress. Why is it that it took this question from the Tennessee National Guardsmen to get some reaction with regard to vehicle armor?
RUPPERSBERGER: I think there‘s a lot of issues on the table. There are a lot of priorities that are out there.
And I think Secretary Rumsfeld in the very beginning felt that we could do the job that we were attempting to do, as far as liberating Iraq, without the resources, that we could do it, so to speak, on the cheap. And that wasn‘t the case. We need more troops. Hopefully, it won‘t just be United States troops, though.
BROWN: I want to get into that a little bit more.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Because the defenders of Rumsfeld are—many are saying right now, it is really a question of style over substance. The president said today he is a decent man whose style is sort of rough and gruff on its exterior. And Senator Bill Frist said essentially the same thing. You shouldn‘t confuse style with substance.
But you keep going back to the issue of substance. If Rumsfeld is not the man for the job, what is it going to take? What does the White House need to do to change policy? Is it a matter of getting Congress more involved or reaching out more internationally?
RUPPERSBERGER: Congress is a check and balance. We need to make sure that we give the resources to the troops, but we do need leadership.
The president is the leader. The president takes advice from Rumsfeld and Rumsfeld runs the Department of Defense. At this point, what is happening now in Iraq just doesn‘t seem to be working. And it is getting worse. We need a strong leader, someone who is going to have an open mind and reach out, I believe, to the rest of the world.
Now, it is not about the person, how strong he is or how good he is. Secretary Rumsfeld is a good American and he wants to do right just as well as we all do. But if it is not working, the president needs to make sure that we admit our mistakes and move forward.
I‘ll give an analogy. It‘s like the Department of Homeland Security. We‘re having a difficult time—the president is having a difficult time finding the right person for that position. And that‘s why I don‘t think we should make any changes right now until after the elections, the Iraqi elections on January the 30th. And then, after the elections, the president should reevaluate, as he should every department.
But we have American men and women that are losing their lives because of the decisions we‘re making. But they know that when they signed up—and they represent our country very honorably, I will say—they need to have confidence in their leader. Now, my issue is, No. 1, does the president have confidence in Rumsfeld? And, secondly, do the troop have confidence? That‘s what‘s most important to me. It is not what the polls in the United States say. It is getting the job done.
BROWN: All right, thank you.
RUPPERSBERGER: OK. Sure.
BROWN: Congressman Ruppersberger, we appreciate your time.
RUPPERSBERGER: Sure.
BROWN: And when we come back, President Bush‘s final news conference of the year. We‘ll talk about what he hopes to achieve in 2005.
And, tomorrow, the wife of President Dick Cheney, Lynne Cheney, will join us here on HARDBALL, tomorrow at 7:00 Eastern on only MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Next on HARDBALL, President Bush briefs the White House press corps about his plans for the new year, the Palestinian elections, two confirmation hearings, and the Iraqi election. We‘ll ask White House reporters when HARDBALL returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Making his debut at “TIME” magazine‘s newly minted person of the year, President Bush talked to the White House press corps.
To assess his performance, we turn now to Jim Warren, the deputy managing editor of “The Chicago Tribune,” Debra Saunders, columnist for “The San Francisco Chronicle.”
And we‘ll begin with Dana Milbank, White House correspondent for “The Washington Post.”
And, Dana, you know how glorious it is, with this president, especially, to be able to ask more than two questions, which is normally his limit. What was the most interesting thing you heard today?
DANA MILBANK, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, “THE WASHINGTON POST”:
Well, it was a little unfortunate. We‘re like the dog that was chasing the car and we caught up. And we got to ask all these questions and he didn‘t really answer them. It was more—I think it was more evasive maneuvers than he‘s done at any point since he was flying jet aircraft.
But he didn‘t want to say anything about Social Security. The one place where he really might have made a little bit of news was, he sounded quite pessimistic on Iraq and—or at least not as upbeat as he had been before. So I think that was the main takeaway point for me.
BROWN: Debra, I‘m going to get on to these issues a little deeper in a second. But give me your general take first.
DEBRA SAUNDERS, “THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE”: Well, I just think he seems a lot more comfortable now that the election is over.
And I remember watching him this morning and thinking, you know, I think the election really was tough on him personally, because he hesitated. He was not as articulate. And now that he‘s had his victory, he‘s beaming. He‘s a happy man.
BROWN: Jim, do you think he got his confidence back?
JIM WARREN, DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR, “THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE”: I think so.
You know, I was just thinking, also, Campbell, you now threaten to dramatically, maybe even benevolently lower the decibel level this week.
(LAUGHTER)
WARREN: It might be a good thing.
But, sure, there‘s this huge confidence now. He‘s “TIME” person of the year. I thought there were a couple of interesting things, as Dana suggested, a little bit of contrition toward Iraq, not much, but admission that the Iraqi police forces have not gone like they would have. And then there was this foray in Donald Rumsfeld into—I don‘t know what we should call it, Dana, maybe we politico-psycho-cardiology.
Just like Putin, he has looked into the man‘s heart and decided, he is a good and benevolent and wonderful man.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Let‘s talk about those issues more specifically, just what you were saying Iraq in particular, the president saying that Iraq is not ready to handle its own security yet.
And let‘s listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The ultimate success in Iraq is for the Iraqis to secure their country. I recognize that. The American people recognize that.
That‘s the strategy. I would call the results mixed in terms of standing up Iraqi units who are willing to fight. There have been some cases where, when the heat got on, they left the battlefield. That‘s unacceptable. Iraq will never secure itself if they have troops that, when the heat gets on, they leave the battlefield. I fully understand that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Dana, do you think he didn‘t convey strongly enough that they know what they‘re doing or that they‘re on the right track?
MILBANK: Well, I think he‘s taking a bit of a different tack here, because they‘ve been relentlessly upbeat and people are saying they‘re out of touch with reality.
We have a new poll out tonight saying the majority of people are, first of all, opposed to the way he‘s handling things in Iraq, really don‘t think that Iraq is ready to have the elections, and think that we made a mistake going into Iraq. So he sees numbers like that as well. And they‘re figuring, OK, well, maybe we need a little bit of a dose of reality.
BROWN: Jim, how much do you think is riding on this, the election specifically? The White House has sort of made it into a benchmark. What is at stake for them?
WARREN: Well, less than I would have imagined.
I think one of the things that is helping out the White House—and it confounds me sitting out here in the heartland, Campbell—is sort of the lack of interest. I don‘t know whether it is that streak of American isolationism. But, as bad as things are going on the ground, I would have expected the poll numbers and just the visceral reaction of a lot of Americans to be a lot worse.
I think the White House has lucked out a little bit in having such a degree of passivity and downright lack of interest in some quarters of America.
BROWN: Do you think that‘s what it is, Debra, or is it support for the president?
SAUNDERS: No, I don‘t think that‘s what it is. I think that the American people are smart enough to understand that things are going to get worse before they get better.
I think the president—well, I didn‘t like some of his touchy-feely stuff about Rummy being a great guy. He‘s not Miss Congeniality. He‘s the defense secretary. We want somebody who can win a war. But I think the president understands, and the people of America understand that things are going to get bad. People are going to try to stop the election.
But once that election happens, the scenery could be completely different. And he just has to ride it through and then see what happens.
BROWN: Well, let me play a brief clip. This is earlier from our interview with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage when we asked him about the question—what he thought of the question from the National Guardsman about armor in Iraq. And here‘s what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARMITAGE: I was very surprised that the soldier didn‘t have the armor and I was very surprised at the answer.
BROWN: Why? Explain that.
ARMITAGE: Well, I think that I questioned what our leaders in the field, the officers who are preparing to lead these men into battle, have been doing. If they‘re going into battle without the equipment they need, then someone should be talking about it. The president of the United States has made it very clear. Our soldiers are going to get what they need to do the job we ask of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: It‘s careful criticism of Rumsfeld, but it‘s still coming within the administration. Did the president go far enough today—Dana, let me start with you again—to shore it up?
MILBANK: Well, probably not. The president doesn‘t really need to convince the majority of the public. He can just keep Rumsfeld on the job.
But the context in which this was asked made it quite difficult. Here we have the secretary of defense not personally signing letters to the parents, to the spouses, to the children, whoever, of soldiers who were killed. The president is not going to defend that, so he says something vague about knowing the defense secretary‘s heart.
And the problem is, by doing actions such as that, Rumsfeld has made it difficult for people like the president, people like Armitage to defend him.
BROWN: Debra?
SAUNDERS: Well, I don‘t think that there was a good answer that Rumsfeld could have given for the fact that there are people who are fighting who don‘t have the equipment.
But I watched that town meeting. And it was something that the soldiers seemed to accept more than some of the Washington wags I‘ve seen pointing fingers at him.
BROWN: Jim, you get last word.
WARREN: Well, of course, the subtext there, there‘s a deep and abiding mutual personal lack of respect on the part of Armitage and Rumsfeld. They do not like one another. So no surprise, he would be sticking it to them.
But, regardless of the armor question, I think history will show we had insufficient folks on the ground, insufficient international help. And even the president‘s self-confidence on display by and large again today may not make up for that.
BROWN: All right. We‘re coming back. More with Dana Milbank, Jim Warren and Debra Saunders.
And don‘t forget to check out Hardblogger, our political blog Web site. Just go to HARDBALL.MSNBC.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We‘re back with “Washington Post” White House correspondent for Dana Milbank,Jim Warren, deputy managing editor for “The Chicago Tribune,” and “San Francisco Chronicle” columnist Debra Saunders.
I want to go back, Dana, to something that you mentioned at the very beginning of the show, the president‘s answer to a question about Social Security.
Let‘s listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: I don‘t get to write the law.
I‘ll propose a solution at the appropriate time. But the law will be written in the halls of Congress. And I will negotiate with them, with the members of Congress. And they will want me to start playing my hand.”Will you accept this? Will you not accept that? Why don‘t you do this hard thing? Why don‘t you do that?”
I fully recognize this is going to be a decision that requires difficult choices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Dana, I was struck by the president not wanting to get into any detail on an issue that he‘s campaigned on for years now. Was that essentially a dodge, saying I don‘t want to negotiate with myself or with reporters; I‘m saving it all for Congress?
MILBANK: It was completely a dodge. But you can sort of understand why he‘s doing it. And he‘s laid out sort of the parameters in terms of what he won‘t do. And he said he is not going to raise taxes. He‘s not going to effect benefits to sort of the near-term retirees.
What he would like to set it up as is that when hard choices have to be made, say, means testing or limiting the benefits, that these will be seen as he‘s making a concession to somebody on the Hill, like, he doesn‘t want to be taking anything away. So there‘s a real political logic to what he‘s doing. In our poll, we have only 38 percent of Americans supporting him on Social Security, 52 percent opposing. So, he has got a big hill to climb here.
BROWN: Let me ask you, Jim, starting with you a little bit about sort of the stylistic issues this White House has, going into what is a major month. They have so much on their plate, inauguration, confirmation hearings, which could be tough confirmation hearings for some of his key team, Palestinian elections, then Iraqi elections. Even for a White House known for its discipline, how are they going to manage all this?
WARREN: Well, it‘s a whole lot. But you start with the guy at the top, who is entirely filled with self-confidence. Critics might say it is now verging on hubris, particularly when it comes to Iraq.
But I think he knows what he wants to get done. He‘s going to get those elections done. I can see him, Campbell and Dana and Debra, going out on the campaign trail for privatization of Social Security, in the same way he stumped for reelection. I think he actually believes he can pull it off. And I wouldn‘t sell him short. You look at the first term, a lot of naysayers when it came to tax cuts, with prescription drug benefits for Medicare and also No Child Left Behind.
So maybe he can pull some of these things off. But then, of course, up on the Hill, he has got a lot of different constituencies, and notably that tricky group of moderate Republicans.
BROWN: Debra, your take.
SAUNDERS: Well, you know, I just think that this is a president who doesn‘t deal well with Congress. He knows how to put the screws to Congress. But he doesn‘t really know how to negotiate that well and how to work with them.
If there‘s something that I would like to see the president do, it is really learn how to work with people on both sides of the aisle. And I just think, in a way—and it is a problem that he has—this president and his administration, the Bushies, they think there are people they can‘t persuade, so they are not even going to bother trying.
And while I agree with Jim that I would not count the president out, and he does have a way of getting what he wants, it wouldn‘t hurt to be a little nicer to people and just sit down and listen a little bit more and talk to people on the other side.
BROWN: Is that going to be an issue during these upcoming confirmation hearings for some of the nominees, like Alberto Gonzales, for example? Has this White House gotten beyond the Bernie Kerik fiasco and did they learn anything from it?
Dana, start.
MILBANK: Well, the Democrats are going to make a lot of noise about Gonzales and the others, but, ultimately, it is hard to see where any of the nominees that are being put up so far, where they don‘t have the votes to get them through.
That said, they have got a range of troubles on a whole bunch of issues. And we start with Social Security. Immigration proposals the president has, he has trouble in his own caucus with that. Tax reform is going to be exceedingly difficult. And, on top of that, he has promised to cut the budget deficit in half.
So how do you all of that with a very fractious Republican caucus up on the Hill, it seems—it would seem to be virtually impossible. So we‘ve learned not to predict that the president won‘t be able to get something done, but this is going to be yet another level of achievement.
BROWN: OK, Jim and Debra...
(CROSSTALK)
WARREN: Sorry.
BROWN: Go ahead, quickly.
WARREN: Well, I was just going to say, Campbell, quick, is, history shows you need big, big, big majorities like LBJ had to get real big things done, which is why Social Security still remains a long shot.
BROWN: Thank you all, Dana Milbank, Jim Warren and Debra Saunders.
Always good to talk to you.
And Chris has asked me to thank everyone who was moved by the show from Walter Reed and the Fisher House last week. Jim Weiskopf at the Fisher House tells us, since that show, between 1,200 and 1,400 people have donated to Fisher House. And if you would like to donate to Fisher House, the Web site, again, is www.FisherHouse.org, or you can donate to the Walter Reed Family Assistance Center at 202-782-2071.
And tomorrow on HARDBALL, I‘ll sit down with Lynne Cheney from the vice president‘s residence.
Right now, it‘s time for “COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN.”
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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