Guest: Michael Weisskopf, Tom Wolfe, Thomas Ricks, Karl Vick
CAMPBELL BROWN, ANCHOR: Pentagon officials say one of the worst attacks against American soldiers overseas is the work of a suicide bomber. How did he infiltrate the base, how safe are our soldiers? We‘ll talk about the attack and its potential political fallout. Let‘s play HARDBALL.
Good evening. I‘m Campbell Brown sitting in for the vacationing Chris Matthews. General Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs said today that attack that killed 13 U.S. troops and five American civilians on a military base near Mosul appears to be the work of a suicide bomber. U.S. forces responded to the attack by sweeping through Mosul, sealing off certain areas as they hunt for the killers. Karl Vick is the Baghdad bureau chief for the “Washington Post.” Karl, bring us up to date. What‘s the latest there on the ground?
KARL VICK, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Well, it‘s like you say. Mosul is really locked down, today. The streets were largely empty, except for U.S. forces patrolling in their striker armored vehicles and sealing off a couple of neighborhoods, children sent home early from school, university students were told not to come. Not only were the U.S. forces out but the Mujahideen, the local insurgents had put out the word to people they should not be out today, that there could be fighting in the streets. Meanwhile, these investigators were looking at the scene of this very bad bombing yesterday and coming to their conclusions, so a lot going on but no fighting up there, just a lot of waiting and alertness.
BROWN: Karl, yesterday, shortly after this happened it wasn‘t clear, obviously, whether this was a rocket or mortar attack or whether it was, in fact, a suicide bomber. Now it does appear that somebody essentially walked into the dining hall and blew the place up. What‘s the reaction to that, this new level of sophistication?
VICK: I mean, it really is quite a significant and startling breach of security at a U.S. base. These are really very heavily protected facilities. Force protection is really just rule one for the American military. They‘re extremely heavily fortified places. But now we‘ve seen an attack on a U.S. base as we‘ve seen an attack inside the Green Zone, which was almost as startling when it occurred for the first time a couple of months ago. You will remember that double suicide bombing in a cafe.
BROWN: Are you seeing anything specific there on the ground, either in the Green Zone or at these military bases, or are they talking about anything that they can do to sort of—to deal with this? Specific action especially leading into these next weeks, are certainly going to get ugly as we get closer to the elections.
VICK: You‘re going to see a new level of vigilance, in the Green Zone, for instance, after that attack you went from an area that basically was heavily fortified at its perimeter, it was very hard to get into but once inside you could move freely, even take taxis and move about as you liked to a place where there‘s military checkpoints every few blocks, hard checkpoints where every passenger in the car has to produce I.D., you‘re eyeballed, you‘re examined not by private security guards but by American soldiers. It‘s hard to imagine an environment like that inside a military base but it‘s not beyond the pale. This has happened. How not only the parts and the bomber got inside but—how he got into the base but how he got into the mess hall which is a place where you don‘t see Iraqis except for Iraqi security forces, Iraqi army, Iraqi national guard and translators working with the American army, so who did this? We don‘t know.
BROWN: Are you getting the sense—and this has got to be the case -
· that when something like this happens, how it undermines any trust and cooperation between the U.S. forces who are having to work with the Iraqis? Not only security forces but the average Iraqis.
VICK: Well, exactly. I mean, there‘s been this chasm between the American forces here and the population that‘s widened steadily as the insurgency has grown, and mistrust has grown. You know Americans. They sort of want everyone to be their friend. They‘re good-hearted. They want to help out. Americans here, who are working with the military and with the contractors say they just want to help build this country, and they can‘t understand why some people don‘t want that to happen.
Iraqis see the American military that‘s here coming on two years after the invasion, which was supposed to be for liberation, and they regard—many—more and more Iraqis regard it as a genuinely occupation force, and greet it with skepticism, so there is this difference in perception about why Americans are here in the first place, and then, you see incidents like this deepening sort of mistrust on a personal level. You don‘t know the person you‘re looking at, whether he‘s friend or foe. You hear that from soldiers all the time, and to think that they‘re going to be feeling that about people who are even in their midst, on their base, supposedly helping them, working beside them, fighting beside them, you‘re right, it is going to take a real toll.
BROWN: Karl, thank you very much for your time and stay safe over there. We‘re going to return to Republican senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, who is the former chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. Senator Shelby, does this suicide attack on a military base in Iraq reflect a more sophisticated insurgency?
SEN. RICHARD SHELBY ®, ALABAMA: Absolutely. It shows that the insurgency is very sophisticated and also very adaptive. We‘ve got to face up to the fact that we‘re looking at a determined, resourceful enemy with a lot of imagination that would stop at nothing, and it‘s hard to determine friend from foe here, but we‘ve got to do it. We‘ve got to do everything we can to protect our soldiers, knowing that they‘re in harm‘s way.
BROWN: Well, Senator, let me ask you, then—this is a question I want to ask everybody tonight. What needs to be done to keep our soldiers safer after something like this happens?
SHELBY: That‘s an excellent question, and it‘s one that the commanders on the ground—the people on the ground are going to have to answer. It‘s not one for politicians to answer or outsiders. But if you‘ve got a mess hall, you‘ve got to do everything you can to protect the people once they‘re in that—from people outside the perimeter. But if you don‘t know who the enemy is—and I think that‘s part of the problem there. We‘ve got that adaptive, resourceful enemy, and they‘re—and they‘re everywhere. I‘ve talked to a lot of people who have been there, and it‘s hard to distinguish between the enemy and people who might be trying to help them, or people they‘re training.
BROWN: Does this set an intelligence problem? Is our intelligence on the ground not up to snuff?
SHELBY: Oh, absolutely, it‘s an intelligence problem. It‘s been one from day one. We had great military success early on. Our military is—there is nothing to—to challenge it, in a sense, but on the ground, we‘ve made some big mistakes and I think we‘re going to have to face up to it. One, we don‘t have the information, which is intelligence, about where the people are, who they are, where they‘re going, and that is a challenge deep and the military knows it. Our intelligence agencies know it. And they‘re trying to cope with it. But at the end of the day, one thing we can‘t do is cut and run. We‘ve got to sustain our soldiers. We‘ve got to provide for our soldiers. And we‘ve got to provide them with the best equipment and the safest place to train and live while they‘re there.
BROWN: Senator Shelby, you have said that time and time again that you can‘t cut and run, that you have got to stay the course, but in light of what happened isn‘t it time this administration took a really hard look at whether or not they‘re on the right course?
SHELBY: I think the administration has taken that—they‘ve done a lot of in-depth analysis, and there will be more in view of what‘s happened recently. I think the question that we ask a lot, do they need more troops? It‘s obvious they need more something over there because a lot of our soldiers—and I hear from them—they don‘t feel as safe as they should. They wonder, at times, what are they doing? In other words, are they trained for this? They‘re trained for warfare. And a lot of this is police action. Maybe, we need to do a deep analysis and change some things over there, but the commanders on the ground are going to have to do that.
BROWN: You are hearing a chorus now and it‘s getting louder and louder of people who are saying there are essentially options. You‘ve got to put more boots on the ground or the administration has to start thinking long and hard about when and how to get out. Where are you? Do you think it‘s more troops? Or is it pulling back in some way?
SHELBY: Well, I think we cannot run because the same people who hunt us there would hunt us at home, and I think nothing like success. We‘ve got to succeed. We‘ve got the elections coming up. The tempo will be harder and we‘ll see more attempts at disrupting the election, disrupting our troops, killing a lot of people in the weeks to come, but do we need more troops? People said yes. Some say no. It‘s obvious we need more something. But we will not run. We will prevail. But sooner or later, we‘ve got to have an end game. And the end game, I believe, is to let the Iraqi people rule their own country.
BROWN: More of something—you have a background in this. You know this stuff. More of what? Can you say definitively that you think there should be more troops on the ground?
SHELBY: Well, I believe that we need to look at what we need over there. Better equipment, yes. And if we need more troops, the commanders on the ground will make that decision. A lot of the leaders in the military have already said we need more troops.
BROWN: Well, it doesn‘t seem like anybody quite has the answer just yet. Senator Shelby, I want to thank you very much for your time.
SHELBY: Thank you, Merry Christmas.
BROWN: And when we come back, General McCaffrey will join us on what the military can do to help keep the troops safer in Iraq. You‘re watching HARDBALL on MSNBC.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LYNNE CHENEY, WIFE OF DICK CHENEY: I‘m Lynne Cheney and I want to wish the men and women who are serving this country in uniform all around the world the very best for the holidays. I know it‘s a tough time for many people who are separated from their families, but I can tell you and I can tell your families that the American people are very proud. They are in great support of our fighting men and women. And you are doing a wonderful job for freedom and we thank you very much.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Retired General Barry McCaffrey commanded the Army‘s 24th Infantry Division during Desert Storm. He is now a NBC military analyst. General McCaffrey, good it see you.
The Pentagon is saying today that this was in fact a suicide bomber.
You were saying it well before they were. I heard you. How did you know?
GEN. BARRY MCCAFFREY (RET), NBC MILITARY ANALYST: If you have been under a lot of 122 rocket fire, 122 mortars, 82 mortars. You walk over and 10 seconds later, you look at the impact, you can see the spray of shrapnel, the nose cone is always there. You will always know the direction from which it fired and the caliber of round that went off, almost immediately.
BROWN: So it was obvious to you?
MCCAFFREY: They weren‘t saying that explicitly. What concerned me was the worst of all worlds is that you get a suicide bomber, a truck bomb, a car bomb, inside a protected area close to a large concentration of forces. The security is terrific, Campbell. The soldiers and Marines are scared to death. They‘re wary. They‘re using technology. But this is a violent, intelligent enemy we‘re dealing with.
BROWN: So you‘re a general. This has got to be your nightmare scenario. To have your troops—a large number of them in one place, unprotected because they think they are protected, going into a mess hall to eat lunch. How do you deal with this vulnerability?
MCCAFFREY: They‘re going to go back and study this. They‘ll do an after-action review. They‘ll sit and say what do learn out of this. What‘s our defensive measures. One thing is, every soldier gets up in the morning, sticks on his armor, blast (UNINTELLIGIBLE), helmet doesn‘t take them off until he goes back to bed and then lays them by the side of his bead. We‘re going to go back to tactical feeding and movement just like we did in World War II and Korea.
BROWN: Well, let me ask you this sort of bottom line question, overall, I mean, that‘s obviously what we‘re going to see them do over the next few weeks as we head toward elections and things are likely to get a lot uglier. But what overall has to be done to keep these troops safer?
I just asked Senator Shelby that, and he doesn‘t have an answer. We need more something, more troops, more armor, what is it?
MCCAFFREY: It‘s not our question. It‘s the first sergeants, the company commanders, the squad leaders, these are terrific combat troops. They‘re wary, they‘re well armed, they want to stay alive. Occasionally, a violent, cunning enemy gets by them. But they‘re going to clearly push back, now, and see what they can do to back these people off our coalition presence.
BROWN: The other thing, Senator Shelby and I were talking about was the intelligence problem on the ground. Why is that such a problem? Why hasn‘t our intelligence and our ability to infiltrate these insurgency groups? It doesn‘t exist, does it?
MCCAFFREY: Well, I think the agency was doing pretty darn well and so was a lot of the tactical intelligence. Clearly, what‘s still working is predator overhead systems. We‘ve got an awful lot of photographic intelligence, real-time video feedback. They‘re intimidating the Iraqi security forces, the police, the national guard, the army. They‘re trying to drive them away. They‘re trying to separate us from our translators, and it‘s working. So that‘s the challenge. We‘ve got this brilliant lieutenant general Bay Petraeus trying to create an Iraqi security forces, but it‘s two years‘ work.
BROWN: Well why—I mean, how do you overcome this? Because if you‘re an Iraqi and you‘re seeing this chaos in front of you and you are supposed to make a choice, essentially, and you don‘t know whether the Americans are there for the long haul, because there is certainly a lot of talk about, “Hey, when these elections are over, and they‘ve become a milestone in a sense for the administration, maybe the Americans are going to leave.” We don‘t know which side is going to win in the end.
How do you get the Iraqis to cooperate?
MCCAFFREY: I think you just summarized a dilemma we face. Right now the Iraqis are saying these guys are going to be out of here in a couple of years, they‘re not going to stick with it, we‘ve got to prepare ourselves for after the withdrawal. And so the Sunnis are saying we‘re going to be back in charge of Iraq and the Shia are saying, 60 percent of us, if we don‘t act now they‘re going to murder us again by the hundreds of thousands. We‘re on the front end of a civil war if we don‘t have the resources and the political will to stay with this.
BROWN: OK, they‘ve made, as I said, a milestone of this election.
It‘s not like things are going to suddenly get better on January 31st.
What‘s do you think is going to happen?
MCCAFFREY: Well, I think we‘ve got to go ahead with the election. If we don‘t the Shia are going to rise up and revolt as they did during the Sadr rebellions in the south. So, we can‘t deal with that. We‘ve got to go ahead with the elections. We‘re going to end up with nonparticipation by the Sunni. They will not add legitimacy to a form of government that puts them subservient to the rest of the population. It‘s not going to happen. We‘ll end up with two semiautonomous political representations and the Sunni are in a fighting mode. We‘ve got to deal with it and stand up to it.
BROWN: Go back, you touched on the Iraqi security forces and training, go back to that, because the president in his news conference this week admitted it wasn‘t going as well as they had hoped.
What do they need to be doing in terms of changing strategy to get them up to sped?
MCCAFFREY: Well, I think that you know this guy, Dave Petraeus I think is one of the smartest soldiers I‘ve ever met in my life. And we‘ve got a terrific army reserve presence helping him. He finally unencumbered the bureaucracies, a couple billion dollars worth of supplies finally flowing to the police and the army. But the problem, Campbell, isn‘t just equipping them, it isn‘t even training them a couple of weeks or eight weeks or whatever. The real challenge is how do you wind up with (UNINTELLIGIBLE) commanders and regimental commanders who think it‘s worth fighting and dying for the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people? There is no reason for us to believe that a Sunni Muslim police chief in the town of Ramadi is going to root out this insurgency. They‘re not going to do it. And even more importantly, they‘re intimidating many of the people who do think it‘s worthwhile stepping forward to create the new Iraq. We‘ve got to hang in there. Right now, in a very risky situation with meager resources to sustain the current U.S. effort.
BROWN: Well, let‘s go back to that and the effect that that‘s having on the troops in terms of morale. I mean, how do you—when everyone‘s saying “hang in there, you‘ve got to stay the course. “ We hear it over and over again, but you‘ve got to think that when something like this happens, this number of Americans and the way the families are reacting. And you had the soldier challenging Rumsfeld, this has got to be having an impact on morale.
MCCAFFREY: Well, I‘m not sure, yet. I think actually the armed forces is pretty tough. They‘re confident in the leadership. They think they‘re doing the right thing, so do I. I think the problem is we can‘t sustain it. Campbell, right now we‘ve got one happy army and Marine Corp deployed in combat, there, in Afghanistan and Korea, whatever.
We can‘t keep it up. We‘ve called up a couple 100,000 reservist. We‘re calling up Individual Ready Reservist who‘ve been out of uniform for 15 years for God sakes.
BROWN: But what do you do when the recruitment numbers are down.
They can‘t get people to sign up?
MCCAFFREY: Oh, they can. If we lift the active-duty presence, if we go listen to Senator John McCain or Chuck Hagel, or Jack Reid and these people and apply the resources need, young Americans will step forward and fight for this country.
BROWN: General Barry McCaffrey, always good to hear your views on this. Thanks very much.
MCCAFFREY: Good to be with you, Campbell.
BROWN: The attack on Mosul was the single worst on U.S. troops in Iraq. And when we come back HARDBALL correspondent David Shuster takes a look at whether the deaths of American warriors will change the debate over America‘s role in Iraq. You‘re watching HARDBALL on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The deadly suicide bombing in Mosul brings the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq to more than 1,300. The dead and wounded are now on their way home. And if history is a guide, the images may spark a new policy debate here in Washington. HARDBALL correspondent David Shuster reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID SHUSTER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The sad procession of military vehicles lined up today, at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany where the critically wounded began arriving. U.S. military officials are still trying to determine how a suicide bomber got into this mess tent in Iraq, killing 13 American soldiers and wounding 40 others. Reporter Jeremy Redmon.
JEREMY REDMON, THE RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH: We were with 2 soldiers from that unit getting our food. In fact, I was in the line for spaghetti when I heard this huge explosion. I looked up and there was this fireball, this gigantic fireball in the top of the tent. There were soldiers who were blasted out of their seats or knocked down.
DON RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It is an enormous challenge to provide force protection, something that our forces worry about, work on, constantly.
SHUSTER: The carnage makes this the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in Iraq since President Bush declared...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended.
SHUSTER: The Bush administration knows not the first to face an incident that renews questions about a military presence or mission.
RONALD REAGAN, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Words can never shape the depth of compassion that we feel for those brave men and for their loved ones.
SHUSTER: In October of 1983, Americans were stunned when a suicide bombing in Beirut killed 241 marines. These horrifying and sad images prompted the Reagan administration to pull U.S. troops out of Lebanon.
Ten years later, during the Clinton administration, a peacekeeping effort in Somalia went horribly wrong. Blackhawk helicopters were shot down. 18 American soldiers were killed. And American bodies were gruesomely dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
TOM BROKAW, FRM. NBC NEWS ANCHOR: We still don‘t know tonight who was responsible for that devastating and deadly terrorist attack against American military facilities in Saudi Arabia.
SHUSTER: In June of 1996, suicide bombers in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. soldiers at a military housing complex known as Khobar Towers.
In October of 2000, 17 American sailors died when al Qaeda suicide bombers on a raft attacked the USS Cole.
And on 9/11, the plane that hit the Pentagon killed 124 mostly military workers inside the building.
Each attack has led to a major change in U.S. policy, or at least a change in military security. The problem in Mosul, and other parts of Iraq, is that U.S. forces cannot operate by themselves.
GEN. RICHARD B. MYERS, CHAIRMAN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: We have no front lines. The front line can be the dining hall, it can be the road outside the base, it can be the police station, the governor‘s office or the mayor‘s down in Mosul.
SHUSTER (on camera): Myers added that the insurgents often wear clothes like every other Iraqi or like U.S. outfitted Iraqi police. And military officials acknowledge that distinguishing friend from foe may not get any easier as the Iraqi elections approach and the insurgency intensifies.
I‘m David Shuster for HARDBALL in Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: When we come back, “Time” magazine‘s Michael Weiskopf and the Washington Post‘s Tom Reich‘s on where Iraq goes from here. And later, author Tom Wolff takes us back to school in his new book “I Am Charlotte Simmons.” You‘re watching HARDBALL on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I‘m Campbell Brown, in for Chris Matthews.
This half-hour on HARDBALL, “TIME” magazine‘s Michael Weisskopf and “The Washington Post”‘s Tom Ricks on the future of Iraq. Plus, Tom Wolfe goes back to school for his new book, “I Am Charlotte Simmons.”
But, first, let‘s check in with the MSNBC News Desk.
(NEWS BREAK)
BROWN: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Tuesday‘s suicide bombing attack in Mosul underscores the difficult task the U.S. has had securing the peace in Iraq. And with more Americans uneasy about the war, the big question is how to keep U.S. soldiers safe.
Michael Weisskopf is a senior correspondent for “TIME” magazine. And Tom Ricks is a staff writer for “The Washington Post.”
Welcome to both of you.
Michael let me start with you.
Talk to me about the ramifications of this attack on what happened in Mosul with so many Americans. Do you see any immediate changes aimed at trying to give the soldiers better security?
MICHAEL WEISSKOPF, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, “TIME”: Well, I think the largest impact is going to be on the Iraqi people, who, in just over a month, are expected to go to the polls and are worried about their own security. When they see an American base under attack like this, particularly at a time when American soldiers are relaxing, I think it sends a message to them that they are not safe themselves.
BROWN: It undermines their confidence in the process.
WEISSKOPF: Yes. Yes.
BROWN: Tom, tell me, do you think there are going to be any immediate changes just to deal with sort of the ramifications of what happened with this attack?
THOMAS RICKS, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: I‘m sure there will be. I‘m already hearing a lot of buzz in the U.S. military about how such an attack could occur.
This was a suicide bomber inside bombing inside a U.S. base. That means the bomber obviously got on to the base somehow, which means probably it was a trusted person. So I think you‘re probably going to see a review of what sort of Iraqis are allowed on the base, where they move on the base and the general handling.
The problem with that is that the U.S. exit strategy is based on helping and trusting and training Iraqi security forces. And this is going to drive a wedge right into that U.S. strategy.
BROWN: Well, what is the strategy?
Michael, where is it? Because we have been talking about this throughout the show today, but you talk to senators or generals or—about what‘s needed, some people say more troops. Some people say focus more on training. What do you think it is? Is there any consensus?
WEISSKOPF: Well, on paper, of course, Campbell, the strategy is to replace U.S. forces over time with Iraqi forces.
Reports coming back from Iraq, as early as last week, suggest, even by people who are supportive of the president, such as Senator John Warner, that that just isn‘t working. The president himself even acknowledged that that has not been working. And so, over time, that means more and more role for U.S. troops, staying there longer and probably in larger number.
BROWN: Tom, you just heard what Michael said. And yet today at the Pentagon briefing with General Myers and with Secretary Rumsfeld, they made it clear that it‘s going to be Iraqi forces who are providing security for the elections. What was your take on that?
RICKS: Well, it struck me as kind of an expression of hope. I think U.S. forces are going to be very active over the next five weeks moving around.
The problem is, U.S. forces sometimes in their very activity in the past have proven to be counterproductive. Just having a U.S. soldier on a corner doesn‘t necessarily increase Iraqis‘ sense of security. Iraqis repeatedly have said in polls that were taken by the old CPA, the occupation authority, that they much prefer to have Iraqi police around than American troops. They‘re scared, frequently, of American troops, because the Americans, for their own protection, point their weapons at Iraqis they see.
And, for example, if a convoy is moving through a highway and if a car comes up fast behind it, American troops sometimes will shoot into the radiator of the car. That doesn‘t make the Iraqi driver feel comfortable. Sometimes, that Iraqi is just an Iraqi driver, not a suicide bomber. So there is a real tension between U.S. forces and the Iraqi people about quite how much protection they get from having U.S. troops around.
That‘s a major reason, I think, they‘re going to try to use Iraqi police or Iraqi National Guards as much as possible around the poll places. It‘s also a reason, I think, the insurgents will be attacking those police constantly.
BROWN: “The New York Times” editorial today was about postponing the elections, but you don‘t really think that‘s going to happen. There seems to be everybody on board with this idea that, January 30, come what may, we‘re going forward.
WEISSKOPF: Yes. For domestic reasons in Iraq, including the credibility of the interim premier, Allawi, and more importantly the credibility of the Shia leadership there, and, of course, the president‘s own credibility, this has been a date set in stone. It‘s unlikely to change.
BROWN: What do you think is going to happen on January 31st, though?
WEISSKOPF: Oh, I think we‘ll see a real kind of ballot box under heavy, heavy armed guard. It will raise questions about, what price is democracy if it has to be done at the barrel of a gun?
At the same time, it will be an important milestone. At least it will be a country which has been in the thrall of a tyrant for 30 years exercising some type of exercise in some democratic process.
BROWN: Tom, through your reporting, I know everyone is saying that the ideal situation is to give more responsibility to Iraqi troops, but do you think what happened in Mosul in putting pressure on the military to put more troops, U.S. troops, on the ground?
RICKS: It very well might, because there is the sense that you have really got to bring more security there.
There‘s a couple of problems, though. There really aren‘t many more U.S. troops available. They‘ve done the quick fix, which is to hold the troops who are there and extend out their tours, while bringing in the new troops for the next rotation. Beyond that, it‘s hard to shake out that many more troops. So it really is going to be, I think, a difficult time for the next couple of months.
BROWN: Secretary Rumsfeld, obviously, under an enormous amount of pressure right now and under a lot of fire from Capitol Hill and elsewhere about his performance. The president making it clear he believes he‘s going to stick around, certainly at least through elections, or wants him to stick around. Is he going to survive after elections, do you think, Michael?
WEISSKOPF: This is a president who has shown over and over a loyalty to people who have put in the hours for him. It‘s likely he will stick with Rumsfeld. And, after all, getting rid of Rumsfeld at this point acknowledges big mistakes in the past.
BROWN: Do you agree, Tom? Does Rumsfeld survive beyond the elections?
RICKS: I think he probably will for the reasons that Michael just gave.
But I was also struck that Rumsfeld in the briefing today at the Pentagon was a somewhat different Rumsfeld than the one I have seen in the past.
BROWN: Apologetic, almost.
RICKS: Yes. It kind of struck me about as close as you‘re ever going to come to a Checkers speech, Nixon‘s famous apology that you‘re going to get from Donald Rumsfeld. He didn‘t quite apologize, but he kind of explained himself.
He kind of said, look, if people thought I was kind of misstepping myself a little bit—he didn‘t quite say in Kuwait, but that was clear what he was talking about, his remarks to the soldiers there. And I think he was also kind of referring to this little gaffe about him not signing, personally signing the letters of condolence to the parents of troops who were killed in Iraq.
He was kind of saying, I do feel these things strongly, even if I don‘t always show it. I‘m very sorry about the deaths of American troops. It was kind of a striking thing. I‘ve never seen Rumsfeld quite that way before.
BROWN: We‘ve got to take a quick break. We‘ll be right back with Michael Weisskopf and Tom Ricks.
And don‘t forget to check out Hardblogger, our political blog Web site. Just go to HARDBALL.MSNBC.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Back with more from “The Washington Post”‘s Tom Ricks and “TIME” magazine‘s Michael Weisskopf. And later, veteran journalist and author Tom Wolfe will join us.
HARDBALL returns after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We‘re back with “TIME” magazine‘s Michael Weisskopf and “The Washington Post”‘s Tom Ricks.
And I want to ask both of you to comment, if you can, on some of the poll numbers that came out this week, these from the “Washington Post”/ABC News poll, which is, 70 percent of those polled say the number of U.S. military casualties in Iraq is unacceptable; 57 disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation in Iraq.
And yet our own NBC News/”Wall Street Journal” poll I think had it that a majority believe we ought to stay the course, that it‘s a sort of, you broke it, you‘ve got to fix it mentality. What do you make of that?
WEISSKOPF: Well, of course, the president is already in an afterlife politically. He doesn‘t have to worry about his own political fortunes. And these are polls...
BROWN: But legacy matters, right?
WEISSKOPF: Oh, legacy matters, of course, but legacy depends upon the length away from the presidency.
In any case, I think the real threat to the president and the presidency now is how much he‘s going to be able to shift forces away from foreign policy to domestic affairs, where he says he wants to make his stand in the second term.
BROWN: Tom, what‘s your take?
RICKS: Well, as a friend of mine pointed out, it‘s kind of like polls in which people say they don‘t trust the media, but constantly pay attention to it.
This is a kind of contradictory poll result. We just had the biggest poll in the world, the election, and the American people reelected President Bush. You have poll results are saying they‘re not really happy with the conduct of the war in Iraq. It‘s a contradiction. It‘s a puzzling one.
I think what it points to really is a profound uneasiness with the course of events in Iraq. I was struck with the U.S. Army‘s own projection, which I published in today‘s paper, was that the occupation of Iraq would end this month, December 2004. Instead, we‘re actually escalating. They‘re up to 150,000 troops this month.
So I think there is real puzzlement across the U.S. military, across the U.S. public, and I think probably even inside the administration about where Iraq is going and quite what the American role is going to be there over the next one, two, five or 10 years.
BROWN: Well, over the next period of time, go back, Michael, to what you were saying before about the domestic agenda. Do you already sense in the administration that there is concern now about this—the events in Iraq overtaking anything else they‘re trying to do?
WEISSKOPF: There is critical concern.
And when you hear from, as I mentioned before, Senator Warner, a key alley of the president‘s in the Senate, who raises questions about his foreign policy, now, it is Senator Warner whose vote and his leadership is going to be important on domestic issues. If a guy like Warner is preoccupied with what he sees as a wrongheaded policy in Iraq, mistakes, and need—seeing the need for a change in direction, his focus is going to be away from domestic policy as well.
BROWN: Tom, are you noticing—and, Michael, I want to get your take on this, too—whether—well, I think it‘s fair to say that there is more honesty about the mistakes and about the direction and more openness from the administration certainly than we saw prior to the election.
RICKS: Oh, I think that‘s certainly the case. It‘s also congressional Republicans have kind of taken the gloves off. Before the election, out of loyalty to the president and their party, they kind of tamped down their criticism.
BROWN: Everybody was biding their time.
RICKS: That‘s right. It no longer applies.
I think the second thing that‘s happened recently is, members have gone home. And I think at those Chamber of Commerce breakfasts and those ribbon-cuttings and the quiet coffees they have with constituents, I think they have been getting an earful, partly because of the big Guard and Reserve component in Iraq now and partly because those casualties really do hit a community.
It‘s one thing when a 19-year-old kid leaves. He was not a real leader in the community. It‘s another thing if the deputy chief of police or the high school principal goes off leading a Guard and Reserve unit. And it‘s a huge thing if he doesn‘t come home.
BROWN: That‘s a good point, Michael. Do you think that‘s the case as they are going home for break, especially now, that congressional members are getting an earful?
WEISSKOPF: Yes. And that famous Q&A session in Kuwait a week ago where a member of the armed services had the chutzpah to ask the secretary of defense...
BROWN: How dare he?
WEISSKOPF: ... about the quality of war machinery he‘s sent into war with. And the secretary‘s response, which was widely seen as arrogant and dismissive, I think hits home. It hits a populist core. And, strangely enough, for an all-volunteer army, because of things like that and because of the National Guard component, it‘s quite a populist war.
BROWN: Well, we‘ve got to end on that note, but thanks very much to Michael Weisskopf and Tom Ricks.
Thank you both for joining us.
BROWN: When we come back, veteran author and journalist Tom Wolfe will join us.
And this Friday, it‘s HARDBALL holiday, the brightest stories of 2004. Chris Matthews recaps the best interviews from the past year, including Donald Rumsfeld, Zell Miller, and P. Diddy. That‘s Friday, Christmas Eve, at 7:00 Eastern.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Tom Wolfe has taken us inside the hippie culture in “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” inside the astronaut culture in “The Right Stuff,” inside the decadent world of 1980‘s Wall Street in “Bonfire of the Vanities.” Now he goes inside the world of today‘s college student. He went to frat parties, as well as classes, and roamed the campuses of nearly a dozen colleges, conducting interviews and observing. And his findings are laid out in the fictional tale of a young woman from the North Carolina mountains who heads off to one of the country‘s premier colleges, hoping for four years of a life of the mind. What she finds is quite different. The book is called “I Am Charlotte Simmons.”
And welcome, Tom Wolfe.
TOM WOLFE, AUTHOR, “I AM CHARLOTTE SIMMONS”: Oh, thank you very much, Campbell.
BROWN: Well, tell me first what colleges you visited to do your research.
WOLFE: Well, I actually went across the country. I started off at Stanford. Life is almost too good there, by the way.
(LAUGHTER)
WOLFE: And then I went to the University of Michigan. Each of those places, I stayed just about a month. I stayed about a month at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and then the University of Florida in Gainesville, plus some shorter trips to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and a couple of day trips elsewhere.
BROWN: So, how did you get into the social world? You were going to these frat parties. Were you wearing the white suit?
WOLFE: No. I will tell you, I was worried at first whether I—I am 50 years older than anybody I was going to be talking to.
So, I decided I would not arrive in my—in a white suit and say, hey, I‘m here, Tom Wolfe. Let‘s get it on. I tried to be modest. I wore a blue blazer. Of course, I still had on my white flannel pants and my two-tone shoes, but I wasn‘t going to fit in really anyway, but I thought I would be a little modest.
BROWN: Well, there are a couple of characters in the book who you describe as interested in learning, but the overwhelming portrait of college life is a lurid carnival, as you called it. Describe that. I want to know what a lurid carnival is.
(LAUGHTER)
WOLFE: Well, it‘s—I‘ll tell you, the big change is sexual.
There‘s no getting around that.
For example, drinking—because binge drinking now, as if it‘s something new, that‘s been a constant since the—at least since the 1850s, but the sexual frontier is entirely different. People talk about co-ed dorms and sometimes they have a picture of a boy in boxer shorts on one side of the corridor running across it and jumping into bed with a girl on the other side.
That can happen, but it‘s kind of rare. The students call that dorm-cest, like incest, and you‘re really lame if you‘re reduced to having a hookup with somebody in your own dorm. The difference it makes is that, let‘s say there are 7,500 students at a university. That means there are 7,500 beds available around the clock, easy to get to. There‘s no prohibition of anybody from going into these buildings.
And so it‘s—geographically, the terrain is just waiting for what in fact happens.
BROWN: But what are you saying? Is it I guess the end of courtship?
Compare it to what it was like when you were in college.
WOLFE: Oh, it‘s so different. I went to an all-male college, Washington and Lee, in Virginia. And, typically, to have a date, a word that doesn‘t exist anymore, by the way, we would go drive over a mountain, go to one of the girls colleges.
We go up to a dormitory. And there would be a sort of—I guess she was called a chaperone, an older woman at a desk. And you went up to her and you asked—you gave her your date‘s name. And she‘d call up, and the girl would come down. And the chaperone would inspect you to see that you weren‘t drunk and you weren‘t too shabby-looking.
And she had to be back—that is, your date had to be back about, you know, 12:30 on Saturday night. And I can remember these girls throwing beer cans out the back of the car windows before they hit the line of the campus. And they—it was very strict about when you got back, so a totally different world in that sense.
BROWN: OK, before we leave the topic of sex, I have you ask you, you‘ve won numerous writing wards, obviously. This month, though, a British literary magazine bestowed you with the bad sex writing award for “I Am Charlotte Simmons.” What is your reaction to that?
WOLFE: Well, do you know the old expression, you can lead a whore to culture, but you can‘t make her think?
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: No, but thanks for sharing.
(LAUGHTER)
WOLFE: In this case, you can lead an English literary don to irony, but you can‘t make him get it. This award—award—is given—given. It‘s hurled actually by a tiny magazine which seems to be outside of Oxford or Cambridge or one of those places.
Actually, I‘m glad they—the passage they refer to in which I used words like, you know—this is the girl you were mentioning at the beginning of the show, the girl from the mountains of North Carolina off to this big university.
BROWN: Right.
WOLFE: And she has never had—she‘s a virgin, absolutely a virgin, and intends to stay that way. She‘s never had foreplay before, part of which involves the male, if I may get into this, sticking his tongue in—down...
BROWN: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
WOLFE: I can tell you love this.
(LAUGHTER)
WOLFE: And that used to be called French kissing. Today, they call it tonsil hockey, which is I think a much better name for it. And so—but to the girl, this is not erotic. It‘s clinical. So, she‘s thinking about how the tongue is exploring her—or...
BROWN: Yes.
WOLFE: Anyway...
BROWN: I‘m with you. I got the point.
(LAUGHTER)
WOLFE: Ear, nose, and throat cavities.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: So, they didn‘t think it was very sexy.
Let‘s broaden this out, though, away from sex. You also found, or seemed to, that the interest in bigger issues, in politics, or, say, the war in Iraq, isn‘t there for college students.
WOLFE: That‘s right.
You know, it would seem odd, because the faculties are very—tend to be very radical. They are thoroughly radical. It‘s very hard for conservative faculty members even to hold or get jobs. It‘s very hard for them to get tenure. But this—the students ignore this, by and large. There‘s always a small minority, maybe anywhere from 6 percent to maybe 9 percent of the campus is—has real political feelings.
The rest don‘t. They just put up with the faculty‘s quirks, as they think of it.
BROWN: Well...
WOLFE: Yes, go ahead.
BROWN: Well, we‘re almost out of time, but I just want to ask if you found anything hopeful. Was there anything you liked about these college students?
WOLFE: Well, they are very ambitious in terms of specific jobs.
There are those who are determined to get into investment banking. There are those who are determined to be lawyers and so on. And they‘ll get there. And, you know, I‘m not really pess—I‘m not a Cassandra. I‘m much more of a Pollyanna. And the pendulum always shifts. I think, by and large, they‘re probably getting shortchanged now, but things will change. This is a great—America is a great country.
BROWN: Well, Tom Wolfe, it‘s—I‘m a big fan. It‘s great to talk to you. It really is.
WOLFE: Thank you, Campbell. I appreciate this.
BROWN: And the book is called “I Am Charlotte Simmons.”
Join us again tomorrow night at 7:00 Eastern for more HARDBALL.
And, remember, you can still contribute to the Fisher House. Just go to FisherHouse.org or contact the Walter Reed Family Assistance Center at 202-782-2071.
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.
END
Copy: Content and programming copyright 2004 MSNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2004 FDCH e-Media Inc. (f/k/a/ Federal Document Clearing House Inc., eMediaMillWorks, Inc.), ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research. User may not reproduce or redistribute the material except for user‘s personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon MSNBC and FDCH e-Media, Inc.‘s copyright or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.