A: I'm in favor of staying out of everywhere.
V.P. Joe BIDEN: I said 13 years ago it was a mistake to trust that they weren't going to go to war, to stop what we thought to be Iraq's attempt to get a nuclear weapon.
Sen. Amy KLOBUCHAR: I wasn't in the Senate for that Iraq War vote, but I opposed that war from the very beginning. In my first campaign for Senate, I ran against a Republican who ran ads against me on it, but I stood my ground. When I got to the Senate, I pushed to bring our troops home. Then I have dealt with every issue, from Afghanistan to being part of an effort to improve the situation for our troops in a very big way with our education and with their jobs and also with their health care.
V.P. Joe BIDEN: I was part of that deal to get the nuclear agreement with Iran, bringing together the rest of the world, including some of the folks who aren't friendly to us. And it was working. It was being held tightly. There was no movement on the part of the Iranian government to get closer to a nuclear weapon.
Mayor Pete BUTTIGIEG: Ensuring that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons will be a priority,
KLOBUCHAR: I would not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I think there are changes you can make to the agreement, some changes to the inspections, but overall, that is what we should do.
Q: How would you prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon?
KLOBUCHAR: I would start negotiations again [on the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal]. Because of the actions of Donald Trump, we are in a situation where Iran is starting to enrich uranium again in violation of the original agreement. So what I would do is negotiate. I would bring people together, just as President Obama did years ago, and I think that we can get this done. But you have to have a president that sees this as a number-one goal.
CLINTON: ISIS has developed [since 2014]. There are many other reasons why it has, but I don't think that the US has the bulk of the responsibility. I really put that on Assad and on the Iraqis and on the region itself.
SANDERS: She said the bulk of the responsibility is not ours. Well, in fact, I would argue that the disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unraveled the region completely and led to the rise of al-Qaeda and to ISIS.
Q: You're saying Secretary Clinton, who was then Senator Clinton, voted for the Iraq war. And are you making a direct link between her vote for that or and what's happening now for ISIS?
SANDERS: I don't think any sensible person would disagree that the invasion of Iraq led to the massive level of instability we are seeing right now. I think that was one of the worst foreign policy blunders in the more than history of the United States.
V.P. Joe BIDEN: I said 13 years ago it was a mistake to trust that they weren't going to go to war, to stop what we thought to be Iraq's attempt to get a nuclear weapon.
SANDERS: We have to face as a nation is that the two great foreign policy disasters of our lifetimes were the war in Vietnam and the war in Iraq. Both of those wars were based on lies. And right now, what I fear is we have a president who is lying again and could drag us into a war that is even worse than the war in Iraq.
V.P. Joe BIDEN: I said 13 years ago it was a mistake to give the president the authority to go to war if, in fact, he couldn't get inspectors into Iraq to stop what--thought to be the attempt to get a nuclear weapon. It was a mistake, and I acknowledged that. But the man who also argued against that war, Barack Obama, picked me to be his vice president. And once we were elected, he asked me to end that war.
V.P. Joe BIDEN: We should not send anyone anywhere unless the overwhelming vital interests of the United States are at stake. They were not at stake in Iraq. It was a mistaken vote. It was a mistake to trust that they weren't going to go to war. They said they were not going to go to war. They said they were just going to get inspectors in. From that point on, I was in the position of making the case that it was a big, big mistake. And from that point on, I've voted to--I moved to bring those troops home.
And the president is now attempting to cover up the facts. Just as you are being asked to be held accountable in your work, the Oval Office should also be accountable for its.
MOSELEY BRAUN: Well, removing the genocidal gangster-that’s over, he’s captured. But it had little to do with keeping the American people safe. We should have continued to search for bin Laden. We should have continued to break up Al Qaeda. We should have continued to work on breaking up the terrorist cells, some of which, operating out of northern Iraq right now, continue to threaten us.
The fact is, fear is power. We’ve seen a lack of focus on dealing with the fears of the American people, dealing with the real threats that we face, dealing with our domestic security in ways that will give us the ability to work with others around the world, with international organizations, to give us the law enforcement capacity to go after these criminals wherever they may be. We’ve lost focus on that while going off on a misadventure in Iraq.
A: I think that over the last year, since the increase in the surge, I agree with what is going on in Iraq and I support it. The Iraqi troop level is up to over 540,000.
Q: What about the polls that people overwhelmingly oppose the war?
A: I’m not sure that Americans overwhelmingly oppose it. I think the idea that they’re not getting all the correct stats like those that I just gave, if more of that positive news came out instead of just the doom and gloom of Iraq came out I think more Americans would see what’s really going on over there.
Q: So, it’s our fault.
A: No, I wouldn’t say that. I just think that people need to be informed of what’s going on.
A: I would say until we’re comfortable that the Al Qaeda threat and fundamentalism threat and people who want to destroy Americans just for being Americans is quelled.
Q: So, there’s no two years, ten years?
A: I would never put a timetable on that because all that serves to do is give our enemies a timetable to relax and wait for us to get to that timetable.
A: Propaganda. I think it was a madman that had possession and had used weapons of mass destruction before and was willing and able to use them again and we had to make sure that wasn’t going to happen.
Grassley: No. Signed letter to Iran intended to make a deal more difficult to accomplish.
Judge: Yes
Q: On Iraq: Should the US recommit significant additional ground troops to Iraq to combat the success of ISIS?
Grassley: Unclear. In 2014 thought it was too early to make ground troop commitment.
Judge: No, but does support increased air strikes.
GEPHARDT: I will always do what I think is right to keep the people of this country safe. And I became convinced that taking that action was the best thing to keep the people of this country safe. I didn’t [just] listen to George Bush. I went to the CIA. I said [to the CIA director], “I want to know if we’re worried about weapons, or the components of weapons, or the ability to quickly make components that can wind up in the hands of terrorists.“ He said emphatically yes. And it was on the basis of that and talking to other people that had been in the Clinton administration in the security apparatus that this was a great worry.
Now, the president has not followed the right advice. He has not gotten the help of NATO or the UN. It’s inexplicable to me that he has not done the things that I told him and many people told him from the beginning he should have done.
A: I’ve been here before. I was here when we stood up to the Russians in Central Europe when they were ringing our allies with SS-20 missiles. We stood up them and we finally brought that wall down. I was here when we did Central America, when the liberals were raging that we had to get out of Salvador. Today, Salvadoran troops are standing side-by-side with Americans in Iraq.
I watched the Democrat debate. I watched them say, as [Rep. Ron Paul] has said, “Just bring them home.” And it was a race to see who could stampede for the exit the quickest. None said, “Good job.” But the Marines in Anbar province have turned that situation around. They brought the communities there on our side, fighting back against Al Qaida.
We are standing up the Iraq military. When the 129 battalions are stood up, when they’re reliable & battle-ready, they can displace American heavy combat forces. That’s the right way to leave, not a stampede for the exit
ROMNEY: It’s wrong for a person running for the president to get on TV and say that. America always maintains our option to do whatever we think is in our best interests. But we keep our options quiet.
HUNTER: I disagree with that. Barack Obama didn’t understand, there are now 100,000 Pakistani troops who have been moved to the border. You right now have operations that are being taken in cooperation with American forces in Afghanistan. The problem is that you have the tribal chiefs in that strip in Pakistan accommodating the Taliban and Al Qaida. When you have a country which is cooperating, you don’t tell them you are going to unilaterally move against them, or you are somehow going to undertake this by yourself. We need the Pakistani army to work that with American support. That’s the right way.
V.P. Joe BIDEN: There's a difference between combat troops and leaving special forces in a position. I was part of the coalition to put together 68 countries to deal with stateless terror as well as failed states. That's how we were able to end the caliphate for ISIS. They'll come back if we do not deal with them and we do not have someone who can bring together the rest of the world to go with us, with small numbers of special forces.
DEAN: Of course not. Our military has done an absolutely terrific job in Afghanistan, which is a war I supported, and in Iraq, where I did not support the policy but I always support the troops. I believe that, had Saddam been captured earlier, we might have been able to spend more time looking for Osama bin Laden, which is the real problem.
DEAN: I beg to differ. Saddam is a dreadful person and I'm delighted to see him behind bars. But since Saddam Hussein has been caught, we've lost 23 additional troops; we now have, for the first time, American fighter jets escorting commercial airliners through American airspace. Saddam Hussein has been a distraction [from fighting Al Qaeda].
LIEBERMAN: We had good faith differences on the war against Saddam. But I don't know how anybody could say that we're not safer with a homicidal maniac, a brutal dictator, an enemy of the US, a supporter of terrorism, a murderer of hundreds of thousands of his own people in prison instead of in power. To say that we haven't obliterated all terrorism with Saddam in prison is a little bit like saying somehow that we weren't safer after WWII after we defeated Hitler because Stalin and the communists were still in power.
AD AUDIO: NARRATOR: Where did the Washington Democrats stand on the war? Dick Gephardt wrote the resolution to authorize war. John Kerry and John Edwards both voted for the war. Then Dick Gephardt voted to spend another $87 billion on Iraq. Howard Dean has a different view.
DEAN: I opposed the war in Iraq, and I'm against spending another $87 billion there. Our party and our country need new leadership.
ANALYSIS: While Dean has used the war issue hundreds of times, his decision to target three opponents with a negative ad is unusual for Iowa, which has a tradition of positive campaigning. It suggests he is also worried about Kerry and Edwards, who trail Dean in Iowa, gaining momentum. The ad is factually accurate, but while Dean says he opposes the president's $87 billion budget for Iraq, he does not favor a quick pullout and therefore would have to spend some of that money.
DEAN: I opposed the war in Iraq . And I'm against spending another $87 billion there.
ANALYSIS: The ad accurately reminds viewers that Gephardt voted both to give George Bush the authority to wage war in Iraq, and also for the $87-billion postwar reconstruction package. But Dean's statement is not exactly what Dean has said in the past:
DEAN: But the fact is, since Saddam Hussein has been caught, we've lost 23 additional troops; we now have, for the first time, American fighter jets escorting commercial airliners through American airspace.
FACTCHECK: Actually, scrambling fighter jets to intercept and escort airliners has been fairly common ever since Sept. 11, 2001. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has scrambled more than 1,600 such missions since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon more than two years ago, according to a news report:
NORAD: Sometimes they're scrambled because someone has violated a restricted airspace, sometimes they're scrambled to respond to an emergency request, and there are other situations we can't discuss.
Sen. Bernie SANDERS: What we need to do is have an international coalition. The nuclear deal with Iran was worked on with a number of our allies.
BIDEN: I was part of that deal to get the nuclear agreement with Iran. And it was working. It was being held tightly. There was no movement on the part of the Iranian government to get closer to a nuclear weapon.
Q: So would you leave troops in the Middle East or would you pull them out?
BIDEN: I would leave troops in the Middle East in terms of patrolling the Gulf, where we have--where we are now, small numbers of troops, and I think it's a mistake to pull out the small number of troops that are there now to deal with ISIS. And with regard to this idea that we can walk away and not have any troops anywhere, including special forces, there's no way you negotiate with terrorists.
Sen. Bernie SANDERS: When Congress was debating whether or not we go into a war in Iraq, I said that would be a disaster. I helped pass a War Powers Act resolution, working with a conservative Republican, Mike Lee of Utah, which said that the war in Yemen, led by Saudi Arabia, was unconstitutional because Congress had not authorized it. We got a majority vote in the Senate. We got a majority vote in the House. Unfortunately, Bush vetoed that and that horrific war continues.
Sen. Bernie SANDERS: The war in Iraq turned out to be the worst foreign policy blunder in the modern history of this country. We lost 4,500 brave troops. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. We have spent trillions of dollars on that endless war, money which should go into health care and education and infrastructure in this country. Joe and I listened to what Dick Cheney and George Bush & Rumsfeld had to say. I thought they were lying. I didn't believe them for a moment. Joe saw it differently.
Sen. Elizabeth WARREN: We need to get combat troops out of the Mideast. We have to stop this mindset that we can do everything with combat troops. Our military is the finest military on Earth and they will take any sacrifice we ask them to take. But we should stop asking our military to solve problems that cannot be solved militarily. Our keeping combat troops there is not helping. We need to work with our allies. We need to use our economic tools. We need to use diplomatic tools.
EDWARDS: The trial of Saddam Hussein is going to reveal the atrocities that he's been engaged in and some of the incredible conduct that's occurred in Iraq during the time of his reign. But the reality of protecting the American people is, there's a still great deal of work to be done. Everybody across America knows that we have nuclear and chemical plants that are not adequately protected; that we are extraordinarily vulnerable through our ports. We don't have a comprehensive warning system in place, we don't have a comprehensive response system. And we know is that we know that terrorist cells exist all over this country. We need to do a much more effective job of putting humans inside those terrorist cells so that we can stop them before they do us harm.
Q: But if the Palestinian leaders say, "We're not willing to arrest these people, but this is what we are willing to do," how much would you negotiate with Hamas?
EDWARDS: The most critical thing is for us to be engaged. That's what's been missing from this administration. [Bush] flies in, he has a photo-op, he leaves. We need to be on the ground constantly. We have to find ways to reduce the level of violence, to create some level of trust so that we can move toward peace.
KERRY: Only when the US is so threatened that it is required for the survival of our country or for the accomplishment of some extraordinary humanitarian goal. Look, this administration misled the American people, abused the power that they were given, and has run an ineffective war on terror. Saddam Hussein was way down the list, with respect to the targets, even on the Pentagon's own list of targets. And what they did was supplant Iraq for the real war on terror, which is Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and terror across the world. The war on terror is less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering and law-enforcement operation. And we deserve presidential leadership that knows that and knows how to make America safer, and I will do that.
A: Of course. They are making progress & we are winning on the ground. And there are political solutions being arrived at all over Iraq today, not at the national level. I'm disappointed that the Maliki government has not done what they need to do. But it's not only in the national interest of the Iraqis, it's an American national interest. We are winning. We must win. If we lose, there'll be catastrophic consequences and genocide, and we will be back. This is a seminal moment in American history. We must succeed. There will be a big debate coming up in September on the floor of the Senate. We will win that debate because the American people understand the consequences of failure. Morale is good amongst our military. We will not set a date for surrender.
LIEBERMAN: The overthrow and then capture of Saddam Hussein has made America safer and made the world safer. It has not ended all of our problems or all the threats to our security, but a president has to deal with more than one threat at a time. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict directly related. We have to stay the course in Iraq now and continue to build a stable, modernizing, democratizing country there. That will show the Arab world what happens as a result of American intervention, that you live better, freer lives, and will send a message to terrorists that we mean business.
Between the Israelis and the Palestinians, there is only one good solution, it is a two-state solution. As president, I would devote time, commit my secretary of state to it, appoint a special ambassador to be there to work with both sides to move along the path to peace. The doors are open now, in part because of our victory in Iraq.
DEAN: I beg to differ. Saddam is a dreadful person and I'm delighted to see him behind bars. But since Saddam Hussein has been caught, we've lost 23 additional troops; we now have, for the first time, American fighter jets escorting commercial airliners through American airspace. Saddam Hussein has been a distraction [from fighting Al Qaeda].
LIEBERMAN: We had good faith differences on the war against Saddam. But I don't know how anybody could say that we're not safer with a homicidal maniac, a brutal dictator, an enemy of the US, a supporter of terrorism, a murderer of hundreds of thousands of his own people in prison instead of in power. To say that we haven't obliterated all terrorism with Saddam in prison is a little bit like saying somehow that we weren't safer after WWII after we defeated Hitler because Stalin and the communists were still in power.
A: I would like to move away from foreign entanglements and work towards friendship, peace, and free trade with all of the other countries of the world.
O'MALLEY: This actually is America's fight. It cannot solely be America's fight. America is best when we work in collaboration with our allies. America is best when we are actually standing up to evil in this world. And ISIS, make no mistake about it, is an evil in this world. And we do have a role in this. Not solely ours, but we must work collaboratively with other nations. The great failing of these last 10 or 15 years has been our failing of human intelligence on the ground. Our role in the world is not to roam the globe looking for new dictators to topple. Our role in the world is to make ourselves a beacon of hope, but also to confront evil when it rises. We took out the safe haven in Afghanistan, but now there is, undoubtedly, a larger safe haven and we must rise to this occasion in collaboration and with alliances to confront it, and invest in the future much better human intelligence so we know what the next steps are.
"There are impactful actions as a result of changing what we give one country for an entire region," Franken said. "And I can't think of an area, worldwide, where that's more important than in [Vladimir] Putin's Russia today. It's purely an abuse of office and an obstruction of justice in trying to cover it up."
CAIN: I believe that our energy strategy is directly related to national security, as well as stopping Iran in their efforts. As the price of oil goes down, it puts an economic squeeze on Iran. There's more to foreign policy than bombs and bullets. There's bombs and bullets and economics.
BACHMANN: Iran is the central issue in the Middle East and their capacity to become a nuclear power. They're one of the four state sponsors of terror in the world. I sit on the House Select Committee on Intelligence. I can't reveal classified information, but I can say this: As president of the United States, I will do everything to make sure that Iran does not become a nuclear power.
A: The biggest mistake that Pres. Obama has made has been the decision he made regarding Iraq. He was essentially given on a silver platter victory in Iraq, and he's choosing intentionally to lose the peace.
We all know what is going to happen. We know that Iran is going to be the hegemon & try to come into Iraq and have the dominant influence. And then Iran will essentially have dominance from the Persian Gulf all the way to the Mediterranean, through its ally Syria.
We know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon; they WILL use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map, and they've stated they will use it against the US. Look no further than the Iranian constitution, which states unequivocally that their mission is to extend jihad across the world and eventually to set up a worldwide caliphate.
A: Certainly. The middle ground is that we win this war & we do it with honor. We don't just stay indefinitely. We put some pressure on the Saudis. Look, we've made them rich. Every time somebody in this room goes to the gas pump, you've helped make the Saudi royal family a little wealthier. And the money that has been used against us in terrorism has largely come from the Middle East. There's two things we've got to do. Number one, we've got to insist that the people in that neighborhood take a far greater role militarily and financially in solving the problem. It's their neighborhood. But the second thing we'd do, for our own national security, is end our dependence on foreign oil. And let's not play around and say "30 years," let's get it done. Let's get it done now. And let's make sure that we don't have to depend upon their oil for our future energy needs.
Sen. Rick SANTORUM: To be a legitimate caliphate, you have to control land and operate a state under sharia law. And so the answer is we must take their land and make them illegitimate in the eyes of the Muslim world.
HUCKABEE: I think Rick Santorum is exactly right. You take away their land. But one of the things we have to do is a comprehensive strategy to get ISIS. First of all, take away their access to social media platforms. The second thing, go after them financially. Any company, any country, that even gets close to dealing with them, absolutely put sanctions on them. Make them pay. And finally, you have got to go after them militarily. We obliterate them. They are a force that's getting bigger. And with any kind of cancer, you don't contain it; you eradicate it. And that's how we have to fight ISIS, comprehensively.
A: I think we're pretty much in the same place. It is critical for us to win this conflict. It is essential, and that's why we're going to continue to pursue this effort. And we're going to get a report from General Petraeus on the success. And I agree the Brookings Institution report over the weekend was a very encouraging indication that we're making progress. That's great news. At the same time, you look at that Democratic debate, I had to laugh at what I saw Barack Obama do. I mean, in one week he went from saying he's going to sit down for tea, with our enemies, but then he's going to bomb our allies. I mean, he's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week.
We have families who made a huge surge of sacrifice to support this surge. And it's time, in my view, for the people of America to show a surge of support, including our leaders in Washington, for these families and for the troops.
A: Yes, I think Barack Obama is confused as to who are our friends and who are our enemies. In his first year, he wants to meet with Castro & Chavez & Assad & Ahmadinejad. Those are our enemies. Those are the world's worst tyrants. And then he says he wants to unilaterally go in and potentially bomb a nation which is our friend. We're trying to strengthen Musharraf.
Q: But if the CIA said, "We had Osama bin Laden in our sights, Musharraf says no," what do you do?
A: It's wrong for a person running for the president to get on TV and say, "We're going to go into your country unilaterally." Of course, America always maintains our option to do whatever we think is in the best interests of America. But we keep our options quiet.
A: No, I have the same view. We have helped the people of Afghanistan establish freedom from the Taliban. But now we are at a point where they are going to have to earn and keep that freedom themselves. This is not something we are going to do forever. We've been there 10 years. We've been training the Afghan troops. It's time for the troops of Afghanistan to take on that responsibility according to the time table established by the generals in the field. And those generals recommended to President Obama that we should not start drawing our troops down until after the fighting season in 2012. He took a political decision to draw them down faster than that. That is wrong.
ROMNEY: I happen to agree with most of what the speaker said, except by going down and saying the Palestinians are an invented people. That I think was a mistake on the speaker's part. I think the speaker would probably suggest that as well.
GINGRICH: No.
ROMNEY: Israel does not want us to make it more difficult for them to sit down with the Palestinians. Ultimately, the Palestinians and the Israelis are going to have to agree on how they're going to settle the differences between them. My view is this: We stand with the Israeli people. We link arms with them. If we disagree with them, like this president has time and time again, we don't do it in public like he's done it, we do it in private. And we let the Israeli leadership describe what they believe the right course is going forward.
A: Let me suggest this is a good example of a "gotcha" question. Two weeks earlier, I said we should go in covertly, use Egyptian and other allies not use American forces.
Q: But Mr. Speaker, you said these two things.
A: That's right. I said [the first] after the president announced gloriously that Gadhafi has to go. And I said if the president is seriou about Gadhafi going, this is what we should do. The [second] came after the same president said, well, I really meant maybe we should have a humanitarian intervention. I was commenting about a president who changes his opinion every other day.
PJ: As Democrats, there are some similarities in our positions but from my work with Homeland Security through the years, I am very much aware of the seriousness of the situation in the Middle East and very much aware for the need of containment of ISIS and other terrorist groups, and to try to keep them at bay here in our own country. We need to be very vigilant. We need to engage in targeted air strikes. We need to engage in economic sanctions. And, here in our country, we need to be, again, very vigilant and watching carefully to make sure that we're all safe. There's probably nothing more important than the safety of American citizens.
Q: When you look at how President Obama has contained ISIS, do you think it's too little in regard to ISIS?
PJ: Well I don't, I would not advocate at this time in time any additional American troops, committed to the Middle East. I think we always should be using diplomacy first.
Patty Judge: America plays an important role in international diplomacy and security. I believe we must carefully deploy military resources to ensure the safety and security of America and our allies across the globe. However, military force should be used only after diplomacy, dialogue, and sanctions have failed. We must also continue to work to bring home troops currently serving overseas and also ensure that our Veterans have access to quality health care and other resources as they return to civilian life.
Q: Characterize your view of our diplomatic efforts around the world.
Patty Judge: The United States can be a powerful voice for diplomacy across the globe. We should use our diplomatic power, when appropriate, to help create peace and stability across the globe. We should always prioritize diplomatic vs. military action.
Grassley: No. Signed letter to Iran intended to make a deal more difficult to accomplish.
Judge: Yes
Q: On Iraq: Should the US recommit significant additional ground troops to Iraq to combat the success of ISIS?
Grassley: Unclear. In 2014 thought it was too early to make ground troop commitment.
Judge: No, but does support increased air strikes.
BUTTIGIEG: Ensuring that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons will, of course, be a priority, because it's such an important part of keeping America safe. But unfortunately, President Trump has made it much harder for the next president to achieve that goal. By gutting the Iran nuclear deal--one that, by the way, the Trump administration itself admitted was working, certified that it was preventing progress toward a nuclear Iran--by gutting that, they have made the region more dangerous & set off the chain of events that we are now dealing with as it escalates even closer to the brink of outright war. We've got to work with our partners. The Iran nuclear deal, the technical term for it was the JCPOA. That first letter "J" stood for "Joint." We can't do this alone, even less so now after everything that has happened.
PAWLENTY: We were justified in the invasion. It was 10 years ago. People killed Americans. We needed to go there, find them, bring them to justice or kill them. But in terms of where we are now, 10 years removed, I was last there last summer and met with Gen. Petraeus. He thought would it take two years from last summer to have an orderly and successful wind down of our mission in Afghanistan, at leas in terms of significant troop withdrawal. Pres. Obama has accelerated that faster than the generals recommended. I would have accepted their recommendations and drawn them down a little slower.
Q: [to Santorum]: So it is still worth it?
SANTORUM: It is still worth it. But we are going to have to have a successful draw down, not one according to Barack Obama's campaign calendar next year.
PAUL: No, that makes it much worse. This whole idea of sanctions, all these pretend free traders, they're the ones who put on these trade sanctions.
SANTORUM: Well, as the author of the Iran Freedom Support Act, which he is criticizing, it actually imposed sanctions on Iran because of their nuclear program--Iran is not Iceland, Ron. Iran is a country that has been at war with us since 1979. Iran is a country that has killed more American men and women in uniform than the Iraqis and the Afghanis have. The Iranians are the existential threat to the state of Israel, via funding of Hamas and Hezbollah and the support of Syria.
PAUL: The senator is wrong on his history. We've been at war in Iran for a lot longer than 1979. We started it in 1953 when we sent in a coup, installed the shah, and the blowback came in 1979. It's been going on and on because we just plain don't mind our own business. That's our problem.
PAUL: You've heard the war propaganda that is liable to lead us into a sixth war. And I worry about that position. Iran does not have an air force that can come here. And here we are building this case up, just like we did in Iraq--build up the war propaganda. There was no al Qaeda in Iraq. And [Bush claimed Iraq] had nuclear weapons and we had to go in. I'm sure you supported that war, as well. It's time we quit this
SANTORUM: We have to have an honest discussion with the American people about the nature of the threat that we confront. This president says that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, and as a result has put together a strategy that doesn't take care of what the reality is, which is ISIS has established a caliphate. A caliphate is like a kingdom ruled by a caliph; a kingdom is ruled by a king. The difference is a caliphate is also a religious call. And you say, "well, how do we stop them from following them?" Well, to be a legitimate caliphate, you have to control land and operate a state under sharia law. If you don't do that, you cannot call for that support. And so the answer is we must take their land and make them illegitimate in the eyes of the Muslim world.
Gov. Mike HUCKABEE: I think Rick Santorum is exactly right. You take away their land.
PAUL: Just come home. We just marched in. We can just come back. We went in there illegally. We did not declare war. It's lasting way too long. We didn't declare war in Korea or Vietnam. The wars were never really ended. We lose those wars. We're losing this one. We shouldn't be there. We ought to just come home. The #1 reason it's in our national self-interest & for our national security, think of our defenses now, how rundown they are. What is the morale of our military today when they're sent over there for 12 months and then they're kept for another three months? They come home and, with less than a year's rest, they're sent back again. Congress is currently trying to change the rules so we give these men an adequate rest. This war is not going well because the foreign policy is defective.
HUNTER: I'm tired of the Democrats and my colleague saying, "Come home." It's a race to see who could stampede for the exit the quickest.
At the same time, those individuals who predicted these disastrous things to happen if we leave Iraq are the same ones who said, "As soon as we go in, it will just be duck soup, it'll be over in three months and it won't cost us anything because the oil will pay for it."
The individuals who predict [an Iraq] disaster, predicted the domino theory, in Vietnam. I served five years in the military in the ‘60s. When we left there, it was tough, yes. But now we trade with Vietnam. We can achieve much more in peace than we can ever achieve in these needless, unconstitutional, undeclared wars.
A: Even our own CIA has no evidence that they're working on a weapon. Just think of what we went through in the Cold War. All through the '60s, we were standing up against the Soviets. They had like 30,000 nuclear weapons with intercontinental missiles. Just think of the agitation and the worrying that a country might get a nuclear weapon some day. And just think of how many nuclear weapons surround Iran. The Chinese. The Indians. The Pakistanis. The Israelis. All these countries have nuclear weapons. Why wouldn't it be natural that they might want a weapon? Internationally, they'd be given more respect. Why should we write people off? In the '50s, we at least talked to them. At least our leaders and Reagan talked to the Soviets. What's so terribly bad about this?
PAUL: You've heard the war propaganda that is liable to lead us into a sixth war. And I worry about that position. Iran is a threat because they have some militants there. But believe me, they're all around the world and they're not a whole lot different than others. Iran does not have an air force that can come here. They can't even make enough gasoline for themselves. And here we are building this case up, just like we did in Iraq--build up the war propaganda. There was no al Qaeda in Iraq. And [Bush claimed Iraq] had nuclear weapons and we had to go in. I'm sure you supported that war, as well. It's time we quit this. It's trillions of dollars we're spending on these wars.
PAUL: No, I don't agree with that. And that's just stirring up trouble. I believe in a non-interventionist foreign policy. I don't think we should get in the middle of these squabbles. Technically and historically, yes, under the Ottoman Empire, the Palestinians didn't have a state, but neither did Israel have a state then too. But the people in those regions should be dealing with these problems; we shouldn't be dealing with these things. This idea that we can be the policemen of the world and settle all these disputes, I mean, soon we'll have to quit because we're flat out broke. We cannot continue to get into these issues like this and get ourselves into more trouble.
GINGRICH: Look, is what I said factually correct? Yes. Is it historically true? Yes. Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth: These people are terrorists.
A: In four Democratic debates, not a single Democratic candidate said the word "Islamic terrorism." Now, that is taking political correctness to extremes. It really is. The reality is that you do not achieve peace through weakness and appeasement. Weakness and appeasement should not be a policy of the American government. We should seek a victory in Iraq and in Baghdad, and we should define the victory. Why we would want to retreat in the face of at least some empirical evidence that [we're winning]?
Q: But that's military progress. No political progress. You'd continue to support the surge even if there's no political progress?
A: The reality is that if we can bring stability to Iraq, and we can give them a chance to develop stability, that's what we should be trying to accomplish. This is part of an overall terrorist war against the US. It's a battle in that war.
A: I believe that is an option that should remain open. We should encourage Musharraf to allow us to do it if we thought he couldn't accomplish it.
Q: But if he said no, you'd go in?
A: I didn't say I would go in. I said I wouldn't take the option off the table.
Q: No, you actually said, "If we have a chance to catch bin Laden and we've got to do it ourselves because we're not sure if somebody is going to do it correctly, yeah, I think I would take that option."
A: I would take that action if I thought there was no other way to crush Al Qaida, no other way to crush the Taliban, & no other way to be able to capture bin Laden. I think Pakistan has, unfortunately, not been making the efforts that they should be making
A: There's another piece to this as well. And that is that you've got the military performing. They're doing an outstanding job, but the political situation continues to deteriorate on the ground in Iraq. You've got the Iraqi politicians not even meeting now. You've got a weak leadership that's taking place there. I think the key missing element here is political resolve on the ground. We need a political surge. We need to put a three-state solution in place, like was in Iraq prior to World War I, where you have a north that's Kurdish, which is right now; a west that's Sunni, which is right now; and a Shia south, with Baghdad as the federal city. A weak, soft partition: that's the piece missing.
PAWLENTY: We were justified in the invasion. It was 10 years ago. People killed Americans. We needed to go there, find them, bring them to justice or kill them. But in terms of where we are now, 10 years removed, I was last there last summer and met with Gen. Petraeus. He thought would it take two years from last summer to have an orderly and successful wind down of our mission in Afghanistan, at leas in terms of significant troop withdrawal. Pres. Obama has accelerated that faster than the generals recommended. I would have accepted their recommendations and drawn them down a little slower.
Q: [to Santorum]: So it is still worth it?
SANTORUM: It is still worth it. But we are going to have to have a successful draw down, not one according to Barack Obama's campaign calendar next year.
STEYER: I would take military action to protect the lives and safety of American citizens. But what we can see in the Middle East and what this conversation shows is that there is no real strategy that we're trying to accomplish in what we're doing in the Middle East. Obviously, Mr. Trump has no strategy. He is going from crisis to crisis, from escalation to escalation. But if you look further over the last 20 years, including in the war in Afghanistan, there was no strategy. There was just a series of tactical decisions that made no sense. So we really have to ask ourselves in the Middle East, what are we trying to accomplish?
V.P. Joe BIDEN: We have lost our standing in the region. We have lost the support of our allies. The next president has to be able to re-establish our alliances.
STEYER: I agree with Vice President Biden. To do it, we should definitely be doing it in coalition with other countries.
Sen. Elizabeth WARREN: The job of the commander-in-chief is to keep America safe. I think that's about judgment. It starts with knowing our military. I sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I work with military leaders, but I also visit our troops. I make sure they get their pay, the housing and medical benefits they've been promised. We have a problem with a revolving door between the defense industry and the Pentagon. We need to block that revolving door, and we need to cut our defense budget.
A: There are a number of things, of course, with regard to Iraq that I think we have found some common ground on, but the reality is this: that it is absolutely true I think that we are in a war with radical Islam. That is the war. A battle is being fought in Iraq. Now, can we win the military battle on the ground? Yes, we can. Our guys are the best in the world, and cannot be faulted in any way.
I unveiled a statue in my district for a Navy SEAL. He is dead because the rules of engagement did not allow them to do what they needed to do over there. That is unacceptable. In the broader picture, of course, we have to do something about the fact that there is no political or economic solution being developed by the Iraqis. And you have to push them into it. America cannot be the police force in Iraq. It cannot remove itself entirely from Iraq, but Iraq has got to take control of Iraq.
A: Yes, the State Department--boy, when they start complaining about things I say, I feel a lot better about the things I say, I'll tell you right now. My task as president is primarily to do one thing--not to make sure everybody has health care or everybody's child is educated--my task is to do one thing: to protect and defend this country. And that means to deter--and I want to underline "deter"--any kind of aggression, especially the type we are threatened with by Al Qaida, which is nuclear attack. I read the national intelligence estimate. I see what they are planning. And I'm telling you right now that anybody that would suggest that we should take anything like this off the table in order to deter that kind of event in the United States isn't fit to be president.
THOMPSON: I differ with Senator Brownback. They can't even decide in parliament in Iraq whether or not they're going to be able to take a month or six weeks off for summer. How will they ever decide three particular divisions? They've already got that country divided into 18 states that have been there since 1921. And if, in fact, you're going to elect people, why don't you a elect state leader, like you do in Iowa, like we do in Wisconsin, all over America? And those individual governments will be Shiite, Sunnis and Kurds. And it will stop the civil war.
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| 2016 Presidential contenders on War & Peace: | |||
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Republicans:
Sen.Ted Cruz(TX) Carly Fiorina(CA) Gov.John Kasich(OH) Sen.Marco Rubio(FL) Donald Trump(NY) |
Democrats:
Secy.Hillary Clinton(NY) Sen.Bernie Sanders(VT) 2016 Third Party Candidates: Roseanne Barr(PF-HI) Robert Steele(L-NY) Dr.Jill Stein(G,MA) | ||
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