John Edwards for President-Transcript of Senator Edwards on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer

Transcript of Senator Edwards on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer

Senator John Edwards
The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
Apr 7, 2006

BLITZER: Welcome back to THE SITUATION ROOM. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. Let's get back to one of our top steers.

A deadly suicide attack in Iraq killing 74 people. Should the United States now tell Iraqi leaders that if they don't shape up, U.S. troops will ship out?

We just heard Democratic Senator John Kerry yesterday here in THE SITUATION ROOM spell out his demand for a deadline in Iraq. In an interview with him, he was very forceful on this issue. Now it's his former running mate's turn to weigh in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Joining us now, Senator John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina and vice presidential nominee.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

JOHN EDWARDS (D), FORMER U.S. SENATOR: Glad to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's talk a little about Iraq. I want to get to a lot of issues, but Iraq -- Your running mate, John Kerry, wrote a piece in "The New York Times" the other day in which he said this. "Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15th," a little bit more than a month from now, "to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military." You agree with your former running mate?

EDWARDS: I completely agree with the notion we can't do this for them. They have to do it and they have to take responsibility. Not just for formation of the government but providing their own security. And I think what John is suggesting is that we do everything in our power to put pressure on them to accept that responsibility and take the burden on themselves instead of counting on America to do it.

And on that issue, he's right about it. Without getting into the details of specifically about how you go about it, there is a number of mechanisms by how to accomplish that.

BLITZER: Because that sounds pretty drastic, that you have until May 15th. You put together your national unity government, including the Shia, the Kurd, the Sunni if you don't, 130 or so U.S. troops, they are out of there.

EDWARDS: What I have been saying for months, we ought to be right now withdrawing at least 40,000 troops so that we can send a clear signal, the Iraqis, to that part of the world, that we're not going to keep doing this for them and they're going to actually have to do it for themselves. John is just talking about a different way of accomplishing the same thing.

BLITZER: He also says, that even if they put together a national unity government by May 15th, by the end of the year, he wants U.S. troops out of Iraq, redeployed over the horizon, as he calls it, because that's plenty of time for the Iraqis to get their act together and to protect themselves.

EDWARDS: He's completely right that we need to reduce our presence. That needs to continue as they take up and take responsibility, which they have to do. And if they don't do it, ultimately, America can't do this for them. So he's right about that. I don't know I agree specifically about the dates and his deadlines, but what he is trying to accomplish, he is dead right about. And the underlying premise about everything that John said in this piece in "The New York Times" is they have to do this for themselves. We can't keep doing it for them.

BLITZER: Listen to what the president says. I want you to listen to this clip of what he said in Charlotte, North Carolina. Listen to this.

EDWARDS: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: Removing Saddam Hussein was the right thing for world peace and the security of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Was it the right thing?

EDWARDS: You know I've written myself, about six months ago in "The Washington Post" that I voted for this resolution on the Iraq War, I was wrong. I believe that I was wrong.

I didn't know that this president was going to make such an incredible mess out of this, which is exactly what he's done. Is Saddam being gone good? Of course it is a good thing.

But for the reason us going in was not because Saddam Hussein was a bad man. We went in on the basis that we believed they had weapons of mass destruction. We were wrong about that. And it's important for us to tell the truth about that. BLITZER: And you, in your heart at the time, when you voted for that resolution, you firmly believed that he had stockpiles of chemical, biological weapons and was working, even potentially, on a nuclear device?

EDWARDS: I along with a lot of other people. What I didn't know is that George Bush would make such an incredible mess out of this, which is what he's done.

BLITZER: The secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, wrote an article in "The Washington Post" on March 19th in which he said, "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis."

EDWARDS: Well, Don Rumsfeld is the architect, along with George Bush and Dick Cheney, of this incredible mess that we are faced with right now. And the last thing I or anybody in America is interested in hearing is what Don Rumsfeld thinks about this.

The truth of the matter is they created this mess, they made the situation much worse than it had to be, and at least so far, I have not heard a single one of them take any responsibility for that.

BLITZER: As we are speaking, there are indications in a paper, in a motion that was filed by Scooter Libby, the vice president's former chief -of-staff, saying he was authorized by the vice president, in effect, by the president, who authorized the vice president to tell him to leak classified information from a national intelligence estimate, involving Iraq, in order to make the administration's case. What do you make of that disclosure?

EDWARDS: Troublesome, you know, what is the president of the United States doing, directing people to leak classified information? The president has the authority, as you well know, to declassify information. But for him to do it in this fashion, in leaking to the press, it's just worrisome. It's consistent with the pattern that we have seen from this president.

BLITZER: Is it justified to start thinking about articles of impeachment, as some Democrats have floated?

EDWARDS: Well, what I believe is, this president has engaged in behavior that certainly justifies censure.

BLITZER: So you support Russ Feingold's motion for censure?

EDWARDS: But -- I want to add to that, because it's important. I believe that the most important thing is to hold the president accountable. Because what matters is not some censure motion in the United States Senate.

What matters is what's going to happen going forward. Which means Congress needs to take its responsibility both for the oversight of the war in Iraq, for the oversight of what's happening here domestically. We have huge issues in this country and most of America are interested in the things that affect their day to day lives, including the war in Iraq.

BLITZER: A lot of the Republicans, Tom DeLay was here in THE SITUATION ROOM the other day, and others have suggested that if there becomes a Democratic majority in the House and/or the Senate, the first thing the Democrats are going to do is push impeachment of the president, and that's obviously designed to generate their base, if you will. But is it true?

EDWARDS: I think the first thing that will happen if the Democrats take control of the House and Senate is we're going to address the problems that people face in their lives: the war in Iraq, health care crisis in America, raising the minimum wage. Democrats are about affecting people's lives. They are not about process.

BLITZER: Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican Party recently said, "He," referring to you, "He definitely looks and feels and sounds like a presidential aspirant." Are you?

EDWARDS: Thinking about it. But haven't made a decision about it yet.

BLITZER: When will you make a decision?

EDWARDS: Sometime in the future. I'm spending most of my time these days working on what I think is the cause of my life now, which is doing something about poverty in America. And somewhere down the road, we will make sure Elizabeth is OK and right now she's doing great, and we will see where I am.

BLITZER: Elizabeth is your wife.

EDWARDS: My wife, yes.

BLITZER: Who's had cancer. She is doing all right?

EDWARDS: She's doing great.

BLITZER: OK. Great. You are this weekend, though, going to Iowa.

EDWARDS: I am.

BLITZER: And that -- a lot of people who read the tea leaves say, you know, John Edwards going to Iowa, going to New Hampshire, that's almost a sure sign he's thinking very seriously of running for the presidency.

EDWARDS: Oh, I am thinking about it. There's no question about that.

BLITZER: You haven't made a final decision yet.

EDWARDS: I have not. And I wouldn't read too much into going to Iowa. Every place I go, whether it's Iowa or Florida or Texas, any place I go in the country, and I'm all over the place, I'm talking about the issue of poverty and trying to raise awareness about it. BLITZER: I want to get to the minimum wage in a moment. But our recent, February, not that recent, but recent enough, CNN/"USA Today" Gallup poll, among registered Democrats, had Hillary Clinton at 39 percent, John Kerry at 15, Al Gore at 13, John Edwards at 12. Al Gore says he's not inclined to run. He's sort of made that statement, although a lot of people think he still might run. What about Hillary? She seems like a formidable potential Democratic nominee.

EDWARDS: What I would say is there is no way to know at this point whether any of these people are going to run for president. What I hope is, whoever runs, whether I have anything to do with it or not, that it's a battle of vision and leadership and ideas. That's what it should be about, not about personality.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: That was John Edwards speaking with me earlier. We're getting some new video in. I want to show this to you. This is video coming in from a cell phone showing this twister. Check this out. This is -- these are pictures that we got, a tornado near Gallatin in Tennessee.