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July 20, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - July 20

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

MAJ GEN RICK LYNCH, 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION: If we left an area that we have cleared before we can turn it over a competent security force, the enemy's coming right back. They have this ability to fill the void, and they are going to get back in that area, they are going to build more bombs, they are going to train more suicide bombers, and they are going to ramp up the level of violence in Baghdad, and all around Iraq. So you can't give up an area that you fought so hard for to control.

SEN HARRY REID, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER, (D) NEVADA: Is it necessary to wait 60 more days until this magic day in September to change course? How many more American soldiers are going to be killed? How many more are going to be maimed, wounded, lose their arms?

BAIER: Well, there you see Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and also a top U.S. commander on the ground in Iraq talking about what happens if there is a withdrawal. And what about this progress report in September? What about all of this?

Now some analytical observations from Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of the Weekly Standard, Jeff Birnbaum, columnist at the Washington Post, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, FOX News contributors all.

What about the September progress report? Will we get to that point, Fred, before this comes to a head? Congress--some Republicans, and definitely Democrats, are pushing for it to happen sooner.

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, WEEKLY STANDARD: Well, this isn't going to happen sooner.

This is an argument, and one of the few on Iraq, that the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress have overwhelmingly won, and that is waiting for Petraeus and his support in September--sometime in September, I don't think we know the exact date--before, really, moving again on any of these plans that the Senate Democrats have had, of course, to force a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

Democrats tried hard. This week, has been, I think, the first good week for Republicans this year when Iraq was the major issue. It looked like--if you remember the first cloture vote that Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, called, it 56 votes, only four shot, leading to speculation that the Republicans were crumbling, and they were going to abandon Bush and the war in Iraq.

But on the next one, they only got 52 votes, on the tougher one. So, I think Republicans are in better shape that they have stuck together than they have been in a long time, and they won the argument over waiting for Petraeus.

BAIER: Here's one of the question in the new Fox News opinion dynamics poll, and it was about this September date, asking people, what about making a decision about future plans?

Sixty-four percent said wait until September, when this report is complete, 29 percent decide now, based on this interim report. So, Jeff, are Democrats barking up the wrong tree, here?

JEFF BIRBAUM, COLUMNIST, WASHINGTON POST: I think the Democrats have lost that argument, I agree with Fred. It is "see you in September." That's what happened here.

And the Bush administration, I think, has finally understood they have to do more than win these votes, they actually have to do some serious persuasion. The effort earlier this week to have video conferences with members of Congress bused over to the Pentagon to persuade them that more time is needed by talking to Petraeus and other people in Iraq, it was a very good idea.

Additional efforts at communication are absolutely necessary. What is a problem here, though, is that part of the message they are conveying is that it's not "See you in September," but "See you, maybe, in November, or sometime later." And after setting up September as such an important deadline, I think that the resident is really in danger of losing a victory that he had won for himself.

BAIER: So, you are saying, and Charles, expectations game on the September date, and, really, the White House is kind of leaning, hey, let's not look at September as the be all, end all.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, obviously, it's going to be hard for a commander to come back and say in September, this is going to work. He can say it's working, and I think that is probably what we'll hear. That's what we are beginning to hear, and we are very early in the process of the full manning, if you like, of this surge.

I think what's really important is the fact that there really is news coming in. Up until now, the only news on the war was American soldiers who died, and bombs exploding and killing Iraqis. That was the only news.

Now we finally have news of changes on the ground. And that is extremely important. This whole war is about the Sunni insurgency. If we hadn't had it, we would have a successful occupation. Nobody expected it, nobody expected it's intensity. And we haven't had a strategy that actually worked.

It looks like as if Petraeus and the surge have something that is working in Anbar, and Dyala, and perhaps in other areas. If that can be suppressed, then everything is possible in Iraq, and that's what is at stake.

We are not going to have a definitive answer in September, but we have enough encouragement, showing what's happening on the ground, that you could have a deadline in November, or January, or March.

BIRNBAUM: I think it's going to be harder to make the case to wait again, though. I think that there has been so much put on to this report-- I think it's in mid September, September 15, Fred--from General Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador there, that, unless there's something more than "things are getting a little better, and maybe they'll get better still," I think that a lot of Republicans, after they come back from their August recess and hear a lot of impatience from Americans, looking at the polls, that it could be a problem.

BARNES: I think Republicans are sticking together better than we ever thought they would, particularly after the election in 2006. Republicans in Congress blamed Bush for losing the election for Republicans, losing the House and the Senate. And not they are much better.

Bush didn't create the September date. He's not the one that said this will be the be all and end all. Here's the problem, though, and it's Democrats. They are going to ignore what Petraeus

KRAUTHAMMER: It's a shock to hear you saying that.

BARNES: No, but, look--you heard Harry Reid. He's wrong, for one thing-- the deaths of American soldiers this month is about half of what they were last month. What the problem is, Harry Reid, no matter what Petraeus says, Petraeus could say "We are going to win tomorrow," and Harry Reid, would say "We have to get the troops out today." They are going to ignore it, whatever Petreaus says.

BAIER: All right, that's the last word here.

When we come back with our panel, was Hillary Clinton's request to see the Pentagon's plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq inappropriate? And was the Pentagon right to dress her down for asking? That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SEN HILLARY CLINTON, (D), NEW YORK: I've also called on both the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Gates, and General Pace to brief Congress on the existing plans for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, or to explain why no such detailed plans exist.

BAIER: That is Senator Hillary Clinton talking about withdrawal plans. She wants to see them from the Pentagon. Well, this week Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman responded in a letter, in part saying, "Premature and public discussion of the public withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia."

Well that sent Hillary Clinton into, basically, very upset today. Take a listen.

CLINTON: I sent a serious letter on a matter of national security to the Secretary of Defense, and in return received a political response. Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman claimed that congressional oversight emboldens our enemies.

This is an outrageous and dangerous position.

BAIER: So we're back with our panel. Is it an outrageous and dangerous position? Charles?

KRAUTHAMMER: Generally speaking, Commanders in Chief do not publish and publicize plans of retreat. And that's what she was asking about. Now, oversight, of course, is important, and we obviously have contingencies for everything in the Pentagon.

We probably have a contingency to invade Canada, for all I know. So there obviously would be a plan. But the question is, do you want it out there and publicized? And I think it does demoralize those in Iraq who are now risking their lives in helping us.

Edelman is right. He was a little insensitive. He should have probably just said that we have contingencies on everything, and left it at that. But, in principle, her question looked like a bit of a trap. Either the administration admits it has a plan, which would be bad news as a Commander in Chief, or denies having a plan, which would be something that would look irresponsible.

BIRNBAUM: "A little insensitive" barely gets, I think, to what Edelman was. The correct answer to any sitting U.S. Senator with a request for information is, at the very worst, thank you for your lovely note, Senator, please send us another one sometime soon.

You don't rebuke a Senator in writing. You certainly don't rebuke a Senator who is the front-runner for the presidential nomination for the opposing party.

Edelman, he handed her a tremendous political weapon by speaking his mind in this way. And he, himself, in fact was rebuked by Secretary Gates today.

BAIER: And late today Secretary Gates put out a statement saying he has not seen Senator Clinton's reply to Edelman 's letter, and he is looking into the issue, he said. Fred, that's an interesting response.

BARNES: Yes, it's weak response. He is not exactly standing by the guy that works for him.

I really don't know how Jeff portrays what Edelman says. You act like he is Conan the Barbarian, or something, responding to this gentle little lady.

She wrote a very disingenuous letter. Charles called it a trap. And he responds by saying, not that he's against oversight, as she claimed, he says premature and public discussion of any plans to withdrawal would be harmful.

One reason was the one that Charles said. It will scare our allies there, who are dying at a much greater rate than Americans are in Iraq, much greater. It would encourage the enemies of the United States who are- -what is al-Quida's goal in Iraq? It's to drive the Americans out. And it might stir more sectarian violence.

Senator Clinton also claims that she told ABC News that he had impugned her patriotism. That's pathetic. He didn't do anything like that at all. And usually people who claim their patriotism has been impugned have just been shot down intellectually.

BAIER: All right, you ran out the clock, again. Thank you.

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