‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Nov. 4, 2007

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: Our Meet the Candidates 2008 series continues, an exclusive interview with Republican Fred Thompson. You’ve seen him as an actor on the big screen and small screen. He’s been a lawyer and a lobbyist, and he was United States senator from Tennessee for eight years. And this morning he tells us why he should be the Republican nominee for president in 2008.

Then we’ll be joined by former NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw. The author of “The Greatest Generation” has a new book about another generation, “Boom! Voices of the Sixties.”

But first, this Tuesday marks the 60^th anniversary of MEET THE PRESS, the longest running program in the history of television. We’ll mark that milestone throughout this month with important and timely interviews, as well as a look back at the 60 years of MEET THE PRESS. Next week, joining us live for an exclusive interview, Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama.

And today with us in his first Sunday morning interview since becoming a candidate, Republican presidential hopeful former Senator Fred Thompson.

Welcome.

FMR. SEN. FRED THOMPSON (R-TN): Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me start with Pakistan. President Musharraf has declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution, closed down many television networks. What would you, as president, be saying this morning?

MR. THOMPSON: I’d be saying learn as much as you can about the situation to all my people. And I know Secretary Rice is doing that. We’ve got two competing serious considerations there. One is the rule of law, which we’ve got to stand for, which he’s going against right now. And the other is the fact that it’s one of the most potentially dangerous situations in the world for us right now. He is an ally in, in a, in a very sparsely populated place as far as allies are concerned. There’re not many of them in that part of the world. Even parts of his own government do not have our interests at heart. There are radical Muslim elements there. There are terrorist elements there that are trying to, to apparently get control of the government. I do not know exactly what Musharraf sees or thinks he sees to cause him to do what he has done, but we need to understand that this is a nuclear country. We could face a real nightmare scenario by seeing these radical elements, or these terrorist sympathizers, take control of that government and have that nuclear capability there on the border of, of Afghanistan when we’ve got so many troops there.

MR. RUSSERT: We have provided President Musharraf $10 billion in American aid since 2001. Should we suspend that aid?

MR. THOMPSON: Not now. I know that it’s been mentioned by our people. He’s been told that that’s at risk if he, if he did what he, in fact, did. Everything’s going to be on the table. I think we’ve got to play hardball with him, but understand that if—and, and they were making progress, apparently, toward a civilian government. You know, former Prime Minister Bhutto was coming back; they had had discussions. They had talked about, talked about what appeared to be sort of a divided government. He was willing to take off the uniform, he said, and have a civilian government. It looked like things were going well. Then terrorists attacked Bhutto when she was there, and she had to leave the country again. So now he’s reacted to that and, on balance, we have to make sure that whatever happens that we do not see total instability in that country in, in that government and we do not see a takeover by a radical Muslim elements or terrorist sympathizers.

MR. RUSSERT: Because of the uniqueness and precariousness and the sensitivity of that country, would we allow President Musharaff, General Musharaff, to continue under martial law because he’s our ally?

MR. THOMPSON: Well, when you say we allow the head of a country to stay the head of a country, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s kind of a mouthful. I don’t think we ought to look at it like whether or not we allow someone to stand or not. The question is what’s our relationship going to be with him? What kind of support are we going to, to give? Hopefully that situation won’t stay that way. I don’t see how it could. I think it’s going to move one way or another.

I think our job right now is to make sure that we know all that he knows and the reasons why he’s doing what he’s doing. Some experts thought that he might get a favorable decision from the Supreme Court, and I wonder exactly why he did what he did when he did it. Let’s know what his motivations were. Let’s make sure that we properly analyze our own intelligence there and work toward moving that situation toward a civilian government.

What he’s doing, I’m afraid, is alienating those in that country who might be on the fence, who might be somewhat moderate when he, in effect, declares martial law and suspends the constitution. He’s working against his own interests, perhaps. But again, he knows his own country. He knows those radical elements there. He knows that terrorists tried to kill Bhutto when she was there recently, and it’s, it’s too early to be making broad pronouncements about that part of the world right now.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. You said the other day that “I think the policy we’re engaged in now is the right one,” and then added this, earlier, this, couple of years ago, talking to Larry Kudlow. “It’s just a matter of staying the course. And as long as we have the will to stay—and it’s extremely important, I think, to our future security that we stay—we’ll be OK, and we’ll work our way through it.” Is that still your view?

MR. THOMPSON: Yeah. I think so. It seems to me like, at the end of last year, we were losing the war. It seems to me now, in the last five months, that there’ve been a lot of good things happen there. You know, we just got through Ramadan, which is one of the worst periods for us historically, and there’s less violence than in the last three years there. By any measure, in terms of the sectarian violence, in terms of the military deaths and injuries and attacks, Baghdad over the last several months is in much better shape, and the area around Baghdad. We know a lot of, a lot of progress has been made out in other provinces. Around Baghdad I think car bombings have gone down over 80 percent. There’s some reconciliation apparently taking place out in the country. Not enough is happening among those—the political leaders in Baghdad, for sure, but that doesn’t mean progress is not being made. So the Sunnis are turning away from al-Qaeda. They’ve—they’ve had an opportunity to live under them in some of these places and localities and seen their brutality. They don’t want that. They’re turning toward us. Reconciliation between Sunnis and Shia and other parts of the, of the country there.

I, I think that, I think that we’re making substantial progress there, and this would not be—nobody knows what’s going to happen, but this would be the worst time in the world to start talking about deadlines or cutting off funding or getting out prematurely. I would like to see nothing more than our troops start coming out of there, but as a part of a success scenario. And I think that’s a realistic scenario that the generals on the ground there have in mind.

MR. RUSSERT: But staying the course, the status quo, can that be our strategy? What is our exit strategy? How long would you stay there?

MR. THOMPSON: Well, it’s, it’s not a, it’s not a stay-the-course when—in, in terms of what’s been going on there. What’s been going on there’s been quite negative. It is a—giving us an opportunity to succeed. You know, we’ve got to, we’ve got take yes for an answer. We got to take success as a, as a reality when we find it. We’ve, we’ve seen a lot of negativity, and rightfully so. But now that things are turning, even those in some of the think tanks around town are not pro-war by any stretch of the imagination have stepped up and said, “We’re making real progress.” We see the headlines that, that are, that are changing now. The stakes are too high, Tim. It’s not, it’s not a matter of, of just Iraq. The—we’re being tested. The whole world is watching to see whether or not the American people have the will and the ability, the unity, the determination to, to succeed in any front that we happen to be engaged in, and this is a front in much larger war. We—we’ve provided stability ever since the end of World War II in the world. Some people—some countries have not gone nuclear because of us, because of our strength and stability we’ve provided. We don’t want to see Iran fill that vacuum that we would leave there. We do not want to see the Saudis, for example, to go nuclear in response to what they perceive Iran is doing, and especially if we pulled out of, of that area. So now of all times when we’re seeing so many good things happening there and so many good reports from generals who we respect there, we should, we should not be thinking in terms of deadlines.

MR. RUSSERT: We should plan on being there several years.

MR. THOMPSON: Well, I don’t know what several years means. I mean, we, we just don’t know. We, we hopefully can be a buffer for a while after we pacify the place, and average people can go worship without fear of being blown up. And we can be a necessary buffer there for a while, but I would hope that it would not be, you know, indefinite. You know, we’ve read too many historians who’ve talked about great nations in times past that many of them were empires. We don’t call ourselves an empire.

MR. RUSSERT: But you oppose withdrawing any troops right now.

MR. THOMPSON: Well, I, I, I think we ought to stay on the course that we’re on. The scenario that’s planned, as I understand it, involves a withdrawal of troops next, next spring or summer as a part of the success scenario. But I don’t think that we ought to, to be armchair generals and say that a few more or few less ought to be the, the way to go when we’ve got people on the ground who apparently now know what they’re doing.

MR. RUSSERT: You made a comment the other day in South Carolina, said, “Fred Thompson said the Iraqi insurgency is made up of ‘a bunch of kids with improvised explosive devices,’ and suggested that the appearance of losing to such an enemy would harm U.S. national security.” As you know, we’ve lost 3,834 kids; 28,385 wounded or injured, 65 percent of them by these improvised devices.

MR. THOMPSON: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s more than just a bunch of kids.

MR. THOMPSON: Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s not exactly what I said. I mean, I, I don’t minimize the fact that, that we’ve got terrorists coming in from Syria, from, from Iraq—I mean from Iran and, and other places, in Saudi Arabia, pouring in there. We, we have Sunni-Shia violence; there’s no question about that. I’ve never disputed that. Al-Qaeda, although I think they’re back on their heels now, still strong there, there’s no question.

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