'Hardball College Tour:' John McCain

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST, HARDBALL:  From Villanova University, the “HARDBALL College Tour” with special guest John McCain!

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Wow.  So...

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-Ariz.), PRESUMPTIVE GOP PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE:  Incredible energy!

MATTHEWS:  And it’s great.  Here we are at Villanova.

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MATTHEWS:  This is...

MCCAIN:  With a son of Philadelphia, PA.

MATTHEWS:  Right.  Thank you.

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MATTHEWS:  This is the home of Big Five basketball,  Big East, the whole thing, you know?

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MATTHEWS:  So this is what it’s like to be president, right this moment.  It’s going to be like this if you make it.  You’re a flip of the coin away from being the president of the United States, based on all the polls.  You’re about 50/50.  The toughest question first is for you.

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The question is...

MCCAIN:  Can I ask you a question first?

MATTHEWS:  No.

MCCAIN:  Cheese steaks, Pat’s or Gino’s?

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Do you refuse to answer?

MATTHEWS:  The answer is, take your chances!

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Here we go, the tough one, and it is tough.  Right now, President Bush has a favorability as of today of 28 percent in the polls, the Gallup poll.  How will you be different than President Bush?

MCCAIN:  Well, I think that there’s many philosophies and views and vision that  we share for America.  There are other areas, specific areas, in which we are in disagreement.  Chris, I think the American people will judge or make their choice for the presidency on who they believe, not only their record, but how they articulate a vision for the future.  That’s why forums like these, very honestly, are things that are important to me to be on so I can communicate directly not only with the people of this country but with the young people of this nation.

MATTHEWS:  Well, let’s get to that.

MCCAIN:  So what’s an area of disagreement?  Climate change.  Climate change.  I believe that climate change is real.  I think we have to act...

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And I’ve said that for many, many years.  I would just like to put the question this way to my fellow Americans.  Suppose that we are wrong and there’s no such thing as climate change but we go ahead and adopt green technologies and we reduce greenhouse gas emissions?  All we’ve done is give our kids a cleaner planet, OK?  But suppose...

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Suppose we are right and do nothing.  Suppose we just continue this endless debate and continue the increase of greenhouse gas emissions, and we hand these wonderful Americans a damaged planet?  I think the answer to that is pretty obvious.  And by the way, that question was posed first by former prime minister Tony Blair.

MATTHEWS:  You’re also- you disagree with him on torture.

MCCAIN:  Absolutely.  And could I take a few seconds on that?  Because I think it’s important because I think it’s what America’s all about and what kind of country we are.  We should never, ever torture anyone who is in the custody of the United States of America because...

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MCCAIN:  ... because the struggle we’re in with radical Islamic extremism, which is going to be with us for decades, and that is that it’s a military/diplomatic intelligence and ideological struggle.  If we’re not any better than our enemies, then does it make it harder for young people to choose.

I was in Baghdad over Thanksgiving last year.  I met with a former high-ranking member of al Qaida.  I asked him, I said, How did you do so well after the initial military success that the Americans and the coalition forces had?  He said two things.  One was the lawlessness and the environment that took place after the Americans and their allies won the military victory.  He said, but the second was Abu Ghraib.  He said, Abu Ghraib was my greatest recruiting tool.  Everybody here knows what Abu Ghraib was.

So my point is that for the future of this country, we have to make sure that we remain a nation that does not do things that our enemies do.  And I promise you, my friends, I’ll close Guantanamo Bay and we will never torture another person in our custody again.

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And I know we have a full hour, but I’ll make my further answers shorter, but that’s a very important question about what kind of a country we are and what kind of country we’ve been and what kind of a country we’ll be in the 21^st century.

MATTHEWS:  I want to get back to that in a moment about the vision that you have for you’re presidency.  Let me ask you a tough one.  That’s Joe Biden, the ranking member of—you’re smiling?  He’s the ranking member.  He’s right from near here, the state of Delaware, of course.  He’s actually the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.  And he said...

MCCAIN:  A good guy.  A really—one of the good guys.

MATTHEWS:  He said you’re joined at the hip today with the administration on the future of Iraq policy, joined at the hip.

MCCAIN:  Why should I be surprised that Joe Biden—not surprised that Joe Biden in the year 2008 would be disagreeing with me?  Look, I have open and honest discussions with Joe Biden, and they’re respectful ones.  He’s a fine man.  We have a fundamental difference of opinion about what we should be doing there, as we have for a long time.  Joe Biden wanted to divide Iraq into three countries.  I rejected that idea as unsound and a threat to our security.

But the point is that I think we are succeeding.  And I know we’re going to have a long conversation about this.  We need to continue to have a conversation with the American people.  The war was mishandled terribly for nearly four years by Donald Rumsfeld and this administration.  I fought against it.  I argued against.  And I argued for the new strategy, which is succeeding.  It’s long and hard and tough.  We just passed not that long ago the 4,000^th brave young American who was sacrificed in this conflict.  But I believe that the strategy is succeeding.  I believe the benefits of success are enormous.  I believe the consequences of failure are also enormous.  So I think there’s a lot at stake here.

We can look back at the past and argue about whether we should have gone to war or not, whether we should have invaded or not, and that’s a good academic argument.  But we’re there now, and the question is, is what we do in the future.  And I believe that after the war is over that we can enter into a security agreement with the Iraqis.  And I’m sure the 100-year issue will...

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MATTHEWS:  ... because I’d like to talk about that.  You said we will have a military presence for 100 years, which will be a period like our occupation in Japan, or our occupation, actually, in Korea and Germany.  But in Japan—we had a Republican president elected in ‘52.  He went to Korea.  He signed an armistice.  And we’ve had 55 years of only limited casualties.  Only, like, one year in the ‘60 we had a bad year.  Generally, it’s only been 90 people killed, all the way back to ‘53.  How do we get to that point in Iraq, where we can have this 100 years or endless period of military presence?

MCCAIN:  First of all, the conversation was at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire.  I believe in town hall meetings.  I think they’re so important, and not only so that I can hear from people but we can have an exchange.  And I was in a back-and-forth with an individual, and he said, Well, you’re going to be there for 50 -- I said, Maybe 100, after the war is over.

In South Korea, the point you made, there was an armistice.  We maintained a military presence there.  Americans were fine with that because it provided stability and it was a deterrent from North Korea again attacking South Korea.  So that security arrangement was fine.  After this war is won, then we may or may not—I hope that maybe there’s a security arrangement such as we have with Kuwait or other countries, but maybe not.

But Chris, the point is American casualties.  If we’d had a continuous loss of brave young Americans in South Korea after the armistice, I think Americans would have said, Bring them home.

MATTHEWS:  Yes.

MCCAIN:  But as you said, we didn’t.  So the key to it is American casualties.  And so I believe those casualties are declining.  I believe it’s long and hard and tough, as we’ve just seen in the last couple weeks with this uptick in violence and more losses.  So I think that over time, as the Iraqis take over more and more of their responsibilities for their own security, then American troops withdraw and gradually withdraw.

MATTHEWS:  Do we have to defeat all the people in that country who are interested in advancing Iranian influence before we can leave?

MCCAIN:  I don’t think so.  I think we have to establish an environment of security—political, economic and military—so that people can lead their normal lives.  I think there’s going to be upheaval and ethnic and sectarian violence for a long time in that region.  We see now the Iranian trying to reassert an age-old Persian ambition, as you know...

MATTHEWS:  Yes.

MCCAIN:  ... to increase their influence, particularly in southern Iraq, and they’ve had some success there.  So I think there’s going to be violence and I think there’s going to be difficulties.  But I think we’ve got to reach a point where the Iraqi military and law enforcement are able to carry out those responsibilities, and not the Americans being on the front line.

That’s happening in Mosul as we speak, and we’re doing pretty well.  And in full disclosure, in frankness and candor, straight talk, the Maliki movement to Basra had a very big down side to it because, you know, we saw a thousand police and military desert their posts.  But the rest of the military did a pretty good job, did a pretty good job.  We did secure the port of the Basra.  Maybe I’m digging for the pony here, but...

MATTHEWS:  Yes, I’m just wondering how long it takes to get there.

MCCAIN:  Well, I think that right now, the priority should be Mosul, which is one of the last outposts of al Qaida.  There’s a saying that people have that al Qaida can’t succeed without having control of Baghdad, and they can’t survive without Mosul.  So this fight’s going to take a couple months.  As you know, it’s block by block...

MATTHEWS:  Yes.

MCCAIN:  ... neighborhood by neighborhood.  So in Basra, the Iraqi military has made some progress there, but the infiltration of the Iranians, the sectarian violence and competition between Shiite militias is intense, and it’s a very tough situation.

MATTHEWS:  We’ll be right back with Senator John McCain with more questions now from the students.

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