Iraq War End Date: August 31, 2010; A Transformational Budget; Interview with John McCain; President Obama's High-Stakes Week
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now: President Obama makes good on a campaign promise, announcing his timetable for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. John McCain was a sharp critic of the idea during the campaign. I will ask him what he thinks now -- Senator McCain in THE SITUATION ROOM, live, this hour. Also, a famous Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter says he's among the victims of Bernard Madoff -- Elie Wiesel and his charity losing millions and millions of dollars to the alleged Ponzi scheme. Now he's venting his anger at Madoff and suggesting an unusual punishment. And an architectural icon going green -- details of a massive overhaul plan for Chicago's Sears Tower -- why the owners think now is the time. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me say this as plainly as I can. By August 31st, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.</s>BLITZER: President Obama finishing the war President George W. Bush started with broad support, only to see the mission implode. Now, after almost six years, more than 4,000 American lives and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives lost, the end of the war in Iraq is in sight. President Obama traveled to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to make the announcement.</s>OBAMA: Every nation and every group must know, whether you wish America good or ill, that the end of the war in Iraq will enable a new era of American leadership and engagement in the Middle East. This does not lessen our commitment. We are going to be enhancing that commitment to bring about a better day in that region. And that era has just begun.</s>BLITZER: Our Pentagon correspondent, Chris Lawrence, is joining us now with details of the withdrawal -- Chris, explain what the president has in mind.</s>CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, when he says that the combat mission ends, that doesn't mean that the troops missions won't involve combat. Take a look at this. At the height of the surge, you can see the U.S. had a very large presence in Baghdad. Gradually, they had to pare it down and mostly move to the perimeter of the city. And here's where they're going -- out to bases outside the major cities like Balad, very large bases.</s>LAWRENCE (voice-over): There is no moving day for the U.S. military. They'll leave Iraq arrive gradually -- most of them next year, after the Iraqi elections. But it can take a month or two to move even one brigade and this is tens of thousands of troops, millions of tons of equipment. The Pentagon has been testing possible exit routes through Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait.</s>ADM. MIKE MULLEN, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: We've looked over many, many months now at options and not, quite frankly, being -- wanting to be pinned down to one path.</s>LAWRENCE: President Obama says 30,000 to 50,000 troops will make up a transitional force after August 2010. They'll have three missions -- train and advise Iraqi troops, meaning they'll embed with them and could be in the line of fire. Two, protect U.S. assets, like civilians and reconstruction teams. That could mean defending them. And three, directly going after terrorists, which could put them at risk. (on camera): Does non-combat troops accurately describe what these troops will be doing?</s>BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT (RET.), U.S. ARMY: No. Every one of these soldiers, sailor, airmen or Marines, they're operating in a combat zone.</s>LAWRENCE (voice-over): The U.S. and Iraq agreed to remove all American troops by the end of 2011. Retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt agrees with the secretary of Defense, that keeping some troops...</s>LAWRENCE: And, again, what we want to try to get at -- what we were talking to the retired brigadier general about was that there needs to be some flexibility, that both the U.S. and Iraq need to have some flexibility. He feels that as we head into 2011, the flexibility to extend that agreement and possibly leave some troops. Now, he also said that when you take a look at what's going on in there in Iraq and down the road, ironically, more troops could be going before they start to leave. We mean by that is next week the Pentagon could announce another Stryker brigade and possibly some Marine to go into Iraq as part of the normal rotation -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, Chris. Thanks very much. Chris Lawrence is our Pentagon correspondent. At least right now, even bigger than the war in Iraq in the mind of most Americans is the U.S. economy. President Obama says his $3.6 trillion budget addresses so many underlying causes of the current crisis. Let's bring in our senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley. She's working this story for us. Let's talk about, at the end of this week, winners and losers in the president's plan.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, because you cannot have huge government spending without getting huge government revenues. And that's exactly what happens in this budget and is the basis for our winners and losers.</s>CROWLEY (voice-over): This is not a book of numbers, this is a sea change.</s>ROBERT REICH, FORMER LABOR SECRETARY: This is a transformational budget. This is the first budget I have seen since the Reagan era -- since Reagan's first budget -- that really made a fundamental statement, we are going in a different direction, folks.</s>CROWLEY: In essence, it is the use of the tax system to redistribute wealth. In the economic version of the biggest loser, upper income seniors, who will pay more for prescription drugs; farmers with sales over $500,000 a year, who will lose their subsidies, and households making over $250,000 a year will get a tax increase. One person with a taxable income of $200,000 will pay $6,000 more. Taxes for a family of four with a $500,000 income will increase by $11,300. The budget also limits the deductions wealthier taxpayers can take for interest on home mortgages and charitable contributions. Charity organizations think that makes them a loser.</s>KEN BERGER, PRESIDENT, CEO, CHARITY NAVIGATOR: Discouraging the wealthiest from giving in this way could be devastating for some charities. We've already gotten estimates that a couple hundred thousand charities may close their doors as it is because of the economy. Then you add stuff like this and it becomes all the more frightening.</s>CROWLEY: On the winning side, middle and lower class taxpayers and the poor, who will see the stimulus tax cuts made permanent, an extension of child tax credits for those too poor to pay taxes and higher benefits. The federal government would use the tax revenues to pay for huge increases in spending on education, energy and, most of all, health care. This is not just a budget, this is a change in direction.</s>REICH: This country is no longer taking this road. Call it, for want of a better term, the right road. We're taking more of a left of center road. But it's a road that we have to take because of the big problems in front of us.</s>CROWLEY: It is the end of Reaganomics and the beginning of Obamanomics.</s>CROWLEY: Of course, this was only a budget blueprint, because now, all of these numbers go up to Capitol Hill. And one of the things we're noticing, Wolf, up on Capitol Hill -- things like farm subsidies don't split easily along party lines. Although Republicans don't like the gist of this budget, there are plenty of Democrats who don't like some of the specifics, including those farm subsidy cuts.</s>BLITZER: So what you're saying is there's going to be a big fight?</s>CROWLEY: Absolutely.</s>BLITZER: There always is.</s>CROWLEY: Yes.</s>BLITZER: Candy, thanks very much. Let's check in with Jack once again for The Cafferty File -- Jack.</s>CAFFERTY: That's what keeps us in business, when they have big fights. The U.S. is losing the war in Afghanistan -- so says Senator John McCain. Quoting here: "When you aren't winning in this kind of war, you're losing. And in Afghanistan today, we are not winning." The former presidential candidate says although he approves of President Obama's plan to send an additional 17,000 troops there, he thinks additional Allied and Afghan troops will be needed to beat back a resurgent al Qaeda and Taliban. He's calling for the U.S. to set up larger military headquarters and to boost non-military assistance. The Arizona senator says the situation in Afghanistan is nowhere near as bad as it was in Iraq, but that insurgent attacks were up sharply last year and violence has increased more than 500 percent in the last four years. McCain's comments come after those of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has said that the U.S. faces a "very tough test in Afghanistan," although Gates is confident that we will rise to the occasion. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows that most Americans agree with McCain. Only 31 percent say the U.S. is currently winning the war in Afghanistan, although 62 percent say the U.S. can eventually win there. Meanwhile, when it comes to the other war, the one in Iraq, McCain is among several Republicans who are supporting President Obama's plan to pull out most U.S. troops by August of 2010. McCain says the plan is a reasonable one and he's "cautiously optimistic" that it can lead to success. So here's the question -- is John McCain right that the war -- that the U.S. is losing the war in Afghanistan. Go to CNN.com/caffertyfile and post a comment on my blog -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Jack, thank you. And we're going to talk to him about that. Senator McCain is standing by live. He'll talk about President Obama's decision to end the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, as well. Also, a blood-smeared letter sent to President Obama. The man who sent it has HIV. Now, we're learning more about him and why he did it. And Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel has some choice words for Bernard Madoff. Wiesel says the former investor bilked him and his charity out of millions of dollars as part of his massive alleged Ponzi scheme. And the GOP in search of a leader -- is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal the man the Republicans need? We'll talk about that and a lot more with James Carville and Bill Bennett. They're both standing by this hour. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.