Interview with Senator Ted Kennedy
BLITZER: He opposed sending U.S. troops to Iraq and now he wants to get them out, some of them immediately. In a fiery speech today, Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy blasted the Bush administration for leading the country into, quote, "quagmire," and laid out his own exit strategy. Afterward, I sat down with the senator for what was also a spirited one-on-one interview.</s>BLITZER: Senator Kennedy, thanks very much for joining us. You make a very, very strong accusation. You say that the war in Iraq has now become President Bush's Vietnam. You lived through the Vietnam War. That's a strong accusation. Why do you say that?</s>KENNEDY: Well, I think it is. I think because those who were the basic supporters of the war in Vietnam thought there was a military solution to a political problem. I think that is basically the problem of today. This administration believes that they can solve this problem in Iraq with military force, and I think it's much more complicated than that. I believe that, by and large, this expansion of the insurgency really demonstrates day in and day out, the reports from the intelligence agents, that the Iraqis are perceiving the American presence there not as liberators, but as occupiers. And I think what we have to do is change and alter or policy so that we can have a safe and secure and independent Iraq. We're not going to do it with this policy, it's going to be enormously costly. It's risky to change and alter a policy, but the greatest risk to our American service men and women and to American prestige is continuing on this bankrupt policy.</s>BLITZER: But they say, the administration, this is not a military solution, they say it is a political solution, starting with elections this coming Sunday.</s>KENNEDY: But the fact is they have -- basically have been calling all the shots, this administration has -- they're tied down in politically, they're tied down in militarily. The only way that you're ever going to get the target off the backs of American servicemen and -women is have the Iraqis believe that they're going to control their own destiny. That isn't the way it is perceived today. Iraqis perceive today that the Americans are part of the problem, not the problem but the solution.</s>BLITZER: Well, why not give this election a chance to succeed?</s>KENNEDY: We are. This election should go forward, and after this election goes forward, rather than the United States writing the constitution for a new Iraq, the United States ought to step back, let the international agencies, the U.N., other agencies, develop the</s>BLITZER: On that constitution, what's wrong with the United States helping the Iraqis write a constitution? Isn't that what we did with Germany after World War II and Japan?</s>KENNEDY: Well, of course, those are completely different situations. There we found that the countries -- the occupations they were completely different. Those countries were absolutely devastated. Their greatest threat was from the communists, from the Soviet Union. Those are entirely different. Look, the administration has been wrong in every one of their judgments on Iraq, every one of them. They were wrong in going in there, they never found weapons of mass destruction, they never found al Qaeda, they disbanded the military. They've been wrong on every single count. When will this administration recognize that they've been wrong about it and when will this country recognize they have made mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake? They're part of the problem, not the solution, we need to change policy, and we've outlined a way where Iraqis will take control both of their political and also of their military. And that offers the best chance for a true, independent Iraq.</s>BLITZER: The Republicans say you're giving aid and comfort to the enemy, the terrorists in Iraq. Right now a statement put out by the RNC, the Republican National Committee, following your speech here at Johns Hopkins at the School of Advanced International Study says this: "It's remarkable that Senator Kennedy would deliver such an overtly pessimistic message only days before the Iraqi election." The statement goes on and says: "Kennedy's partisan political attack stands in stark contrast to President Bush's vision of spreading freedom around the world. The world is watching whether America has the will to stand with the Iraqi people as freedom takes root in their nation. And no democracy has ever risen out of defeatism."</s>KENNEDY: This is the same group that has called all the shots in Iraq. They're the ones that have made blunder after blunder. They're the ones that have cost us the loss of so many American lives and American wounded and have cost the American taxpayers so much. This is a perpetuation and a continuation of a bankrupt policy. Don't we understand it? We have to understand, we eventually found these are the same voices I heard in Vietnam. These are exactly the same kinds of quotes. You could change that and put a different date on it, and you would have heard the same thing when those of us said that we have got to change our policy in Vietnam. That is exactly the same statement. This is Vietnam again. We are getting into the thinking that there is a military solution. There wasn't a military solution in Algeria for the French. There wasn't a military solution by the British in Northern Ireland. And there isn't going to be a military solution in the Middle East and there will not be a military solution in Iraq. The more that we read history, understand history, we'll understand that we need to have the Iraqis believe that they are controlling their own destiny. They don't today. They think we're there, they think we're after their oil. They think we're going to build all these military bases. They see an embassy bigger than the other. You know, the old Pottery Barn analogy is very good. We broke it by going in there, but it's the Iraqis that have to put it together. If we think we're going to put it together, over there, we're never getting out.</s>BLITZER: But what happens if the elections work and a stable Democratic government goes ahead, a national assembly writes a constitution and it works?</s>KENNEDY: The fact is you're going to have a continued violence through this week -- we're saying that we're hopeful that that works. But they ought to understand that they're going to train their own troops and they're going to defend that constitutional government, but we are out with this, and that is -- the best way that we're going to give the assurance that that constitutional government is going to be successful is if the Iraqis believe that they own it, and that they have -- and the soldiers that are going to be in their military are going to believe it's worth fighting for. They don't today. They don't today.</s>BLITZER: We'll have more of my interview with Senator Kennedy, that's coming up next. Plus this...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a citizen of the world, I can tell you that he has been a beacon of hope and inspiration for generations of people who have been oppressed either behind the Iron Curtain or anywhere else.</s>BLITZER: When we come back, William Safire speaks out in his first television interview since writing his final op-ed page column in The New York Times. Stricken vessel, Coast Guard units are on the way to help a disabled ship with almost 1,000 people on board. We'll update you on that.</s>BLITZER: And later this hour the world remembers a dark time in history. The 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.