COOPER: Breaking news tonight. Two-term Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski conceding the Alaska GOP primary. The winner in a very close race, Sarah Palin's candidate, Joe Miller. Back again with our panel: Fareed Zakaria, Ari Fleischer, David Gergen, Paul Begala. Also with us, national security analyst Peter Bergen to talk about the president's speech tonight.
But let's talk about Murkowski just quickly. Ari, yet again, I mean, a sign of the power of Sarah Palin for the endorsement.
FLEISCHER: This is actually good news for the Republicans, now that it's finally over. It was a shock that Lisa Murkowski lost, but now that it's going to be a unified field, Alaska is safe territory for Republicans. And it will be -- it will be a seat Republicans are going to win.
COOPER: So Sarah Palin, though, Paul Begala, is now, I think, what, 5 for 5 in this last round?
BEGALA: Oh, I think she's lost a few and won a few. But first, congratulations to her; good for her. Congratulations to Mr. Miller, who won a very unlikely upset up there.
But here's the interesting thing politically about Alaska. Alaska gets $1.84 back from Washington for each dollar they send down here. And it's a welfare state. It gets a whole lot more from the rest of the states.
You know, it sits on an ocean of oil. And I was OK with that, because they kept re-electing Ted Stevens, the late senator who was chairman of the appropriations committee and the king of pork.
Now, the Republicans at least have nominated a guy who says he doesn't want any more federal spending. I think that's good news for the other 49, because we can bring that money home. We don't need to spend any more money in Alaska. They're swimming in oil. Now they're going to nominate a senator candidate who says he doesn't want any more federal money. I say amen. Why don't we bring the money home to the other 49 states, who might use it?
COOPER: President Obama spoke about the need for money tonight. Maybe he'll be listening to you, Paul.
The end of the combat. He also spoke, obviously, on the point of the Oval Office address, his second, about the end of the combat mission in Iraq and the president's speech. Let's play some of what the president said tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.
This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office. Last February, I announced a plan that would bring our combat brigades out of Iraq while redoubling efforts to strengthen Iraq's security forces and support its government and people. That's what we've done.
We've removed nearly 100,000 U.S. troops from Iraq. We've closed or transferred to the Iraqis hundreds of bases. We have moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq.
Going forward, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain in Iraq with a different mission: advising and assisting Iraq's security forces; supporting Iraqi troops in targeted counterterrorism missions; and protecting our civilians. Consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Out of Iraq by the end of next year, that was the promise from President Obama. He said the combat mission's over, but America and will provide support for the Iraqi people as both a friend and a partner.
Ari, you were obviously working for George W. Bush. I'm curious to what you thought as you listened to this. And obviously, not a great speech but a historic moment.
FLEISCHER: Well, my first thought was 7 1/2 years ago I was in the Oval Office when the president gave a speech committing us to Iraq. And it's appropriate. Americans don't like to commit troop abroad. And when we do, we want to win, and we want come to come. And the president -- I think President Bush has won (ph) because of the surge.
And then, in December of 2008, remember when the shoe was thrown at him? That was actually the announcement of a security agreement with the Iraqi government to bring our troops hope at the end of 2011.
The day had to come. So I'm glad the day was able to come and that President Obama gave a speech where he could thank the troops who also made this possible who really deserve all the credit for making it possible.
COOPER: Do you think he should have said more about President Bush?
FLEISCHER: You know, I think it would have been gracious of him if he'd mentioned the surge, but the problem he has, for President Obama to put the words "President Bush," "Iraq" and anything good in the same sentence, the Democrat base, which already doesn't want to show up in November -- what will Nancy Pelosi see if he starts talking like that?
So I understand -- I wish he was more gracious about it, but he has his own Democratic political imperatives, and he has -- he followed those tonight.
COOPER: Paul, what did you think of the speech? We haven't heard from you tonight.
BEGALA: Well, I think it was -- first, he was trying to do three different things, right? Say we're going to withdraw from Iraq, but we're going to surge into Afghanistan, but we're going to withdraw from there, too. But then, we're going to take care of folks here at home. I want to pick up, though, on this point that Ari makes about the surge, because it is staggering to me. First off, the surge was only necessary because President Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld went to war with too few troops, because they wanted to prove General Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, wrong. That's why we needed it in the first place.
Second, it could have never succeeded without the preceding Sunni awakening. Iraqis themselves had to decide. It wasn't the American surge and then -- that cured it. It was the Sunni awakening.
But I'll make a deal with President Bush. We'll give you all the credit for the surge if you take half of the blame for the lies that got us into the war, by which I mean Iraq -- excuse me, Ari, by which I mean...
FLEISCHER: No, Paul, it's not right.
BEGALA: ... by which I mean Ari himself saying Iraq was an imminent threat to America, by which the president of the United States saying it was a mushroom cloud that could become a smoking gun, by which I mean the threat of unmanned aerial drones that Saddam supposedly had that would gas America, the connections that they allege which were false between al Qaeda and -- and Saddam's regime.
So, you know, there was so much they got wrong about this. Some of it just was botched, and some of it was deeply dishonest. And the notion that somehow George Bush is owed any moment of grace here is appalling to the history.
FLEISCHER: Neither you nor anybody else, including your old boss, Bill Clinton, challenged George Bush when he said that, because the intelligence that they all saw, too, led them to the same conclusion. So I think seven years...
BEGALA: You know they didn't see...
(CROSSTALK)
FLEISCHER: First off...
BEGALA: They didn't see all the intelligence, because you guys weren't sharing it.
FLEISCHER: This is the night that President Obama said thanks to the military; our troops are coming home. I was gracious enough to praise President Obama for saying that. It's an appropriate moment for our country to bring them home and to welcome them home.
But for you to say that President Bush lied about this, Paul, that is exactly the type of divisiveness we're trying move beyond in this country. When you know as well as I do he followed the intelligence that he was given by the CIA.
BEGALA: He manipulated -- he manipulated and cherry picked the intelligence...
FLEISCHER: No.
BEGALA: ... as did Mr. Cheney, as did Mr. Rumsfeld, and that's why 4,427 Americans are dead.
(CROSSTALK)
FLEISCHER: It was nothing to cherry pick. That's everything we needed to know.
BEGALA: When Dick Cheney said, as he did, that Saddam has long- established ties with al Qaeda, the evidence is overwhelming, you know, the Iraq study group said no that wasn't true.
FLEISCHER: The 9/11 Commission report said Saddam had ties to al Qaeda.
BEGALA: It's just incredible.
FLEISCHER: The 9/11 Commission Report, it said they weren't operational. Our point of view is never let them become operational.
BEGALA: This is -- this is the thing: he was no threat to America. Ari, himself...
FLEISCHER: Now you're changing your tune because you're recognizing the 9/11 Commission report agreed with the president...
BEGALA: They said there were no operational links. There were none.
FLEISCHER: That's correct. We didn't want them to become one.
BEGALA: Well, we don't want Canada to have operational links either. How about we go -- how about we go have Operation Canadian Freedom?
No, look, this was from the beginning, it was a war of choice. It was Mr. Bush's choice, and it was a tragic choice; 4,427 Americans are dead. Thirty-five thousand Americans are wounded, plus those suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, plus those suffering from traumatic brain injury. This has been a catastrophe for America, a catastrophe for our armed services who served with such heroism. And for Mr. Fleischer to sit here and expect a pat on the back, it is appalling. It is, as we would say in Texas, I guess it's chutzpah.
FLEISCHER: In Paul Begala's view of the world, we'd all be better off and safer off if Saddam Hussein was still running Iraq.
BEGALA: And those 4,427 Americans were alive.
FLEISCHER: Any time anybody loses their lives in the military, our nation suffers for it. Any one individual, anywhere.
But the point is we now have a new Iraq, an Iraq that has a chance to become a bastion of freedom and, hopefully, an Iraq that can change the Arab Middle East, so it's a more peaceful area where wars don't start. That's what Iraq now gives us a chance to do. And that's why I hope, now with the 50,000 remaining troops, we will be successful, and they don't lose the peace in Iraq, which is...
BEGALA: And we have -- we have a diminished America, a depleted America. We have a divided America. And we have, tragically, military cemeteries that are filling up. That is a hell of a price to pay to get rid of a guy who was no threat to America.
FLEISCHER: No threat to America?
BEGALA: Zero.
COOPER: I want to bring in other panelists in just a second. We've got to take a quick break, though. We're also going to have an update on Hurricane Earl, a Category 4 storm, where it may make landfall. We'll have details on that with Chad Myers ahead. We'll be right back.
COOPER: Let's continue our discussion on the president's speech with David Gergen, Peter Bergen and Fareed Zakaria, as well as Ari Fleischer and Paul Begala.
David, what do you make of the speech? You were disappointed overall.
GERGEN: I guess we haven't quite turned the page, have we?
COOPER: The president tonight saying let's turn the page on Iraq.
GERGEN: The -- President Obama promised he was going to bring troops home. In this way, he kept his promise. He deserves credit for that.
Beyond that, Anderson, I must say I was troubled by the speech because I felt that, in looking forward, not back, looking forward, the president did not define what the mission is in Iraq or in Afghanistan, and it sounds dangerously as if what's important is deadlines, not success. And I had hoped that we would be leaving, when we left Iraq and when we leave Afghanistan, we would leave more stable countries, more stable governments. I didn't hear that tonight. I didn't hear about success. I heard about we're getting the heck out of here, over to you.
COOPER: And Peter Bergen, 51 people killed in Iraq just last week in attacks by al Qaeda in Iraq and other related groups. Also, obviously in Afghanistan a very tough road ahead. The stability of both those places, how do you see it?
BERGEN: Well, neither -- neither are good. Picking up on something that David said, I thought it was very interesting. The president used the phrase "conditions-based" about Afghanistan. Because that's a way of papering over some very, very significant disagreements that are continuing to exist, I think, between the U.S. military and the political sides of the White House.
COOPER: He said next July we'll start reducing troops but based on conditions on the ground.
BERGEN: Right. And everybody can take whatever they want from that. I mean, it's not really a definition of what David was saying, you know, some kind of vision of what Afghanistan should look like or might look like. It's just a way of papering over significant disagreements that continue to exist about what we're doing in Afghanistan and how long we'll be there.
COOPER: John McCain's point on that is that basically, you're undercutting -- John McCain, who praises the increasing number of troops going to Afghanistan, but says you're undercutting that by setting a withdrawal date, whether it's conditions-based or not.
ZAKARIA: Yes. On the other hand I think that Obama approaches this very much the way Dwight Eisenhower approached foreign entanglements. He thought it was important that the United States assert itself, that the United States military assert itself, but there's always got to be a sense of constraints, of the costs, of the limits to military involvement. And Eisenhower was very careful not to engage in open-ended commitments that were about grand transformation of the war.
And I think Obama and -- both Obama and Secretary Gates have explicitly praised Eisenhower for this. So I think his caution, David Gergen is not hearing church bells ringing in this Obama speech, but that is -- that is Barack Obama. He is very much -- it's odd. He is a kind of hard-headed realist from the Eisenhower/Nixon/Kissinger school, and he does not believe that the role of the U.S. military is to write a blank check to Afghanistan for the next 25 years.
COOPER: David.
GERGEN: Eisenhower believed that if you commit the troops, you commit to when.
ZAKARIA: He didn't.
GERGEN: He did not believe...
ZAKARIA: He basically found a way of getting out of Korea.
GERGEN: He didn't -- he didn't commit the troops in Korea. He was not the one who sent them in there.
ZAKARIA: ... Barack Obama, in case you haven't noticed.
GERGEN: Very careful where he went in, but he was always about we need victory, we need to stand up.
ZAKARIA: Both these wars began before him. He is trying to, in effect, manage them responsibly without creating open-ended engagement. I don't think that it is irresponsible; in fact, it is quite responsible for a president to draw some lines.
GERGEN: But the reason we set a date in Iraq to come out now was we said if we set a deadline it would force the Iraqis, would encourage the Iraqis to form their government and be self-sufficient.
ZAKARIA: That was...
GERGEN: That deadline has not worked.
ZAKARIA: That was Bush for the surge. It worked.
GERGEN: This was Barack Obama's argument for pulling out now. That if you set a deadline, things were going to happen. It doesn't -- it's not clear that if you set a deadline...
ZAKARIA: But if we stay in Iraq for another ten years for the Sunnis and Shias find the ideal coalition government that they're going to come on, I don't believe that is dependent on U.S. troops. That is dependent on visionary leadership in Iraq, which might exist with American troops. It might not exist with American troops.
Assuming that the United States can somehow orchestrate, you know, a wonderful, modern liberal democratic Iraq, I'm not sure that that's true.
GERGEN: I don't think that's true. But you would like to think that we are going to leave with a stable Iraq. And if our commitment is only -- we're only staying around for a deadline. That it. We're going to help you, over to you, you're in charge now.
ZAKARIA: But David, it strike me that that's a pretty high number. By the way, there is no distinction between combat and non- combat troops. They can do whatever the president asks them to do. So...
COOPER: We've got to leave it there. Fareed Zakaria, Peter Bergen, David Gergen, Ari Fleischer, Paul Begala. Thank you very much. Really good discussion.
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