Usamah “Sam” Husseini

Continue reading for a transcript of the exchange.

Transcript

Sam Husseini: Senator, you’re of course on both on the Foreign Relations and the Intelligence Committee. Reese Erlich, long-time Iraq specialist, and others are reporting that the U.S. is already using Iraq as a staging ground to conduct attacks on Iran. Is that true, to your knowledge, and doesn’t that further escalate tensions in the region?

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE): Well, I am not aware of any pre-planning in Iraq to attack Iran.

SH: Ongoing low-level attacks are supposed to be happening.

CH: I’m not aware of any of that. A concern I have had, and I’ve said that it’s of concern, that anytime you are at war, like we are at war in Iraq, and the President’s comments a couple of months ago about pursuing the Iranians across the border, just as we recall from our experience in Vietnam, when the government said we were not in Cambodia and we were not in Laos, in fact we were. These things happen. And we need to pay attention to this. We don’t need to escalate an already big situation and a troubling situation. The one that we are going to have to unwind and that is the war in Iraq — and find an exit strategy — we don’t need to escalate that into Iran. We are far wiser in pursuing, as we are, with the United Nations, a course of action in dealing with Iran.

SH: If Congress exercised its right to cut off funding to the—to really end the war in Iraq, do you think the President would leave the troops in a lurch or would he withdrawal in a responsible fashion?

CH: Well, the President, depending on what the Congress would say would have to abide by a law. Now, he could veto a law, a bill, as he said he would veto the bill the House passed and I don’t know what the Senate is going to do this week. Certainly, the President has that Constitutional authority, but we are not there yet. But the bigger issue here is the President should reach out to the Congress and cooperate. We have a very dangerous situation in Iraq. Its not getting better. Its getting worse. If its getting better, than why are we escalating our involvement? If things are getting better, than why are we putting more troops in and all or our allies are leaving? Of course its not getting better. Its getting worse. I’m opposed to that escalation and I think a number of members of Congress are, reflected by what the House did on Friday so we’re going to continue to affect our Constitutional abilities to change the course of action of our involvement in Iraq.

SH: Do you regret your war vote? And do you think the administration believed that intelligence or did they work to rig it?

CH: Well, if you’re referring to the resolution, the Iraq War Resolution of 2002, that was not a resolution to go to war, that was resolution that would empower the President of the United States to take military action if it was the last course of action he could take, the last resort, after exhausting all the diplomatic efforts. So, I think we need to be clear around that. It wasn’t a resolution to go to war or not go to war.

Second, your question, about do I regret it? Yes. If I could vote again, I would vote against it. The fact is that the war in Iraq was a war of choice. Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat to the United States or anyone else. The fact is containment was working. The fact is he didn’t control 60% of his country. We had overflights in the north and the south. Those where F-16s that would fly our to Saudi Arabia. The fact is he was slowly strangling in the 40% of his country. That was a needless commitment of American blood and treasure. And if that vote was held again today, I’d vote against it.

SH: Do you think that they rigged the intelligence?

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SH: Everything you said about Iraq a moment ago was known at the time. How do you explain—In your speak you said, “The risk of inaction is too high” and so on. You voted for and seemed to believe that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Was there a propaganda effort? Were you fooled by it? If so why?

CH: What you just said is not true? You just said that everything that we know today, we knew at the time.

SH: We certainly knew that Saddam Hussein did not control his entire region. We knew we had overflights and all that.

CH: I’m not going to debate you, but what you said is not true. That fact is,the entire intelligence community of this government, all 16 agencies, told the President as well as the intelligence agencies from other countries to all our allies, did believe and did say that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.