Eat The Press

George Allen On "Meet The Press": Knowing What We Know Now, I'd Still Vote To Go Into Iraq

Posted Sunday September 17, 2006 at 05:37 PM

Spicy debate on "Meet The Press" today between Senator George Allen (of "macaca" fame) and challenger Jim Webb, to whom Tim Russert lobbed a nice softball to start in the guise of a gotcha, noting that Webb had supported Allen for Senate in 2000. Six years ago - a neat opportunity for Webb to say that hey, Allen had his chance to impress him, and he didn't. And that goes double for the rest of the Republicans.

After giving Webb the chance to note that he had argued with Allen against voting to go into Iraq, Russert shifted to Allen. Russert noted that Allen had likened his Iraq war vote to being loyal to the president, and asked Allen to confirm or deny. Allen did neither, noting instead that everyone else thought Saddam had WMDs, too, calling it "good evidence" and jumping straight from "that action was taken" to "I think the world's better off with Saddam Hussein not in power," skipping nimbly over the awkward part in between about faulty evidence and imaginary yellowcake and the questionable evidence used to justify the war. Here Russert zeroed in and asked, all right then, knowing what you know now, would you still have voted to go in? Psaw, said Allen. You can't second guess us five years later! Oh yeah? says Tim. Watch me:

MR. RUSSERT: No, but it's a serious question. People are saying, knowing what they know today, they still would have gone in. It's a serious question. If you knew Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction, was it still worth going to war?

SEN. ALLEN: I stand by my vote, and the vote was based on the evidence and information before us. And we had a choice. We had a choice whether to listen to the critics and do nothing, and then have this world more dangerous if, if we were right. And if we were wrong, and if we were wrong, and, and deposed Saddam Hussein, the world's still better off."

Note how Allen brings the vote back to the "evidence" on one hand but on the other justifies military intervention based on the ends. He then accused Webb of opposing military action in Iraq in 1991: "Heck, heck, the French were even for military action in 1991!" More from Russert:

MR. RUSSERT: Before I let Mr. Webb respond, did you say to Jim Webb you were voting for the war so as to not be disloyal to President Bush?

SEN. ALLEN: I was supporting our efforts of our administration. It was bipartisan support for this resolution, because I thought we needed to show unity of resolve so that Saddam Hussein, it was my hope, would see how resolved, how unified the United States was, as well as the United Nations, and would actually comply with the weapons inspections.

MR. RUSSERT: The, the concern being if in fact you cast that vote out of loyalty to President Bush...

SEN. ALLEN: No, it's loyalty to this country, and making sure that our country is unified in, in this, in this effort to disarm Saddam Hussein. That was the point.

Note how Allen switched the issue from going into war on trumped-up evidence to showing unity of resolve in an attempt to get Saddam to comply with weapons inspections. Note also how this seems to be the solidifying GOP position: Iraq was a just war, and even if we'd known then what we know now, we still would have voted to go in.

Webb was well-prepped to respond to this, noting how Cheney had taken the above position last week even as he denied having seen the Senate Intelligence Committee report "that showed how [the intelligence] had been cooked."Zinged Webb:

There was no urgency to go into this war at the time that we went into it. And if we had the right people in the Senate, there would have been more questions asked and a better policy in place in order to defeat international terrorism... We didn't go into Iraq because of terrorism, we have terrorists in Iraq because we went in there.

The full MTP transcript is here; the video netcast is here; and RussertWatch will be up later to pick it apart here.