Buchanan & Press Transcript - John Kerry conversation

[ModerateMiddle]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/963870.asp

BUCHANAN: I’m doing fine, Senator. I want to ask you a flat question. Everyone sort of agrees this is a bit more of a mess than we anticipated. Did the president make a mistake in launching this war when he did? And did you make a mistake in voting to give him a blank check?
KERRY: Well, we didn’t give him-we gave him a check to do what was appropriate as president of the United States, which he said he would do, which is build a coalition and he said he would use the United Nations and obviously go to war as a last resort, Pat. He broke his own pledge to the American people. He didn’t go to war as a last resort. He built up the troops ahead of the United Nations.
He certainly didn’t exhaust the remedies. Many of us were saying at the time-I said it point-blank in January. Mr. President, do not rush to war, take the time to build the coalition not because it’s hard to win the war, but because it’s hard to win the peace. They started this war on their schedule, Pat. And they clearly didn’t do the planning necessary.
BUCHANAN: If you had to do it over again, would you vote to authorize him to go to war the way you did last October?
KERRY: I would authorize a president to have the authority to use force because that’s the only way you could have gotten inspectors into Iraq, but I would do so-hopefully, you know, if I were president, I’d do so in the way that I said. You build a coalition, you show maturity, you do the hard work of diplomacy, you do what’s necessary to protect the troops of the United States. And I think that means having the maximum number of nations with you and it means exhausting the remedies available to you. Now the question is-look, the question now is let’s not go backwards, let’s go forwards.
PRESS: Right.
KERRY: What we have to do is get the United Nations far more deeply involved in this. This is not-Iraq is not an American prize. This is not something that we possess to dispose of at our will. This is a country and we should behave accordingly with the United Nations. I’m all for Americans keeping command of the security component, but the nation building, the infrastructure, the civilian component, the humanitarian component belong in the shared authority of the United Nations.

[sandnsea]

1. Get off his high horse! lol

"And one of the lessons I learned in fighting a war is I’m never going to shut up when the safety of the troops is at stake. We’re going to stand up and fight for the troops and fight for the security interests of our country. And that means making certain that this president gets off his high horse..."

I so hate that I missed this yesterday, sounds like it was really a great interview. Thanks for the post!

[blm]

2. This was a big miss.

I'm SO sorry I missed it.

Thanks for the transcript.

[sandnsea]

3. People wanted an explanation

But no responses. I don't understand. :shrug: