Brokaw: Iraq can handle its own destiny RAW STORY

Published: Sunday November 25, 2007



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Print This Email This NBC alumnus Tom Brokaw tells CNN's Howard Kurtz that there must be a "truer measure" of "success" in Iraq besides a recent reduction in body counts and IED explosions, given that the Iraqi government has had four years and billions of dollars at its disposal.



This video is from CNN's Reliable Source, broadcast on November 25, 2007. Transcript of this exchange can be viewed below, and the entire interview is available at CNN.com.







# TRANSCRIPT: KURTZ: Vietnam, one of your friends from the University of South Dakota went there and did not come back. You write that you were disillusioned with the deceptions of Johnson and Nixon. Talk a little bit about that. BROKAW: Well, the Johnson tapes just enraged me when I read them later, the private conversations he was having very early on with Richard Russell. KURTZ: His own doubts about the war that he was prosecuting. BROKAW: His own deep doubts about the war. And the man that he really counted on in the Senate to be his military affairs expert, Richard Russell, said, he just doesn't believe that this makes any sense at all. That he at one point says, it will all be settled missiles if it is settled at all. And but Johnson keep pouring people in. He was terrified, obviously, the political effect that it might have if the right would come after him. He even talks in one exchange about impeachment. He was protecting his political ass -- excuse my language -- but that is what he was doing while young people were dying over there. Nixon made more of an effort to try to find peace in Vietnam. He did make several overtures to the north. But he kept pouring people in there as well because he believed he was the last person who should lose a war and that he thought it was important to stand up to the communists. He came into office if not actually saying, I have a secret plan for making peace... KURTZ: Right. BROKAW: ... giving the impression that he could bring the war to an end. KURTZ: In terms of the coverage, do you see certain parallels here to Iraq? Most people would say, and I would agree, the media did a pretty poor job during the run-up to the Iraq War in terms of the way that President Bush was selling it, and now, of course, the coverage in recent years has been more critical. BROKAW: Yes. The one thing I would disagree with you about, a lot of what happened on the run-up was unknowable. People did believe he had weapons of mass destruction. People who were critical of the war and the idea of going to war did in fact think that he had weapons of mass destruction, which was one of the bases for... KURTZ: But shouldn't journalists have been more skeptical toward the line the administration was selling, even if they couldn't disprove it and given it more... BROKAW: I think on the execution... (CROSSTALK) BROKAW: I think on the war plan they should have been a lot more skeptical. KURTZ: And given more space, more air time to opposition voices? There was a feeling... (CROSSTALK) BROKAW: Yes, but remember -- you have to remember, the opposition voices were not that many in this town, for example, in Washington. There just weren't that many. We put Brent Scowcroft on "Nightly News." I did a two-way with him. And I was one of the few places where he would go where he would do that. We did have Senator Bob Byrd on the air and Ted Kennedy on the air, but it passed by a pretty considerable margin. KURTZ: Oh, within the Democratic Party there weren't that many anti-war voices. BROKAW: Yes, that's right. KURTZ: There were some outside. In recent months, though, casualties are down in Iraq. Some would say that the surge is having some modest success. Yet conservatives say that is not getting enough coverage. Is that because of Iraq fatigue? Is that because only bad news is news? BROKAW: No, I think it is time to take a look at it again. You know, what, Howie? These are small signs of some progress four years later. KURTZ: Sure. BROKAW: And the Iraqi government still doesn't have it together. And after four years, if the Iraqis can't take care of themselves with all of the money that has been poured in there, all of the help that they have been given, that's a truer measurement, I think, of what is going on in Iraq. It does not mean that we ought not to take notice of the fact that the attacks are down, that the insurgency has been hurt. I had a briefing the other day about what is going on with IEDs. After billions of dollars, we have finally found a way to be more effective at protecting our troops from them and detonating them early. But it has taken a long time. That won't solve the political issue about whether Iraq can handle its own destiny. #



