McCain: Transcript of Oct. 2007 interview

[CommunityEditor]

Originally published Oct. 16, 2007

Sen. John McCain, the fourth-term Republican from Arizona and presumptive 2008 presidential nominee, met with Military Times reporters and editors in Oct. 2007 for a wide-ranging, 75-minute discussion.

The transcript of the meeting:

Sen. John McCain: I’m glad to see all of you. Thank you for inviting me.

Q: If you become president, summarize for us your three priorities for defense, for the military. What makes you different?

McCain: What makes me different is my experience, my knowledge, my background, and my expertise, many years of service in the military and the [Senate] armed services committee and being involved in literally every major conflict issue concerning national security since the end of the Vietnam War.

So I would compare my credentials and my qualifications. I think my credentials and my qualifications and my judgment and my knowledge of national security issues in general, and the armed services credential, qualify me for the consideration of the voters. No one else running has those qualifications and credentials.

The greatest challenge to the president of the United States is to take on the struggle that will be with us for the rest of this century, and that’s radical Islamic extremism and all of its ramifications and permutations and combinations. And it is a military, intelligence, diplomatic and ideological struggle.

Our military has to be restructured to meet that challenge. In many ways, we are still acquiring weapon systems and using doctrine and tactics that were tailored for a conflict on the plains of Germany rather than the ideological struggle which we are facing at this time.

Osama bin Laden a couple of weeks ago was able to get a message out from somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan to billions of people, where he was able to motivate, instruct, and inspire his followers and others to follow his lead in this effort to spread the evil of radical Islamic extremism throughout the world, and that’s how you get doctors who are suicide bombers in Glasgow, Scotland. That’s why you have arrests in Denmark and Germany, and that’s why the head of the CIA recently said that al-Qaida is trying to establish cells in the United States of America.

And just because you arrest the leaders, as we have in many cases, it does not mean that this kind of amorphous evil can’t reconstitute itself rather rapidly. So that’s the first priority. They are winning — not winning — they are doing very well in cyberspace, and we are not doing as well as we should.

I saw an article just this morning about some young man, I think, in North Carolina, who puts up all this extremist stuff and instructions for suicide bombers, etc., on the Internet. There are Web sites now that can provide radical Islamic extremists with just about any tools and motivation necessary.

We won the Cold War, as I mentioned, not by open conflict, but because we prevailed in the ideological struggle. We’ll have to do that if we want to prevail against radical Islamic extremism.

There are many other factors in this struggle, but that’s one of the major ones. So that’s the first priority of the president of the United States.

The next is to have a military establishment that can respond most effectively to those challenges. Right now we still have intelligence — our human intelligence capability consists of people sitting inside embassies in the Middle East and waiting for someone to come in and give them information. We have consistently failed human intelligence-wise in our ability to anticipate or to even keep track of many of our enemies and their activities.

Technologically, we are doing just fine. Unfortunately, technological intelligence capabilities do not divine the motives of the enemy. It can only record their actions.

So we have to have a military establishment that is retooled to meet these challenges, and among these requirements, in my view, in the short term anyway, is something we should have done long ago. One of the many failures of the [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld era is that we need to expand the Army and the Marine Corps because we’re going to be in Afghanistan for a long time, and I do not know where other conflicts may break out because I don’t know what the United States will do.

If we do what the Democrats want to do, and that’s set a date for surrender, then I believe we’ll be fighting in a whole lot of places in the Middle East. And if people like [Venezuelan leader Hugo} Chavez and others have their way and spread their brand of radical socialism throughout our hemisphere, we’ll have challenges in our own hemisphere, and if the Chinese emerge in a far more aggressive fashion than I anticipate, we will have military challenges there, an argument, a strong argument for maintaining a military presence in Asia.

Another area that I would be heavily involved in is defense acquisition reform. It’s out of control. It’s what President Eisenhower warned us about, and when we have $160 million ships that end up costing $400 million, when a collusion between Boeing, the Air Force, and their supporters on the Hill want to rip off the taxpayer by some $2 billion, which because of the process they were going through to acquire the Air Force tanker, people ended up in jail … we have a serious problem with defense acquisition.

We simply can’t afford $400 million Littoral Combat Ships that then have to be scrapped, with, as far as I can tell, no penalty to the defense contractors.

I’ll get the smartest and brightest people in America who know how businesses are run, who know what meeting a budget means, what cost analysis means, and there will be no more cost-plus contracts.

That’s some of the things that I would do, and it all comes down to restoring trust and confidence on the part of the American people in Congress and in the presidency, which they no longer have. They’ve lost all confidence in their government, in their belief that we are not functioning on their behalf but on our own.

That’s how you get 11 percent approval ratings of Congress, and corruption and wasteful spending is a major contributor to that lack of trust and confidence on the part of the American people.

Q: Senator, how big should the Army and the Marine Corps be?

McCain: I don’t know an exact number, but a hell of a lot bigger than it is now. I recommended four years ago that we increase by some 90,000 Army and I think 30,000 Marines.

Q: But that order of magnitude?

McCain: Oh, yeah, sure. Look, I’m not a detail numbers person. I’m not. And I never will be. But I’ll consult with the smartest people that I know, and I know that it has to be dramatically increased. It’s one-third smaller. The Army and the Marine Corps are one-third smaller than they were at the time of the first Gulf War.

Five years ago, six years ago, I said you’ve got to have a bigger Army and Marine Corps, and it’s got to not only be bigger in numbers, but as important are the missions, intelligence, civil affairs, military police, all of those things that — factors that go into successful counterinsurgency [operations].

I’ve never been and never will be good at specific numbers, but I can tell you the mission, what it’s got to be, and it’s got to be a lot better than it is today. We’re putting a strain on the Guard and Reserve that’s not sustainable.

Q: Are the Navy and the Air Force sized right or will they need to increase in proportion?

McCain: My priorities are to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps. I’m not as worried about the Navy and the Air Force. I’m worried about numbers of ships. When you can’t afford ships, we’re not going to build ships. So I’m worried about that, but the Army and the Marine Corps are right now bearing the brunt of the conflicts that we’re in, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Q: If you increase the Army and the Marine Corps, do you not need to increase the Air Force and Navy just to be able to deliver those people to the battlefield?

McCain: No, you don’t. We’ve got logistic supply capabilities. A lot of that is carried out by the Army and the Marine Corps themselves. Look, I’m not against increasing — here are my priorities — Army and Marine Corps. Navy and Air Force, I’m concerned about it, but my priorities are the strain on the National Guard and the Reserve, which is unsustainable, and the absolute requirement to increase the Army and Marine Corps in size, something I’ve been advocating for many years.

Q: Would you pay for that by reducing then the Navy and the Air Force?

McCain: I would pay for it by eliminating $400 million Littoral Combat Ships. I would pay for it by not having a Future Combat System that goes from $90 billion to $120 billion, and I haven’t checked lately, because I’ve been out campaigning, how much it’s gone up.

We’ve got plenty of money to pay for it. I’d eliminate all those pork barrel projects. I’d veto every single one of those pork barrel projects in the defense appropriations bill, and I’d do it in a New York minute.

Q: How would you —

McCain: Easy. You veto the bill and you make them famous, just like Ronald Reagan did. It’s not tough; it’s not rocket science. It’s telling the American people the truth. There’s no reason for us to be spending billions, 20, 30, I can’t even give you the number. I’ll do an analysis — we will, in time — of the money that’s wasted, just the money that’s spent on non-defense items.



To read the full interview, please go here ---> http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...ript_071016w2/

This is a man that voted down our Improved GI Bill and he says he "supports the troops??" Mr. McCain, if you are going to support the troops support them 100% at home and abroad, not just abroad!!! This is not the only thing that McCain voted against, he also voted against better health care for our troops and better mental health care for our troops to name a few things. It saddens me when soldiers have to come home injured and fight a bigger enemy at home, their own government. Mr. McCain, you should be ashamed of yourself. I am a combat veteran and you will not get my vote in November!!! This is a man who wants to fight a 100 year war in Iraq. McCain will bite the dust in this election and Obama will win by a landslide!!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This is a man that voted down our Improved GI Bill and he says he "supports the troops??" Mr. McCain, if you are going to support the troops support them 100% at home and abroad, not just abroad!!! This is not the only thing that McCain voted against, he also voted against better health care for our troops and better mental health care for our troops to name a few things. It saddens me when soldiers have to come home injured and fight a bigger enemy at home, their own government. Mr. McCain, you should be ashamed of yourself. I am a combat veteran and you will not get my vote in November!!! This is a man who wants to fight a 100 year war in Iraq. McCain will bite the dust in this election and Obama will win by a landslide!!

I hope you are right, but the Republican smear machine will go to ANY lengths in order to destroy Obama, and the fear mongering that Bush started before Iraq will be only one of the weapons they will use to instill the fear of God into the ignorant populace.

A friend of mine, living in England, told me this: "if Obama wins i'm pretty sure that the solution to the problem will be uniquely american: a bullet."

[usmcwifey]

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? My husband is a SSgt in the Marine Corps and we are both Independents but will be voting for OBAMA. I have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect for Sen. McCain but he is not the right person for the job at this time. Sen. Obama has the most comprehensive plan for the many complex issues our country is facing right now (i.e. the housing crisis, the economy, healthcare, education, the military etc.) Sen. McCain is like a bull in a china shop and we don’t need to break anymore damn china.

As a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Sen. Obama passed legislation to improve care and slash red tape for our wounded warriors recovering at places like Walter Reed. He passed laws to help homeless veterans and offered an innovative solution to prevent at-risk veterans from falling into homelessness. Obama led a bipartisan effort in the Senate to try to halt the military's unfair practice of discharging service members for having a service-connected psychological injury. He fought for fair treatment of Illinois veterans' claims and forced the VA to conduct an unprecedented outreach campaign to disabled veterans with lower than-average benefits. Obama passed legislation to stop a VA review of closed PTSD cases that could have led to a reduction in veterans' benefits. He passed an amendment to ensure that all service members returning from Iraq are properly screened for traumatic brain injuries. He introduced legislation to direct the VA and Pentagon to fix disjointed records systems and improve outreach to members of the National Guard and Reserves and voted for the new GI Bill.... AND THE LIST GOES ON!!!!!!!!!

I challenge you to go to www.barackobama.com to learn more about him instead of letting your leadership make the decision for you. Ignorance breeds hatred!

BARACK THE VOTE 08

[Shrike]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

A friend of mine, living in England, told me this: "if Obama wins i'm pretty sure that the solution to the problem will be uniquely american: a bullet."

Uniquely American? Uniquely American?
Is your friend in England an idiot, or just disingenuous? Because no European political differences have ever been solved with violence, right? Assassination is solely an American activity, right?

Archduke Ferdinand ring a bell? Olof Palme? Carrero Blanco? André Cools? Claude Erignac? Alfred Herrhausen? Stephen Saunders? Louis Mountbatten? Salvatore Lima? Pim Fortuyn? Humberto Delgado? Anna Lindh? Ian Gow? etc., etc., etc...

Or how about that nice, peaceful period of European history from the middle ages until WW2?

Ah, those sophisticated Europeans...they've sure earned the right to look down their noses at us savage Americans.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This is a man that voted down our Improved GI Bill and he says he "supports the troops??" Mr. McCain, if you are going to support the troops support them 100% at home and abroad, not just abroad!!! This is not the only thing that McCain voted against, he also voted against better health care for our troops and better mental health care for our troops to name a few things. It saddens me when soldiers have to come home injured and fight a bigger enemy at home, their own government. Mr. McCain, you should be ashamed of yourself. I am a combat veteran and you will not get my vote in November!!! This is a man who wants to fight a 100 year war in Iraq. McCain will bite the dust in this election and Obama will win by a landslide!!

Wow!!! Look at you!!! Congratulations at regurgitating the bald faced lies from the Obama Campaign!!

Lie #1 "This is a man that voted down our Improved GI Bill and he says he "supports the troops??"

Truth: McCain was against the ORIGINAL language of the bill which #1 did not encourage people to remain in the military and look at making it a career and #2 McCain was in favor of making the benefits transferrable to a servicemember's dependants; language that was NOT included in the original version. Sorry, but the transferrability option was and is the MOST IMPORTANT part of the GI BILL to a large segment of servicemembers.

Lie #2 "This is a man who wants to fight a 100 year war in Iraq."

Truth: What McCain was clearly talking about (and which anyone who actually saw him say this knew what he meant) is a security agreement similar to what we have with Germany and Japan. Unless you are saying we are still at war with those 2 countries, you clearly are doing nothing but INTENTIONALLY distorting what he said. You KNOW what he said and you KNOW what he meant, yet you continue to spread this lie...just like Obama's campaign.

The only thing you have proven with either your ignorance or your intentional deceptions is to prove that this "change" that Obama is talking about is pure smoke and mirrors and he is nothing but the typical prototype politicial with slick tongue and a fancy suit...but in reality, that suit is completely empty.

Originally Posted by usmcwifey

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? My husband is a SSgt in the Marine Corps and we are both Independents but will be voting for OBAMA. I have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect for Sen. McCain but he is not the right person for the job at this time. Sen. Obama has the most comprehensive plan for the many complex issues our country is facing right now (i.e. the housing crisis, the economy, healthcare, education, the military etc.) Sen. McCain is like a bull in a china shop and we don’t need to break anymore damn china.

As a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Sen. Obama passed legislation to improve care and slash red tape for our wounded warriors recovering at places like Walter Reed. He passed laws to help homeless veterans and offered an innovative solution to prevent at-risk veterans from falling into homelessness. Obama led a bipartisan effort in the Senate to try to halt the military's unfair practice of discharging service members for having a service-connected psychological injury. He fought for fair treatment of Illinois veterans' claims and forced the VA to conduct an unprecedented outreach campaign to disabled veterans with lower than-average benefits. Obama passed legislation to stop a VA review of closed PTSD cases that could have led to a reduction in veterans' benefits. He passed an amendment to ensure that all service members returning from Iraq are properly screened for traumatic brain injuries. He introduced legislation to direct the VA and Pentagon to fix disjointed records systems and improve outreach to members of the National Guard and Reserves and voted for the new GI Bill.... AND THE LIST GOES ON!!!!!!!!!

I challenge you to go to www.barackobama.com to learn more about him instead of letting your leadership make the decision for you. Ignorance breeds hatred!

BARACK THE VOTE 08

Nice cut and paste. LOL

I challenge you to come back to reality. Using a candidates own website to make a point? You can't be serious...

You sound just like the people who thought Saddam Hussein (or any other dictator for that matter) were great guys because someone told them so or they read it someplace.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Nice cut and paste. LOL

I challenge you to come back to reality. Using a candidates own website to make a point? You can't be serious...

You sound just like the people who thought Saddam Hussein (or any other dictator for that matter) were great guys because someone told them so or they read it someplace.

But I see you went to read his website!!!!!!! Are you afraid of the truth?

[MRMIXITUP]

McCain does not care about the troops. He just wants more of them.

He was the loudest voice AGAINST Jim Webb's (A DEMOCRAT) improved G.I. Bill.

President Bush has tried to raise Tricare co-pays for four years straight, was against the additional increases in the pay raise for 2008, and also threatened to veto the improved G.I. Bill.

Seriously, I have no idea why people in the military are supporting McCain. He's pretty much sold out completely on everything he used to stand for, and could care less about the troops.

100 more years in Iraq? I don't think so. Americans voted against the Iraq War with the 2006 elections and will hopefully do the same this time around. God willing, we will be out of Iraq by the end of 2009.

Originally Posted by MRMIXITUP

McCain does not care about the troops. He just wants more of them.

He was the loudest voice AGAINST Jim Webb's (A DEMOCRAT) improved G.I. Bill.

President Bush has tried to raise Tricare co-pays for four years straight, was against the additional increases in the pay raise for 2008, and also threatened to veto the improved G.I. Bill.

Seriously, I have no idea why people in the military are supporting McCain. He's pretty much sold out completely on everything he used to stand for, and could care less about the troops.

100 more years in Iraq? I don't think so. Americans voted against the Iraq War with the 2006 elections and will hopefully do the same this time around. God willing, we will be out of Iraq by the end of 2009.

WELL NEITHER CANDIDATE PROMISES TO BE OUT BY 2009, BUT OBAMA DOES PLAN TO BE OUT OF IRAQ BY 2013. THE FIGHT WILL CONTINUE IN AFGHANISTAN. I WAS DISAPPOINTED WHEN I HEARD MCCAIN DID NOT SUPPORT THE IMPROVED GI BILL. YES, I AM AWARE OF WHY HE DIDN'T SUPPORT IT BUT I DO THINK THE BILL THAT WAS SIGNED WAS A GOOD COMPROMISE BETWEEN THE TWO PARTIES.