McCain Team Explains CBS Interview, Channeling Petraeus
23 July 2008 12:00 pm by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
McCain
canceled his press avail this morning, opting instead for a media call it seems, which came complete with an open mic moment. They also passed the political football
over McCain’s CBS interview debacle to General Petraeus, with plenty of talking points ready to counter the inevitable question about McCain’s Iraq gaffe last night.
Topic of the McCain call today: Obama’s “One-Year Anniversary of Obama’s
Without Precondition Policy Statement.”
It was rocky from the start. They started by doing a political version of “Who’s on First”, insert “Who’s On the Call – Is the Call On? I can hear you. Is Randy here?” Technical glitches happen. Randy Scheunemann, senior foreign policy adviser, McCain 2008, was
the director on the call, as well as the one supplying the push back on McCain’s CBS Gaffe-gate.
You can hear how badly the call began, but also the open mic moment. As it started up again, the first question (came) from Jeff Mason from Reuters who mentions
the long pauses that began the call, during which he thought he heard someone say, He
will have to denounce the Palestinian state. To whom were they referring,
Obama or McCain, asks Mason? Scheuneman responded to Mason’s query, saying it might have
been TV. Hardly. It was absolutely not TV, as you’ll here on
the taping, but Mason, quick on the draw, simply got the quote wrong:
“He’s got to either disavow the Palestinian Authority’s—-”
But the moderator interrupts, while it’s obvious someone shut the guy up. Was it Scheunemann? Then it goes quiet, with only the moderator talking, then chatter ensues. Again, this stuff happens all the time, though the f-bomb wasn’t helpful.
At the end of the call, Sara Wheaton of The New York Times “The Caucus” asked about McCain’s Couric interview, referring to the Anbar Awakening timing gaffe, my word not Wheaton’s, reminding them that the Anbar Awakening “appears to have happened before the surge.” Her question: What does that say about Sen. McCain’s recollection and understanding of these events if they don’t quite square with actually happened? Scheuneman
responds and below in a rough transcript:
Senator McCain was very clear on what happened and has been many times. He
has been to Anbar, as has Congressman Hoekstra. … (then Scheunemann reads
a quote from Petraeus)… “The Awakening was then very much enabled by
the surge, because it enabled us to clear areas over time.” That was
General Petraeus before the House Armed Services Committee, April 9th ‘08.
There is no doubt whatsoever that had there been no surge the Awakening would
have been defeated. The situation in late 2006 in Anbar was bleak. A leaked
U.S. Marine Corp. intelligence memo said, and I quote from a Washington Post
story on it: The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency
in western Iraq or country Al Qaeda’s rising popularity. Nor (not audible)
most Sunnis now believe it would be unwise to count on or to help U.S. forces,
because they are seen as likely to leave the country before imposing stability.
That’s in November 2006. The surge was announced in January. Forces started
flowing to Iraq in February and March. Some of the first initial forces, particularly
two Marine battalions were moved into Anbar. They enbabled Ramadi to be first
cleared and then held. That enabled the Awakening to not only survive in Anbar,
spread– survive in Ramadi, then it spread throughout Anbar and ultimately
spread throughout Iraq. It would not have happened without the surge, and
Sen. McCain has been very, very clear on that. Sen. Obama continues to engage
in denial that the gains to date in Iraq were because of the surge and somehow
seems to seek other factors to explain the surge, because he opposed the surge,
he voted against the surge, and predicted the surge would fail. Congressman
Hoekstra, did you want to comment, because I know you’ve been up to Anbar…
continues
Hoekstra continues on the call making a point to say that Sunni tribal leaders,
in the fall 2006, were very concerned that “sufficient American forces
to ensure that as they moved over that the Americans and Iraqi forces would
be able to bring security and stability to al Anbar province.” Hoekstra
went on to say that “one could not have happened without the other.
We could not have been successful in al Anbar province militarily if the political
and diplomatic effort hadn’t been successful, and we could not have been successful
if the political and diplomatic effort hadn’t moved forward without the additional
troops. They go hand in hand…”
So is McCain’s team really saying that in Iraq the political and diplomatic
efforts have been a success?
Victory at last.
