Kerry on Imus (recap) [View All]

Note: the following is the "best i could do" typing what was said during Kerry's appearance on Imus ... it's probably about 95% accurate ... to those interested in suggesting that any inaccuracies are caused by biases i might or might not have, let me suggest what you can do with your keyboards ... i did the best i could ...

Kerry was "in studio" at MSNBC for the interview ...

Imus showed Kerry's Face the Nation clip so Kerry could comment ...

Imus: think these things thru before we say them
Kerry: the only people trying to make anything of that is people on the right
Kerry: when the biggest killers in Iraq are suicide bombers and IED's, it's inconceivable that we are still going into homes and scaring people

Kerry: i want to redeploy our troops

Kerry: Gen. Casey said our large troop presence feeds the insurgency and prevents the Iraqis from standing up on their own

Imus: you made it sound like our troops were going into homes and terrorizing children
Kerry: most reasonable people understand what I meant

Imus: how will it be any different if Iraqi troops do it?
Kerry: the bottom line is this needs to be transferred to Iraqis
Imus: how are we going to get them to do that? what percentage of trained troops do we need before they can do that?
Kerry: I think we're increasingly able to do that ...
Kerry: there has not been a sufficient leverage of the Sunni world to force a reconciliation

Kerry: the President actually admitted that the foreign jihadists are actually the smallest percentage of the insurgency ... the Iraqis don't want those guys there

Kerry: the real struggle on the war on terror is not a military struggle ... it's a struggle within Islam

Kerry: King Abdullah spoke in Mecca yesterday and said we are not going to tolerate this (meaning Islamic terrorism)

Imus: i don't think any of the plans make any sense ... i think there will be civil war no matter what we do

Kerry: that's one possibility ... we can ensure that the Sunnis get sufficient oil revenues ... there's a possibility this can work out but there's nothing to indicate this administration will get things right in Iraq ... they haven't gotten anything right so far

Imus: knowing what you know now, would you still vote to authorize force
Kerry: absolutely not

Imus: did bush and cheney lie about the evidence
Kerry: i think they misled ... (aluminum tubes, Meeting with Al Qaeda)
Kerry: misled ... lie ... i can't tell their intent
Kerry: we didn't know the intelligence had a different view of that
Kerry: we didn't know there were people in the intelligence community who didn't buy some of the intelligence

Imus: why did they lie?
Kerry: Wolfowitz (and others) were predisposed to war

Kerry: this was a war of choice

Kerry: Iraq was an easy target ... a lot of countries have weapons ... we didn't go to war with them ...
Kerry: the President helped lend to that belief that Saddam was involved in 9/11 ... it didn't just get there by accident ... the people we were after came out of Afghanistan ... we had Osama trapped in Tora Bora ... rumsfeld wouldn't use American troops to get him ... we outsourced that job to Afghans ... they allowed Osama to escape

Imus: should rumsfeld resign?
Kerry: absolutely ... what's happened to accountability in America? (listed a bunch of rumsfeld's failures in Iraq) ... it's been the most unbelievable set of false assumptions and yet there they are still managing this

Imus: is cheney a war criminal?
Kerry: no, where did that idea come from?

(additional brief discussion where Kerry talked about better choices that the country could be making)