Reply #3: Transcript of Kerry's comments [View All]

December 6, 2006

Transcript: John Kerry on "Scarborough Country"

MSNBC

SCARBOROUGH: Earlier, I asked Massachusetts senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry about the report and whether or not this is still a White House in denial.

KERRY: Well, listen, you know what I think we ought to do today is take this study group and see if we can find some common ground with the president. If he says it's not far from his policy, then let's talk about how we're going to really implement it.

But this study group does not do as much of the job as I think we still need to get done. You know, looking forward to 2008 is not going to satisfy a lot of Americans. Additional training is not going to resolve the problem of Iraq. As I said, it's a problem of motivation. If the army itself is predominantly Shi'a, and those Shi'a are members of a militia and they are controlled by people who still have a different interest from the federal government, you've got a problem.

So this fundamental, I think, divide, is over what are we trying to now achieve diplomatically and politically, and that's where I think the president may be either -- you know, either in denial or not yet ready to admit that he's got to move in a new direction. But I hope ultimately, he will.

SCARBOROUGH: Your testimony in 1971, the end of that testimony now seems prescient and applicable to Iraq, that, you know, no man should be the last man to die in Iraq because of a failed policy.

KERRY: I believe that.

SCARBOROUGH: Do you sort of feel reverberations of 1971 all over again in this report?

KERRY: I feel reverberations in the sense, Joe, that the policy is a failed policy which was based on a lot of misleading and even in some cases untruths. And I think that a lot of the American people are very upset about that. But we care about those service people. I mean, they are extraordinary. They deserve our support. And the best way to support them is to get the policy right now. And I think that's the foremost thing. I think the study group has really moved the debate, and that's important for all of us as Americans because we need to get this policy right.