[James Baker, Co-chairman, Iraq Study Group:] I hope we don't treat this like a fruit salad and say, I like this, but I don't like that; I like this, but I don't like that. This is a comprehensive strategy, designed to to deal with this problem we're facing in Iraq, but also designed to deal with other problems that we face in the region.
[Cooper:] That was James Baker, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, expressing his concerns last week. The ISG's report was the focus of a lot of debate this weekend, from the Sunday talk shows, to the Sunday papers, including Frank Rich's column in "The New York Times." He basically wrote that it's too late to turn Iraq around, in his opinion not the first time Mr. Rich has written critically about the handling of the war far from it. His new book, "The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth," accuses the White House of using propaganda to sell the war to the American people. I talked with Frank Rich earlier today. Frank, you say we have lost in Iraq. Is is that really fair?
[Frank Rich, Associate Editor, "the New York Times":] I think it is really fair, because we have a government that isn't governing. We have whether you want to call it civil war or sectarian violence, with Americans in the middle. We don't really have a plan for victory. Each day brings another report of something that's very sad, like, for instance, in today's "New York Times," reporting that the oil revenue can't even be spent for reconstruction, because there's no bureaucracy that can accommodate it. You have, what, 100 Iraqis a day dying, 100,000 a month leaving the country the American casualties, 11 on the day that the Iraq Study Group released its report. So, we have to face reality, because, only if we face reality, can we deal with reality.
[Cooper:] When I talked to the guys who were running the Iraq Study Group, Baker and Hamilton, they said, well, we're not we're not winning, but we're we're also not want we haven't we haven't lost or or, we're not losing, but we're also not winning. The president says, point blank, we are winning. I talked to Dan Bartlett of the White House just last week, who claims to to still believe that we're winning. Do you think the White House really does believe that, or do you think they're just putting on a a you know, is it just politics?
[Rich:] Why why would there be politics now? The election has come and gone. This president cannot run for reelection. It's possible that they're delusional, or they have drunk their own Kool-Aid, or they don't and it's human. It's understandable. They don't want to admit how dire it is. But, if you read the Iraq Study Group's report, and you read the part not the prescriptions, but just the description of what's going on in Iraq, and you look at the reporting of many people, including yourself, it's it's dire, as they said. And they can say it's not winning, as opposed to losing, but we have we're in a crisis in Iraq.
[Cooper:] You you have some pretty harsh words for the Iraq Study Group. You call their recommendations bogus. And and you wrote this. You said: "The Iraq Study Group isn't plotting a way forward, but but delaying the recognition of our defeat. Its real aim is to enact a charade of progress to pacify the public, while Washington waits, no doubt in vain, for Mr. Bush to return to the real world."
[Rich:] Well, look, the recommendations are earnest, I'm sure. But and, look, we would all love it if, you know, Iran and Syria would intervene in a way to America's favor. We would love it if embedded American troops could succeed in a matter of months training the Iraqi army and police, after all these years of failure, or if all the various ethnicities and sects in in Iraq could reconcile. They're wonderful pie-in-the-sky recommendations, but they're not practical when time is running out.
[Cooper:] So, what should happen, do you think? I mean, pull out now?
[Rich:] Well, everyone talks about precipitous withdrawal. I think no such as precipitous withdrawal. We can't just, like, flee the country in 10 minutes. But I think we have to actually talk about a timetable that suits our interests, that focuses the attention of the Iraqis, but I think the Iraqi government I think that's the pipe dream. The most powerful person in Iraq probably is al-Sadr, who isn't even in the government. But we're going to have to have some kind of timetable and begin pulling out.
[Cooper:] Frank Rich, always appreciate you talking. Thank you, Frank.
[Rich:] Thank you.
[Cooper:] On 360 we don't take sides. We try to look at stories and issues from all different angles. One person that we expect will take issue with Frank Rich's analysis is Anna Perez. She was a member of the White House Iraq group, which planned the communication efforts surrounding the war, the public relations, you could say. Ms. Perez has also served as a communications counselor for Condoleezza Rice and the National Security Council, and she joins me now. Anna, thanks for being with us. Rich has just said that the U.S. has lost in Iraq. Is that true?
[Anna Perez, Former Member, White House Iraq Group:] I don't think so. I think Saddam, by the way, is still gone. That is an achievement both for the Americans and for the Iraqi people that we should never lose sight of.
[Cooper:] Do you believe we're winning?
[Perez:] One thing that's a gotcha game that Washington is playing right now, and the stakes are far too high for those kinds of games. One thing I noticed that Frank and I greatly respect him. I read him all the time. But nobody ever talks about the consequences of our leaving. If you are going to recommend a policy, I think it's incumbent upon those who recommend that we leave Iraq immediately or in ten months, 15 months, 18 months, to give us your best guess of what those consequences would be. I think one of the reasons people don't talk about the consequences of that kind of policy is that the alternative to, quote, unquote, "winning in Iraq" is too horrible to contemplate. Let's remember that this is a region that even King Abdullah today was quoted in the "New York Times" as saying it's a tinderbox waiting for a spark to ignite it. That in Iraq, brothers are killing brothers. Now that's a fairly significant statement from the king of Saudi Arabia. The other nations in that area, with two notable exceptions, Syria and Iran, there is I think, you're seeing a little bit at least publicly, a little bit more realism, realizing they in fact, do have a big dog in this fight. And they have to act on that realization.
[Cooper:] So so you're saying the ramifications of leaving are so severe and so horrific that they outweigh anything else?
[Perez:] I think one of the ramifications of leaving is that we will probably be end up back there in 18 months or 18, 10 months after we leave, because right now the situation is so volatile, as King Abdullah says, a tinderbox, that, yes, I think we need to figure out a way to get it done.
[Cooper:] A friend of mine who is a soldier just returned from his second tour of duty over there said to me that a common belief among a lot of soldiers is, look, leave and let these guys just sort it out. You know, it's going to come to Sunni versus Shia. And there's going to be this war, and just let it happen and see what happens afterward.
[Perez:] If it were as simple as that, that may be a policy we could consider. But it's nowhere near as simple as that, because it's just not Shia versus Sunni. It's Shia; it's Kurds; it's Shiites. But there's also the hole in the wall effect, which means that if we leave, and it becomes and Iraq become as failed state, next stop is, remember the Hole in the Wall gang?
[Cooper:] Sure.
[Perez:] Hole in the Wall was a place where they could all come and they would breed. They could plan their next well, think of hole in the wall squared in Iraq.
[Cooper:] So what do you think...
[Perez:] If you think...
[Cooper:] What do you think of the ISG report then? I mean, they come up with all these recommendations. Frank Rich says it's basically pie in the sky. Do you think is it real or is it a kind of fig leaf we're pulling out?
[Perez:] I was not privy to their obviously, not privy to their deliberations, but I can tell you that I'm sure the president will take very seriously all of the recommendations. But here's here's an indication of what you're dealing with in the Mideast. Today in Iran, the people that we are supposed to begin to bring into the process in a positive way, today in Iran the head of Iran opened a conference inquiry, quote, unquote, "inquiry into the Holocaust." Now, talk about fig leaves. We know what that means. And you can always tell when the poison of totalitarianism is about to come after you, because they do a lot of times they go after the Jews first.
[Cooper:] But you could also argue, I mean, Ahmadinejad frankly isn't the real power in Iran. He doesn't have full power. And also in Iran today, people were students were burning his picture. So I mean, is there any benefit to obviously this Holocaust thing that they're doing in Iran is abhorrent and ridiculous. But is there any benefit to trying to engage with Iran, do you think?
[Perez:] I think there's almost always benefits to engagement. Almost always. I can think of very few examples. And I'm no historian. I can think of very few examples where there wasn't. But in this case you have to ask yourself, do Syria and Iran, is it really in their interest to have a peaceful Iraq? Or are they in the business of chaos, of fomenting chaos, of supporting chaos? You can have example after example where the latter is true. Do I think we shouldn't talk to them? Oh, no. We should be talking to them. But everybody who talks to them ought to understand what they have already said their price is. And for Iran, it's developing a nuclear weapon. Do you really want Iran to have that weapon, with the United States hamstrung, the United States and the western world, hamstrung because they wanted to make the chaos and it is pretty chaotic in Iraq right now, no question to make that go away? Well, A, it's not going to go away. It's not going to go away. And if our relations with the North Koreans are any indication, how can take even if we get that deal with Iran, how can we take it seriously?
[Cooper:] No easy option. Anna Perez, appreciate your perspective, as always. Thanks for being on the program again.
[Perez:] Thanks, Anderson.
[Cooper:] All right. Take care. Straight ahead, dark side of an already terrifying story. People smuggling immigrants into the country, then kidnapping babies from families who get behind in their payments. Police say it happened to a mother in Florida. They say she is not alone. We'll investigate. Also, the James Kim story and two of the saddest words you'll ever hear about, what if. We'll explain ahead. You're watching 360.