Congress to Revisit Iraq War Policy; John Mark Karr Arrested Again
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, showdown over Iraq. Congress really didn`t get it when America said no to immigration reform. And they`re about to make the same mistake in Iraq. What Bush and the Republicans need to hear before they make a move. Plus, John Mark Karr, arrested again. The alleged victim, his 86- year-old father. But wait, his 22-year-old girlfriend says he`s innocent. Wait a minute. John Mark Karr`s girlfriend? And, two people gored. Dozens injured. Yes, good times for all. It`s the annual running of the idiots and bulls. All this and more, tonight.</s>BECK: Well, hello, America. It is I, your fattest host on television. Talking about Congress, back from their summer break, and they are wasting no time getting back to wasting your time. It is politics as usual. The talks of impeachment, investigations and continued funding for the Iraq war. But the last one has a new twist. More senators now have told the president that they can no longer support his strategy, and they`re Republicans. So here`s the point tonight. Congress is following public opinion and not leading it, and that is going to be trouble for all of us. And here`s how I got there. Two weeks ago, it was Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana. He opened the flood gates of Republican defection. Until Lugar jumped ship, senators Chuck Hagel and Gordon Smith were the lone GOP voices against the president`s Iraq policy. But now the hawks are turning into cute little doves and flying away. President Bush is hemorrhaging Republican support so badly that "The New York Times" reports that he may be forced into announcing an accelerated troop withdrawal. That is, if you can believe "The New York Times". They`ve had kind of a credibility problem lately. In a statement released earlier today, White House spokesperson Tony Snow said these reports are, quote, "way ahead of the facts." And, you know, that could be true. Say what you will about president Bush, this guy has always gotten the picture in the Middle East. You may not agree with what he`s done in the Middle East but he gets it. While the Republicans may be abandoning him, I don`t think that bothers him. I believe he will stand strong, even if that means standing alone. Normally now, I love it when Congress gets gridlocked. You know, as long as they`re fighting with each other, nothing much gets done and these days when Congress actually tries to get something done, it`s usually the wrong thing. But with Iraq, the stakes are just too high. As usual, politicians have completely misread the American people and what we`re saying. We are not opposed to fighting the war in Iraq. We are opposed to losing the war in Iraq. How we got into this war is a dead issue. It`s too late. Forget about it. But the way Washington is mismanaging this war is resulting in dead soldiers. If the Congress thinks that things are bad now in Iraq, oh, wait and see how much worse things will be in 18 months after we cut and run. So tonight, here`s what you really need to know about this story. Iraq is not Vietnam. It may sound counterintuitive, but oh, how I wish it were only Vietnam. If we leave Iraq now, national humiliation will be the least of our troubles. If this fight goes unwon, it won`t be just the radical mullahs in Iraq, but the radicals in Iran and al Qaeda will also swoop in and fill the power vacuum with their terrorist network and continue to try to kill you and me and freedom loving people all across the globe. But before they come for us, they`ll go after the entire Middle East. It is not just $3 a gallon gasoline at stake, gang, but our very lives. And Congress had better wake up to that fact. Stop thinking about the re- election and let our soldiers win the war and keep America safe while changing the face of the Middle East. Max Brune is a senior fellow for national security studies at the Council of Foreign Relations. Max, where do I have this one wrong?</s>MAS BRUNE, SENIOR FELLOW OF NATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Where do you have what wrong?</s>BECK: So in other words, you agree with me? I got it right?</s>BRUNE: Oh, I think you have it right and, unfortunately, I don`t think that most people in Congress are paying attention. They`re listening to the public opinion polls which tell them people want to get out of Iraq. But I think, as you correctly said, what people really want is an acceptable outcome in Iraq. And unfortunately, pulling U.S. troops out right now is not going to reach an acceptable outcome. It`s going to make things even worse than they already are. And so I don`t think that the American -- the electorate is going to be in a forgiving mood in the fall of 2008 if things are going to hell in a hand basket over there.</s>BECK: It`s going to make -- make things for the Republicans -- I mean, they`re getting the blame for the war now. My gosh, if they cave, they`re not only the people that got us into the war, but they`re also the ones that lost the war.</s>BRUNE: That`s exactly right. And that`s why I think the desire to strike some kind of deal, this grand bargain which you`re hearing from Republicans on the Hill and from some people in the administration, I think, is deeply deluded, to think that they can get out of the current dilemma by somebody saying let`s cut the troops. Well, we tried that last year and we saw what happened. The situation got much, much worse, and in fact, it`s pretty ironic that the new strategy that people are talking about is pretty much the same as the old strategy of as we -- as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. What we found was no, the terrorists are standing up. The terrorists are making gains. And now General Petraeus is starting to roll them back. He and his troops are fighting hard, but they`re making progress on the ground. They`ve only started their major operations in the last month, and already Congress is throwing up its hands and saying, "It`s lost, defeat is here. We can`t win." Well, give them a chance. That`s what I say.</s>BECK: Let me ask you this, because you`re a -- you`re a historian on war. You studied the history of war. And I asked this question on the air today when I was talking about what the American people are really feeling. What Americans -- they`re frustrated because we`re not losers. And I don`t think that -- I don`t think there`s a soul in America in the heartland of America that believes, if we fight a war to win, we will lose. I think we -- they just know we`re not fighting this to win. Have we ever lost a war that we intended on winning?</s>BRUNE: Well, the only major war we`ve ever lost was Vietnam and, obviously, that was a failure of will. It wasn`t a failure of the brave men and women in the armed forces. They were fighting. They were making progress. In fact, by 1973, they had more or less safeguarded the security of South Vietnam. And at that point, Congress came in and said, "That`s it. We give up. We`re going to cut off the South Vietnamese. We`re going to let the north take over." The result, of course, was millions of dead people in Southeast Asia and a communist offensive around the world including places like Afghanistan.</s>BECK: OK. So let me go here. Because let`s stay on Vietnam for a second. The ramifications for us leaving Vietnam, Pol Pot. People -- I mean, people were just mass slaughtered because they knew America was now out and we would never come back.</s>BRUNE: Right. Right.</s>BECK: What are the ramifications? Take me out to the election `08. We start pulling our troops out right now. What does the Middle East look like? And Republicans listen to this. What does the Middle East look like at election time?</s>BRUNE: Let me put it to you this way. If we pull out precipitously right now, 18 months from now we could be looking back on this period in Iraq as being this golden age of tranquility and peace. Things could be so much worse 18 months from now that this will seem pretty good by comparison. I think what you would see happen very quickly in the case of Iraq is a power struggle between al Qaeda and the Islamist republic in Iran. You would see a major civil war. You would see casualties skyrocketing, possibly, from 100 or so a day to maybe a thousand a day or more, possibly even reaching genocidal proportions. You could see terrorists establishing a base of operations in western Iraq. You could see Iran establishing its dominance over southern Iraq. You could see neighboring states being drawn into this civil war. You could see refugees and terrorists and other spillover dramatically affecting the rest of the region. So it`s going to get pretty ugly. And in fact, the spillover of a civil war and an American defeat in Iraq could be far uglier than the spillover from our defeat in Vietnam, because Iraq is much more strategically placed than South Vietnam was.</s>BECK: Yes. There`s no way to -- there`s no way to get away from -- I mean, Vietnam, you know, it didn`t affect our lifestyle here. Here it`s not only going to -- not only will we see the images of the mass casualties, but we will also feel it at the gas pump, as well. It will affect us and our economy. Max, thank you so much. We`ll have a conversation again. Coming up, John Mark Karr is back. Perhaps you remember him from that little false confession he made to JonBenet Ramsey`s murder. This time he`s under arrest after a fight with his 22-year-old girlfriend, which begs the question: he`s got a girlfriend? And al Qaeda has found a nice cozy home inside Iran. Well, now the Bush doctrine says we should take action. So why aren`t we following it? I`ll tell you why in tonight`s "Real Story". And before we go, just a reminder that tonight`s show is brought to you by the sleep number bed by Select Comfort. Find your sleep number today at a Select Comfort store near you.