Interview on ABC Good Morning AmericaSeptember 8, 2003BODY: DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS (Off Camera) Well, those arguments by Doctor Rice and the President's address, as you can imagine, drew incoming fire from the Democratic candidates, including the man everybody's been talking about, frontrunner Howard Dean, former Vermont Governor. And we welcomed him this morning from Herndon, Virginia. Let's start, if we can, with the speech last night. You opposed the war, and you have been blistering about the post-war effort. Last night, do you feel the President began to level with the American people? HOWARD DEAN, DEMOCRAT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE Unfortunately, I don't. He again left the false impression, as Al Gore said in his speech, that Al Qaeda was involved in Iraq, that Iraq was a danger to the United States, that Al Qaeda and that, and that Saddam had, excuse me, that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11. None of those things have been documented, nor are they likely to be true. In fact, it's more likely that there are more Al Qaeda in Iraq today, shooting and bombing both American troops and Iraqi civilians than there ever were before the President started his war. So I think this was an additional campaign of some misinformation to the American people to try to justify spending $80 billion additional, additionally on top of the $80 billion he's already spending in Iraq. We, we can't afford this, and this is a mess. DIANE SAWYER (Off Camera) What would you be doing right now? HOWARD DEAN Now, now that we are stuck here, I would send Secretary Powell to the capitals of Europe and begin to craft a resolution that they will accept. We went in without them, which we shouldn't have done. And now we're going to have to backtrack with the Europeans. We need troops. And we don't need just a division. We need to begin to bring our troops home. We should, we ought to be able to replace half our troops with foreign troops and then have additional troops on top of that. DIANE SAWYER (Off Camera) But ... HOWARD DEAN General Senseki(PH) told the administration they didn't have enough troops when they went there. Now we're paying the price for that and our soldiers are paying the price for that every single day. I think it's an outrage. DIANE SAWYER (Voice Over) But, you have said that 50,000 more troops are needed. If the other nations of the world don't come together, they don't come together through the UN or any cause in order to do it, should the US send the 50,000 troops in? Is failure an option? HOWARD DEAN Well, we have to get, no, failure is not an option. We cannot, now that the President has got us into Iraq, we can't leave because if a chaotic situation occurs, where Al Qaeda, which is now I believe there, should establish a base or if a fundamentalist regime which is friendly to Iran should establish a base, we'll be in much worse shape than we were with Saddam Hussein. You may remember, I was roundly criticized for saying, I suppose it was a good thing that Saddam Hussein is gone. Now you see exactly what I mean by that. I believe at this time the security of the United States is in more danger than it was when we attacked Saddam Hussein. DIANE SAWYER (Off Camera) But we heard the National Security Advisor say that in fact there were things that were unforeseeable in Iraq. That that's what happens when you go in. You can't know everything in advance. She would say to you, not at all. They're creating a beach head for democracy. HOWARD DEAN I think, with all due respect to the Administration, they have been reckless in both their foreign policy and their economic policy. Our deficit is now going to be over a half a trillion dollars because this President insists on recklessly cutting tax for his friends, while middle Americans pay higher cost tuitions and higher property taxes. And he has recklessly begun a conflict in Iraq, which I think we would have been better staying out of it. We had easily contained Saddam Hussein with our flyovers, we had contained him for 12 years. We're here now. The question is, who is responsible for creating a new front, creating a source of attack on American soldiers, the killing of American soldiers and the wounding of American soldiers, where no such front existed before. I think that was a grave error, and I frankly think that this President ought to be a one-term President because of the extraordinary trouble he's gotten us in both here and abroad. DIANE SAWYER (Off Camera) Doctor Dean, thank you so much for joining us this morning. HOWARD DEAN Thank you. Copyright 2003 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. ABC News Transcripts http://www.lexis.com/
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