SENATOR WEBB APPEARS ON ABC'S "THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS"

ANNOUNCER:  From Washington, "This Week," with ABC News chief Washington correspondent, George Stephanopoulos.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Good morning.

When General David Petraeus comes to Capitol Hill this week, he will say the surge is working; the Iraqis need to do more; and that U.S. troop drawdowns must pause, this summer, to prevent chaos in Iraq.

And we are joined, this morning, by two of the senators who will be questioning General Petraeus, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

And, Senator Webb, let me begin with you.  What's the toughest question you have for General Petraeus this week?

WEBB:  Well, I want to wait and hear what he has to say.

What I am interested in is trying to have an environment where we can discuss the region, writ large, and not simply Iraq.  The last time General Petraeus was here, it was almost as if Iraq were an island in the middle of the ocean, and all the questions were limited only to Iraq.

And we have to understand, as a country, where we are, really, right now.  I mean, the Iraq war was over five years ago...

STEPHANOPOULOS:  (inaudible)

WEBB:  ... right about the time President Bush landed on that ship and said "Mission Accomplished."

STEPHANOPOULOS:  So that's (inaudible) for Democrats to make.

WEBB:  From that point forward, we have been in a very tedious and contention occupation, which is what people like myself were warning about before we went in.

And this occupation has drained this country, strategically, in two different ways.  The first is that we have tied up the best maneuver forces in the world, our Army and the Marine Corps on the streets in the cities of one nation, while the people we're supposed to be fighting, Al Qaida and other forces of international terrorism, have maintained their maneuverability.

And then, secondly, our grand strategic interests have fallen to the side.  The economy has gone down the tubes.  The price of oil has quadrupled.  And our main strategic adversary around the world, China, has benefited.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Senator Graham, I saw you nodding your head through much of what Senator Webb was saying.

The other concern, now, is that the stress on our troops, particularly if there is a pause this summer, is going to be tremendous.

The Army vice chief of staff told Capitol Hill this week, "Our readiness is being consumed as fast as we build it."

What do you make of that?

GRAHAM:  Ohm, OK, I'm sorry.  I thought you were going to play a clip.

We'll be going to 12-month rotation in July.  We'll get to pre-surge levels.  Re-enlistment rates are extraordinarily high for those who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We met our recruiting goals in February.

So I think it has been stressful, but the biggest stress of all is to lose a battle in the war on terror that we can't afford to lose.

So I have every confidence in the military.  They know why they're there.  They keep re-enlisting because they understand the enemies we're facing.  They want to contain that enemy over there.

My hardest question -- not hardest question, but the one that plagues me the most, to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, is how do we get a handle on Iran's involvement in Iraq?

They're weaponizing the southern part of Iraq.  They're providing a lot of military support to the militias.  How do we confront Iraq – excuse me, Iran and Syria when it comes to allowing outside forces trying to get into Iraq?

STEPHANOPOULOS:  You know, Senator Graham, you say that the Iranians are providing military support to the militias, and I have no doubt that's true, but they're also providing political support to the Maliki government, our ally in Iraq.

GRAHAM:  Well, what you do is you have a lot of people who are on the Shia side who had safe sanctuary in Iran during the Saddam era, but Maliki is working well with Hashimi and the Sunnis and the Kurds.

The Shias, represented by Maliki, are really reconciling the country.  The de-Baathification law was passed, where the Sunnis can get some of their old jobs back; a $48 billion budget was shared with all groups, the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shias.

So you got a Shia element in Iraq that has relations with Iran, but they're trying to reconcile Iran.

GRAHAM:  Then you have al-Sadr that's trying to create an Iranian theocracy in Iraq, and that to me is the tension, the friction that we've got to deal with.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Senator Webb, you said we're in an occupation now in Iraq, we have been for five years.  Senator McCain has taken a lot of heat for comments he made that said this occupation might last for 100 years.  Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN:  President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ.:  Maybe 100.

UNKNOWN:  Is that -- is that...

MCCAIN:  We've been in South Korea.  We've been in Japan for 60 years.  We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so.  That would be fine with me, as long as Americans -- as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Both Senators Obama and Clinton have said -- taken those remarks and said that John McCain wants to continue a 100- years war in Iraq.  But that's not a fair reading of his remarks, is it?

WEBB:  Well, what I was saying before the invasion of Iraq and other people like General Zinni was that people who were bringing us into Iraq had no intention to leave, that there was no exit strategy that was articulated before we went in, because they had no intention of leaving.  This doesn't mean 50 or 100 years of war, but we do not belong as an occupying power in that part of the world, with all the turmoil that has constantly existed there.

So if we are, you know, if the Republican side wants to have long-term bases, then they should be saying so.

If I may just follow on something that Lindsey said about the Iranian situation, because it does go to the presidential leadership here.  He mentioned Iran, he mentioned Syria.  First of all, when I fought in Vietnam, there was hardly a weapon that was used against me that hadn't been made in either China or Eastern Europe.  That doesn't mean that we should take military action against China based purely on that fact.  We developed a diplomatic relationship with China that over the years paid out.

And the greatest mistake over the past five years of this occupation is that our national leadership has not found a way to aggressively engage Iran, without taking other options off the table.

You see the Iraqi government do it.  In fact, in this situation in Basra, the Iranians played a large hand in terms of resolving that situation.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Senator Graham, how do you respond to that?

GRAHAM:  Well, they had a meeting last night with President Talabani in Baghdad, and they came out with a 15-point proposal urging outside forces to stop destabilizing Iraq.

My point is that the Shia militias that we're fighting, the Mehdi Army, basically is a state-sponsored Shia organization.  And what would the world be like if Iran were not trying to procure a nuclear weapon, not providing weapons to Hamas to bomb Israel in the Gaza, not having Hezbollah undermine Lebanon?  Iran is a cancer in the Mideast. It must be confronted.  I'd love to do it diplomatically, but I think the biggest mistake we made is that when we went in after the fall of Baghdad, everybody in the Rumsfeld camp assumed we wouldn't be there long, we didn't need -- we didn't have to have enough troops for it all come together.

The first four years of this war, we had the wrong strategy, not enough troops, and we paid a heavy price.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  But 100 years more, Senator?

GRAHAM:  That's not what John is saying.  John wants a winning outcome in Iraq.  History won't judge us by the day we left, but by what we left behind.  A winning outcome in Iraq is a stable, functioning Iraqi government that says no to Al Qaida.

And the biggest news of all is that Al Qaida has taken a real beating here from Muslims in Iraq, who had a taste of their agenda and said no.  A stable, functioning government that would say no to Iranian expansion efforts, that would ally with us in the war on terror, give a role for women to have a say in Mideast society, and be at peace with their neighbors.

John McCain wants a winning outcome.  Never has he said does he want to be at war for 100 years.  But John understands this is a central battle in the war on terror. We're going to support moderation against extremism.  It's important that we bring a successful conclusion, that when we leave Iraq -- and we'll be drawing down this summer -- that we leave behind a country not like Afghanistan after the Soviets left.  The Taliban filled the vacuum, and the rest is history.  I want a country in the Mideast called Iraq that will be part of the solution, not the problem, and that is possible if we'll support General Petraeus.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Senator Webb, Senator Graham said the drawdowns are going to begin but pause this summer.  Is there anything that General Petraeus can tell you to convince you that this pause makes sense that we shouldn't continue to draw down troops?

WEBB:  Well, I think, first of all, we need to hear from people who have the overall strategic view.  Admiral Mullen has had that view.  Admiral Fallon had that view.  Admiral Fallon was responsible for troops all through the region.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  And they both were reportedly were pushing for more troops to draw down.

WEBB:  We can't continue simply to deal with our force structure in IraqIraq as if it were an island in the middle of the ocean.  We have, when we talk about the reduction of Al Qaida activity in Iraq, a big reason for that is these are mobile -- international terrorist entities are mobile entities. as if it's the only problem that we have, or to deal with

WEBB:  They're not bound by one country or another.  They have recentered a great deal of their efforts in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, which is the very nature of terrorism, while our troops are tied down on the streets of Iraq, burning themselves out.  In fact, when Lindsey was talking about the morale in the troops, and I have a great admiration for our military, as you know.  I served in it, as my family has for many generations.

Take a look at the New York Times this morning.  There was a study that was done on Army troops who had been more than three rotations, 27 percent of the NCOs -- this is the career people – have exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress, et cetera.

This was predictable.  It was one of the reasons why I introduced this amendment last year that would have required even periods of time in terms of being deployed and being back at home.  The Republicans politicized that gesture, unfortunately, and we're having a similar situation with the idea putting a really strong GI bill...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS:  I wanted to ask Senator Graham about that.  He did say...

WEBB:  Yes.  Well, there are too many people in the Pentagon who are seeing a good GI bill as affecting retention rather than rewarding service, and we need to get those -- politics aside, we need to get to those issues to help our troops.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Senator Graham, Senator Webb has introduced this legislation to provide the same GI bill benefits to Iraq War veterans that veterans of World War II got.  Neither you nor Senator McCain have co-sponsored that bill.  More than 50 senators have.  Why not?

GRAHAM:  Well, number one, the first term enlistee gets the same benefits as somebody who'd been there for 20 years.

I'd like to do two things.  One, I'd like to work with Jim to enhance benefits, but the focus on retention and recruiting and to improve benefits.  I worked with Senator Clinton to provide military health care to every guard and reserve member, so sign me up for sitting down with Jim.

But one thing I want -- a point of agreement.  Iraq is not an island.  I've never looked at it that way.  The reason we need to win in Iraq, because the outcome in Iraq, winning or losing affects our national security interests.

I do not want to leave Iraq as an extension of Iranian theocracy in the south.  I don't want to leave Iraq where Anbar province is occupied by Al Qaida, where there is a war between the Turks and the Kurds in the north.

There is a tremendous amount of reconciliation, politically and militarily, that has been achieved since the surge.  In July of '08, there will be 140,000 troops.  In January of '07, there was 140,000 troops.  We had a surge in the middle.  What's happened in the middle is dramatic political and economic progress that's been brought about by better security.

We want a wining outcome in Iraq so that when we do leave, we're going to leave behind a country that's part of the solution, not the problem.

That is why people reenlist.  That is why I support this new strategy.  The old strategy was failing.  The new strategy is producing results, and I hope we'll stay with it.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  We have a couple of minutes left.  I want to turn to politics.  Senator Webb, your phone must be ringing all the time.  You're one of the biggest political prizes out there, an uncommitted superdelegate.

Here's the standard that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set for superdelegates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF.:  Want to be really clear about this: It will do great harm to the Democratic Party if it is perceived that the superdelegates overturned the will of the people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Would you be willing to vote to overturn the will of the people as a superdelegate?

WEBB:  I've got to take 30 seconds to respond to what Lindsey said, because I can't let that hang out there.  You know, people don't reenlist because of the war in Iraq.  People reenlist because they love their country and they have family traditions and they love to soldier.  And they'll fight in Iraq, they'll fight in Afghanistan, or they'll serve anywhere they are called upon to serve.

With respect to Iran, we need to look at what good national leadership can do, as we did with China, which was a nuclear power, a rogue nation, et cetera, back in the '70s, and we were able, through aggressive leadership, to address that.

With respect to the superdelegates...

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

WEBB:  ... the superdelegate situation...

(CROSSTALK)

WEBB:  I think...

(CROSSTALK)

WEBB:  ... if they didn't want the superdelegates to have independent judgment, they wouldn't have created them.


STEPHANOPOULOS:  So you'd be willing to vote against the winner of the pledged delegates, the leader in the popular vote?

WEBB:  I haven't even gotten to the point of looking at how all that works, honestly.  You know, I have the luxury of having two candidates in this party who are really exciting the country and bringing more people into the Democratic Party, either of whom can be a very fine president, and that's...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS:  So what will your criteria be?

WEBB:  In terms of?

STEPHANOPOULOS:  How to decide who to support in the end.

WEBB:  Right now, what I've said is that if I saw that one or the other would in my view be markedly better as a president, I would endorse them.  But I'm really happy at this point to support them both.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Senator Graham, one final question for you.  You talked about John McCain's vice presidential choice, and said you think he should reinforce the national security aspect of the ticket. And I was wondering what you had in mind there.  Do you think, for example, General Petraeus would be a good choice for Senator McCain?

GRAHAM:  I have talked to General Petraeus about a lot of things, but not about politics.  The best thing for General Petraeus is to stay exactly where he is.

My point was, John McCain has a very strong, probably the best qualified commander in chief candidate for president in decades, one of the most qualified people to run for president ever.  And the vice presidential choice I think would build on those themes, but I'd leave that up to John.  This is a -- this is an interesting endeavor we have here, an election first (ph), and people are excited throughout the country.

But the times we live in, my friend, are very tough.  I don't want Iran to see our actions in Iraq to haunt us for years and be a signal to Iran that we're weak, and I want to let Al Qaida know that where Muslims will fight you, we will side with those Muslims.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  OK, Senator Graham, Senator Webb, thank you both very much for your time this morning.

WEBB:  Thank you.

GRAHAM:  Thank you very much.