INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”

Guest: Iraq Ambassador to United States, Samir Sumaida’ie

Reporters: Neil King, Wall Street Journal &

Farah Stockman, Boston Globe

Moderator: C-SPAN

TAPE DATE: Friday, September 7 2007

AIR DATE/TIME: SUNDAY, September 9, 2007 at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET

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SUSAN SWAIN, HOST: Our guest on Newsmakers this week is Iraq’s Ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaida’ie, here at a very important midway point between a series of key progress reports on Iraq.

And our two guest questioners, Neil King, Wall Street Journal’s Diplomatic Correspondent, and Farah Stockman, Boston Globe Foreign Affairs Correspondent. Thanks for being with us.

NEIL KING, DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT, WALL STREET JOURNAL: It’s a pleasure.

FARAH STOCKMAN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, BOSTON GLOBE: Thank you.

SWAIN: And Neil, why don’t we start with you?

KING: All right. The question at the moment simply going into next week reports (ph) in the most simple form is, is the surge working? But I wanted to ask it in a slightly different way because it’s a kind of – to put it in a slightly more political context and that is whether you can point to sustainable signs of progress that would enable the U.S. to pull troops out of Iraq next year, perhaps even substantial numbers of troops out of Iraq.

SAMIR SUMAIDA’IE, IRAQ AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: Well, the simplistic answer to the simplistic question is yes, the surge is working. We must remember here that the surge was not merely an increase in the number of troops. It was really a change in approach.

For the first time, the principles of counter-insurgency have been applied aiming (ph) a security for communities rather than just force protection.

There is a change – a change at foot (ph), clear and hold (ph) instead of just clear and move on. It’s producing results in neighborhoods and it’s producing the results also in terms of intelligence. And people are feeling now safe enough to venture, stick their necks out, and give meaningful intelligence.

That was not the case before because now they have a degree of confidence that the protection must continue, the forces would be around. So yes, there is tangible progress.

In terms of how we consider this sustainable, I think there’s a combination of factors here. There’s a lumbar (ph) factor, which is sustainable because of the people primarily and also because of course the support that the people are getting from the American troops.

But in Baghdad, there is a dynamic now that’s taking place. In areas where people feel safe and secure, they’re going about their business. The Iraqi security forces are getting into groove, if you like, and they’re getting the hang of how to keep insurgents or criminals or militias out of their own territories.

So there is momentum being built. And I believe that momentum should be sustained.

KING: But if we’ve cleared and held, when can we start to let go, at least of certain areas because that – the patience level here is starting to kind of turn to that question.

SUMAIDA’IE: Absolutely. The holding process should be enough and long enough until the whole picture is integrated because, you know, that works well in one neighborhood. And then you have the next neighborhood and the next neighborhood.

You really need to flush out the pockets in which terrorism is still strong and complete that job while at the same time bringing up the rear by getting the Iraqi security forces to be more independent, more functional. We’ve had problems with that, as you know.

But there is movement on that, particularly on the Army side. Once that process is complete, I think we can think in terms of then disengaging.

SWAIN: Farah Stockman.

STOCKMAN: You mentioned terrorism, but a lot of the discussion this week has been on sectarian violence, and a lot of people believe that that’s actually what’s tearing the country apart.

And there’s been a lot of discussion this week about metrics and whether we should look at violence being down, deaths (ph) being down, sectarian deaths being down, or whether we should look at migration and how many Iraqis are fleeing Baghdad and how Iraq is becoming one of the largest refugee populations in the world.

And so I just wonder if you could address that issue of whether or not that is being factored into your idea that the surge is working. Can you talk about whether Baghdad is becoming a more sectarian city or if you could address that point?

SUMAIDA’IE: Sure. This is a very important issue and is central to the security of Iraq. Let me take you back to the aftermath of February the 22nd attack last year, 2006, attack on the Golden Shrine in Samarra. We thought we had a full scale civil war on our hands.

Following back, there was a period of bloodletting (ph). There was a lot of sectarian violence throughout 2006. What we have succeeded to do with the surge and until now was to slow that down considerably. It was – the kill (ph) was going up. We managed to stabilize it and turn it down.

There is still sectarian violence, but it’s not on the increase. It is contained. And it will be exact (INAUDIBLE), it will be totally stopped.

STOCKMAN: Is there any doubt in your mind that that trend has come from the U.S. soldiers, increase of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad? Or could it – some have suggested that it’s actually because neighborhoods are becoming, you know, more cleansed. And so…

SUMAIDA’IE: It is a whole basket of factors, a number of factors. One of them, of course, is the fact that there’s more homogeneity now.

STOCKMAN: Yes.

SUMAIDA’IE: But that’s really not the only factor. And I looked at the map of Baghdad. And district by district we went through what was happening. There was a lot of pressure, sectarian pressure on some areas.

What has been now – stand (ph), that has been turned back. Now there used to be gangs of militias roaming around the streets, especially at night, dressed in black or whatever color they prefer, and terrorizing whole neighborhoods. That has all but stopped.

And these people have now got the message that that kind of behavior will not be tolerated and there will be confronted. In the early days they were not confronted because we did not have the capacity to confront them.

Now we have the capacity to confront. So yes, there has been focus on that. I’m not making – I don’t want to make it sound like everything has been resolved and it’s easy. It’s not. Still a tough struggle. And as soon as the pressure is lifted, these people will get back into the world (ph).

So we have to keep up the effort.

KING: Can you help us understand what kind of Iraq we should look forward to and look towards? I mean, are we talking about a sort of ideal Iraq, a federal system, strong center, where, you know, Sunnis and Shi’as and Kurds are living side by side, which is certainly not the case now?

Or should we look more towards one which you sketched out a little bit where there is more homogeneity where areas have been cleansed, essentially, and it is essentially a sort of three sect or three society Iraq?

SUMAIDA’IE: Well, you know, the ideal Iraq that you refer to, Iraq in which Sunnis and Shi’as are – and Kurds are living together in harmony is lurking just below the surface. This might surprise you.

I would like to bring forward as a witness what happened after the soccer results, and Iraq winning the Asia (ph) games. There was an outpouring of Iraqi feeling. There was a previous incident in which an Iraqi singer won an Arab singing competition. It was a similar outpouring.

We live now during a very tense and volatile period in which there was created a security vacuum. A lot of bad people stepped – a lot stepped into it. A lot of excitement (ph) stepped into it. And they have submerged and covered, if you like, covered the face of this ideal Iraq.

But as sure as that is dealt with (ph), I believe that face will re-emerge. There will be wounds and there will be hard feelings. They will take time to heal. But they will heal.

KING: What’s the time frame?

SUMAIDA’IE: I think the time frame is not going to be weeks or months. It will be many, many years, maybe generations. But Iraq has come through thousands of years of being a pluralistic society. It’s not about stopping a pluralistic society. It cannot be. Because no matter how much homogeneity there is, 30 percent of the dwellers of cities and towns are mixed families. You cannot separate everybody.

SWAIN: Ambassador, two questions to follow on that. One, the essential nature of an effective police force to keep the security of the people, and the Jones Report gave the police force such a bad report this week. You know so well the interior ministry from having run it at one point. What’s your explanation for after the billions of dollars that have been invested thus far, the state of it and how to move it forward so that it’s successful?

SUMAIDA’IE: Well, this is a very important point. I have to acknowledge the fact that the ministry of interior and the security force is in bad need of reform. The fact that it has not yet been reformed completely is a testimony to the very, very difficult condition, in fact, Iraq is undergoing at the moment.

There is that policy, that government policy there is a will and a determination to perform these reforms. The committee’s working on that. Whether they are producing the right results fast enough, I don’t know about that. Maybe not. Maybe they have to be empowered. Maybe there has to be more concentrated focused political attention to that.

But that remains to be a challenge. But at the same time, there is an awareness of that challenge.

SWAIN: Second question is for all of the benefits in Iraq that you see under the surface, speak to us about the external pressures, people across the borders who have very deep interests in Iraq not going to the vision that you just described.

SUMAIDA’IE: Well, indeed. I will only say that if Iraq were, by an accident of geography an island in the Pacific, it would have been sorted by now. It would have found solutions. But we are not. And we are surrounded by people who are intensely interested in what goes on in Iraq.

And at the same time, we’re doing what we’re doing in an environment of international confrontation. There is a confrontation going on between the United States and Iran about nuclear issues, about other issues, nothing to do with Iraq at all starting from the hostage crisis in the late ‘70s and ‘80s.

So we have inherited a whole history of animosity surrounding us. And it is in that environment that we are trying to appear a (INAUDIBLE). This confrontation has been played out on Iraqi soil. That’s not in our interest. And we believe ultimately it’s not in the interest of the people envisioning that confrontation.

That’s why as we’re pursuing our own Iraqi diplomatic efforts we have tried to bring people together to start the dialogue. Initially it’s a very difficult dialogue because people are talking past each other. But we have a couple of new things (ph) in Baghdad.

I think today as we speak maybe it’s too late in Baghdad time, but there was a meeting of neighboring countries including also the United States and represented of European Union. In these meetings the beginning of some understanding might emerge.

We are not expecting all difficulties to be removed suddenly. But it gives us at least the possibilities of resolving issues.

KING: As you know, you’re the representative of the central government. And at the moment they’re going wisdom (ph) in Washington really from both sides of the aisle, both parties, is that the problem now is very much in the center, and it’s the central government itself that is the chief problem.

Do you buy that argument? And what would you tell us to look forward to that would give anyone any more faith in the future of the Iraqi government?

SUMAIDA’IE: I would say we have to stand this argument on its head in a way. It’s not the central government which is the problem. It is the conditions and it (ph) was a central government is operating.

Remember the central government is trying to do its job in conditions which in any other country would have been unimaginable. We have raging insurgency. We have terrorism. We have organized crime. We have security forces which have been reconstituted and some of the reconstituted in their own way.

In other words, a practice (ph) which are not reliable and not yet functional. In these conditions, the central government has to operate and extend its right (ph) over territory (ph) where there are 160,000 foreign troops on the ground and I can go on.

The central government has a very tough task being performed and in impossible conditions. So under these circumstances it’s impossible to expect more than what it is doing.

KING: Go ahead.

STOCKMAN: Oh, I just wanted to jump in. I mean, there’s been a lot of criticism in Washington of the prime minister, that he hasn’t done enough to reach out to Sunnis, that he hasn’t been willing to make these kinds of compromises that Washington wants to see.

And I’m just wondering what can we expect to hear from Ambassador Crocker that might change it? We have heard so many times about unity government and it tends to reach out in promises. But obviously patience is…

SUMAIDA’IE: Wearing thin.

STOCKMAN: …yes. So what can you tell us that we might expect to hear that will be different and that will give hope that this is not a failing enterprise?

SUMAIDA’IE: Well, I certainly understand the frustrations and the impatience here in Washington. People here, all they see is that the United States is making more and more sacrifices and blood and treasure (ph) and this thing is going on and on and on and they don’t see an end in sight. And they look at Iraq and see a failed project.

I would say to these people look again. Iraq is not a failed project, certainly not failed yet. There were a lot of mistakes made. There are a lot of reasons why it has taken so long. There are reasons why it is right to expect that it will take longer to take considerably longer.

But it’s doable. If we fail, we fail together and the failure will be catastrophic for both sides. It’s worth succeeding. And the Iraqi government – of course, let me just say that we don’t object to pressure being put on the Iraqi government.

There is pressure coming up from the streets from the people of Iraq. That keeps us on our toes. We don’t mind that. But we have to moderate our expectations and really take account of the reality that we have.

SWAIN: Eight minutes left.

STOCKMAN: Can I follow up real quick?

SUMAIDA’IE: Go ahead.

STOCKMAN: You were talking about monitoring expectations. And I just wanted to hear from you about the Iraqi view. You’ve just been in Baghdad. What is the Iraqi view of the debate going on in Washington?

Democrats have thought that if we call for withdrawal or threaten withdrawal it will force people in Iraq to actually make hard compromises. Others say no, that’s just going to get people to hoard weapons and wait for a civil war.

What is the reality of this? What is the impact of this debate on the government, if any?

SUMAIDA’IE: Well, there is real concern in Baghdad that the United States, because of its own internal political pressures would do a turnaround and walk away from Iraq. I think that concern is palpable in Baghdad.

On all sides, by the way. People disagree on all kinds of things. But they seem all to agree on this point that it is – it would be an absolute disaster for us and for everybody and for the region if the United States were to turn around and withdraw.

However, they do understand. There is understanding of the American concerns, and there is a lot of effort being put to address those concerns.

KING: I think it’s fair to say that if the center is to hold here, if there is a center on the Iraq debate – or put a different way, if there’s a compromise to be made it’ll have to be based on the certainty that a certain number of troops come out of Iraq next year.

Thirty thousand people are talking about, others would certainly like to see it go more to 40. Can that happen, say, between now and this time next year without real unrest being result in Iraq?

SUMAIDA’IE: Well, you know, I always feel nervous when things are discussed and numbers are discussed in Washington in abstract. People exchange these numbers as if they have sort of worked them out on a calculator and say, “Well, there is 30,000. Here’s 40,000.”

What has to determine any feasible next step is the reality on the ground. It’s progress, actual progress, on the ground. That has to dictate, and of course, the decisions of General Petraeus, of Ambassador Crocker, and of Iraqi leadership. By evaluating what we need we can arrive at the right decision.

However, there are good indications now that we are moving in the right direction at last and that as a result of that, conditions on the ground will permit us to make reductions, hopefully substantial reductions, as we build up our capacity in Iraq.

But these reductions, the numbers of these reductions should not be determined in abstract by people sitting around tables in Washington.

KING: All right. You were gone for three weeks or so. You’ve come back a few days ago. Some would argue that the tone of the debate has changed somewhat since the congressional recess, which is about the same time we’re talking about.

How do you find the debate coming back? Is it intelligent? Is it asking the right questions? And are there actual open minds out there that are being changed one way or the other?

SUMAIDA’IE: Well, I haven’t quite got into the debate in full since I came back. But I’ve been following it even from a distance.

I sense a change in mood. I sense a greater degree of preparedness to listen and to consider the situation afresh. I can almost hear people thinking, “Well, this might just work.” That is a change in atmosphere, a change in the mood, and I hope this will result in change approach towards Iraq.

What we need very badly is some kind of national different (ph) solution, not only in Iraq but also here in Washington.

STOCKMAN: If I could just jump in before we end, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about sectarian militias and whether or not the Maliki government is committed – has renewed its commitment to going after them. We’ve heard some reports in recent days about this, and I was hoping you could tell us something.

SUMAIDA’IE: Well, let’s start from first principles. Our new constitution forbids militias. Maliki government has made it an article of its own policy and main pillar of its policy to remove militias from the scene. That is their policy.

STOCKMAN: And yet they remain.

SUMAIDA’IE: Yes, they remain. But, you know, you look at a sick person and say he’s got a stone in his kidneys and he’s suffering. You have to go through the process in order to get rid of that stone.

But the object is very clear. We’ve got to get rid of that stone. If the government is clear on that, we need to go through the process and the process is painful and it takes time. There is no magic solution.

STOCKMAN: Is the Maliki government committed to – is it backing the U.S. effort to bring the Sunnis into the street (ph)?

SUMAIDA’IE: I believe so. I believe also that Maliki government has given free hand to General Petraeus and his troops and to the Iraqi Army and Iraqi security forces to go after these militias and criminal guns (ph). And they are doing so every day of the week.

KING: Is there possibly another alternative way out there? I just came from a session on Brookings where everyone’s thinking big thoughts in Washington right now in Iraq. And there’s a lot of talk about when you mentioned the phrase national reconciliation, the possibility of getting some sort of U.N., truly international forum together to actually crack heads, so to speak, on a political side in Iraq and come up with some national reconciliation and say, “OK, this is the thing that everyone’s going to agree to. Now let’s make that work,” instead of sticking with this sort of elected government that doesn’t seem to be terribly operative at the moment.

SUMAIDA’IE: Well, let’s be very clear. We’ve always supported a bigger role and a more positive role by the United Nations. And I myself campaigned for this when I was a permanent representative in New York. We made some progress on that, and recently there was a Security Council resolution very much in the terms that we would like to have.

However, United Nations will not be at a placement (ph) for the combined effort of the American and Iraqi security forces. They are very much augmenting what we are trying to do.

And we’ve got to get the act right ourselves and then get help from the international contacts, not the other way around.

KING: What I was saying about more is the idea of brokering kind of a new national reconciliation on the government level from the outside with all parties involved.

SUMAIDA’IE: This idea has been around for a long time now. We believe it has its place. But the conditions have to be right for it. And we are working on getting those conditions right in Iraq.

SWAIN: Ambassador, we’re out of time. Thank you for being with us this week.

SUMAIDA’IE: Thank you.

(BREAK)

SWAIN: Our two guests from Newsmakers this week both cover foreign policy issues, Neil King for the Wall Street Journal, Farah Stockman for the Boston Globe. What were your takeaways from our half an hour with the Iraqi Ambassador to the United States?

KING: Oh, he’s certainly persuasive in some ways. He’s just come back, which is helpful. And some of the views that we shared were on his take on Baghdad even before we sat down here were interesting.

You know, there are two different discussions in some ways going on in Washington. One is very politically driven, ’08 election partisan driven, and the other is about the Iraq that’s over there and what does it need to succeed, et cetera. He was certainly speaking to the other line and very much asking for a degree of patience that I’m not sure whether Washington has.

I mean, when I was asking him about this ideal Iraq and he was saying it’s lurking just below the surface, Iraqis living side by side, et cetera, and I said how long will that take? “Oh, many years, perhaps generations.”

We’re not really a society that operates along those terms. And so the question is to me, really, how well are we going to hold through next year or maybe into the year after that much less generations.

SWAIN: But in fact he did not specifically say the U.S. had to be there for all those generations.

KING: That’s true.

SWAIN: Farah Stockman?

STOCKMAN: I think he really speaks to the sort of desperate optimism that you have to have right now about Iraq if you’re trying to make that experiment succeed. And you see it in the administration and you see it in the eyes of Iraqis who are fighting to make their government work.

And, you know, I think that our debate that’s happening here in this country is about whether there’s enough prospects for success that we should stick it out or whether, you know, to just kind of throw in the towel and say, “Let’s cut our losses.”

And he’s really been somebody who’s on the Hill all the time fighting to tell Congressman why they should fight to stay despite the growing opposition in the United States.

SWAIN: The expression that he – excuse me – used about the current debate, post recess, was that he feels a change in the air. Both of you watch the city (ph) as well. Do you see and hear a change in the air?

KING: I do in a way. I liked the phrase when he said, “I almost hear people thinking this almost might work,” which is probably encapsulates it as well as anything does.

To the extent that people, particularly on the Hill where it matters, are willing to kind of put the political calculation aside, which is a difficult thing to ask for a lot, and kind of try to analyze what’s happening, it definitely is at the sort of tipping point moment right now where it could tip towards the positive.

And I think a lot of people see it that way. But other people that are – a lot of people, including, I think a large portion of the American population is just sort of flummoxed by the whole thing and doesn’t really want to pay attention to the details and would rather just sort of move on as quickly as possible.

STOCKMAN: I think there’s a big question as to how much does this debate really matter. The president is obviously committed to keeping as many troops there as he can, and many in Congress are very much committed to calling for withdrawals and trying to force (ph) some withdrawals (ph).

So, you know, I think the public opinion does matter. But I, you know, this long awaited Crocker-Petraeus report, I’m not sure how much it’s going to move the bar. I think everyone is going to use it to justify their own positions that they’ve already had.

And I just really think that – I was hoping he would tell us something new about why we should believe this government is different and why they’re going to come up with reconciliation now when we haven’t heard it in the past. And I wasn’t sure that I heard that.

SWAIN: The ambassador told us of his long relationship with General Petraeus, and in fact he met with him and Ambassador Crocker on his recent trip to Baghdad. Did we just get a preview of what General Petraeus is likely to say on Monday?

KING: I think in a lot of ways, yes, I think a lot of ways we are. I think we’re going to hear, especially from Ambassador Crocker, probably a more harsh assessments of the lack of progress on the central government side. I thought he was fairly charitable in his remarks on that front.

I do agree with what Farah was saying that for – the debate in a lot of ways is here’s this debate at the moment. We’re talking about what might happen over the next six months. I think in a lot of ways people’s thinking (ph) is going to shift to what will the next president do because it’s almost certain that the next president will inherit 110, 120,000 troops in Iraq on January 20, 2009 and then it will be, “OK, who is this person and what are they going to do with them?”

A lot of this is really going to be deferred until then, I think.

SWAIN: And in fact, Iraq has no control over the pressure of the U.S. presidential campaign.

STOCKMAN: Yes. I really think that it’s, you know, you can hear it in his voice when he talks about talking to Congress. He’s very urgent to try to tell the message. He’s got a tough job. He tries to tell Congress how important it is that they stay, and he has spoken to us before in the past about catastrophic, you know, impact that a withdrawal would have on not just Iraq but the entire region in very stark terms.

But then he has to go back to Baghdad and bring a message from Washington, “Hey, time is running out. Hey, time is running out.” And I think we have to really ask ourselves, “What does that message do? Does it make it easier for Iraq’s government to make this project successful or does it in fact make it harder and make people cling to maximillus (ph) positions and prepare for a showdown that they assume is coming?”

SWAIN: Well, thank you very much for your questions. We appreciate your expertise and your participation this week.

STOCKMAN: Thank you.

KING: Glad to be here.

END