Giuliani on Iraq

Rudy Giuliani was on Hannity & Colmes last night. He talked about Iraq, Iran, and the recommendations of the Iraq study group among other things.

But here’s the reality of it: We’re at war. And we’re at war because they’re at war with us. I mean, sometimes, when you listen to these debates in Congress, and you listen to the politicians debating, you sort of get the impression that they think we’re in control of whether we’re at war or not.
It doesn’t matter what we think. They’re at war with us. They want to come here and kill us. And they did on September 11, and they did a long time before September 11. Way back in 1993, they came to this city and killed people.
So we’ve got to put Iraq in the context of a much broader picture than just Iraq. And getting Iraq correctly, in other words, getting stability there is real important. And I support what the president asked for support to do and what General Petraeus has asked for support to do, not because there’s any guarantee it’s going to work. There’s never any guarantee at war.

On the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group:

I thought one of the mistakes of that recommendation is you almost can’t put it up front. The minute you put it up front, you give them all the leverage and you take all the leverage away from us. That recommendation would have been better delivered quietly, secretly.

And then you — then, through back channels, you find out. Can I achieve something with Ahmadinejad? Can I achieve something with Syria? Right now, it doesn’t look that way.

Better thing to do in Iran is to put pressure on them and to let them know that we will not accept their being a nuclear power. The nightmare of the Cold War was nuclear weapons in the hands of an irrational person. I don’t want to live through that nightmare.

You can read the full transcript here.

Related Content