Your President's full employment program
MR. RUSSERT: More American troops?
SEN. McCAIN: I've said that for--since a year ago last August.
MR. RUSSERT: How many more do you think we need, Senator, in all honesty?
SEN. McCAIN: I would say at least 40,000 or 50,000 more, but...
MR. RUSSERT: Where are you going to find them?
SEN. McCAIN: I think you can find them, but it's an enormous strain. We also have to plan on increasing the size of the Army and the Marine Corps. Among others, General McCaffrey is a guy I admire. He says the--you need to increase the Army by about 80,000 and the Marines by 20,000 to 30,000. I don't dispute that. He and others tell me that that's about the right numbers.
And this is for Iraq.
No one is even considering the troops it would take to invade Iran while "stabilizing" Iraq…a task everyone admits will take years.
SEN. McCAIN: I'm not--I don't believe we're "close," but we certainly should be very concerned, disturbed and even alarmed, but there's been information about this for a long period of time. The IAEA had given us a lot of that information. The next step obviously is to try to get the Security Council to act in some meaningful fashion. But, you know, Tim, this is a harsh comment, but at the end of the day, it's the United States of America that may have to act if we act, but I hope that we can dissuade them through other means. Well, of course, the first attempt would be to get the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions. So we'll see, but it's a very great challenge.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you be disappointed if the Israelis did to Iran what they did to Iraq in 1981 and have a pre-emptive strike on the nuclear reactor?
SEN. McCAIN: Well, first of all, it isn't so easy because the Iranians have these facilities spread all over Tehran. You couldn't do it in one strike. So from a practical standpoint, it would be difficult. Second of all, I don't see how it would do anything but provoke probably a conflict between Israel and Iran, and we want to avoid that at all costs. And I think the Israelis recognize that. I don't think the Israelis are at a point where they would feel that they have to do that. It's one thing to attack a reactor in Iraq 20-some years ago. It's something entirely different to take on that challenge now.
MR. RUSSERT: What's our timetable? How much time do we have for Iran to stand down?
SEN. McCAIN: I don't know. I would think we're talking about a matter of months rather than years.
