October 21, 2007

Transcript [Excerpt]

The Republican Debate on Fox News Channel

The following is a transcript [excerpt] of the Republican Presidential
debate in Orlando, Fla., as provided by Congressional Quarterly.

PARTICIPANTS:
REP. DUNCAN HUNTER, R-CALIF.
FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY, R-MASS.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ.
REP. TOM TANCREDO, R-COLO.
FORMER MAYOR RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI, R-NEW YORK CITY
REP. RON PAUL, R-TEXAS
FORMER GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE, R-ARK.
FORMER SEN. FRED THOMPSON, R-TENN.

MODERATORS:
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS
WENDELL GOLER, FOX NEWS
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS

OTHERS:
GOV. CHARLIE CRIST, R-FLA.
JIM GREER, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN PARTY OF FLORIDA

***

CAMERON: Senator Thompson, violence escalated again today on the
Turkish-Iraq border. The terrorist group, PKK, took Turkish soldiers
hostage. If as President Bush says, we are fighting terrorists in Iraq
to protect our homeland, shouldn’t the Turks be able to go into Iraq
to protect their own?

THOMPSON: Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I think the
underlying point here is that Turkey is a friend of ours. We’ve got an
important base there, actually more than one, but one especially
important as far as our efforts in Iraq are concerned.

THOMPSON: They’ve got a right to defend themselves from acts of
terrorism, and PKK are terrorists.

The Kurds in the northern part of Iraq are our friends, too.

So we’ve got to get these people together. It’s one of those
situations where we’ve got friends on both sides. But militarily and
strategically, we have to understand Turkey’s position. I hope that
they don’t invade.

I think that this is one area where diplomacy could work because you
have two people or two countries — or two areas, I should say — that
we’re used to talking to and used to working with.

But Turkey is a NATO ally, and they have helped us as far as Iraq is
concerned. Not everything they do is pleasing to us, and we have some
issues with them.

Now, Nancy Pelosi has brought up an Armenian genocide proposal which
is totally irresponsible. She’s interjecting partisan politics into a
matter of national security.

(APPLAUSE)

CAMERON: Thank you, Senator.

Congressman Tancredo, I saw that you had your hand up.

TANCREDO: That was it. I just wanted to say that we have to remember
why this is happening in Turkey.

TANCREDO: And that is exactly right. It is because the present
leadership of the House of Representatives brought up this bill,
agreed to bring up a bill, a resolution, that we knew would in fact,
if they did that, would cause Turkey to do exactly what they did.

Now, that goes to show you that pandering for votes, which was what
this was partly based upon, and a complete ignorance of the foreign
policy implications of doing such a thing, are the reasons why we are
here now.

And we should take away from this some very important lessons, not the
least of which is that Nancy Pelosi is not a very good speaker of the
House, and she is an even lousier secretary of state.

(LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE)

CAMERON: Governor, I saw that you — do you want to weigh in on this, Governor?

HUCKABEE: When, four days ago, the parliament of Turkey indicated that
they would amass those troops, it’s a clear signal — not just
saber-rattling, they’re serious about defending themselves.

It would seem to me that we should dispatch the secretary of state
immediately to do two things. First of all, we need to train and equip
the Kurds to fight the terrorists in their midst.

The PKK is a terrorist organization. Those 3,500 terrorists can best
be dealt with by trained and armed Kurds. We don’t have to put our
military in harm’s way. The Kurds have the capacity to do it against
those in the PKK — but also to try to get Turkey to realize that
there’s nothing to be gained by crossing into that border and creating
yet another hostile situation. None of us need it. None of us want it.

And I would hope that maybe the base in Irbil that was shut down
earlier could become the base in which those operations could be
staged.

(APPLAUSE)

CAMERON: Mr. Paul?

PAUL: This is a — this is a result of a foreign policy of
interventionism. The founders advised non-interventionism. And even
our president won the election in the year 2000 to have a more humble
foreign policy, not to go into nation-building, and not get involved
in the internal affairs of other nations.

And we won an election on that.

But here we are. We’re over there and we’ve invaded this country and
this is just another unintended consequence. The war is spreading, the
war is likely to go into Iran, nobody’s willing to take anything off
the table.

What would it be like if somebody came in here into Mexico and did
some of these things — say, like, putting missiles in Europe? We’re
just looking for trouble. It’s so unnecessary. And we jeopardize
ourselves. And, quite frankly, we’re not able to afford this.

So we don’t need to go looking for trouble. We don’t need another Cold
War. And all we have to do is start talking to people and trading with
people.

We don’t need to assume that the world is going to blow up. Just think of…

(AUDIENCE BOOING)

PAUL: When I was drafted into the military, and I served five years in
the military, the Soviets had 40,000 nuclear weapons.

And here, we’re now learning about agitating and putting missiles in Europe.

PAUL: It’s the Turks’ business. It’s not our business.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

(APPLAUSE)

HUME: Governor Romney, I assume you’re eager to get into this. Go ahead.

ROMNEY: Yes, we spoke — about Russia, we’ve spoken about what’s
happening in Turkey and, obviously, Iraq. As you look around the
world, you recognize that it’s still a dangerous place.

During the Clinton years, the president said we’re going to take a
peace dividend. We got the dividend. We didn’t get the peace.

He reduced the scale of our military dramatically, took 500,000 troops
out, cut back our Navy by 80 ships, knocked our Air Force down 25
percent. Our aircraft fleet today are 28 years old.

The U.N. is failing in its mission to protect the world and to prevent genocide.

(APPLAUSE)

The strategy for America’s safety is not to live in what Charles
Krauthammer called a holiday from history, but to realize America must
be strong.

ROMNEY: We need a strong military to protect us with more troops, more
equipment and better care when our troops come home.

(APPLAUSE)

We also need a strong economy so we can have a strong military, and we
need strong families and values to teach our kids to build a strong
economy and a strong military.

(APPLAUSE)

HUME: Thank you, Governor.

Source: bate-transcript.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1