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Tavis: Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is a highly respected and long-serving diplomat who was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. from 1999 to 2001. His efforts to end the war in Bosnia in the mid-1990s earned him 6 Nobel Peace Prize nominations. His account of those peace talks is captured in his best-selling book 'To End a War.' He's currently an advisor to John Kerry and joins us tonight from New York. Mr. Ambassador, nice to have you on the program, sir.

Richard Holbrooke: Hey, Tavis. Welcome to New York. This is the big time now.

Tavis: Ha ha ha! We're delighted to be in New York. And speaking of big time, no bigger guest to have to talk about world affairs than you. So I'm glad to have you on the program.

Holbrooke: I don't know about that, but I'm sure glad that you've joined the New York dial. It's gonna be great to have you in this area, and I am really honored to be part of your opening original program.

Tavis: I'm honored to have you on the program. Let me start by asking you a question that is a bit unfair after that wonderful compliment you gave me. I'll start with an unfair question because neither you or I, quite frankly, have seen the text, the full text, of this statement. But we are told in all the news media outlets that there are 26 ex-diplomats, military leaders, from both sides of the aisle who have signed a statement calling for Mr. Bush's defeat in November because his foreign policy has damaged our national security. To the larger question of whether or not that is right, they are right, you say what?

Holbrooke: There isn't any question, Tavis, that the last 3 years have weakened us internationally. Not because of 9/11, because the international community supported us and rallied to us, but because the administration has conducted its foreign policy in a way that's really weakened us and left us isolated. We have less friends and less support now than ever before, and I think that's what these diplomats and generals are saying. I haven't seen the text of the statement, but what they're saying is something almost everybody would agree with.

Tavis: What is the significant difference, or differences as you see it, between Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, who you are now advising on the Iraq issue?

Holbrooke: I'm asked this question all the time, Tavis, particularly since President Bush's policies have been moving rapidly in the direction that Senator Kerry laid out over the last year. From the beginning, John Kerry said more U.N., more NATO, more internationalization, larger coalitions. At the outset, the Bush administration didn't do any of that, and we went into the war completely isolated, except for the British and the Italians and the Poles. They're good allies, but we needed a lot more, and we really alienated the world.

Now that Bush is playing catch-up with Kerry--and by the way, Kerry's been very consistent here. It's the Bush administration, in my view, that's been flipping and flopping. But now that the Bush administration is playing catch-up, I think that your question becomes all the more important. So let me answer it this way, having known Senator Kerry for almost 20 years. Anyone who watches the two men, anyone who studies their background, knows that one of the two men is a true internationalist, a man who believes in leading through example, including moral example, and that is John Kerry. And the other one, President Bush and his administration, while they pay lip service to these things, simply don't live up to them. So, I hear from time to time, 'Oh, there's no difference between the two candidates.' It's just not true. There is a huge difference, and Senator Kerry will change American foreign policy without weakening it.

Tavis: Speaking of flip-flopping on a number of questions, give me your assessment, if you will, sir, of how you think the Bush administration handled or mishandled, as it were, throughout this entire process, the support of the U.N.

Holbrooke: Uh, in the beginning of this administration and right straight through, the administration--the Bush administration--undermined, underfunded, and undercut the U.N.--the whole way, Tavis. Now, I need to be very clear on this. The U.N. is a deeply flawed organization with a lot of things wrong with it. Its attacks, its ritualistic votes against Israel are disgraceful. It is a bureaucratic mess, and allowing countries like Libya and Syria on the U.N. Security Council or the Human Rights Commission is terrible.

Nonetheless, we founded it, in San Francisco in 1948--excuse me, 1945. We are its leading contributor. We're its host nation. And here's the point, Tavis, I want to leave with you and your viewers: the stronger the U.N., the better for the U.S. It is an indispensable organization, warts and all.

The Bush administration weakened it instead of trying to strengthen it. Clinton tried to strengthen it. We solved the financial problem, working very closely with people, including Senator Helms. Helms ended up liberating $1 billion of back pay. So I would like to see the strengthening of the U.N., working aggressively to make it stronger. I know Senator Kerry believes in that as well. When I was at the U.N., Senator Kerry was one of the strongest supporters of the effort to fix the U.N.

Tavis: There's been great debate about when and how the hand-over should take place. There is no debate at this point that June 30th is the date, the president firm about that, the U.N. Security Council now having voted to support that hand-over. Your thoughts about the hand-over June 30th.

Holbrooke: This is a big day. It ends a shambles of an era for the United States, the U.S. occupation under the leadership of Ambassador Paul Bremer--Jerry Bremer to his friends. I know Jerry Bremer very well. I worked with him since 1978. This occupation period, which ends June 30th, is one of the low points in American foreign policy. To be sure, we got rid of Saddam Hussein, and let's be clear on this: Saddam Hussein was a terrible man, worse than Milosevic, who you mentioned in your very generous introduction for me. But Saddam Hussein's removal was the beginning, not the end, of the process.

You know, Tavis, a war is only as good as the peace that followed it, and the administration had no plan for what happened after they got to Baghdad, and the occupation only succeeded in uniting Iraqis against the U.S. Now on July 1st, a new ambassador comes in, John Negroponte, my successor at the U.N., and by the way, my former roommate in Vietnam back in the Vietnam era and my deputy during the Carter years. He's a very good diplomat. I'm hoping that John Negroponte, who will be an ambassador, not a proconsul, will do a better job. I think he will.

But the big thing and the point your viewers need to focus on is there isn't any change in the troop deployments, and the big issue here is will American casualties start to drop, will the Iraqi people start to give this new government that's being stood up more support, and what will happen after that? Nobody knows, and the countdown to hand-over is a big deal.

Tavis: Let me--let us not leave that question you just posed hanging out there rhetorically. Let me ask you to address the notion of what you think will happen specifically with American troops and casualties after post June 30th.

Holbrooke: I don't mean to sound like a diplomat, but all I can give you is a definite maybe. Maybe it'll get better, maybe it'll get worse. We have had a very bad year in Iraq. Even Secretary Rumsfeld, Don Rumsfeld has admitted that things went a lot worse than he expected.

Now what happens next? It's either gonna get better or it's gonna stay terrible. If it stays terrible, it's gonna be a tragedy for the U.S. and in the region and around the world. If things get better, if American casualties go down, if the government gets a little more solid, if they can hold decent elections in January of next year as they plan, that would be a great step forward. But I can't predict it. The United States government can't predict it.

And let me point out to you and your viewers that the most powerful man in Iraq is a man named Ayatollah Sistani. I know you know all about him, Tavis, but your viewers may not all be aware of the fact that Sistani has never met an American. He sits in his compound. He hasn't left his house in 7 years. He was born in Iran, not Iraq. He doesn't meet with Americans, and he issues these edicts and pronouncements, and they have incredible force. If he says, 'I want 100,000 people in the street,' they go into the streets. Right now Sistani, who almost brought the U.S. to its knees, has said, 'Let's give this new government a chance conditionally.' So let's see what happens. There's so many variables here, and the experts--and I'm not an expert--but the experts are really holding their breath to see what happens. You're not gonna see it on July 1st or 2nd, Tavis. It'll take a while to unfold.

Tavis: Let me move from the Americans to the Iraqis and ask your assessment of what you think might happen inside of Iraq with the Iraqis. We have seen over the last few days here a couple of high-level Iraqi officials assassinated. Is it going to get better for the Iraqis once we have turned this thing over June 30th?

Holbrooke: Nobody knows. I sure hope so. The Americans have to get out of the way and let Iraqis run their own country. Now one important, interesting footnote for your viewers, and I don't think this has been made public yet. I was at a lunch for Ambassador Negroponte last week, wishing him good luck as he goes to Baghdad, and he said a very interesting thing at his toast, his farewell toast. He said, 'I want to make clear what I understand my mission to be. I understand my mission to be to transfer authority to the Iraqis as quickly as possible and as completely as possible.'

Let's see if this can be done. Let's see if American casualties go down. So far, this has been a shambles. A real shambles. But it isn't too late to get it right, and all Americans, whether they're supporting President Bush or Senator Kerry, ought to hope that it'll go better because American lives, young men and women, are on the line in Iraq. And this casualty rate we've sustained lately--over 800 Americans killed in Iraq, over 120 killed in Afghanistan, nearly 1,000 deaths in the two countries in the last year and a half, is just a horrible price to pay. Americans are willing to sacrifice in the cause of freedom and liberty and our own security, but not in a hopeless cause and a messy shambles of a situation. By the way, Tavis, I heard today on television that we're now gonna double the amount of American troops in Afghanistan, so that's a big deal, too.

Tavis: My time is running so quickly, and I could do this for hours. I'm so fascinated with our conversation. But let me ask you right quick: this G-8 summit that just ended here in our country, hosted by President Bush, there are two ways I could take this summit. I could buy the president's line that it was a success because it portrayed international unity on a number of fronts, or I could look at it on the other side of the coin and say, 'You know what? The president really tried to get NATO to do some things with him on the Iraqi situation. They weren't coming along. France certainly wasn't hearing of it.' How should I interpret whether or not this G-8 summit was successful or not successful?

Holbrooke: Well, I would lean towards the second interpretation. President Bush laid out in advance two major goals for the G-8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia. Number one: debt reduction for Iraq. And number two: NATO and international support for Iraq. He didn't get either, so he was batting 0-for-2 in Sea Island. He gave a very jovial, upbeat press conference, making it sound like it was a terrific deal, but it wasn't.

Now let your viewers focus on this. June is President-Bush-as-international- leader month. He went to Rome, he went to Paris, he went to Omaha Beach, he went to Sea Island. That pretty much got blown away in the public consciousness by the Reagan funeral. He has twp more important things ahead of him: the Dublin summit with the leaders of the European Union, and then the most important event of the month internationally, the NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey. He must come up with something better at those two summits on debt relief for Iraq and on NATO support in Iraq.

Tavis: I invited you on the program. I hate to have to cut you off, but I promise you will be invited back here as often as you can make time for us, and we'll do it again sometime, Mr. Ambassador.

Holbrooke: And I'm so glad you're with us here in the Big Apple.

Tavis: I'm delighted to have you on the program. Thanks for coming on, and we'll do it again. I promise.

Holbrooke: My pleasure.

Tavis: Thank you, Mr. Holbrooke. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, likely secretary of state if John Kerry wins in November. We will see. Up next on this program, author Alice Randall. Stay with us. We're back in just a moment.