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Tavis: Congressman Joe Sestak is a first-term Democrat from Pennsylvania who holds the distinction of being the highest-ranking former military officer ever to serve in Congress. He retired after 31 years in the Navy, serving as a three-star admiral who led an aircraft carrier battle group during U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

Last November in his first-ever political campaign, he defeated Curt Weldon, a 10-term Republican who was then vice chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. He joins us tonight from Capitol Hill. Congressman Sestak, nice to have you on the program, sir.

Congressman Joe Sestak: Thank you for having me aboard.

Tavis: You have called Iraq a "tragic misadventure." What'd you mean by that?

Sestak: I happened to be in command of an aircraft carrier battle group for the war in Afghanistan. I'd actually been on the ground about two months after that war began. Came back 18 months later and saw on the ground what hadn’t been done as we had diverted our attention and our resources to this war that wasn’t a clear - nor was it a present - danger.

And it's a tragic misadventure number one because we took our eye off where the central front of terrorism was: Afghanistan. And second, as I mentioned, it wasn’t a present danger to the United States and our interest. I think the results have shown that. We're now in a civil war. We're refereeing a civil war. And the greatest harm that's been done is that it's hurting our security globally.

We are not able to pay attention to those other areas of the world where there are challenges to our interest. Southeast Asia, global (unintelligible) it is. Also in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden hasn’t moved to downtown Baghdad. And finally, our army here at home is nearly broken. We don't have one army combat unit that's ready to deploy to another contingency here at home, because of what this war has done to our interest of being ready for security globally. And so that's why this is a tragic misadventure.

Tavis: On a personal note, you know what troubles me, Congressman, is that I suspect that you aren't the only person who has been responsible for fighting this war, or these wars, put another way, who feels as you do. Now obviously, when you are part of the U.S. military, you go where the commander in chief sends you. You follow instructions and do what you're supposed to do, as every good soldier knows, my father one of them.

That said, I know you're not the only person who feels the way you feel. So the question is this: how does one go about fighting a war, doing what one is told to do, when one feels the way you feel and doesn’t have the opportunity to just retire and run for office?

Sestak: That's a great question. When I had command of that aircraft carrier battle group, I had 15,000 sailors, Marines, Special Forces under my command. We had 30 ships in that battle group. Only 10 of them were United States ships. We had a coalition of the willing. Japanese ships, Greek ships, British ships, Australian ships.

I was then told to take that carrier battle group out of the Indian Ocean into the Persian Gulf. First indication that this war was going to be a tragic misadventure is only the British and the Australians came with me. The rest were not gonna go to this war. But we thought we were gonna do a running start that you might have heard about, to begin the war from just the forces that were present in the region, and it's relatively simple to do what you have to do.

This nation had given me the highest honor it could give anyone: it had entrusted its youth to me to lead into harm's way. If this war was morally or ethically wrong, it was a tragic misjudgment. My job was to take those men and women and ensure that they were ready to go into combat, and to be accountable to this nation and its citizens to bring them back, having achieved their mission as best I could.

Now, there's a big difference about being out there, and even disagreeing at the time that this is not the right war, to doing your duty. We separate those. It's why I was a registered Independent for 31 years. I was registered Independent because I knew that in my professional wisdom, professional career, I had to be apolitical. My job was to have them ready to do what this nation asked them to do through its commander in chief, and then bring them home.

Tavis: But how could so many people on the ground - or at sea, in your case - but how could so many folk on the ground know or believe that we were going about this in the wrong way, what we were experiencing, engaging, to your point, was a tragic misadventure, and yet that doesn’t get relayed to the folk back here Stateside, namely the president, secretary of defense, secretary of state, who were telling us that they're not gonna take orders from Congress. They're taking orders from the folk on the ground. There's a disconnect here for me.

Sestak: Well, there isn't. When you're out there in the field, when you're out there at sea, you are out there not making political judgments. We know, we're trained to go out there and do your duty to what your commander in chief - your commander in chief says to do. Now, if you are in a policy-making job, you're on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you are in strategic planning back here in Washington, your duty is to give your best professional advice to what should be done.

Now, that doesn’t meant that someone doesn’t take you aside and ask what your personal opinion is. And when I was out there, I discussed it with the three-star commander, because he asked me my personal opinion. But no, we don't have those kind of discussions out there on that ship. What we're interested in is making sure we're ready to go into combat.

Now, back here at home, the Constitution has almost all - all the authority for war-making invested into Congress. It provides for the common defense. It raises armies. It maintains and supports navies. And it provides for the rules and regulations of our armed forces. All authorization for declaring war is in the Congress, and all authorization for the maintenance of our armed forces is in the Congress.

It is our duty - it is our duty to make sure that we are debating about the best use of this national treasure of our military and its men and women. When I was out there, I always wanted to assume, to hope that the men and women back here were policymakers, were debating, were thinking, about the best use of us out there. We were ready to sacrifice.

But every moment, we wanted to make sure we were being sacrificed for the right purpose, the right security interests of America. This debate is exactly what we should be having to do, as long as we are fully providing for the security of our people there, in combat.

Tavis: But to your brilliant point now , I suspect there are a bunch of folk watching right now who either did not know - and I'm not being funny here - literally did not know, or certainly had forgotten, what you’ve just articulated with what the role that Congress is supposed to play is vis-à-vis the Constitution. They have forgotten that or might not have known that, given how this war is being run from the White House.

Sestak: There are literally hundreds of amendments that have been presented within Congress over the past decades of trying to cap or limit deployments or cease conflict. The Republicans did it back in the period of Bosnia and Kosovo. The Democrats seem to be leading - and I think rightly now - to bring us to a different strategy so we can better end this conflict successfully, and make sure we can better address our security around this world.

It's a very important issue. Also, there's something else that we in the military always remember. At the end of the Revolutionary War, George Washington was called to a meeting several years after the war ended by his Army brethren, his Army officers. They were a bit dismayed, because without a Constitution we only had the Articles of Confederation. Our country was adrift.

And so they asked George Washington, incredibly, to become the monarch. When he refused, but they wanted to continue on, he went to read a letter to them he had. And unable to read, he put on a pair of bifocals. And he looked at them over the bifocals and said, "Not only have I grown old in the service of my country, but I've also grown blind in the service of my country."

The coup stopped right there, because he reminded those officers that they did not work for a man, like the British army did for King George. No, no; they worked for our country, our citizens. And so if the citizens are not out there debating about the use of those who work for them - the armed services - and I am not debating it - responsible for over 650,000 votes in my district - then I, and my brethren here in, and sisters here in this Congress are not doing our job by the Constitution.

Tavis: Tell me right quick what your plan is to get us out on a date certain.

Sestak: It is by the end of December to have, without any question that we will redeploy out of Iraq, because it changes all the incentives in this conflict. The Iraqis realize they'll have to step up to the plate, or else bear the personal consequences of not making the political decisions necessary to cease sectarian, civil violence.

And the Iranians and Syrians understand that with us not in there, bleeding profusely - which they want, and they're involved destructively right now - with us remaining in the region but outside Iraq, they have an interest in stability, of not having the five million Iraqis that are already dislocated from their homes overflowing their borders, nor having a proxy war between the respective Sunni and Syria, Shi'a and Iran, a proxy war via supporting different religious factions.

We have a way forward if we work with those countries to bring a stability in that country and to then better address our security interests around the world as well as here at home.

Tavis: One of the rare members of Congress who has been on both sides of the aisle, literally, having represented us well in service to the country, and now doing it again as a member of Congress. Representative Joe Sestak. Nice to have you on the program, sir.

Sestak: It was a pleasure to be aboard. Thank you.