Richardson Advocates Full Iraq Troop Withdrawal

RAY SUAREZ:

Governor, welcome to the program.

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), New Mexico: Nice to be with you, Ray.

RAY SUAREZ:

Now, your campaign has announced a one-point program in this season of debate, what to do about Iraq. A one-point program, what is it?

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON:

It's get all our troops out so that the war can end. And I have a difference with the other Democratic candidates, Senators Obama, Clinton, Edwards, all who want to keep residual troops, anywhere between 50,000 to 75,000, after withdrawing all combat troops. And my position is that the war can only end, peace can come to Iraq with a compromise or an all-Muslim peacekeeping force or a donor conference, a political compromise can only happen only if we get every one of our troops out, because they become targets.

They become the cause of the al-Qaida, the terrorists, and the insurgents fighting each other. And our kids are dying. I mean, it's the bloodiest three months we've had. Iraqis are dying, twice as many since the surge started. There is no military solution. I think there's a political solution, but the window is ending.

RAY SUAREZ:

You know General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, but also a lot of the other candidates in the presidential race have talked about chaos, terrible violence that would follow the United States' departure from Iraq. Would that be blood that's on America's hands?

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON:

There is violence now. There is sectarian conflict. There is chaos now. Our policy has bred that chaos.

I know the region. I was U.N. ambassador. I went head-to-head with Saddam Hussein, got prisoners out. I know the Sunni, the Shia, the Kurds. In my judgment, the only way that you get the Maliki government in Iraq to forge a political compromise, to get a division of oil revenues, to have a possible partition, is by getting all of our troops out.

And I don't understand the reasoning of my Democratic opponents who say they want to take all the combat troops out, but leave troops behind that are non-combat troops. I say, "How are they going to defend themselves?"

So my point is not that I'm trying to attract the antiwar vote. What I want to do is diplomacy, bring Iran and Syria in for possible diplomacy that will allow stability in the region, an all-Muslim peacekeeping force headed by the U.N. Get Turkey in there, get Jordan, get Egypt. This is a Muslim war.

Find a way to have U.S. leadership in a Bosnia-type agreement in Iraq where you divide oil revenues, you divide the land, a possible partition, and you share power. But that can't happen, Ray, until all American troops are out.

And in the meantime, the casualties of American troops — they're tired, the National Guard. I'm a governor. They're going to get deployed again. I just believe this is a morass, a quagmire. And I want to differentiate myself with the other candidates who I believe are earnest about wanting to end the war, but you can't do it leaving troops behind to perform a mission that 160,000 American troops and untold others are unable to do.