We haven’t spent it all just yet, says Sorensen

Question: Has the Iraq War depleted our military and diplomatic capital? 

Ted Sorensen: We haven’t spent it all. We still have enormous stockpiles of strategic weapons that have never been used, and God willing will never be used. But we have stretched thin our conventional forces in a foolish, pointless, endless invasion and occupation of Iraq. We didn’t even have enough troops to secure the borders and keep the terrorists from pouring in from other countries. We didn’t even have enough troops to secure the arsenals and armories so that the terrorists just robbed all of those weapons. And they’re now being used against American troops. And what have we achieved? Saddam Hussein is gone. Yes, he was an evil man, but we don’t have democracy there. Women in . . . Iraqi women probably have fewer rights today than they had women Saddam Hussein, who was secular, was in charge than they . . . than they have now when the United States put the Shiia in power. So what have we achieved? And there are more Iraqi civilians being killed every day. They used to be killed every day by stray American bombs; but now they’re killed today by other Iraqis, and there is no end in sight. I don’t believe that with the United States having taken the lid off Pandora’s box . . . Whether we stay for 50 years as John McCain may be necessary like Korea; or stay for 50 months or weeks, there will still be bloodshed, and violence, and sectarian killings, and political wrangling going on inside Iraq. We have so messed up that country that I’m not sure even a democratic president can solve it. And it’s . . . It’s the stupidest blunder in American foreign policy history.

Recorded on: 1/30/08