07/13/2003

An edited transcript of an interview with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, conducted in Greenville, S.C., on July 3.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a rival presidential candidate, recently admonished Democrats to this effect: don't plant your flag in the center of an ever-shrinking and increasingly rightward leaning electorate. The way to beat George Bush is to expand the electorate to progressives who've been left out.

What do you say to that idea that Joe Lieberman is the guy who's trying to be semi-Republican and therefore isn't going to pull this off?

A (Laughs) Well, it's wrong. I'm a proud Democrat. My record is in the best tradition of the Democratic Party, not just the record of support for social progress and social justice but the record of support for a strong defense.

To me the great Democratic presidents of recent history have been presidents like Roosevelt and Truman and Kennedy -- and Clinton, who after all, used the American military to stop genocide in the Balkans -- so to me being a Democrat means being strong on defense.

I am the candidate who can reoccupy the center of American politics and build from the center out -- not only to bring the whole Democratic Party with me but receive the support of independents and a few disgruntled Republicans.

Q How would you distinguish yourself from the president on the conduct of foreign policy?

A Apart from the use of the military in Afghanistan and Iraq, the president has badly mismanaged our foreign policy, and the evidence is that we're more unpopular in the world as Americans than we've ever been.

This is not an accident. It is the result of the Bush administration's one-sided, arrogant foreign policy, which has said to people around the world including our allies 'We don't really care what you think. We're going to do whatever we want and we expect you to follow us,' and international relations doesn't work that way any more than human relations do.

Q What's your opinion of the Bush administration's post-war Iraq policy?

A A real serious disappointment. I supported the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I continue to believe it was the right thing to do and as a result of Saddam being gone, the Iraqi people, the Middle East, America, the world are all safer.

But just as I didn't hesitate for political or partisan reasons to stand with the president in support of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, I don't hesitate now to say that we've really botched the post-war situation and we're in danger of squandering the great victory that our military achieved.

We should have had more power on the ground after the victory to secure the whole countryside. We should have created some Arab interim leadership there instead of having an American leadership which made us look like occupiers (instead) of liberators. We should have been looking at an Iraqi self-government sooner than we have done.

We are facing in Iraq today an insurgency which could develop into a Vietnam-type guerrilla war. We can't let that happen.

Q What about weapons of mass destruction?

A Well, I don't have any doubt that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. There are serious questions being raised about the quality of our intelligence on weapons of mass destruction before the war, about whether the president and other members of this administration overstated the case.

But we know that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He used them against the Iranians and the Kurds. The Iraqis themselves told the United Nations during the '90s that they had sarin gas, VX, botulism toxin, anthrax -- I could go on -- and Saddam Hussein never accounted for the destruction of those weapons.

Did he hide them? Did he destroy them?

Only time will tell but I don't have any doubt that he had them and that's one of the reasons among many that we went to war to overthrow him and one of the reasons among many that the world's a much safer place with him gone.

Q On the Medicare drug benefit bill, which you supported, what about the idea that this was to have been the opportunity to improve the fund for the onrush of Baby Boom retirements?

A First I'd say, I was the only one of the Democratic candidates who either voted or said he would vote for it. It may have made good politics to be against this proposal, but it's the biggest increase in Medicare benefits since Medicare was created and it finally creates some prescription drug benefits for seniors under Medicare.

Q But what about the fiscal sanity part of the equation -- the fact that the costly drug benefit is not linked to major cost-saving changes in Medicare?

A It's got to be another day. And, look, part of this fiscal sanity has to do with the fiscal insanity of the overall [Bush] economic policy. If you give away $3 trillion in tax cuts that don't work, then you're not left with money to invest in Medicare to make it work.

Q Would you repeal President Bush's tax cuts?

A Some of the Democratic candidates for president don't believe in tax cuts.

I believe in tax cuts. But you've got to use them in a way that's sensible, that you can afford, that's really going to produce some results. . . .

I would keep the cut in the marriage penalty and the child care tax credits.

But in reversing tax cuts for the wealthiest, I would save $1 trillion. I'd invest that in fully funding the No Child Left Behind Act (creating mandatory public school testing for national standards) and the federal mandate for special education.

I'd enact a zero capital gains tax for anybody who puts money into a startup business.