[Mb-civic] Amy Goodman w/CNN's Aaron Brown

[Mike Blaxill]

* Transcript: Amy Goodman on CNN's News Night
with Aaron Brown, 6/28/05 *

BROWN: We're joined now by Andrew Breitbart,
formerly of the Drudge Report, currently a
contributor to the Huffington Post, and Amy
Goodman, of Pacifica Radio, where she hosts
"Democracy Now." It's good to see you both.

Amy, you say that we need to pull the American
troops out now,
yesterday, not tomorrow, right now. What do you
imagine would happen in Iraq if we did that?

AMY GOODMAN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I think it's
more important to look at what is happening in
Iraq right now, today.

BROWN: What do you imagine would happen if we
pulled out?

GOODMAN: Well, I think it can't be worse than
what we're looking at right now. We are talking
about now, I mean, your own reporters can't go
outside of their hotels, the roads are all cut
off outside Baghdad. In this month alone, you
compare it to June, 2004, a year ago -- then, 42
U.S. soldiers were killed; now, it's about double
that.

BROWN: So you think if actually -- if the
Americans pulled out tomorrow,
Iraq would be a safer place, a better place, a
more stable place than it
is now? 

GOODMAN: I think the U.S. troops, the occupation
is the magnet
for the violence. It has become the target. And I
think that has to be...

BROWN: And the jihadis would go home?

GOODMAN: ... removed.

BROWN: The jihadis would go home?

GOODMAN: I think that Iraqis need to be able to
deal with their own country, and clearly, the
occupation is the most serious irritant. It's
even what people, the Iraqis voted for, when they
made their decision in their election, they were
voting for parties that were saying the
occupation must end. I think Iraqis should be
respected.

BROWN: We'll come back to that. Andrew, do you
think that the country
would feel more comfortable with the policy if
the policy had more
specific benchmarks?

ANDREW BREITBART, AUTHOR: I actually agree with
that. I think that the
president was great tonight, but where has he
been the last few months?
I think what the president needs to do now,
because I think the polls
will start going in his way as they do after
speeches of this magnitude,
I think he needs to start dictating how we're
going to be victorious in
Iraq. We can't just explain why we're there. We
need to declare how
we're going to be victorious. Not against
insurgents, but terrorists who
are there at the behest of Osama bin Laden, who
has called it the third
world war in Iraq.

BROWN: I'm not sure, honestly, I've never quite
understood the
mathematics here, whether the most difficult
problem we face there are the foreigners, because
certainly for a long time in the occupation they
were not the most difficult task we faced there.
How it became that they are now?

BREITBART: Well, I mean, we're also dealing with
the remnancy of the
Baathist regime. So either way, you're dealing
with bad guys.

BROWN: And all bad guys are the same in this
context?

BREITBART: I don't think that that's a difficult
thing to figure out.

BROWN: I'm just trying to make sure that I
understand. Yes.

GOODMAN: "The New York Times" last week was
revealing what was in a CIA report that said
right now, not when Saddam Hussein was there, but
right now, Iraq is becoming a training ground for
more extremists than occurred in the beginning of
al Qaeda in Afghanistan. These are people
training in assassination and kidnapping. This
all has to end.

BROWN: I agree with that. I'll agree with that,
that it is in many
respects a worse place now than it was, in the
terrorist sense, before
the invasion. What I don't think I get is how our
leaving makes that
situation better. I think you do have an
Afghanistan.

GOODMAN: I mean, you know, the saying from
Vietnam, you're destroying
the village in order to save it. That certainly
applies today.

BROWN: Yeah, I lived through the era.

GOODMAN: So that certainly applies today. And I
think what we have to look at, is an Iraq that
the U.S. is not forcing to privatize, that is
getting out, so it's free to sell its own oil,
where the U.S. military, in their terrible fear
of absolutely horrific situation is not killing
Iraqis and insurgents coming from all over at
this point are not coming in and also killing
Iraqis.

BROWN: Amy, thank you. Andrew, last word
literally, 10 seconds. Do you
think the president bought himself six months?

BREITBART: No, I don't. I think he bought himself
another two weeks, and
then he needs to declare battle against
MoveOn.org and people who have
defined victory downwards. I mean, it's been a
disaster the last few months.

GOODMAN: And the president has to stop...

BROWN: Good. Thank you. Thank you.

GOODMAN: ... connecting 9/11 with Iraq.