Tavis Smiley interviewed Nancy Pelosi on Monday October 22, 2007 on his PBS program. Below is a passage where Tavis brought up the subject of using the power of the purse to bring about redeployment of troops from Iraq.
Madame Speaker fails to give any reply of substance. She talks more about the Senate, of all things, than about how the House can simply refuse to legislate funds for anything other than safe, orderly redeployment.
Unfortunately, Mr. Smiley sat back and let Madame Speaker simply avoid the issue of how the House CAN bring about redeployment.
First, Madame Speaker blames the President for our troops being in Iraq:
Tavis: How do you respond to people who say, respectfully, that it ought not to be surprising that we can't end a war so long as Democrats under your leadership continue to give the president what he asks for. Your fight notwithstanding, how do you respond to those who would say, for example, if y'all cut off the money, you wouldn't be surprised, the war would end.
Pelosi: Well it is -- and I don't like to use the word surprised, because you're supposed to be prepared for everything. But I thought that he would, at least when we extended some way to work together with him on this, would comply. But he hasn't. I say to them, I'm as frustrated as they are about it. In our House and the House of Representatives we have voted over and over and over again. We can't get it past the Senate, and that's the obstacle. The American people don't want to hear about that, they just want the war to end.
In terms of cutting off the funds, the American people want our troops to be provided for, and so what we're trying to say and what we said over and over is the money will be there, but for a specific purpose: for us to begin safe, honorable, and responsible redeployment of the troops out of Iraq, to be begun now -- it's overdue now -- to be completed with in a year, and that money should be used for that purpose.
The president, on the other hand, wants a 10-year war, 10 years more, and then in perpetuity a Korea-like situation. A war that'll cost us another trillion dollars. So we try to make that distinction with the American people, but we cannot get that past the United States Senate to put on the president's desk. We did one time. The president vetoed the bill and the Senate has put up an iron gate since then.
Then, Madame Speaker seems to be blaming the Senate:
Tavis: For folk who are watching this and don't know the intricacies of the politics but do know that both the House and the Senate are now controlled by Democrats, explain how it is that Democrats control both houses and you can't get what you want.
Pelosi: Well, again, it's an inside baseball kind of thing, but it's important to know. The Senate, in order to bring up a bill, by their rules, they have to have 60 votes. So if you don't have 60 votes, you can't bring up the bill.
Tavis: Exactly.
Pelosi: And you can't even go to conference on a bill or anything. As I say, it's procedural, and so it's not an urgent matter to the public, but it does block bringing up a bill. So while we have a bipartisan -- Democrats and Republicans agreeing in the Senate, but only to the tune of 56, 57 who say that this has to end, that we have to take a different route. We still can't get the 60 votes.
We in the House now have said to the Senate we've tried any number of times to send you a bill to end this war. We are now just going to pass the bills, and some people will say why do it whether they can pass the Senate or not? Well, we want to change that reality. We want to put so much pressure on, because this is wrong. This is wrong. This war is such a grotesque mistake.
I, of course, have been opposed to it from day one, but nonetheless, however it is that we got into it, we cannot bring stability to the Middle East unless we get out of Iraq. The generals -- the retired generals -- tell us that. We cannot strengthen our own military -- even the chairman of the joint chiefs today again in an interview said that the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are weakening our ability to meet other challenges to our security. Afghanistan, we have to be there. That's where the terrorism began, that's the fight we have. Iraq is not the war on terror.
Madame Speaker seems to want to avoid any responsibility for all the casualties, and for bringing the troops home, and Tavis Smiley seems content to leave it alone.
Link to Tavis Smiley's interview with Pelosi