Transcript Excerpt: Sen. John McCain

Read A Transcript Excerpt Of Scott Pelley's Interview With Sen. McCain

(CBS) 
PELLEY: You don't think there are any good options after this surge strategy?

MCCAIN: No, I don't. And I'm sure that we would have to accommodate. We would have to strategize. We would have to adjust. But I think it would be incredibly difficult.

PELLEY: You know, even your fellow Vietnam veterans in the Senate have parted company with you on this. They all voted for the deadline to pull the troops out.

MCCAIN: I understand that, and I respect that view. It's not the first time that I have disagreed with John Kerry or with Jim Webb on various issues. We'll see how this whole thing turns out here.

PELLEY: Was this war a mistake? Would America be better off today if we had never invaded this country?

MCCAIN: If we had succeeded and employed the right strategy, we would've rid the world of a guy who acquired and used weapons of mass destruction and clearly was intent on acquiring and using them again. So, then everybody would've been happy. But given the circumstances, obviously we have to look back and say, should we have done it? If we’d known it was going to have this lack of success, obviously we should've been very careful about what we did. But to have gotten rid of this guy I think was the right thing to do. I just question the failed strategy that caused us to be in the situation we're in today.

PELLEY: Senator, are you betting your candidacy that the surge strategy is going to work?

MCCAIN: Oh, I think that may be the case. But I don't worry about it or think about it. There's too many young people who have sacrificed too much for our country and in this conflict for me to worry about any effect it might have on my political career or life. Scott, I don't mean to bore you, but I went to the opening of a rehab center outside of Brooke Army Hospital, all paid for with private donations. And I saw these young people on crutches and wheelchairs, badly burned. They're glad they served. They're proud they served. And their sacrifice is far more important than any ambitions of mine. I've said a few times I'd rather lose a campaign than lose a war.

PELLEY: But can you remain a viable candidate if the surge strategy fails?

MCCAIN: I don't know. I don't think about it or worry about it.

PELLEY: If the surge strategy fails, what's next?

MCCAIN: That's what I don't know. I keep talking to a lotta people about what our next step would be if it fails. And obviously, it would have to be some kind of effort to contain. But I don't know exactly how you do that. Clearly, the other nations in the region would have a stake in what happens in Iraq as well. So, I've yet to hear a good plan B.

PELLEY: Where did the President make mistakes that left us where we are at this point in your opinion?

MCCAIN: I think probably not asking enough questions about what was going on maybe, would be probably a mistake that he made. And, you know, try to find out more about exactly what was going on. And maybe trusting his subordinates more than he probably should've in the conduct of the war. But it's, you know, it's awful easy for me to give 20/20 hindsight on how I would have been different. But my key point is, let's look forward. And he's got a new strategy and new generals, and hope he succeeds.

PELLEY: You think the President was ill served by the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld?

MCCAIN: Sure.

PELLEY: You think he was ill served by the Vice President?

MCCAIN: I think so to some degree, although obviously you rely on the Secretary of Defense primarily. But obviously, the President relies on the Vice President to a degree for defense and national security issues, yes. And I think one of the mistakes was made obviously, was to paint a rosy scenario about this war, when the events on the ground did not justify those rosy predictions, which then added to the disappointment of the American people.

[tommat2008]

You say that the war was very mismanaged but what do you expect? You have an idiot for a president who lied like hell to get the U.S. into this war and he doesn't give a *** about our soldiers and the thousands he has killed and the thousands he has maimed and the millions of Iraqis he has killed and maimed & you have a terrorist for a Vice President who is arrogant and also stupid who lies like hell so that he could fullfill his promises to capture the Iraqi oil for Exxon,Mobil, Shell, BP Amoco, Chevron, etc. and then they have jackasses like you who are too stupid to know when to shut the hell up! We don't give a *** if these terrorists Bush & Cheney & the Neo-Con Commie Nazi GOP go down the drain, lopse this war which is not to fight terrorism and lose the chance to rob these poor people of their inheritance. All of you should be arrested for this grand theft and all the murders you and those animals have committed ! Impeachment is not enough but watching Bush, Cheney, Gates, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, & Wolfowicz all hang like Saddam Hussein was hung for killing only 148 Iraqis would give the world the satisfaction they all need in knowing that justice has prevailed!

[toldyouso21]

McCain, do you and your party a favor and demonstrate you are a TRUE CONSERVATIVE: don't waste millions on a failed election bid--you have made yourself un-electable and you have just become a liar second only to Bush and Cheney and co. We were sick of that in 2006..we are not likely to want it in 2008, I loathe Giuliani (adulterer = liar) and Gingrich...but both have a better chance to be President than you. Because you not only lied, you insulted us--NO ONE can talk about safety, while wearing body armor in a place where the locals are protected by nothing--and where you have hundreds as an armed escort.

As for the friendliness of the Iraqis--what did you want them to do in the face of the occupiers? Give the finger? So that the US could put them in Abu Ghraib or have a nice, night raid to their homes? Never talk about how nice someone is to you--if you are holding a gun...consider it might be fake and just to appease you. DUH!!!!