Transcript Excerpt: Sen. John McCain

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

(CBS) 
PELLEY: What are your predictions for this war?

MCCAIN: I believe that it can succeed. I believe that it will. But having said that, it is a race against time. We've got to show the American people that we are succeeding. We have to do that. Democracies are such that if the will of the people over time does not support our presence here, it just isn't going to happen. So, we got to show them some success.

PELLEY: You think we're past that point already?

MCCAIN: No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I pray not.

PELLEY: Your son Jimmy volunteered to serve.

MCCAIN: Yeah.

PELLEY: Why?

MCCAIN: Because he's a patriotic American.

PELLEY: Did you try to talk him out of it?

MCCAIN: No. But I really don't talk about him or my other son very much. I'm like any parent in America. I'm proud to have anyone in my family or friend serving their country in any way.

PELLEY: Do you know what it was about Jimmy that made him want to join, if you will, the family business and come to a place like this?

MCCAIN: I think my son is no different than the thousands and thousands of other sons and daughters who decide they want to serve their country. And I'm not sure it's much more complicated than that.

PELLEY: I don't know how far you have to go back, maybe to Franklin Roosevelt, to have a President who had a son in uniform fighting in harm's way.

MCCAIN: I think that's probably the case, yeah.

PELLEY: Does that affect the decisions that the Commander-in-Chief would make?

MCCAIN: Oh, no. No. One of my favorite stories is after Teddy Roosevelt's son Quentin was killed on the western front in World War I, he put on a very brave face and talked about how he would gladly sacrifice. And they found him in the barn in Sagamore Hill with his arms around Quentin's favorite Shetland pony, tears coming down his face say, "Quinty, Quinty, Quinty." One of the more touching stories I ever read about TR.

PELLEY: And you think about your son quite a lot, I suspect.

MCCAIN: I think about all my family all the time.

PELLEY: You know, I wonder. Knowing what you know, what do you believe the greatest threat to America is? This war in Iraq or the possibility that terrorists would strike another American city as they did on 9/11?

MCCAIN: I think the greatest threat this nation faces is this radical Islamic extremism. I think it is now morphed into Iraq. I think every briefing that we have here, al-Qaeda is very active. And so now, it's part of it. And if al-Qaeda gains a strong foothold here, I think that it increases the likelihood of an attack on the United States.

PELLEY: Would you close Guantanamo Bay?

MCCAIN: Yes. I would close Guantanamo Bay. And I would move those prisoners to Fort Leavenworth. And I would proceed with the tribunals.

PELLEY: Why? What's wrong with the way it was handled?

MCCAIN: Guantanamo Bay has become an image throughout the world which has hurt our reputation. Whether we deserve it or not, the reality is Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib have harmed our reputation in the world, thereby harming our ability to win the psychological part of the war against radical Islamic extremism.

PELLEY: There have been a lot of semantics over the last few years about what is torture, what isn't torture, whether American tortures prisoners.

MCCAIN: Yeah.

[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!!!!

[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!