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American Morning

Interview With Congressman John Spratt

Aired September 04, 2003 - 07:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Congressional Budget Office has been adding up the numbers on troops in Iraq. It concluded that under the current policy, the Pentagon will have to start cutting back the force in Iraq as soon as next March.
Congressman John Spratt is the ranking Democrat of the House Budget Committee, and he joins us from Washington, D.C., this morning.

Good morning. Thank for joining us.

REP. JOHN SPRATT (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: Good morning to you.

O'BRIEN: U.S. commanders in Iraq have not yet asked for more forces. Here is what Colin Powell had to say about international contributions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: There are some 30 countries who are there now, another 10 are on the way, and a number of others are considering whether they will be able to contribute to such a force.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Is he essentially saying that overextension of troops is not an issue?

SPRATT: I don't think so. We don't have those troops yet. We'll probably have to pay some inducement money to some of them to come. The administration is doing now what it should have done earnestly last fall before starting this war, and that is canvassing our allies and others to see who would contribute in kind manpower to this effort, because our manpower is being pressed extremely much.

O'BRIEN: We're looking at a bill right now of $4 billion a month. Give me a sense of how much you think it should cost to secure and rebuild Iraq, and over how much time?

SPRATT: I'll give you an honest answer. We don't have a clear understanding of it. We asked Mr. Bolton (ph), for example, at OMB during the August break for his staff to get together with our staff, so we can tell where the money has come from and where it's going. We asked for further clarification. We asked for the comptroller of the Pentagon to come testify before the Budget Committee. We have gotten no cooperation yet. The administration really has not provided us the information we need in order to understand of where the money is coming from and where it's going. The best we can get is an estimate. That's about $1 billion a week for this deployment, plus additional amounts for the deployments in Afghanistan.

O'BRIEN: Well, you're sounding very frustrated. Are you telling me, then, that you feel that either you're being misled or that obviously the information is being held out on you and you're not getting it?

SPRATT: I think they're holding information back. For what reason, I'm not sure. It could be that they're not satisfied themselves with the quality of information they've got. It could be they don't want to tell us yet. They're stonewalling us.

In any event, we've asked for it from two primary sources, and it's yet to be provided.

O'BRIEN: When do you think you'll get past the stonewalling and get the information to your satisfaction?

SPRATT: Well, it appears that they'll be coming back to us sooner rather than later to ask for supplemental funding. Bremer was here just a week ago to say that he needs money just basically for operations. He's been living in part off of some Iraqi funds, like the oil-for-food money. He's been using that money for reconstruction -- minor reconstruction in Iraq. And the accounts he's been drawing upon -- our accounts and to some extent theirs -- are beginning to run dry.

So, he needs $2 billion to $3 billion just to make it to the end of the year. And when he comes and asks for that, I hope we'll persist in getting the information we need to understand where the costs are being incurred.

O'BRIEN: There are many people who say regardless of the cost it has to be done, because obviously security in Iraq is very critical to what happens in the Middle East overall. And also, American servicemen and women are there, and their security is incredibly important, obviously. How do you put a dollar on that kind of process that you have to go through?

SPRATT: You don't. We've got troops deployed. We're going to back up the troops deployed, and we're not going to fail in this undertaking. We understand that. We simply cannot fail in this undertaking. We've got to succeed, and we will not deploy 150,000, 140,000 troops and leave them unsupported. The money will be forthcoming, but we need to have it justified.

O'BRIEN: Congressman John Spratt, thanks for joining us this morning on AMERICAN MORNING.

SPRATT: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: I sure appreciate it. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.







Aired September 4, 2003 - 07:05   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Congressional Budget Office has been adding up the numbers on troops in Iraq. It concluded that under the current policy, the Pentagon will have to start cutting back the force in Iraq as soon as next March.
Congressman John Spratt is the ranking Democrat of the House Budget Committee, and he joins us from Washington, D.C., this morning.

Good morning. Thank for joining us.

REP. JOHN SPRATT (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: Good morning to you.

O'BRIEN: U.S. commanders in Iraq have not yet asked for more forces. Here is what Colin Powell had to say about international contributions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: There are some 30 countries who are there now, another 10 are on the way, and a number of others are considering whether they will be able to contribute to such a force.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Is he essentially saying that overextension of troops is not an issue?

SPRATT: I don't think so. We don't have those troops yet. We'll probably have to pay some inducement money to some of them to come. The administration is doing now what it should have done earnestly last fall before starting this war, and that is canvassing our allies and others to see who would contribute in kind manpower to this effort, because our manpower is being pressed extremely much.

O'BRIEN: We're looking at a bill right now of $4 billion a month. Give me a sense of how much you think it should cost to secure and rebuild Iraq, and over how much time?

SPRATT: I'll give you an honest answer. We don't have a clear understanding of it. We asked Mr. Bolton (ph), for example, at OMB during the August break for his staff to get together with our staff, so we can tell where the money has come from and where it's going. We asked for further clarification. We asked for the comptroller of the Pentagon to come testify before the Budget Committee. We have gotten no cooperation yet. The administration really has not provided us the information we need in order to understand of where the money is coming from and where it's going. The best we can get is an estimate. That's about $1 billion a week for this deployment, plus additional amounts for the deployments in Afghanistan.

O'BRIEN: Well, you're sounding very frustrated. Are you telling me, then, that you feel that either you're being misled or that obviously the information is being held out on you and you're not getting it?

SPRATT: I think they're holding information back. For what reason, I'm not sure. It could be that they're not satisfied themselves with the quality of information they've got. It could be they don't want to tell us yet. They're stonewalling us.

In any event, we've asked for it from two primary sources, and it's yet to be provided.

O'BRIEN: When do you think you'll get past the stonewalling and get the information to your satisfaction?

SPRATT: Well, it appears that they'll be coming back to us sooner rather than later to ask for supplemental funding. Bremer was here just a week ago to say that he needs money just basically for operations. He's been living in part off of some Iraqi funds, like the oil-for-food money. He's been using that money for reconstruction -- minor reconstruction in Iraq. And the accounts he's been drawing upon -- our accounts and to some extent theirs -- are beginning to run dry.

So, he needs $2 billion to $3 billion just to make it to the end of the year. And when he comes and asks for that, I hope we'll persist in getting the information we need to understand where the costs are being incurred.

O'BRIEN: There are many people who say regardless of the cost it has to be done, because obviously security in Iraq is very critical to what happens in the Middle East overall. And also, American servicemen and women are there, and their security is incredibly important, obviously. How do you put a dollar on that kind of process that you have to go through?

SPRATT: You don't. We've got troops deployed. We're going to back up the troops deployed, and we're not going to fail in this undertaking. We understand that. We simply cannot fail in this undertaking. We've got to succeed, and we will not deploy 150,000, 140,000 troops and leave them unsupported. The money will be forthcoming, but we need to have it justified.

O'BRIEN: Congressman John Spratt, thanks for joining us this morning on AMERICAN MORNING.

SPRATT: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: I sure appreciate it. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.