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• Rep. Tauscher's official site
• Excerpts from the Iraq Study Group Report
• Article on Rep. Tauscher
• The Blue Dog Democrats
• Rep. Tauscher's Huffington Post blog

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Tavis: Tonight, though, reaction to today's release of the Iraq Study Group report with Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher. The California Democrat is a respected member of the House Armed Services Committee who's made several trips to the Middle East over the past few years. She joins us tonight from Washington. Congresswoman, nice to have you back on the program.

Ellen Tauscher: Always great to be back with you, Tavis.

Tavis: Before we commence our conversation, let me get some reaction, share some reaction, I should say, with our audience from the two co-chairpersons of this Iraq Study Group. That would be, of course, Lee Hamilton, former Congressman from Indiana, Democrat, and former Secretary of State in the first Bush administration, James Baker.

Tavis: Congresswoman, with all due respect to Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Baker, neither at the moment sits on the House Armed Services Committee. So we hear now what they think of their work. What do you think of their work?

Tauscher: Well, Tavis, I think we all welcome - this is the Christmas season, and it was these wise men and women, these 10 Republicans and Democrats, many of them with significant pedigrees who have worked in and out of government. Certainly we had Sandra Day O'Connor and many members who, of this commission who have a lot of time working and understanding tough issues.

And what is important, I think, to know, is that they know now, and have put together in a package, what most people have known for a long time. That we cannot win in Iraq militarily. That this is really about the Commander-in-Chief and the diplomat-in-chief, George Bush, our president. And this is a package for him to take a look at, almost like a family intervention, to say this is really what everybody knows, and perhaps now in this package, done in this commission form in a bipartisan way, with really no standing other than we were asked to do this.

Perhaps now you'll listen and understand that we have to have some big changes in your policy, Mr. President, as diplomat in chief, and Commander In Chief. Because even the Congress, we can't legislate a change in Iraq. All we can really do is try to push the president to understand that it is time to bring our troops home sooner and safer. It is time to put the pressure on the Iraqi government to deliver the political solution that is basically what everybody's known for a long time. That is the only way that we can deliver some security there, and bring our troops home.

Tavis: Like or loathe his policies, agree or disagree, no one would argue that he is, in fact, and has proven (laugh) that he is the Commander In Chief. What many people have yet to see, to your point now, is whether or not, given the Iraq Study Group report, he can be the diplomat in chief. That's a tall order for a guy who's been, some would argue, a bit of a cowboy where Iraq is concerned. Can he be the diplomat in chief?

Tauscher: Well, look, the options have faded away. We've been hurtling down this road for a very long time, longer than the Second World War. We had our military victory, to the extent that we decapitated the Saddam Hussein government and took him out of power in the spring of 2003. And now we've had over three years where we have attempted, through military means, unfortunately, through the administration of George Bush and Don Rumsfeld, to do what only can be done politically.

Which is to take this country, which has a big opportunity to have self-determination, to choose for itself how it wants to govern, who will govern it, how they're going to be responsible and control their own borders and be a good neighbor. It is time for them to stand up; we are more than a crutch now. We have 147,000 troops in the way of a civil war. We've spent more time, Tavis, in the last few months debating semantics about what to call what's going on in Iraq, when all the reports say that there are lots of bad people in Iraq doing bad things, but mostly, they're Iraqis.

And there's a small element of foreign fighters and Al-Qaeda there, but by and large, this is a civil war between Shi'a and Sunnis that is threatening the entire region. The countries on the east and west of Iraq are, on the east side they are Shi'a, on the west side they are Sunni, and they are increasingly alarmed, as you saw Vice President Cheney sent to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Abdullah just a few weekends ago.

The region is increasingly alarmed that this is spiraling out of control and that there isn't enough of a demand by the United States that the Iraqi government deliver the political solutions that we've all understood for a long time. Debathification, we need to figure out how to get people back to work. We need to share the oil revenue, and we need to demilitarize these militias that are doing these reprisals. And then we need to have a reconciliation inside of Iraq and have the neighborhood help.

Tavis: You made the point earlier that many of us made some days ago, in fact, weeks ago, that, with all due respect to Mr. Baker, Mr. Hamilton, and those on this commission, not a whole lot of us expected anything new from them. And the fact of the matter is, as you point out earlier, there is not a whole lot new in this report. Everything they've said, somebody else has said heretofore, which raises this question, Congresswoman. If they're saying the same things that you and others have said heretofore, if the president didn't listen then, why should I believe the president is going to listen now?

Tauscher: Because I think the underlying position of the president has been undermined by the November seventh election. And I think that the president is very cognizant of the fact that the American people really took his rubber stamp Congress out of his control, because they want him to be responsive to them, and not to the political ambitions of Republicans in Washington.

And I think that he understands now that not only is Iraq a big issue to the American electorate, but it is also endangering whatever legacy he may have, considering that he doesn't have a lot of domestic accomplishments, either. So I think that there's gotta be some people in the White House that are really tending to this issue of looking over the horizon for George Bush.

And I think he understands that these devastating losses that we're taking, the $400 billion that we've borrowed to finance this war, the two trillion dollars projected that it will cost us to not only retool and reset, but to fund the Iraqi army, should it ever get to stand up and do what it's meant to do, these are devastating losses for the American people. And for what net gain?

We're not really sure. But we need to make sure that the Iraqi government understands that we're gonna hold their feet to the fire. And they've got to begin to risk themselves as much as we're risking our best men and women in Iraq to give them security and an opportunity for self-determination. And they've got, they are the only people that can make the deal, the political deals that will, we hope, cut this insurgency at least in half in the short term, so we can bring our troops home.

Tavis: I hope I'm not disclosing classified information here, but a little birdie told me that you are in a small group of persons invited to see the president over the next 48 hours inside the White House. What can you tell me about that meeting, and what you intend to say to the president?

Tauscher: Well, I'm not sure it's more than a photo op. I lead the new Democrat coalition in the house, where the 63 members that are the moderates in the Democratic Caucus. We also have some blue dog members that are been invited to the White House on Friday. And frankly, I wish that members of the other caucuses, including our caucus chair, Rahm Emmanuel and, and John Larson, the vice chair, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus and the Progressive Caucus were invited, too.

There's always been a sense that the White House thought that they could divide and conquer us, but we are absolutely united in the Democratic Caucus in the House and the Senate. We've heard the message that the American people have delivered to us on November seventh, and the mandate that they gave us to lead in January. And that is to give the country a new direction, and to make change.

And we are certainly wholly united behind Speaker Designate Pelosi, and Majority Leader Hoyer and the rest of our leadership team. But we're good Americans and we're public servants, and when the president calls, because we have respect for the office of the president, we go to the White House. But I think it's probably a 20-minute meeting, and we really haven't seen much of the president in six years. So I think it will be taken up primarily in reintroducing ourselves.

Tavis: Let me ask you why anyone in the world community, persons beyond our shores, should believe that just because this report comes down today, that something anew, something with regard to a change of course, a change of direction, is forthcoming in the short term, or for that matter, the long term?

Tauscher: I was in Italy last week, and meeting with Prime Minister Prodi, and he had seen the president when they were at the NATO summit in Riga. And he's hopeful. Many of our NATO allies and other people that I speak to regularly are very, very much interested in how we can get the engagement to begin. I think that everybody believes that Iraq is a significant problem that is spiraling out of control, but it is part of a wider, arcing problem.

And the antecedent issue is certainly the Palestinian-Israeli issue. And this administration's record is abysmal, frankly. It is of disengagement, of not paying attention, of not having resources and people dedicated to helping move that process along. And we know the record. We know the record certainly under the Clinton administration, when we had direct engagement by the American president, Bill Clinton, by Dennis Ross, who was shuttling around that region, moving forward.

We had movement. And when the Bush administration came into power, it was ABC, anything but Clinton. And we had nobody in the Middle East, and we've really suffered from our lack of ability to be persuasive and credible, because we're paying attention. So, I think many of us - a few of us have written a letter to the president today, one of our daily letters.

It's almost this unrequited relationship. (Laugh) They don't call, they don't write, they don't send flowers. But we basically wrote and said, 'We think that this needs to be, as the Baker-Hamilton report has said, part of a bigger picture.' Now, certainly Iraq has got to be the bull's-eye for us, and has to have all of our energies in the short term. But this is part of a bigger problem, and we've got to put our energy and our shoulders behind the wheel, and attempt to engage and get it done.

That includes engagement with Iran; that includes engagement with Syria; the Lebanese problem, of course. So it's a big issue, and we can only do it if we're working together in a bipartisan way, respectfully, and engaged.

Tavis: She's a member of the Armed Services Committee in the House, Democrat of California, Ellen Tauscher, seeing the president on Friday. Congresswoman, nice to have you on. Thanks for your insight.

Tauscher: Always great to see you, Tavis, thank you.

Tavis: Thank you very much. Up next on this program, best-selling crime novelist Joseph Wambaugh. Stay with us.