E-mail a friendRep. Ike Skelton
airdate April 19, 2007
Rep. Isaac (Ike) Skelton has represented Missouri in Congress since '77. As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he has said his main priority is oversight and that military readiness is his top concern. Skelton comes from a military family and has two sons on active duty. He previously served as a prosecuting attorney, assistant attorney general and six years in the state senate. He is also vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.
Rep. Ike Skelton
Tavis: Congressman Ike Skelton is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and has made five separate trips to Iraq since the war began back in 2003. The Missouri Democrat has represented his district in the House since 1977. He joins us tonight from Capital Hill. Congressman Skelton, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Rep. Ike Skelton: Thank you, Tavis, it's an honor.
Tavis: You have learned what over the course of those five separate trips to Iraq since the war started?
Skelton: Well, the first thing that anyone learns is to have deep admiration for the young people who are over there. Our Army, our Marines, everyone in uniform, and we actually have 22,000 Air Force and sailors doing Army work, by the way, as we speak. You can't help but have the deepest respect for what they do and appreciation. That's the most important thing that anyone can learn.
Tavis: Have they been sent - with all due respect to your point about having respect for them - have they been sent on a mission that is lose-lose?
Skelton: Well, you never want to say that any mission is a lose-lose. It's very, very difficult. We went in under different circumstances. We went in, allegedly, to find and to prevent weapons of mass destruction. That didn't come to pass, and I'm sure that the Pentagon thought that the - at least the secretary had thought that this would be a very quick operation, when in truth in fact, it was long and extended.
They've made a number of irretrievable mistakes. The first, of course, being to allow the looting, to send people home to the Debathification process that put people out of jobs, the dismissing of their army, not guarding the various caches that we learned were there. David Kay told John Spratt and Robin Hayes and me in late 2003 that there were many caches of ammunition and weapons that were unguarded.
We just didn't have enough troops A, to occupy that country - Iraq - and B, to guard those caches. So the insurgents had a free hand in taking what they wanted.
Tavis: You apparently are not happy - speaking of long and extended - about the long and now extended tours of those serving in this part of the world, so the Defense Department says that they're gonna jump from 12 months to 15 months for those persons serving in Iraq. What do you not like about that and moreover, what, as chairman of the committee, can you do about?
Skelton: Well, I'm quite concerned that the extension of the tour of duties from 12 months to 15 months will have a difficult effect - a telling effect on the troops. It's going to be hard on the families, it's going to be hard on morale, and consequently we're just not going to be able to have the troops that are ready for any other eventuality.
Let me tell you my real bottom line concern is the readiness for tomorrow. If we wear out our troops - which we're in the process of breaking the United States Army - if we wear them out, we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I had a roommate when I was in law school who, when he was in the Army, was caught in the Pusan Perimeter in Korea, and I don't wanna ever see that again.
Since I've been in Congress, Tavis - which now I've been blessed to have been here 30 years plus - we have had some 12 military contingencies, four of which have been major in size. And you don't know what's in the future, but if it's anything like the past, just as sure as God made little green apples we're gonna have challenges tomorrow, meaning some time in the future, and we're gonna need these forces.
And if they're worn out and people are getting out of the Army because of the extension, they're not staying - at least the mid-level officers, the mid-level noncommissioned officers - we're gonna be in a difficult time should some contingency come to pass in the near future because we will not be ready to address it.
Tavis: And yet the president's meeting with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reed notwithstanding, the president does not agree with you and others who have suggested to him that what's needed in Iraq is a timetable, a date certain, to get our troops out.
Skelton: Well, I think we need to do that not just to let our military recovery itself, but I think we need to do that to send the message to the Iraqi government, to the prime minister, to all those in Iraq that we're not there forever. We've been there now over four years, and consequently it has not been victory as has been foreseen by the administration.
And we have to turn it over. We have to pass that baton over to the Iraqi military, and we have to make sure they're fully trained. We're in the process of getting that done.
Tavis: You call what's happening - the conflict, specifically, in Afghanistan - our forgotten war.
Skelton: It is.
Tavis: And I suspect it probably is, 'cause most of us talk so much about Iraq we forget that we are still inside of Afghanistan. So let me just ask the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee what is happening in Afghanistan with regard to our involvement as we speak?
Skelton: Well, I think there's some light at the end of the tunnel in Afghanistan. It's difficult; there are some serious challenges there. But we do have NATO troops in there assisting. I think that they're gluing their government together, though it's slow. The Afghan people look at us much different and much more positively than the Iraqi people do.
Tavis: Finally, given that the president did, in fact, meet this week with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reed, although both sides have said it was not a negotiation but it was a constructive meeting, what's your sense of what we are going to do with regard to getting the troops out of Iraq in the short term?
Skelton: Well frankly, I'm disappointed we can't just sit down and negotiate this out. It's been before; it's been done for decades in our country. The president and the Congress were two coequal branches of government, and there are times when you just have to say, "We can work it out," and work it out, and pass it on.
You see, the troops need the money now. I think the timetable where they actually run out of money is later is than what we're being told, but it can be done. I'm just disappointed that negotiations are not in the forefront, as really they should be.
Tavis: He is the chairman of the very powerful House Armed Services Committee. Out of Missouri, Democrat Representative Ike Skelton. Mr. Chairman, nice to have you on the program, thanks for your insight.
Skelton: Thank you, I appreciate your asking me.
Tavis: My pleasure.
Skelton: Thank you.
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