We're Not Looking For An Exit Strategy. We're Looking For Victory.

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If we were to do what some of the Democrats want, withdraw from Iraq, you could imagine what happens to a man like Karzai or Musharraf, who in effect puts his life on the line every day when he goes to work; the hundreds of thousands of men in Afghanistan and Iraq who signed on for the security forces to fight on our side, in effect, against the evil ones; the overall attitude of the millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq who have gone to the polls and risked their own lives in order to vote and participate in newly created democracies, and suddenly the United States says, Well, gee, it's too tough in Iraq, we're going home. You cannot separate out Iraq from that broader global war on terror. Bin Laden has made the point repeatedly that Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror.

•But hasn't he made that point because we're there? If we weren't there, would he be making that point?

The fact of the matter is we are there, and it is the central struggle at this point. The terrorists' only strategy is to break our will. They can't beat us in a stand-up fight. They never have. They go back, and they cite evidence of Beirut in 1983 and Somalia in 1993, when they killed Americans and then Americans withdrew. They think we don't have the stomach for the fight. For us to do what the Democrats--some Democrats--have suggested in Iraq would simply validate that strategy, would simply say to al-Qaeda, You're right. And all it would do is encourage more of the same.

•Isn't what's happening in Iraq, though, not about al-Qaeda principally but about sectarian war?

There's no question that there is sectarian violence now, but remember how we got to sectarian violence: al-Qaeda. That was their strategy: to kill Shia until they could generate some kind of a response. And the lesson we should have learned with 9/11 is that there may have been a time in our history when we could withdraw behind our borders and be safe and secure here at home. That day passed on 9/11. When we saw the damage that a handful of men could do--trained in the remote training camps of Afghanistan, aided and abetted by a planning cell in Hamburg, Germany, and ending up here killing 3,000 Americans that morning--and when we think of the ultimate threat of deadlier weapons than they had that day, the idea that we can turn our back on the Middle East and walk away from a state that could conceivably become a safe haven for terrorists or another area where they can train and plot and plan, that went out the window on 9/11.

•There's a lot of talk that the Iraq Study Group led by James Baker will provide the Administration after the election with an exit strategy from Iraq.

I know what the President thinks. I know what I think. And we're not looking for an exit strategy. We're looking for victory. And victory will be the day when the Iraqis solve their political problems and are up and running with respect to their own government, and when they're able to provide for their own security. How we get to that objective is what we need to keep in mind. Our strategy hasn't changed. Our tactics change from time to time, and they have to adapt and adjust. We're eager to have thoughts and ideas from experienced people in terms of how we can move forward, in having the Baker-Hamilton group go put fresh eyes on the problem and take a look at it.