Duncan Hunter Interview: His new book, George Bush, Wikileaks and more

I’m posting the interview I had been planning to excerpt from for a lead-in to today’s canceled “live FR cyber-interview” with former Congressman Hunter. Due to technical difficulties at the site this morning, we’ll have Hunter re-scheduled for sometime after Christmas. But he had a lot to say while we talked the other day as he drove a lonely stretch of freeway late at night in Texas, returning from a hunt.

AJM: Hello Congressman. Let me ask a few questions about the book. When you come onto FR live, we obviously want to emphasis the book a little. And I’ll then trail off into a couple of other subjects that people are interested in. But my first question to you is: what was your motivation to write this book?

DH: We won the war. Obama isn’t telling the story. And he wasn’t commending the troops for this remarkable achievement. It needed to be done. That’s why I wrote the story. Really for two reasons: The troops were not being commended for victory, and the American people weren’t being informed about the victory. They were left with this fuzzy idea that somehow the war was just “over”. But the President just neglected to mention that the United States won convincingly.

AJM: Yeah. And for all practical purposes, isn’t it true that by the time Obama took office, the victory had already been achieved?

DH: Well, President Obama took office, obviously, in early ’09. In 2009, we lost fewer troops killed in Iraq - in fact far less than half as many US troops were killed Iraq than US citizens were murdered in Obama’s hometown of Chicago. I’m sure he hasn’t declared that his hometown of Chicago is under siege or subject to a war.

So the three major elements of the war; that is the initial invasion that took down Saddam Hussein in 2003, the turnaround in Anbar province and the crushing of Al Qaeda in western Iraq in 2006, and finally, the defeat of the Mahdi Army in 2008 all took place before Obama arrived on the scene. So essentially, victory had been attained.

While President Obama came to office in early 2009, in September of 2007 they were running 6K races in Ramadi which was, early on in the war, the most dangerous city in Iraq. And the best indicia of the peace that was present and that it was a secure environment was the fact that Congressional Delegations were shopping in some of these towns. When congressmen go shopping in former war zones, you know that the battle is over.

AJM: (laughing) I guess so. Let me read something real quick to you. It’s something I just now pulled up. It is titled: “Iraqis honor American Wounded”. I’ll read you just the first 3 or 4 sentences and get your comment:

“When the Wounded Warriors with Operation Proper Exit visited Basra, Iraq on December 7, they received a warm welcome from the soldiers on the US base, from the ranks of Privates through Major Generals. Another group, perhaps more unexpectedly, also welcomed them: Iraqi Military leaders and civilian leaders.

“Iraqi Air Force Sami Al Tamimy, the Commander of IAF 70th Squadron, hosted the group for lunch and spoke with the group of Americans that had been wounded in Iraq years before.”

AJM: So, it sounds like even our Iraqi counterparts in the military there are still appreciative of the sacrifices.

DH: You know, there were some strong bonds formed between American military personnel and the Iraqi Army, which we essentially built from scratch. And I think in the book, maybe the best example is that between Lieutenant Colonel Bob Castellvi, rather Colonel Bob Castellvi, United States Marine Corps, who was the chief advisor to the 1st Iraq Division, and his counterpart, the Commander of the 1st Iraq Division, General Tariq. Castellvi stayed in the same location with Tariq through his entire tenure. They bunked only a few feet apart at the headquarters. Castellvi ate Iraqi food. He fought side by side with Tariq, as did all of Castellvi’s Marines. It got to the point that when a person was wounded, whether Iraqi or Marine, everybody grieved the losses.

There was a tight bond formed between Iraqi leaders and also with Iraqis in the rank and file. I hope those bonds, and the American example - where Americans showed the Iraqis how, when you went through a city, you followed your battle line with a humanitarian distribution of food and medicine and water, and you preceded your combat operations with town meetings with community leaders, to let them know that you were simply going after the terrorists, that you had no intention of hurting civilians - remain. The Iraqis took a lot of that to heart. A lot of the ‘American Model’ has been followed by the leading Iraqi units. That’s something we should be proud of.

Now, in Iraq, there are a thousand paths to disaster. It’s not going to be productive to contemplate all the things that could go wrong, especially when you are side by side with a nation that is intent on building nuclear weapons; and that is Iran. Iran wants to keep a semi-unstable Iraq; an Iraq that is subject to their influence. Of course, you’ve got that border on one side and you’ve got the Syrian border on the other. So they are in a very difficult neighborhood. But the Americans that went over there succeeded in their mission, which was to leave a country that was a friend, not an enemy of the United States, which would not be a launching pad for future terrorist activities, and which would have a modicum of democracy.

And they just had a big political fight going on over who was going to be the Prime Minister. They finally re-selected al-Malaki after he got a majority of the parliamentary votes. But the key for the Americans is, that he got a majority of the VOTES. He won with ballots, not bullets. That’s the American way.

This war was a very painful wrenching of power from the Sunnis, who were at once a minority in Iraq; but at the same time, the Sunnis were more militarily capable, and they counted as their own Saddam Hussein. Following the takedown of Saddam, the Americans essentially took power from the minority, pursuant to their model of one man, one vote. That was painful. It encountered some fierce resistance. Al Qaeda came in.

One thing that Americans don’t appreciate is that Al Qaeda has now been thoroughly discredited in Iraq. The Sunni tribes at one point turned against Al Qaeda, joined our Soldiers and Marines in crushing Al Qaeda in Anbar province, and later, throughout all of Iraq. An Al Qaeda fighter who enters an area held by the Sunni tribes, that is western Iraq, will be quickly killed. And if he enters the Shiite controlled areas, the places where there are more Shia than Sunnis, he will also be killed in that location. So, we are leaving Iraq with Al Qaeda having become persona non grata, totally discredited, with all the shine worn off. And that is good in the Long War we are fighting against Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists.

AJM: That’s a good point. As you know, I’ve read your book. I think it was very well written and a very enjoyable read. But one thing you did not cover in great detail, probably because it did not need as much detail, was the activity in the Kurdish regions in the north. Tell us a little what you know about the Kurdish region, because our Airborne did drop down in there and partnered with the Kurds right off the bat. They didn’t have to win them over.

DH: Yeah. The Kurds have been long time allies of the United States. That’s grown largely from the ‘no fly zone’ we had established to keep Saddam Hussein from dropping bombs and poison gas on them over the years preceding the invasion by American and allied forces.

The Kurds have a singular, pre-eminent requirement. And that is a reasonable relationship along the edges of their boundaries with the central government of Iraq. And interestingly, the diplomats who worked things out in these contested regions, like Khanaqin, which is the entryway into Iran, north of Baghdad, the real diplomats who worked things out have been the Generals and the field grade officers. The Peshmerga, the Kurdish military, had their counterparts, the leaders of the Iraqi military. That’s who they worked with. So this relationship will require a continued, robust participation in the central government, which the Kurds have aggressively pursued. It is also going to require a lot of diplomacy along these boundaries of heavily Kurdish occupied territory in Iraq that is presently occupied by non-Kurds.

I think they’ll make it work. It’s going to have rough edges at times. Again, the 1st Iraqi Division, including General Tariq and several of his subordinate officers, were instrumental in making peace, if you will, between the Kurdish brigades who were occupying Khanaqin, and the government. Both Kurds and the central government were claiming that particular border area for their own.

You’re going to have a similar problem, especially in the oil rich areas where Saddam Hussein in years past displaced Kurds. He basically gave pink slips for lots of territory to non-Kurds. And now that you have peace and Saddam Hussein is gone, you have Kurds coming back attempting to reclaim their illegitimately taken land. Of course, you have Arabs and other non-Kurds who have pink slips of their own, who claim they’ve been there, they are settled and established. This is going to require some working out. So, the Kurdish “issue” for the central government is all about participation by the Kurds in the government, being reasonable with them, and setting up proper institutions for the settlement of these land disputes. I think they can do it. The key isn’t to have a perfect mechanism for settling these problems. The key is here is to make sure they do it without gunfire.

AJM: Speaking of gunfire, as you probably know, in recent months there have been several militia attacks, or terrorist attacks aimed at some of the Catholics and other Christian minorities in Iraq. Is that something the United States needs to insert itself into? Even though the government gives good lip service to protecting them, it’s obviously not working as well as it could.

DH: Well, it’s always going to be difficult to protect the minority rights. In fact, in Mosul, you also have a very tiny Jewish community. So you’ve got, besides the majority Shiites and the large minority, the Sunnis, you have smaller, less powerful – in fact, in some cases, non-powerful – religious minorities. So they need to be protected, absolutely. Now, the key here, I think, for the United States, is to keep heavy pressure on the central government. The people who are waging these attacks, I think have a political intent there. It’s probably some of the same malevolent intent that was manifested in the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara in 2006, which was intended by Al Qaeda to start a civil war, along with a number of other acts they undertook.

Those that wish the United States harm understand that we are very protective of the Christian minority. We understand it needs protection. I think we have to lean hard on the central government to make sure they have lots and lots of protection for that tiny minority.

AJM: Yeah. In your book, you give proper kudos, so to speak, to President George Bush for not following the Nixon-Ford path of retreat from Vietnam. He instead doubled down, when all the political winds were blowing against him. And I think that is very well deserved. It’s one of the things that I very much admired about George W. Bush. But aside from his Iraq policy, what do you think about his eight years in office?

DH: That would require a whole new book. But listen, I liked the President in some ways and obviously disagreed with him strongly in others.

Incidentally, with respect to Iraq, the President made a mistake by allowing, by essentially acquiescing to his envoy, Ambassador Bremer, in 2004, after Bremer essentially demanded an attack on Fallujah after the 4 contractors were murdered. Then after the Sunnis exerted pressure and the British exerted pressure, a few days later Bremer reversed himself and demanded the Marines stop the attack. The President basically acquiesced to what Bremer presented in their video conferences; a fait accompli after that was done. That mistake greatly encouraged Al Qaeda. The Arab press pivoted to a theme that the United States forces had been beaten in Fallujah. Their first theme was that we were brutalizing the city of Fallujah. Then when we stopped the attack, they trumpeted that the Americans had been beaten. That brought more Al Qaeda to Fallujah like rats to a dump.

Ultimately, all those jihadists who stayed and fought in the 2nd Battle of Fallujah were killed. If Machiavelli had planned that operation, he couldn’t have been more effective at luring a world inventory of Al Qaeda types into Fallujah were they were hammered. But that was a mistake by George Bush to allow Bremer to call the shots there, to send the Marines in precipitously when they should have just killed the people that lynched the Americans. But then backing out after a few days, that was the worst of all worlds.

When he pursued the Surge, the President did exactly the right thing. That was the movement that allowed the counter-insurgency operations we were undertaking in Anbar province to essentially be replicated in Baghdad and its environs.

With respect to the overall Bush policies, I think he did a good job of trying to keep taxes low. He did not, however, follow through on the Border Fence, which was a law that I wrote. Since it was a law that mandated the construction of a real border fence, he did install some of it. But I would say the Bush Administration got away with as little border fence, as little work as they could possibly do, and still, in their minds, be considered legally compliant with the statute that we passed. It wasn’t. So I don’t give him a high grade on Border Control.

And one thing I think is a problem for both parties, and was for Bush, is this blind adherence to so-called “free trade”, which allows countries like China to essentially take the American industrial base, with all the economic and security ramifications to this transplantation. It is a major mistake by American leadership. The tragedy of so-called free trade, which is in essence a one-way street for America to give away its industrial base to other countries, is now becoming manifest in what appears to be now a long term high unemployment rate.

AJM: One of the things that you had suggested during your presidential primary campaign in 2008 was to eliminate taxes, or at least bring them down as low as possible, on manufacturing in this country.

AJM: I think that was a great idea. There is no reason why we shouldn’t be the number one attractant to manufacturing, whether homegrown or foreign invested. Of course, that’s gone nowhere to date and I wonder if you don’t blame your own party, the Republican Party, which had total control for a number of years during the Bush Administration, for not pursuing much lower corporate or manufacturing taxes.

DH: Well yes. I think we’d actually increase overall tax revenue by eliminating manufacturing taxes. If you can keep a company that employs a thousand workers in the United States, if you keep that company from going to China, you’ve got 1000 workers who are not going to be on the government dole in the US, taking unemployment and other benefits. Instead of riding that wagon, they are going to be pulling that wagon with weekly paychecks, or monthly paychecks. And they are going to be paying taxes, not depleting them. So overall, by having a business friendly climate, and of course the centerpiece of a business friendly climate is low tax rates, the United States, I think, would actually increase overall tax revenue.

For example we have some industries completely gone. I don’t believe we have any televisions made in the United States. If there are, it’s very few of them. The United States gains NOTHING by having a high tax rate, for example, on an industry which is almost non-existent. And similarly, you have industries across the spectrum which are in the process of leaving right now, or will leave in the near future. And you have other industries that are set to spring up which are a function of American innovation, which is still very strong. We’re still the guys that do the designs and the blueprints for new products across the world. The problem is, in the old days we’d take those designs and blueprints and we’d build it. For example, a manufacturing center called the ‘automotive industrial complex’, where Henry Ford and others built a huge manufacturing jobs engine that allowed Americans to harvest the great innovation and creativity of our automotive engineers who designed these cars.

Today, when we design a product, we immediately ship it off to China to have it produced in large numbers and we employ large numbers of Chinese. They are allowed to harvest, essentially, the seed planted by Americans. So we must make America productive again in the sense of manufacturing and harvesting of US innovation. That is something neither party has done. And I think it is going to be necessary if we want to have an unemployment rate that maintains at something less than 10% overall, for the long term.

AJM: Good point. Now, dovetailing with that situation, if we wanted to take the corporate tax rate on the manufacturers down to zero or near zero, we’d end up with a huge fight in the WTO with our European and our Asian trading partners, complaining that it is illegal. If I recall correctly, you wanted to get us the hell out of the WTO anyway.

DH: Yeah. But actually, that would be compliant with WTO because it would not be product specific and it wouldn’t be trade specific. The United States reserves the right to raise and lower its taxes of all types. And if we lowered or reduced or eliminated manufacturing taxes across the board, that would not come into conflict with the WTO. But the whole idea of WTO, I think to some degree, is based on this idealistic notion that if we give away our industrial base that at some point we are going to go to Heaven. (laughs). It was inspired by a guy named Adam Smith who lived in an era when you sheared sheep on the Scottish Highlands, and Spain made wine and Italy made fine brocades. And the idea was is that everybody would do what they do best. As it’s been pointed out by a number of people, today you could move an assembly line half way around the world in 24 hours.

And the clarion call of these dislocation, or relocation management teams is that they can move your assembly line to places like China, and instead of paying $27 per loaded hour for workers, you’ll pay $27 per day and there will be no blip in the production line and no diminution of quality. So essentially, by trading out the heartblood of this country, which is American blue collar workers, the investors are rushing to China and in the long term, damaging this country and damaging the futures of their children. If they plan on having children and grandchildren who can have productive lives, they are going in the wrong direction.

AJM: I agree with that. Now back to Iraq, the Iranians obviously are going to continue to try to meddle into that region and into their neighbor. And they have some allies in the Iraqi government, at least a few of them. So what do you see in the future of America’s and Iraq’s dealings with Iran?

DH: To some degree the government of Iraq and the people of Iraq have been inoculated against Iran. They fought a war with Iran. But also, Maliki knows that Muqtada al-Sadr who is at times aligned with his party, and actually helped elevate Maliki to his position of Prime Minister at one point, and was very instrumental and central to this deal that just maintained the prime ministership for Maliki; Maliki understands that this is the same Muqtada al-Sadr whose Mahdi Army was trying to destabilize Iraq and hurt and diminish him. So in March of 2008, Maliki sent the 1st Iraqi Division down south to destroy al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in the oil rich city of Basra, which is the terminus for Iraq’s oil industry. The Mahdi Army had Basra firmly under its control. The 1st Iraqi Division went down there and cleaned house on al-Sadr’s militia. They uncovered thousands of tons of Iranian supplied equipment, some of which had just been minted – built and produced in Iran.

And after that, Muqtada al-Sadr only got 5.9% of the national vote, even though the Washington Post predicted that he would be the big winner. He soon learned that the kiss of death is to be anointed by the Washington Post if you’re a politician. (laughs).

So Muqtada al-Sadr was diminished in that. And interestingly, the other party, the SCIRI, the other big Shiite party which also had some connections with Iran, because the Iraqi people perceived those connections, it too did poorly in the national elections after the Battle of Basra. So that indicated to me that the Iraqi people and their leadership are somewhat inoculated to this Iranian influence. Certainly the Sunnis and Kurds are. But I think a lot of the Shia leadership in Iraq is as well.

But we have to live with the fact that Iran is a neighbor to Iraq and there is a common Shiite bond there in some ways. They’ve got shrines in Iraq that are visited by tens of thousands of pilgrims from Iran, so they have that connection. It’s a fact of life. Nonetheless, I think they are skeptical and wary of Iran’s intentions. And Maliki, who knows that al-Sadr, with Iran’s help, tried to destabilize him, knows that full well.

AJM: And that’s a good thing. And actually, Allawi, a secular Shiite, it was his party that won the most votes. And he is no friend to Iran.

DH: Yeah. He brought in a lot of Sunni votes to his block. Allawi was strongly supported by the Sunnis. And Maliki has also done a lot of things with the Sunnis that have reflected reconciliation. He’s moved a lot of projects into Anbar province. He’s gone out and met with Sunni tribal and political leaders, at the recommendation of Americans. He’s also taken on fellow Shiites like al-Sadr. When he took on the JAM Army, the Mahdi Army, he very strongly demonstrated to the Sunnis that he was much more evenhanded than they had anticipated. They always expected him to take on Sunni insurgents. That’s an easy one for a Shiite leader. But when he took on Muqtada al-Sadr, that brought the Sunnis, who as you know in 2008 were boycotting the legislature, back to the capital.

AJM: Yeah. I think people remember Allawi from when he first was in power. He inherited a whirlwind and he did the best he could. And today, he’s still part of the government. That gives me hope that the radical ‘religious’ Shiites won’t dominate. And they didn’t in that last election.

I know you’ve been out hunting with the wounded warriors, but the biggest story these days seems to be lately these Wikileaks, from that guy over in Belgium or Switzerland or wherever the hell he is, that somehow got a hold of State Department correspondence then dumped it out on the internet. Obviously there are some embarrassing things, the way our diplomats talk about different issues and leaders. What do you think is the appropriate role for the US pursuing him?

DH: Here’s what I think you’ve got to do. I think we have to punish the leakers of classified information severely. You know at some point, if you give out this information, you reveal at some point sources and methods. People, or adversaries, will understand how that information came about. That in the past has resulted in executions of our guys, people in the intelligence field. So what I’m saying is that the release of classified information is a deadly game with deadly ramifications. And the notion that some of it is “OK”, and that the person who releases it makes that call as to whether or not it may hurt somebody, or if someone is liable to be executed as a result, that’s not the way to operate. This cannot be a judgment call on the part of a leaker.

The other thing, the national security aspect of it, is this in my estimation. You’ve got a low ranking enlisted person, who as I understand it, released a ton of classified information. That begs the question of how one person, a PFC, can pull the trigger that literally dumps massive loads of classified information into the public. There should more stringent safeguards on it.

Having said that, a lot of the so-called Wikileaks are simply what a lot of State Department people do best; and that is talk incessantly, often without a lot of direct value to America or American policy. But some things they’ve got which came out of this were interesting. But even more so to folks like Ahmadinejad; that a lot of his fellow muslim leaders who were publicly protective of him, behind closed doors were saying “when are you going to get rid of Ahmadinejad, and when is the United States going to take care of that nitwit”. (laughs).

He found out he’s a legend in his own mind, but not necessarily in the minds of his colleagues in that region.

AJM: There are some good things that come out of this. That’s one. I won’t argue that.

Now, let’s talk about you for just a second. What are your immediate plans and what do you have in the hopper?

DH: I want to spend time focusing on Afghanistan. We are at war in Afghanistan. We’ve got Americans dying there. And as you know, a member of this family, who is central family in my book, the Kelly family; Robert, who fought in Fallujah as a PFC, came back, got commissioned at Quantico, and was leading his platoon in Afghanistan in the most dangerous place when he was killed there a couple of weeks ago.

I think Americans have to remind themselves that this is a shooting war where our young people are going out there and making the ultimate sacrifice for us. And thousands more are being put in places of separation and inconvenience, and in many cases, extreme danger. We need to win that war and do the right thing. And I haven’t focused on Afghanistan while I’ve been wrapping this book up. I want to now focus on it and make some recommendations to the Congress, to the DOD and to the Administration. I’m talking about putting together some recommendations for courses of action with respect to several areas. With respect to force protection, with respect to the participation of our NATO allies, with respect to what I would call the ‘long term mission achievement’ in Afghanistan – in other words WINNING in Afghanistan.

AJM: Would that make a good platform, out of several platforms, to make another run for President on?

DH: Well, I’m not interested in doing that right now. I think I can make more of an impact and be a little more credible if I don’t put together these recommendations for actions while I’m wearing a campaign button.

AJM: OK. Seeing the field starting to form up – it’s that time of year, the midterms are over – and folks are coming out of the woodwork. Have you seen anybody who has given you inspiration?

DH: Well, as you know, last time I campaigned for Huckabee in 2008 after I got out of the race. I liked him because I think he understood the economic/security problem as it relates to our China policy. So I liked that. But it’s too early to make that determination.

You know one thing I liked that I’ve seen to a lesser degree in the congressional campaigns, is seeing people coming off the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan and running for office. You’ve got some tremendous leaders who invited and merited the trust of the American people in these long term military operations. We’ve been at war now for almost 10 years since 9-11. These are some of our best public servants, and I’m thinking about guys like Petraeus and Odierno, Jack Keane, retired General Jack Keane. There are a number of folks who I think merit at least some discussion regarding potential presidential campaigns. I’d like to see that.

AJM: Other than Keane, Petraeus and Odierno are still in battle, if I’m not mistaken. So they’d have to retire first and come out. I’m not sure that’s the most useful thing for their talents. But it has been awhile since we’ve had a General in charge of things.

DH: It is one dimension of the presidency, an important one. But what these guys have shown, for example, what Petraeus has shown, is that they can win a long and difficult war. And guys like Jim Mattis, the Commander of the 1st Marine Division, the present Commander of Centcom, have also shown enormous talent for solving huge problems. And that talent can be applied to problems beyond war fighting.

AJM: Of course. But you don’t necessarily know what the rest of their politics are. So that’s kind of a wild card with some of these guys. Chances are they are fairly conservative, in general, but I don’t want them to say “hey, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? – we can get rid of that”, like some of these folks, like Admiral Mike Mullen.

DH: I don’t want to see Mike Mullen running for president. That much is clear. (laughs)

AJM: I know one of your friends is considering strongly whether to run or not, and that’s Mike Pence.

AJM: He’s also one of these Kool Aid ‘free traders’, but that’s about his only flaw.

AJM: But let me say something about the Free Trade issue, Congressman. You were basically the loudest voice in your party opposing this. I think maybe Henry Hyde was on your side too, wasn’t he?

AJM: Now it’s always been taken for the last 10 or 15 years, 20 years even, as an article of faith amongst Republicans, including the talk radio folks, that free trade is the conservative position.

DH: And actually, it was the opposite up until the 1980 or so. Maybe until the mid 1980s.

AJM: But even Reagan wasn’t a free trade patsy. I sent you that article from the CATO institute where they berated old Reagan for being more of a “fair trader” than a so-called free trader.

DH: Exactly. You know what Reagan said one time during the trade wars his Administration was involved in? This may have been when he saved Harley Davidson. He said, “when one side is cheating, there is no free trade”. What we do is acquiesce to China’s cheating, because the beneficiaries of that cheating, who are getting subsidies from communist China to export their products into the United States, are largely “American” companies. So there is an American stock holder interest which is in direct conflict with the interests of our nation to maintain a robust industrial base, and the legitimate interests of some American workers.

AJM: But the thing I’ve noticed in the last, I would say more than a year or so, is that Michael Savage, the big talk radio host has come to your side. He recognizes this “free trade” is nonsense; that it is not even close to being free trade. Just managed trade on another level. And then Laura Ingraham, who is one of the bright lights of conservative talk radio has come around to the Hunter view of how to deal with trade – to treat each and every one as a business deal. I’m hopeful that the ship is turning now. And it’s just like the talk about the border. You and a handful of allies were the ones swimming upstream for years, pushing these policies to knock the amnesty out and put up some legitimate fencing and enforce the deportation laws. And now, finally, that seems to have become an article of faith among many Republicans, certainly among conservatives.

AJM: Are you going to get involved directly in any political think tanks or organizations?

DH: No, I think I’m going to be involved in helping candidates, getting good conservative candidates elected. I was looking at the map the other day. I’ve campaigned in every state in America for candidates for Senate or House, except for a couple. Indiana. For some reason I missed Indiana, and I believe North Dakota. I think it’s a valuable thing to do. But I want to concentrate on this war right now. I want to see an America that becomes more focused on the Afghanistan War.

AJM: It sometimes seems like and afterthought, especially with the current administration.

AJM: Well you can make it up to Indiana, if Mr. Pence decides he’ll run, and it sounds like he’s leaning that way.

DH: Well let me tell you. Mike Pence is a great friend. I really like him and I really respect him. Great guy.

AJM: The other guy who I think is going to be a good one if he decides to run is Jim DeMint. He’s kind of been “aw shucks, I don’t really want to do it, but I’d be good if I had to” type. I think if we get that kind of conservative in, I think we’ll be able to beat back Obama. If we get another of what I call a Rudy McRomney type, I think we are looking at 4 more years of the socialist.

AJM: We got John McCain in last time, right? He won, and the frontrunners were all fairly liberal. All the monied guys, Giuliani, Romney, McCain. Everyone agreed we had to veer away from the Bush model, but to a more moderate one? Ridiculous. But as soon as McCain won, you had scores of moderate Republicans, like Colin Powell, jumping over to support the democrat! They finally get their guy, the perfect moderate Republican, and then they don’t even support him. We can’t make that mistake again.

DH: It’s tough to keep the rabbits from hopping out of the cage, isn’t it?

Thank you. That was a very nice interview with Mr.Hunter.
When will we grow up and realize that our politicians have to be pragmatists, such as this man appears to be? For example, politically he doesn’t waste time with a proverbial Pepsi Challenge over candidates. He sounds like he’d weigh positions as a straight matter of course and throw his support behind the best of the available candidates.
I’ve often admired his tact and his solid conservative values. He is like the antidote to the failed Obama megastardom (’you have to elect me to find out what I am actually’). Me I’ve always admired pragmatists such as D.Hunter and J.Bolton for their simplicity - what they purport to be is what you likely discover they are. Also, they have never shown themselves to be coarse pragmatists and instead seem to be legitimate learners, ready and even eager for new information through exposure to facts. I despise those who argue from a position against newly acquired facts. In Duncan’s case he may question the situation that held America at such a disadvantage following Gulf War 1 (our lack of resolve to finish things under Bush 41 and instead allowing it to fester under Saddam, the status quo). But he doesn’t waste time with it - he tries to deal with the situation as it stands. Here we are. We need to do this. I can admire that.
I’m no politician and actually question our wisdom in bothering to invade with our forces an enemy we do not want as a citizen, but once these things were set in motion I wanted an entirely apolitical, pragmatic, military approach to the outcome. I will enjoy reading Mr.Hunter’s account.

I believe these will be quite worthwhile. Hunter is not through with politics. Even if he does not run for elected office again, he will certainly be on some short lists for SecDef. So the interviews will be good for posterity. He doesn’t have to worry about contradicting himself because he is not the type of politician who worries about which way the winds are blowing then subsequently tailors his answers.

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