'I Hope I'M Wrong'

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is one of the leading proponents of a Senate resolution opposing President Bush's plan to send additional combat troops into Iraq. The nonbinding measure has created divisions within the GOP; some colleagues have accused Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the chief Republican sponsor of the resolution, of undermining the troops, a charge Collins strongly refutes.

Collins traveled to Iraq as part of a Senate delegation in December, and returned convinced that putting more troops into Baghdad would not stop the violence. She joined forces with Warner and Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, in cosponsoring the resolution. The measure is broadly popular with Democrats—but its fate hinges on how many Republicans are willing to break with Bush and vote against his plan.

Collins, one of 22 Senate Republicans up for re-election in '08, is a moderate who often bucks her party. But many of her colleagues are in unfamiliar territory parting with Bush. Their number will help determine how far into lame-duck status the president has journeyed; the group will also help shape America's course in Iraq from here on in. NEWSWEEK's Eleanor Clift caught up with Collins at a GOP retreat Friday, discussing the divisions within her party over the war, and her expectations for the Senate debate and vote taking place this week.

NEWSWEEK: What can you tell me about the mood at the retreat and what you talked about?

Susan Collins: Fortunately, Iraq has not been discussed at all. There was a decision that (Senate Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell made to just not deal with Iraq at the retreat for fear that we would never deal with anything else, so it's a calm retreat. Nobody is agitated, and we're just discussing our agenda and the Democrats' likely agenda. So there isn't anything newsworthy.

Certainly there's been a lot of tension in the caucus in the past week since the resolutions started being discussed.

What are your expectations for the week ahead?

I expect we will spend the entire week discussing Iraq and the various resolutions. I remain hopeful that we—by we, I mean Senator Warner, [Democrat] Ben Nelson [of Nebraska] and I—will be able to get a strong bipartisan vote for our resolution, particularly since we struck some language that was of concern to the more mainstream Democrats, and we added some language putting the Senate on record as being opposed to a cutoff of funds for troops in the field. That, I hope, will help us get more Republican support, but it's really hard to predict. Some of the Democrats on the left who want an immediate cutoff of funding—or not immediate, but want to cut off funding soon—are not happy with the resolution. And then on my side of the aisle there is tremendous pressure on members not to sign on, or vote for, the resolution. So those two factors could diminish our overall vote.

Can you talk about that pressure? Where is it coming from, the White House?

If it's coming from the White House, I haven't seen that. But there's no doubt that the leaders in the Senate are pushing people very, very hard.

One of the reasons you may not be feeling pressure from the White House is that you've made your position so clear that they don't see you as a switchable vote.

That's right.

I'm curious about what kind of pressure you're getting, if that's the right word, from your colleagues—and what kind of pressure you might be exerting on others to try to get them to vote with you.

I'm talking to a number of Republicans to try to persuade them that this is a very reasonable approach. Most of them agree that the president's surge is not the right strategy for Iraq. But they are worried about how a vote for the Warner-Collins-Nelson resolution is going to be interpreted. I don't know that the White House is calling them, but I suspect they are. They've given up on me. I have not had any calls from the White House. I announced my position back in December and told the president my views after I returned from Iraq (in December). So it's not surprising that they've given up on me.

I think the strategy that the White House and the Republican leadership has right now is certainly to try to prevent 60 votes from being reached, but also to try to prevent the majority from being very large for this—from being in the high 50s rather than just a squeaker. And of course Joe Lieberman [the Democrat-turned-Independent from Connecticut] will vote against it. And Sen. [Tim] Johnson [of South Dakota] is still ill—so the numbers aren't quite as good as they might otherwise be.

The argument that the Republican leaders are making is that this is a slap at our troops. And I really reject that argument. I'm doing this because I don't want to send more troops into an impossible situation where they're in the midst of a sectarian battle. And I do find some of the debate to be offensive. The attacks on John Warner, which were even done at a press conference by [Republican] Sen. [David] Vitter [of Louisiana] and [Republican] Sen. [Jim] DeMint [of South Carolina], I just find reprehensible. Here's an individual who has spent his entire life associated with the military—as a World War II veteran, a secretary of the Navy and chairman on the Armed Services Committee … the idea that he is somehow being disloyal to our troops is just preposterous. I feel like I have to be the one to go out there and really defend him because he's so senatorial, he doesn't say these things.

Have you confronted any of Senator Warner's critics?

I actually do plan to do that. I did talk to [Texas Republican Sen. John] Cornyn about it, who participated in that press conference—because he said what we were doing would embolden the enemy, and I did take issue with him on that. And I told The New York Times that I thought the comments were outrageous. But Vitter is not here today at the retreat, and he seems to be the harshest in his comments. It really does offend me. It is not in keeping with the traditions of the Senate, or at least the traditions as we would like them to be.

This line of attack has been used, but generally across party lines. What's different here is it's within your party.

That's right.

What do you hope the practical resolution of this resolution will be?

If it passes with a significant majority vote, it's my hope—and I realize it's a faint hope—that the president would take it to heart and not go forth with this plan, and instead accept our urgings that he reconsider it, that he look at all the alternatives, and that he work with us to try to come up with a bipartisan plan. I, for one, think that we do need more troops in Anbar province because the fight there is not sectarian—it's against Al Qaeda. It's totally different. So what I would do is reallocate troops out of Baghdad. Everyone says, "What's your plan?"—well, I do have a plan. I don't know whether it's the right plan or not, but I do have a plan. I told the president my views after I came back from my trip. I also met with the deputy national-security adviser and talked with him at length about my observations. And I have this hope that if we get a pretty strong vote with some significant Republican support, if we can get 60 or close to it, I hope the president would reconsider. I realize that's a long shot, but it is my hope that it would cause them to pause and think about this.

The evidence to me is so compelling that this is a mistake. [Gen.] John Abizaid testified before the Armed Services Committee in mid-November, saying he had surveyed all his generals, and all the commanders in the field did not think more American troops were the answer. They thought more Iraqi troops, and [more] steps by Iraqis, were needed. I don't believe there are grounds for changing that assessment. And here I am a month later, in mid-December in Iraq, and [Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri] al-Maliki tells me he does not want more American troops, and he's chafing on the restrictions on him as far as directing Iraqi troops. And that was just in December. I'm very skeptical that this is the Iraqi plan, as the administration keeps describing it. I think that Maliki has been forced to accept it, but I don't believe it's his plan.

There have been some hopeful signs, but most experts suspect the insurgents will just lay back for a while and wait out the surge.

That's another issue I raised in one of these hearings. I pointed out that there have been four surges since the initial invasion, and they've been of similar sizes—one was like 30,000 troops around one of the elections. None of them produced a lasting change in the dynamic.

The Congressional Budget Office is saying the 20,000 surge is really a lot more, because they'll need support troops. Does that go to the president's credibility? Is that something that's come up with you and your colleagues?

It has just come out, so we've just started to discuss that. To me, it shows that we're putting even more Americans at risk in an untenable situation in Baghdad. When you add in all the logistical support it also raises another question: do we have that many troops that are available? I don't know. We're putting extraordinary strain on our National Guard and Reserves.

How worried are Republicans about the president's low popularity pulling them down in '08? You're up then, aren't you?

I am up. So much can happen between now and then. I think that was more of a concern frankly for the last election.

It's really stunning that Rep. Chris Shays [of Connecticut] is the only Republican congressman in the Northeast.

It's incredible—and there is no doubt that anyone who is a Republican in the Northeast is an automatic target. But I think that would have been the case regardless of the president. In [recent] presidential elections, Maine has always voted Democratic. The year I won, in 1996, Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton by 19 points in Maine. So this is something I've been living with a long time.

Have you signed up with any presidential candidate for 2008?

I signed up exactly a year ago with McCain. Despite my disagreeing with him on the war, I still think he's the best candidate.

He's sounding pretty gloomy about the war.

You're right.

How will his support for the war affect his presidential chances?

I think so much depends on what happens in the next six months. If the president is determined to go ahead with this plan, and he appears to be determined, I hope it works—for our country, for Iraq, for our soldiers. I hope that I prove to be as wrong as I've ever been in my life. I really mean that because the stakes are so horribly high, and I am convinced that it is a big mistake. But I hope I'm wrong. I told the president that personally.

And the president's reaction?

He really thinks he's right. He really does.

Do you see any contradiction between supporting McCain, who is in favor of escalating the war, and your current role now in trying to stop the escalation?

No, because there isn't going to be any candidate who I agree with 100 percent. This is a major issue, and I'm sure that John wishes he hadn't taken me on the trip (to Iraq) with him in December. That's the real irony. I came back absolutely convinced that additional troops were a mistake, and he came back reinforced in his previously held position that they were needed.

It fascinates me how two people can look at the same situation and come away with completely different views.

I've never seen a more stunning example of it. I, at times, think, gee, were we in the same meetings?

Did you have long debates about it—or conversations about it?

No, that's actually a funny story. When we were in Baghdad, after we finished our meetings, we held a press conference, and we did not discuss what we were going to say. While more troops was certainly a major issue we discussed in all our meetings, it was by no means the only issue. So John gets up and the whole thrust of his comments is, we need more troops. Joe Lieberman is the next speaker, and he gets up and says, "I strongly agree with my good friend John McCain that we need more troops." Obviously, I had come to a different conclusion. Then [South Dakota Republican Sen.] John Thune speaks, and then [South Carolina Republican Sen.] Lindsay Graham speaks—so I felt pretty lonely up there. I kept looking at them: "Did we just hear the same information?"

We hadn't been to Anbar yet at that point. In Anbar we clearly heard a compelling rationale for more troops. But I was just amazed that we drew such different conclusions.

But you know, I agree with John on ethics in government, on lobby reform—I was the third co-sponsor of the campaign-finance bill my first year in the Senate. And we work together on climate-change issues. We've been to Antartica together, so there are a lot of issues where I agree with him. But this is a big one.