Rick Santorum in State of Pennsylvania Archives

On Homeland Security: War against Islamic fascism will be won or lost in America

SANTORUM: My opponent has no plan. All you suggested with your plan is more Special Forces. Do you support more intelligence gathering?

CASEY: Absolutely.

SANTORUM: The Democratic Party has gone out and said that you have serious questions about our intelligence surveillance programs.

CASEY: You’re debating me, not the Party. We should keep the programs and keep the wiretaps.

SANTORUM: I think you just fundamentally misunderstand the problem. You’re saying that somehow or another the terminology doesn’t matter. You believe that we’re going to win or lose this war on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t. I think we’ll win or lose this war right here in America.

On Principles & Values: I agree with Bush 98% of the time, but I say when I don’t

SANTORUM: Absolutely. I agree with the president a vast majority of the time. When I agree with him, I say it. And when I don’t agree with him, I say it, too.

CASEY: I think what the people of Pennsylvania expect and deserve is someone who’s going to be truly independent. Being a rubber stamp for the president is not in the best interest of the people of America.

Q: But have the Democrats sometimes been obstructionist, & opposed everything that Bush proposed?

CASEY: I’m sure they have. But when you have two politicians that agree 98% of the time, one of them’s really not necessary. We need someone who’s going to be truly independent, who has the character and the integrity to stand up to his party and his president, especially at a time of war

On War & Peace: Iraq: We have a great game plan, and Rumsfeld does fine job

SANTORUM: I think Secretary Rumsfeld has done a fine job as the defense secretary, and the problems that we are confronting are problems of an enemy that’s much more potent than I think anybody ever anticipated. You know, we have a great game plan. We need to go out there and continue to fight this war on Islamic fascism.

On War & Peace: War in Iraq is one front in war on Islamic fascism

On War & Peace: Iran is at the heart of the Iraq war

SANTORUM: That makes it more complex. The radical Sunni terrorist groups, as well as Shia nation-states like Iran, want to defeat the United States.

Q: But stay on Iraq, Senator.

SANTORUM: I’m coming back to it. But you can’t ignore the fact that Iraq is simply a front. And Iran, the principal stoker of this Shia/Sunni sectarian violence, would love nothing more to see than the Iraqi democracy fail. Iran is the one that’s causing most of the problems in Iraq, and, obviously, with Israel today. Iran is the country that we need to focus on in this war against Islamic fascism.

Q: So Iran now has more influence in Iraq than they did before Saddam Hussein?

SANTORUM: I would say that they have more influence in a free country than they would within a totalitarian regime.

On War & Peace: Saddam had no new WMDs, but did have old WMDs

SANTORUM: We have found weapons of mass destruction, they were older weapons, but we have found chemical weapons.

Q:The president has accepted the report of his two task forces which said, “Iraq did not have the weapons our intelligence believed were there.”

SANTORUM: There were all sorts of weapons that our intelligence believed were there. So far we have not found any new weapons. But we have found over 500 old chemical weapons.

Q: Was Saddam a serious and grave danger to America?

SANTORUM: I believe that Iraq was a serious and grave danger to America.

Q: Based on what?

SANTORUM: Based on the fact that they were working with other terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, and that they had camps that they were training Baathists and terrorists.

On War & Peace: Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but still a necessary war

SANTORUM: As far as we know, that’s the case. But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a working relationship with a variety of different terrorist organizations. In fact, the Saddam Hussein government was giving terrorists bounties for killing Israelis.

Q: But knowing what you know now about the weapons of mass destruction, the primary rationale for the war, would you believe that the Iraq war was a choice or a necessity?

SANTORUM: I believe that it was a war of necessity because they were a threat. It is important that we are in the Middle East right now and confronting this broad war against Islamic fascism. The bottom line is that we are now almost 5 years from Sept. 11th. We have not had any kind of terrorist attack in this country, because we’ve taken it to them. We’ve disrupted their networks, not just in Afghanistan. Iraq was a state sponsor of terror, and we went after them.

On War & Peace: My Iraq plan, and my opponent’s plan, is same as Bush’s

SANTORUM: The plans that my opponent has laid out in some of his speeches and I’ve laid out in mine are basically the same thing the administration is trying to do. You’re trying to get the Iraqis to take control of the security situation. We are trying to get international cooperation to get money in there. We’re trying to improve their quality of life. We’re trying to stabilize their democracy and make sure their constitution is defended.

Q: Would you put more troops in Iraq?

SANTORUM: I don’t know if it’s a question of more troops or less troops. I think the focus should not be Iraq, but should be Iran.

On War & Peace: Needed exit strategy & objective in Kosovo, but not in Iraq

SANTORUM: Yes, they have.

Q: Why?

SANTORUM: Because the Bush administration hasn’t laid out the complexity of dealing with this war and, and how it fits into a broader picture.

Q: When President Clinton took troops into Kosovo, you said, “President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He is yet to tell Congress how much this operation will cost. And, he has not informed our nation’s Armed Forces about how long they will be away from home.“ Do you believe you should have the same standard for President Bush? He should give a defined objective, he should give an exit strategy, he should give a cost, and he should give a timeline for Iraq, just as you were demanding President Clinton give for Kosovo?

SANTORUM: No. Because Kosovo and Slobodan Milosevic were never a security threat to the US. It wasn’t even close.

On War & Peace: Sanctions against Iran, despite Administration disagreement

SANTORUM: No, we have an opportunity to go after them by using pro-democracy forces outside and within Iran, and to crack down with additional sanctions. That’s the one-two punch [outlined in my proposed bill]. The administration so far has opposed me on that.

Q: No military option?

SANTORUM: That’s part of the 2% that President Bush doesn’t agree with me on.

CASEY: There’s no question that the policy of our government has to be to do everything possible to make sure that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon. And we’ve got to use sanctions in a very skilled way. We agree that sanctions have got to be very tough.

SANTORUM: You would have voted for my bill?

CASEY: Absolutely. I have to ask about the most prominent critic of Iran’s sanctions, Dick Cheney. Are you going to denounce him for continually opposing sanctions?

SANTORUM: I disagree with him on sanctions, but I don’t denounce people because I disagree with them.