Hagel: There are ways to deal with' a president who says 'I don't care'

Ron Brynaert Published: Sunday March 25, 2007
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Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is considering running for president in 2008, stopped just short of threatening impeachment against President George Bush on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning.

Hagel has been a vocal critic of the war in Iraq and recently referenced impeachment in an interview published in April's edition of Esquire Magazine, telling Charles P. Pierce, "The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore. He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."

Hagel disagrees that "right now we're actually seeing the increase in forces actually start to deliver some results in Baghdad," as the White House has argued.

"No, I don't see that," Hagel told Stephanopoulos. "In fact, there are more incidents, not less. Sure, in parts of Baghdad, in overall Baghdad, over the last two or three weeks, we have seen some fewer, but not around the country. Look at what happened two days ago, one of the two vice presidents of Iraq was attacked there at his own compound and is lying mortally wounded in a hospital."

Hagel added, "No, it isn't getting any less dangerous, and the fact is that was predictable, the more American troops you flood into a zone, sure, you're going to see some immediate effect of that but that has nothing to do with the long-term or lasting effect. This solution in Iraq is not going to come by continuing to put more and more Americans in there because we're bogging ourselves down. We are further eroding our credibility and stature in the Middle East. It's going to make it more and more difficult for us to get out because we are going to have to get out."

Hagel mentioned that the Inspector General testified before Congress this week, and "reminded all of us that we have now spent almost a half a trillion dollars in Iraq," and "have put at least 40 billion in economic development there, [w]hich we don't know what we got out of it."

"There's still no oil law," Hagel added. "Billions of dollars have been ripped off, unaccounted for, and one more point on this -- over $12 billion of Iraqi money still sits in the accounts of the Iraqi government that they haven't spent. So something has to give here, George."

Hagel then expanded upon his "impeachment" comments in the Esquire interview.

"Well, any president who says 'I don't care' or 'I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else' or 'I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed,' if a president really believes that, then there are, what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that," Hagel said.

Hagel added, "This is not a monarchy."

"And you think that would be appropriate in this case?" Stephanopoulos asked.

Hagel hedged a little bit, "I didn't say that. I didn't call for it. I didn't predict it. What I was saying, I was laying out options here. No president can dictate to this country, nor should he. This is a constitutional form of government. We have three equal branches of government. No president is bigger than the other two. There are three co-equal branches of government. Article 1 of the Constitution is not the presidency. It's the Congress."

But the Republican senator again referred to impeachment when he said that "there are ways to deal with this."

"So what I was pointing out, George, is that there are ways to deal with this and I would hope the president understands that," Hagel said. "I mean, his comments this weekend, yesterday in his radio address were astounding to me. Saying to the Congress in effect, you don't belong in this. I'm in charge of Iraq."