Dean: Bush does not have the "credibility" or "capability" to attack Iran.

[madfloridian]

Transcript in pdf and video clip here:

Transcript and video clip of Dean on Face the Nation

SCHIEFFER: "I want to ask you about some politics in a minute. I want to go back to one international question. The president said earlier this week that if diplomacy fails, that we may have to resort--he said every option will be on the table including military action, concerning Iran, if they go ahead with plans that--and we begin to think they're building a nuclear weapon. What's your response to that?

Dr. DEAN: My response that that's the proper thing for any president to say. When I was
running for president I said the same thing. You can never take any option off the table. The problem with this president is he doesn't have the credibility either at home or abroad to make that into a believable statement. The problem is the president's got 138,000 people pinned down in Iraq. He doesn't have the capability to do anything in Iran nor the international support to do anything because of his extraordinary blunders so far in defending the country.

So while no president can ever take any option off the table, this president's words are--can't be take seriously by people either at home or abroad. He has allowed a real danger to the United States, which is an atomic or nuclear-armed Iran to be--to go for five years while he has focused on what I frequently refer to as the...

SCHIEFFER: But if he said we may have to resort to military action, you can see circumstances where you would support that.

Dr. DEAN: What I--I didn't say that, Bob. What I said was...(Schieffer did that to him twice, and Dean corrected him at once.)

SCHIEFFER: No. I'm just asking.

Dr. DEAN: Well, that sounded like a statement, not a question. I think obviously you have to look at what the circumstances are. The problem, again, with this president is he squandered our resources in Iraq, which was not a danger to the United States. He doesn't have much left to fight a country that is a danger to the United States. So while he--any president should always say, Democrat or Republican, that no option should be taken off the table, he lacks the credibility both here and abroad to actually exercise that option. He shouldn't say it, because it can't be delivered upon."