This Week with George Stephanopoulos Transcript
SHOW: THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (10:00 AM ET) - ABC
HEADLINE: DISCUSSION SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
BODY:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS
(Off Camera) And we're back with three senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana, ranking member Joseph Biden of Delaware and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. Welcome to all of you.
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL,
REPUBLICAN, FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
Thank you.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) We just spoke with King Abdullah. And he talked about the frustrations that Iraqis are feeling with the US presence and I want to read you something from "The Washington Post" because US troops are starting to get frustrated as well. Here's what a Sergeant with the 4th Infantry Division told "The Washington Post." "What are we getting into here? The war is supposed to be over but everyday we hear of another soldier getting killed. Is it worth it? Saddam isn't in power anymore. The locals want us to leave. Why are we still here?" Senator Lugar?
SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR,
CHAIRMAN, FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
We're involved in nation building. It is important we all understand that. That the President say that. That we say that, that it is a five-year plan of stability for a country that is bankrupt, that is dangerous. So to leave as we usually do is to leave a situation which is an incubator for terrorism and to short circuit the whole process we're back to where we were with al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We have to understand the frustrations of Iraqis and our own troops. But we ought to understand as Americans that this is an opportunity for a democracy, for a vibrant economy, for a model that is different in the world and in the Middle East. And we're into it. We better make it work.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Biden, Senator Lugar talks about a five-year plan. Does that mean we expect to have more than 100,000 troops in Iraq for five years?
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN,
DEMOCRAT, FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
I believe so, George. I was on your program about six months ago. Remember, Senator Lugar and I held hearings. And we didn't talk about the day after, we talked about the decade after. The President of the United States in September of last year looked at me in the midst of seven or eight other congressional leaders and said that he would be straight with the American people and tell them that he knew we were going to have to keep thousands of troops in Iraq for an extended period of time, at a cost of billions of dollars. It is time, I'm the Democrat here so maybe it's inappropriate, but it's time the President go to the American people and tell them the facts and the facts are Johnny and Jane ain't coming home any time soon. We're in this. Shinseki was right. We've talking about tens of thousands of troops for an extended period of time. We knew that from the beginning. It is time the President leveled to the American people because no foreign policy can be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. They have not been informed of that fact.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Voice Over) Senator Hagel, do you believe that President Bush has been straight with the American people about how long it's gonna take and how many troops we need?
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
No, I don't think the administration has planned this very well nor have they come forward with a complete understanding of the kind of investment that the United States is going to have to put into Iraq. Chairman Lugar was exactly right. This is an investment for America's future. We all support that. We know how critical it is for our future stability, security, and I think the American public will understand it, do understand it and will support it, but they need to know the long-term investment here and that means in resources and in lives and in presidential leadership.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Lugar, you met with Secretary of State Powell and Ambassador Bremer yesterday. One of the other frustrations we're hearing from the troops is that they're too thinly deployed. Don't have the right equipment for peacekeeping. Is Ambassador Bremer ready to address that now?
SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR
I hope so, and I think he will. I think it is a police function as opposed to a military financial function. We can all argue whether more military police should have come along with the troops that won the war quickly. But in any event police of some sort are needed now, preferably Iraqi trainees. The Arab League person in one of the panels I was on today volunteered people from the Arab League to help out and we ought to take them up on that.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) But just to be clear, volunteered to help with police training. Very few nations have come forward and said willing to send troops now.
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN
That's not true, George. The fact of the matter is I met with Lord Robertson, the guy running the NATO operation. He makes it clear and made it clear before that NATO is prepared to send troops to be in place on the ground ready to shoot to secure the, Iraq now but we've not been asked. I mean, we still go through this feel, the French have indicated they're willing to participate. The Germans have went in. We just haven't gotten over this thing yet. This is a time to internationalize this. Bring in NATO. We have been bipartisan way, we've been talking for six months about the need to bring in NATO in the aftermath of this, to internationalize this. And still keeping command, we're not talking about blue helmets turning this over to the UN. And NATO is prepared to do it but in fact we have not reached a decision at the, within the administration to ask them to do this.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Hagel, why do you think the administration is reluctant to do that?
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
Well, I think to be fair here to the administration, they're having to make up this as they go along to a certain extent. We've never been involved in anything like this before. This is complicated. It is wide. It is deep. There's so much riding on the line here, not just Iraq but this is a regional issue. It is a global issue. The Middle East peace plan is connected to this. Our efforts in Afghanistan, all of our global efforts against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, economic development, democratic institution building, all are on the line here. And I think the administration is struggling with that and I think we have to be fair about that but go back to your first question, what I think this administration needs to do is come to the American people and lay it out to some extent and I know it's imperfect. Everybody does but it is clearly in the interest of this country and the American people would support it.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Lugar, we just heard King Abdullah tell us that he had seen some reports from this week that suggested that Saddam Hussein was alive and roaming through the deserts of western Iraq. Did Secretary Powell or Ambassador Bremer have any more information for you on Saddam Hussein?
SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR
No, they did not. We are all hopeful that some clues are being picked up and we're watching that as avidly as anybody else but there was no definitive word.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) How important is it, Senator Biden, that the world know that Saddam Hussein is captured or killed?
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN
George, I think it is more important the Iraqi people know he has been captured because I think he has an incredible impact on thousands of people in Iraq who may otherwise be willing to come forward but are worried the devil will come back. I mean, he is still around. And so I think it's important that he be captured. I don't think it's absolutely essential to be able to get the job done but it would sure make it a lot easier and ease the concerns of a whole lot of people in villages and in the surrounding areas of Baghdad that he's really gone. That he's really not around.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Hagel, there's also been these questions about the weapons of mass destruction. I know all of your supporting investigation by congress into the intelligence before the war, but are you satisfied that the administration is fully cooperating now with the senate investigations?
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
I am. I'm on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. We are into that now. We started last week. I think the administration so far has been forthcoming. I believe they will be, it is in their interest. This is a cloud hanging over their credibility, their word. They need to get that dealt with, taken care of, removed, because we have many other responsibilities, and trust is the coin of the realm. The world certainly Americans must have confidence in this administration, any leadership and to resolve this issue is certainly in the interest of this administration and I think they'll continue to cooperate.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Lugar, do you think that's gonna take to remove that cloud public hearings?
SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR
Not necessarily. The facts are that most of us read the intelligence, and we had to reach judgments. Intelligence with regard to weapons of mass destruction is very imperfect. In some cases vague with regard to place and time and all the rest of it. So this is what needs to be explained. We were not looking as somebody who gave a clue that there is this there and you could go and find it. There is a capability. Now, that probably needs to be explained to the American people too, why it's not there, most of it clearly isn't there, probably hasn't been there for awhile, but the UN detailed a lot of it was there at some point and Saddam failed to produce any evidence that he destroyed it, used it, done anything with it. So we need to retrace all those steps. It doesn't, and that can be public but in terms of the sources, we've got to understand the people that were offering this out of Iraq, many of them were killed. One reason our intelligence wasn't very good was that most of our agents were killed. Systemically eliminated. Now, to throw into jeopardy some of those people would not be a good idea.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Biden, two Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and Howard Dean, have both now said that they felt that the administration misled the American people on Iraq. Do you think that's going too far?
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN
Let me be precise. Everyone including the French leadership thought Saddam Hussein had VX and had anthrax. It was documented in '98 by the inspectors. There was every reason to believe he had those things. He didn't explain it. The burden was on him to demonstrate he had gotten rid of it so I don't think there's any doubt that the administration was right in saying that he had those weapons and had that capability and he didn't explain it. Where I think the exaggeration came through, George, is they took the worst case scenario on chemical, I mean on nuclear weapons, I was on one of your sister programs following the vice president saying they had evidence him saying they had evidence of reconstituting their nuclear capability. I never saw any evidence of that. I never saw any evidence he had the ability to disseminate these, this material that he had left over from the last war in ways that could kill a large number of people. I never believed there was any evidence and publicly said so about cooperation of al Qaeda. I think all of those three categories were exaggerated or taken a kernel of what was true and taken the worst case and -put that forward. You may remember some of us said to the deputy secretary of state on, before our committee, look go with what you know. Don't exaggerate. Go with what you know. You have no hard proof on chem, on biological. You have no hard proof on nuclear and you have no hard proof on dissemination. Make your case on what you know. There is sufficient evidence there. The world was told that he had these weapons. We all believed he had anthrax and had VX. That was sufficient and I think to create a sense of urgency, they believed the worst case, the worst case that I don't think was ever provable.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Before we go, I want to check in with each of you on Secretary Powell's efforts to at least reach a cease-fire, some kind of temporary agreement on this road map for peace and Senator Hagel, it seemed to, we just talked to a Hamas spokesperson who didn't rule out a cease-fire could still come tomorrow despite the continuing violence. Did Secretary Powell give you any hope for that?
SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
We did talk about that specifically with Secretary Powell. Obviously those conversations were private, but at least this senator feels hopeful that we're making progress. This administration is committed to get a peace. The president himself has engaged, obviously the secretary is over here now. The National Security Adviser Dr. Rice will be here next week. We have Ambassador Wolf here. These are all good signs and I think we're making some progress.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Biden, administration doing all they can? No hope.
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN
I don't have much hope there will be a cease-fire but I do have hope there will be progress. I do believe you'll see the Israelis pull out of Gaza. I do believe you'll see that Abu Mazen and Dalan will move in to take control and I do hope that they're willing to exercise, able to exercise some control. But do I think Hamas will genuinely sign a cease-fire, only if they think they need time to reconstitute a capability that they are losing.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Lugar, you get the last word.
SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR
I think the real problem is the ability of the new Palestinian government to control Hamas. And we've been counseled by some wise people here, have a little bit of patience. The dynamics within Palestinian society are very tough if you're planning to do a crackdown and it might not come in the next 48 hours.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Senator Lugar, Senator Biden, Senator Hagel, thank you very much. Thanks for being out in this heat, we'll see you back in Washington. And we'll be right back with the roundtable after this.
commercial break
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) We just heard some strong words from the senators on the challenges facing the United States in postwar Iraq and now it's the roundtable's turn. For that we go back to Washington and Claire Shipman.