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CNN Talkback Live

Is a Lawsuit Implicating Iraq in 9/11 Valid?; Is the U.S. Justified in a Preemptive Strike on That Country?

Aired September 05, 2002 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ARTHEL NEVILLE, HOST: Today on TALKBACK LIVE: Former President Jimmy Carter has harsh words for the administration's war on terrorism and about plans for attacking Iraq. Also, most Europeans say America can blame itself for the 9/11 attacks.
TALKBACK LIVE continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: Hello, everybody. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Arthel Neville.

We are talking about a lawsuit today filed by victims' families. Plus, stay tuned to find out why former President Jimmy Carter is not convinced Mr. Bush's plan for Iraq will work.

But first, we are going to go to Kate Snow on Capitol Hill to fill us in on a meeting between Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA Director George Tenet with congressional leaders -- Kate.

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Arthel, the big four leaders, the leaders of the House and the Senate -- Senator Trent Lott, Senator Tom Daschle, along with the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, and the House minority leader, Dick Gephardt -- have been in a room with Dick Cheney and George Tenet for about an hour and a half.

And just a few moments ago, one of our producers was able to talk to Senator Daschle and Senator Lott as they came out of this meeting. This was billed as an opportunity for the administration, behind closed doors, in a very small gathering, to give them some more information about the situation when it come to Iraq.

Let me tell you what Tom Daschle said to our producer. He said: "I am going to talk my colleagues a little bit, but it was a helpful meeting. And we were in the position to ask a lot of good questions." Now, that is important, because Senator Daschle has, for days and weeks now, said that they needed more information from the administration, more concrete information about what kind of potential threat Saddam Hussein poses.

Even stronger words from Senator Trent Lott: He said that this meeting was -- quote -- "interesting," that they offered interesting information and troubling information. He said it was certainly more detailed than anything we have had to this point. And he said it will give people a lot more to think about.

Certainly, Arthel, these are just the initial reports coming out of the meeting. We will try to get more information, but it sounds like the administration, via Dick Cheney and George Tenet, the head of the CIA, offering these four leaders of the House and Senate, in a classified briefing, some more details about why the administration may be headed towards military intervention in Iraq -- back to you.

NEVILLE: OK, Kate Snow, thank you very much for that report.

And now to our first topic: Some victims' families are suing Iraq and Saddam Hussein. They say the Iraqi government knew about the 9/11 attacks before they happened. They also claim Saddam was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden.

Their attorney, Lee Kreindler, will try to get $1 trillion for these families. He has filed a lawsuit against both Iraq and bin Laden; also with us, Ralph Steinhardt. He's a professor of international law at George Washington University Law School.

And I would like to welcome both of you gentlemen.

RALPH STEINHARDT, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: Thanks.

LEE KREINDLER, ATTORNEY FOR 9/11 VICTIMS' FAMILIES: Glad to be here.

NEVILLE: Good.

Mr. Kreindler, first up, I want you give us a list of all the people you are suing.

KREINDLER: I would have to get out of the complaint to read you the names, but...

NEVILLE: But give us an idea, because it is not just...

KREINDLER: Anyone and everyone against whom we feel we may be able to prove a case. That would include Osama bin Laden, or his estate. It would include Iraq. It would include people who helped fund the operation and so forth.

NEVILLE: And who is paying for this? Curious.

KREINDLER: Who? Well...

NEVILLE: There is a lot of research involved here.

KREINDLER: There is absolutely a lot of research. We have been working on it since a few days after September 11. We've had a pretty good-sized investigation going.

It is traditional in this area of the law for the plaintiffs' lawyers to pay the expenses of moving forward. Nothing unusual about that. That is what is happening here. NEVILLE: Now, we are talking about trying to get $1 trillion from a terrorist on the run and a country that the U.S. might attack. How do you hope to accomplish that?

KREINDLER: Well, I don't know that we'll get $1 trillion.

There is precedent for it. Starting in 1996, our law has permitted actions against terrorist states. The one most important case is our case against Libya rising out of the Lockerbie disaster. That case is moving along very well. We are very optimistic of success.

It does take time, no question about that.

NEVILLE: But wouldn't the circumstances in this situation be a little bit unusual? Again, we are talking about a terrorist on the run and a country that the U.S. might be invading.

KREINDLER: Well, let's assume for a moment that we are correct about Iraq. Iraq is not a terrorist on the run.

NEVILLE: I am talking about Osama bin Laden, sir.

KREINDLER: Well, we may not be able to find Osama bin Laden or serve his estate, but there is a money trail. There are people who funded this operation. This is like lots of other cases. The law permits very, very ample discovery. We intend to pursue that.

NEVILLE: Professor Steinhardt, can this work?

STEINHARDT: It certainly can work. There have been, as Mr. Kreindler says, plenty of examples of these cases in the past.

But I think what we have to deal with is the reality that it may be easier to file these cases than it is to win them, because you have to be able to prove, of course, that the defendants were actually involved. And coming up with proof in this case will not be child's play. But it's also easier to win them on the merits than it is to actually execute a judgment. There have been, as he says, a number of cases where multimillion-dollar awards were made, and even some recoveries.

But it is a long path. And there some objections in principle to the idea that, in something this important to the nation as a whole, particular plaintiffs would get compensation and others who might be injured would not. And so there are some real issues of principle and practice here that are different.

NEVILLE: Well, now, Mr. Kreindler, did the victims' families approach you or did you approach them?

KREINDLER: The victims' families approached us. We represent these people. We don't represent all of the victims' families. We represent the families of over 250 decedents and a host of people who suffered serious personal injuries. We never do approach the families. They find us, just as they did in the Lockerbie case and our case against Libya.

NEVILLE: Now, Mr. Kreindler, you know the Bush administration is saying that it has no information connecting Iraq to the September 11 attacks. So, I want to know what you know that the administration may not know.

Hold that thought. I will find out your answer after this break.

TALKBACK LIVE continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: That the Iraqi government knew about the September 11 attacks before they happened, and before the break, Mr. Kreindler, I asked you, I said the Bush administration says it has no information connecting Iraq to the September 11 attacks. And I wanted to know if you know something that they don't know.

KREINDLER: Well, I really don't know what the Bush administration has and doesn't have.

In our case, I know what we do have. It's alleged right in our complaint. The most important indication, I would say, in answer to your question is a newspaper article published in Iraq a couple of months before September 11. And everything that gets published in Iraq has the stamp of approval of the government and Saddam Hussein. And it foretells September 11.

It discusses an attack against the White House and the Pentagon. And the White House and the Pentagon were probably two of the targets at that time. We think that the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania had been -- had intended to fly into the White House. And this is in the public press. We have the article. The article has been on television since we filed suit yesterday.

NEVILLE: OK, so...

KREINDLER: And...

NEVILLE: Go ahead.

KREINDLER: Let me tell you something interesting.

You may be interested to know that a great reporter for CNN, who in fact followed our Lockerbie case and interviewed me very many times, called me after September 11 and said: "Hey, I want to join you guys. This is where the action is going to be. Will you put me to work?" And we did. And she headed up our original investigation team and found many others who were helpful, former CIA people, former FBI people.

NEVILLE: OK, I have to say that I have no knowledge of what you are talking about now regarding that CNN person. So I am going to go ahead and move on here.

And I am going to take a call from Karen, who is calling in from North Carolina.

CALLER: Yes, hi.

My husband is an active Marine and he's out in the Mediterranean Sea right now, all because of this September 11, serving his country. God forbid, if he were to get killed in action, I would not get $1 trillion or a part of $1 trillion. And aren't these the same victims' families that the country rallied around after September the 11th and raised all of these funds and gave money out of the ying yang to these people?

Is this a matter of the victims' families becoming greedy and just grabbing like crabs at everything and anything that they can get? Or is this lawyers being lawyers and trying to line their pockets because of the suffering of other people?

KREINDLER: My job is to try to recover money for the people we represent. Now, in the one case that is the closest parallel, we are well...

NEVILLE: OK, Mr. Kreindler, we are talking about Iraq here.

Now we want to hear what the president has to say about the subject. We are going to go to him live now in South Bend, Indiana, where he is at the airport speaking at a rally.

Let's listen in.

(INTERRUPTED FOR CNN COVERAGE OF A LIVE EVENT)

NEVILLE: OK, and we are going to continue our discussion right here in Atlanta regarding Iraq and this lawsuit Mr. Kreindler is filing on behalf of his clients, victims of the families.

I want to let you have an opportunity, sir, to give some final thoughts before we thank you for being here.

KREINDLER: Final thoughts? We just filed the lawsuit yesterday. We have got years of hard work ahead of us to win it. We are going to try to win it. And we are hopeful that we will be able to do it. And what that means is a lot of help for a lot of good people.

NEVILLE: Mr. Kreindler and Professor Steinhardt, I'm sorry I did not get to talk to you much more than I did today. But I do appreciate your time. And perhaps we will have you back again on TALKBACK LIVE. Thank you very much for joining us.

KREINDLER: Thank you.

NEVILLE: And up next, we will tell you what former President Jimmy Carter is saying about going to Iraq and going after Saddam Hussein.

And, of course, I want to hear what you have to say about this. So give me a call at 1-800-310-4CNN or e-mail me at TALKBACK@CNN.com.

We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: Welcome back everybody.

Former President Jimmy Carter is taking the administration to task over Iraq. Carter says Baghdad is not a current threat to the United States, and he says any act of war could provoke Iraq into using possible weapons of mass destruction against Israel.

In a column in the "Washington Post," Carter wrote: "We cannot ignore the development of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, but a unilateral war with Iraq is not the answer. There is an urgent need for U.N. action to force unrestricted inspections in Iraq. But, perhaps deliberately so, this has become less likely as we alienate our necessary allies."

Quite a different view from President Bush who, just yesterday, said it's not about inspections, it's about disarmament.

And here to talk about Mr. Carter's comments are Herald Meyerson, editor at large for the "American Prospect," and "Cliff May," president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which is a think tank on terrorism. And Cliff also has reported on Iran, Sudan and Pakistan for the "New York Times."

And I want to welcome both of you to the show.

CLIFFORD MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Thank you very much, my pleasure.

NEVILLE: All right, Mr. Meyerson you're up first. Do you agree or disagree with Mr. Carter's statements?

HAROLD MEYERSON, "THE AMERICAN PROSPECT": I largely do agree with President Carter. I think this is not the kind of conflict that we should be looking at just going into and not look at all the possible consequences that may come from this.

I would go farther than President Carter and say that I think the timing of this is suspect politically. That if this is an immediate crisis, the administration has already been in office for a year-and- a-half, and if they feel that this is a clear and present danger right now, this he could have taken military action against Iraq before now.

I think this is the timing of this. Because remember, they're not proposing doing any military action in this year. What they are doing, in effect, is trying to change the subject of political discussion in this country between now and the November election.

NEVILLE: SO if that's the case, what do you think the administration is diverting attention away from?

MEYERSON: The state of the economy and a November election about which they are, understandably, nervous. That is clearly not all this is about. There are people in the administration who genuinely believe that the United States should unilaterally or quickly move against the Saddam Hussein regime, which is obviously a miserable regime.

But I find the whole timing of this disquieting.

NEVILLE: Clifford May, how do you see it.

MAY: Well, I think it's good that Jimmy Carter gave voice to that. I think there are quite a few other Democrats who agree with him that haven't said that; but there are quite a few who, I think, disagree with Jimmy Carter.

I think people understand, by and large, that Saddam Hussein is a very dangerous man. He has committed mass murder in his own country. He has tried to wipe out one of his neighbors, Kuwait, and probably had designs on Saudi Arabia and Israel. He tried to assassinate an American president.

And for the past four years, in violation of the cease-fire he signed, he hasn't allowed weapons inspectors to be on the ground where we know he is developing weapons of mass destruction, biological, chemical and nuclear.

Now the real question, it seems to me is, although Jimmy Carter would dispute this, is not whether we have to do something about Saddam Hussein, because I think we do, but when? Do we do it now, or we do it when he has nuclear weapons, when he has better ways to deliver his biological and chemical weapons. This guy is a very...

NEVILLE: And what do you think?

MAY: I think this guy is a very serious threat. I think you and I do not know at this moment what our intelligence people know, which is how far he is away from developing nuclear weapons and how far he is away from having chemical and biological weapons he can efficiently deliver.

He is -- and I hope we'll agree on this -- Saddam Hussein is the most dangerous terrorist not now living in a cave somewhere. And the war on terrorism which, I think, is the most important thing this nation faces right now; not that the economy is not important, not that prescription drugs aren't important, or education, those all are.

But the war on terrorism has to be won. And Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction and his ties with terrorists, this is something that has to concern us.

The Democrats and others have asked for a debate on this. I think it's good that it's beginning and that we can make the case -- that the president can make the case to the American people and hopefully to our allies as well, that this has to be done. At the end of the day, we have to do what we need to do in order to defend this nation and our innocent citizens. NEVILLE: Cliff May, is it interesting at all to you that Mr. Carter is not the only person saying, hold off, let's just maybe go have the U.N. inspectors go back in and approach it that way?

MAY: The problem there is that it's very unlikely that U.N. inspectors at this point, after four years, that Saddam Hussein has had to disperse and hide his weapons, will be able to find all of the facilities he has, or even a small part of them. Even in the past the weapons inspectors relied largely on defectors who came out and said, let me tell you where to look.

Right now we know he's hiding them in mosques, in schools, probably in his palaces. How are you going to find them? And if you do, would you destroy them? Also, he has mobile weapons facilities that he can move around long before any weapons inspectors can get there.

So I would love to see weapons inspectors who could go anywhere anytime and bring troops with them to blow up anything they find. I think that's very unlikely.

And the idea we can do nothing -- that we should do nothing, and sit on our hands and wait for him to strike or give nuclear weapons to terrorists strikes me as irresponsible.

NEVILLE: So bottom line, here's a question for you, do you think Mr. Bush is moving too quickly towards war with Iraq?

MAY: No, I think he's moving at a very deliberate speed. I think...

NEVILLE: OK then, you know what? Guess what, hang onto that thought for me, because I want you to expound for me after the break. I've got to go to break right now.

And Lois (ph), I promise I will get to you as well, OK?

TALKBACK LIVE continues in a moment. Don't go anywhere.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(APPLAUSE)

NEVILLE: And welcome back everybody.

Cliff May, I was asking you before the break, do you think Mr. Bush is moving too quickly towards war with Iraq?

MAY: No, actually I think it's very deliberate. He is putting the world on notice, putting Saddam Hussein on notice that if you're trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, we're not going to let you do it.

And people talk a lot about our allies and friends in the Arab world and Europe not agreeing with us; I wish those friends and allies -- I wish Egypt and Saudi Arabia would go to Saddam Hussein and say, you better prove to the United States above all else that you are not doing this, that you are renouncing any desires for revenge. If you don't, we're not going to be able to stop the United States from coming in and securing regime change. I wish they were advising Saddam Hussein rather than us.

I think it's important that the president has now said he is going to go to Congress, not for permission, but for a blessing. There will be debate in Congress, and I think in the end most members of Congress are going to support Bush in this. I don't think they'll want to sit on their hands.

NEVILLE: OK, let me get Lois (ph) from California in here.

LOIS: Well, I feel that the United States has quite often waited too long. I mean, we had Pearl Harbor, we fought with Hitler in Germany, and then we have the 9/11. And what are we waiting for? An A-bomb to drop or an H-bomb in our lap?

MAY: You know, this is an important point for a couple of reasons...

(APPLAUSE)

MAY: If I may, Arthel. Imagine in 1938 if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had said, we have got to secure regime change if Germany. I don't think there was a nation in the world who would have said, you're right. Winston Churchill would have said that, but he was in the opposition in Britain and being denounced by the major media as a warmonger.

Imagine if a year ago on this date somebody had said -- Clinton or Bush -- we have to crush al Qaeda and destroy the Taliban and in the process secure regime change in Afghanistan, no one would have gone along with us; it would have been the right thing to do.

MEYERSON: But if that's the only way to regime change, I mean, we did not do that with Josef Stalin, who was a much more dangerous character, much more deadly character, much greater threat to the countries surrounding him by any historic measure than Saddam Hussein has been.

And we put in motion there a policy of containment. We said, we think we have the sufficient force to deter this regime, even headed by a guy whose mental stability, I think, was probably less than Saddam Hussein's -- that is Josef Stalin -- to deter any head of state from using these weapons.

And I think the same kind of policy, particularly inasmuch as we are not claiming Saddam Hussein has a nuclear capacity would work. This is what we did from the Cold War for 50 years.

(CROSSTALK)

NEVILLE: Excuse me guys, I'm going to jump in now and go to California where Rupert (ph) is standing by on the telephone.

Rupert (ph)?

CALLER: Hello, yes -- hello?

NEVILLE: Hello.

CALLER: Oh, yes, first of all, I think that he is rushing -- President Bush is rushing. First, I do not know for sure if he really is the true president. I don't know if he won the election.

Second of all, it's not a question of who, but why. Our president has not given us a reason of why those buildings went down, and a true reason. And we should not be over there. We're acting irresponsibly. And not one American soldier should die for anybody's -- for this confusion.

The world is in a shambles, at least the United States is, and we don't have a clue of what is going on, the true American people out here.

NEVILLE: Hang on one second. Hang on.

I've got Lois (ph) in the audience. Stand up Lois (ph). You were nodding your head.

LOIS: Well, apparently they don't have a clue of what's going on, because we're just going to sit here and them walk all over us. We may not have a country if we wait too long.

(APPLAUSE)

MAY: If I may very briefly say, it's very important that we punish those who were responsible for 9/11; and we do know who has committed 9/11. The Europeans may not know. Some in the Arab world may not know. We know.

But it's even more important that we prevent the next 9/11, which various people around the world are planning for us.

I would just respond to Harold's rather compelling argument about deterrence and containment. It's my view that the Soviet Union, which was an evil empire, was nonetheless a rational empire, particularly after World War II. They knew what it meant to go to war, and they knew what a nuclear war would mean for that country.

I don't think the same deterrents will work against either an Osama bin Laden or against a Saddam Hussein or against any suicide terrorist. I think it's a different equation. And we've got to be careful of applying past lessons to a different situation in the present.

(CROSSTALK)

NEVILLE: OK, I'm going to jump in now -- hang on one second for me. I've got Scott (ph) from Georgia.

SCOTT: I think what we need to worry about is the phrase "mutually assured destruction." I think if we go in there and start firing away at Iraq, we need to worry how they're going to respond to our allies in the region.

And President Carter said it perfectly: They have every incentive in the world, if we attack, to start firing missiles at Israel. And Israel, being one of our biggest allies, this is a great, great concern; whereas if we sort of hold back, send inspectors in to see what they're building up, go from there, he has no incentive in the world.

Whereas if we do attack, he has every incentive in the world to start firing missiles at our allies. And this is a great concern.

(CROSSTALK)

MEYERSON: I would make the point that Saddam is a miserable, evil guy. But I don't think he's been shown to be reckless or crazy. Even in the Persian Gulf War, he had reason to think that the U.S. government had winked at him and said, this is an OK thing to do.

He has been very cautious in terms of just preserving the control of himself and his family over the country. He is not an adventurer who has shown himself concerned with anything but clinging to power in Iraq.

MAY: Harold, in the current world it is so easy for someone like Saddam Hussein to give weapons to terrorists and then say, I had nothing to do with it after.

As far as Israel is concerned, I think that's a good point. But the Israelis know what the United States wants to do, and whatever the United States decides to do, the Israelis said, we'll be behind you 100 percent.

Why? Because they know that as difficult as it may be for Israel if the United States takes on Saddam Hussein today, it is likely to be more difficult tomorrow.

Also keep in mind...

NEVILLE: OK, Cliff May, that's it for this subject. I've got to change subjects...

MAY: Thank you.

NEVILLE: Absolutely.

After the break what we're going to talk about is this: We're going to hear what some Europeans who say America is to blame for 9/11. We're going to see why they feel that way. We'll talk about that after the break.

Don't go anywhere. TALKBACK LIVE continues.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: And welcome back everybody.

We're talking with Harold Meyerson, editor at large for the "American Prospect" and Cliff May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a think tank on terrorism.

OK, are Europeans and Americans on the same page when it comes to terrorism? A survey of six European countries taken by World Views 2002 suggests an average of 55 percent of Europeans believe U.S. foreign policy is at least partially to blame for the September 11 attacks. That belief is strongest in France, the Netherlands and Great Britain, followed closely by Poland, Germany and Italy.

And I want to go ahead and ask Mr. Meyerson if you think that U.S. foreign policy is at all to blame on the September 11 attacks?

MEYERSON: Well, what we have to remember is that on September 11 and immediately following there was a huge outpouring of support for America in Europe; hundreds of thousands of people marching in Berlin and other capitals. The sympathy was there. It was a gaping wound; it was understood as an attack on the United States by this radical fundamentalist group with which Europeans don't have much in common and much use for either.

So what's happened over the ensuing year to get a polling result like that, I think the Bush administration, in pursuing a very nationalist course, not simply in Europe, but all over the world, ignoring the rest of the world on things like the global warming treaty, on things like the international criminal courts treaty, has almost gone out of its way to tell the rest of the world that it really doesn't care what they think.

This has been gratuitous, and it has exacerbated preexisting anxieties, and in some cases neuroses among some of our friends about the United States.

NEVILLE: OK, let me -- go ahead Cliff May.

MAY: What we had after 9/11 was an outpouring of sympathy, which is not the same as support.

I think in this country when we talk about America as the only superpower, we say that with a certain degree of pride. I think when that's said in Europe it's said with a certain degree of resentment. I think a lot of people would like to kind of put a leash on the United States and have us submit to international courts and The Hague, to bureaucrats in Brussels. And I'm not sure we want to do that.

(CROSSTALK)

NEVILLE: I'm going to jump in here.

(CROSSTALK)

MAY: ... veto power over our self defense.

MEYERSON: It was the United States that established the United Nations.

NEVILLE: Mr. Meyerson, please excuse me. I'm going to let Chris (ph) from Georgia speak right now.

CHRIS: I'd just like to make the statement that George Bush was elected with the narrowest of margins. I mean, he just about squeaked into power. And he does not have the mandate to take this country to war.

As far as the Europeans, they are very pro-American. But Tony Blair's authority right now is diminishing. They feel that he's just being led around by the nose by the Bush administration. Whatever America wants to do, that's what they expect the Europeans to follow and agree with. They certainly need to communicate and consult with the Europeans if they want their agreement.

MAY: I'm sorry, it was the United States that was attacked on 9/11, and not Europeans. And I know the Europeans don't want to be attacked. And they may think that some appeasement of the terrorists is a good idea to prevent that.

But we need to defend ourselves from the next 9/11. We want the Europeans' advice, but we're not going to give anybody a veto power over our right to defend ourselves from people who want to slaughter our civilians.

(CROSSTALK)

MEYERSON: And we are not giving the rest of the world any say in the general conduct of the rest of the world. We are telling them that the international institutions that we set up, like the United Nations, like the ban on preemptive war there is not something...

NEVILLE: Mr. Meyerson, I thought you were going to keep that statement short, which is why I let you interrupt me.

Anyway, I've got to take a break right now. We're going to talk more about how badly the U.S. needs its allies after this.

But first Judy Woodruff wants to tell us what she has planned for "INSIDE POLITICS."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: And welcome back everybody. I want to get some final thoughts now from audience members.

Go ahead Andrew (ph). ANDREW: When people are talking about how President Bush only made it by a narrow margin, it doesn't matter how much he made it by, we need to back him 100 percent. If he wants to go to war, we need to support him.

NEVILLE: Thank you very much.

And I have a caller coming in now from Kentucky. I think it's Bill.

Go ahead, you're live.

CALLER: Hi. I just want to make the point that if the Europeans are seeming to have a short memory about how much we've helped them and how many hundreds of thousands of young Americans have died for them and the millions and billions of dollars we poured into their countries. So I think it's a little shallow, the way they're treating our administration.

NEVILLE: Thank you very much for calling in.

Adam (ph)?

ADAM: I just wanted to say that we are to blame because we were brought up that we are an indestructible country and that nothing in the world could ever even dent us in the least bit. And I agree with them that we are to blame for September 11.

NEVILLE: Why do you think that?

ADAM: Because, like I said, it was the way that we were brought up. And we just decided that if they wanted to do anything to us, they couldn't because we were an indestructible country.

NEVILLE: So you are saying that the U.S. is to blame because you were taught that the U.S. was an invincible country?

ADAM: No, because everybody that I've ever talked to was brought up that, I mean, we were a country, that we could...

NEVILLE: So was the country ill-prepared, are you saying, because you thought the country could not have been touched by something like this?

ADAM: Exactly. That we were, like I said, we were brought up that nothing could ever dent us.

NEVILLE: How old are you?

ADAM: 14.

NEVILLE: What grade?

ADAM: Ninth.

NEVILLE: All right. Tony (ph) from Florida -- thank you Adam. TONY: I'd like to remind the Europeans I'm one of millions of veterans who served in what we now call the Cold War. And the way I look at it, they owe us a big debt. They need to get behind us and do what needs to be done.

I had a cousin who saw Baghdad from the top of an M-1 tank; he should have seen downtown.

(APPLAUSE)

NEVILLE: Wow.

Mr. Meyerson, I'm going to give you the last 20 seconds.

MEYERSON: I think many of our European friends simply want us to live up, not simply to the image of America the great and powerful, but America the good.

We are the country that set up the United Nations, that outlawed preemptive war. Now we are going back on these historic and moral commitments. And I think we have friends all over the world who are concerned about our...

NEVILLE: Cliff May -- I'm running out -- Cliff May, 15 seconds for you, thank you.

MAY: Yes, again, unfortunately in places like France the best selling book says that 9/11 was not committed by terrorist jihadists.

We have to do what's best for us, and our friends will understand. Leadership, you can't have by consensus. We do the right thing, people will come along eventually.

NEVILLE: Thank you very much. We are out of time.

Cliff May and Harold Meyerson, thank you both for joining us here today on TALKBACK LIVE. Sorry I had to cut you all off a couple of times,

And thanks to all of you for watching. I'm Arthel Neville, and I will be back again tomorrow at 3:00 Eastern, noon Pacific with more TALKBACK LIVE.

"INSIDE POLITICS" up next.

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