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American Morning
Cost of War
Aired March 04, 2003 - 08:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The white house expressing surprise when Turkey, an ally, refused to allow U.S. troops to use bases in that country in the event of war with Iraq. Now the Turkish parliament has begun meeting at this hour in Ankara, but a second vote on the issue not expected any time soon.
However, that could flip-flop yet again.
Jane Arraf now reporting live in the Turkish capital with more.
Jane, hello.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Bill.
Well, Turkey's foreign minister says they're evaluating within the ruling part and within the government whether to send the proposal back to parliament. As you mentioned, parliament is meeting at this moment. The members are discussing the 2003 budget. To actually discuss the troop deployment again, they would have to get the legislation from the cabinet, and that just hasn't come over yet. There's a crucial meeting here at parliament this morning and this afternoon. It's within the ruling Development Party, which controls parliament, and it's basically up to them to decide whether to send that back, whether politically they can.
Now the head of the party has said that they are examining it, and in the coming days, which could be as early as the next couple of days, they will make a decision on it. But the question sill is, is that too late for the United States -- Bill.
HEMMER: Great question. Jane, thank you. Jane Arraf in Turkey -- Paula.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There's another question on the minds of a lot of Americans, and that is, how much will it cost if the U.S. ends up going to war? The Bush administration is reluctant to attach a figure to the fighting and the subsequent rebuilding process.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECY.: It's too soon to say with precision how much this war will cost.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECY.: If you don't know if it's going to last six days, six weeks or six months, how in the world can you up with a cost estimate?
PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEP. DEFENSE SECY.: Fundamentally we have no idea what is needed unless and until we get there on the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: This morning, in our "Questions of War" series, we're going to take a closer look at the cost of war and who would pay for the fray. Joining us from Capitol Hill, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, and from our Washington bureau this morning, Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey.
Welcome to both of you. Good to see you back on the broadcast today.
Senator Hutchison, I'm going to start with you this morning. Originally, back in January, Donald Rumsfeld said that he thought the cost of war might be -- quote -- "under $50 billion." According to "The Wall Street Journal" this morning, there are reports the administration is preparing funding requests for twice that much.
Now I know there are a lot of variables here. Does what the "Wall Street Journal" reports makes sense to you this morning? Are we looking at $100 billion price tag?
SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R-TX), APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Well, possibly we are. It is very difficult, though. Back when Secretary Rumsfeld made that prediction, we didn't know that many countries were going to ask for money to have support. They're trying to get money up front; that's a cost. We don't know how long it's going to last., so putting a real price tag on it is very difficult. There's just no way you're going to know if it's six days or six weeks.
ZAHN: Senator Corzine, what do you make of suggestions that perhaps with the administration will do is wait to ask for emergency funding once the action has begun to sort of do an endrun around Congress?
SEN. JON CORZINE (D-NJ), BUDGET COMMITTEE: Well, I believe that you have to talk in ranges. No one can predict exactly what it's going to cost. But you can put probabilities on ranges and the fact is, is that the reason people want to understand this, aside from the need to provide support for men and women in uniform, is to be able to make real budget decisions.
You know, at the same time, we're having this discussion about how much this war is going to cost, how much the reconstruct's going to take, how much do we need to spend on our military, because in North Korea and all of the other issues, we're talking about a tax cut of something like $1.5 trillion. You would think that you would want to combine your judgments, your best judgments. No one's going to be precise, no one's going to be perfect, but you'd want to know how much roughly you might be having to spend, what the contingency responsibility would be in light of a tax cut that's going to undermine the fiscal stability of the country over the long run.
ZAHN: Well, Let's talk about that a moment with Senator Hutchison. Do you share any concern about not only the feasibility, but the wisdom in going ahead with a tax cut at a time when you're not sure what the cost of a potential war might be and the postwar costs?
HUTCHISON: If I accepted Senator Corzine's premise, I would be concerned. But the tax cut is about $670 billion. And I think it's going to spur the economy.
The only reason for a tax cut right now is to try to spur the economy, get people back to work, and I think that when you look at the tax cuts of the past, President Kennedy's major tax cut, President Reagan's major tax cut, in the five years after those tax cuts, jobs increased, the economy was spurred, and it was a -- the right thing to do at the time.
ZAHN: Do you have a concern, though, about the mounting deficits?
HUTCHISON: I do. I do have a mounting concern about the deficits. And I am very concerned that we are in this situation where we're having added costs that we didn't expect. And we aren't getting the help that we hoped we would get.
After we finish with the liberation of the Iraqi people, I hope that other countries will come in to help us rebuild Iraq with the Iraqi people. But you don't know what that's going to cost.
But we're all concerned about deficits. We want to make sure we are prioritizing spending and doing things in a responsible way. But I think this tax cut is going to add revenue, not subtract.
ZAHN: Senator Corzine, I'm sure you just heard the same thing I heard when Senator Hutchison was talking about the liberation of the Iraqi people, making it sound as if this war is a done deal. Is it coming?
CORZINE: I think the die is fairly well cast on this situation. We have 200,000 troops, men and women, in the Middle East, or about to be there. I think there is a commitment to -- a policy commitment that will be very hard to turn back from.
But I don't think it is right to ask for sacrifices from those 200,000 people for the American people to prosecute this war. Almost -- not single-handedly, but with a high percentage of the responsibility being on the shoulders of the American people, and then turn around and have -- the only thing I disagree with what Senator Hutchison said, there's not a single objective economist that I know that doesn't say that the -- accelerating the tax breaks that the president's talked about and the dividend tax cut are going to cost $1.5 trillion. That expenditure of tax dollars relative to the need to make sure that we fund our men and women in uniform make sure that we fund our homeland defense is hard for me to understand. I think it's reckless, and it's a poor policy.
There can be different kinds of programs that stimulate the economy. But making $1.5 trillion bet at the same time we're going to war I think is a very, very tough position to be in.
ZAHN: Senators, we'll have to bring you back on another morning to debate the merit of the proposed tax cuts. In the meantime, We'll be looking to your perspective of what the timeline of the U.N. talks on Friday mean and as we move ahead into next week.
Thank you both for joining us this morning.
Thank you, Paula.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 4, 2003 - 08:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The white house expressing surprise when Turkey, an ally, refused to allow U.S. troops to use bases in that country in the event of war with Iraq. Now the Turkish parliament has begun meeting at this hour in Ankara, but a second vote on the issue not expected any time soon.
However, that could flip-flop yet again.
Jane Arraf now reporting live in the Turkish capital with more.
Jane, hello.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Bill.
Well, Turkey's foreign minister says they're evaluating within the ruling part and within the government whether to send the proposal back to parliament. As you mentioned, parliament is meeting at this moment. The members are discussing the 2003 budget. To actually discuss the troop deployment again, they would have to get the legislation from the cabinet, and that just hasn't come over yet. There's a crucial meeting here at parliament this morning and this afternoon. It's within the ruling Development Party, which controls parliament, and it's basically up to them to decide whether to send that back, whether politically they can.
Now the head of the party has said that they are examining it, and in the coming days, which could be as early as the next couple of days, they will make a decision on it. But the question sill is, is that too late for the United States -- Bill.
HEMMER: Great question. Jane, thank you. Jane Arraf in Turkey -- Paula.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There's another question on the minds of a lot of Americans, and that is, how much will it cost if the U.S. ends up going to war? The Bush administration is reluctant to attach a figure to the fighting and the subsequent rebuilding process.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECY.: It's too soon to say with precision how much this war will cost.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECY.: If you don't know if it's going to last six days, six weeks or six months, how in the world can you up with a cost estimate?
PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEP. DEFENSE SECY.: Fundamentally we have no idea what is needed unless and until we get there on the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: This morning, in our "Questions of War" series, we're going to take a closer look at the cost of war and who would pay for the fray. Joining us from Capitol Hill, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, and from our Washington bureau this morning, Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey.
Welcome to both of you. Good to see you back on the broadcast today.
Senator Hutchison, I'm going to start with you this morning. Originally, back in January, Donald Rumsfeld said that he thought the cost of war might be -- quote -- "under $50 billion." According to "The Wall Street Journal" this morning, there are reports the administration is preparing funding requests for twice that much.
Now I know there are a lot of variables here. Does what the "Wall Street Journal" reports makes sense to you this morning? Are we looking at $100 billion price tag?
SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R-TX), APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Well, possibly we are. It is very difficult, though. Back when Secretary Rumsfeld made that prediction, we didn't know that many countries were going to ask for money to have support. They're trying to get money up front; that's a cost. We don't know how long it's going to last., so putting a real price tag on it is very difficult. There's just no way you're going to know if it's six days or six weeks.
ZAHN: Senator Corzine, what do you make of suggestions that perhaps with the administration will do is wait to ask for emergency funding once the action has begun to sort of do an endrun around Congress?
SEN. JON CORZINE (D-NJ), BUDGET COMMITTEE: Well, I believe that you have to talk in ranges. No one can predict exactly what it's going to cost. But you can put probabilities on ranges and the fact is, is that the reason people want to understand this, aside from the need to provide support for men and women in uniform, is to be able to make real budget decisions.
You know, at the same time, we're having this discussion about how much this war is going to cost, how much the reconstruct's going to take, how much do we need to spend on our military, because in North Korea and all of the other issues, we're talking about a tax cut of something like $1.5 trillion. You would think that you would want to combine your judgments, your best judgments. No one's going to be precise, no one's going to be perfect, but you'd want to know how much roughly you might be having to spend, what the contingency responsibility would be in light of a tax cut that's going to undermine the fiscal stability of the country over the long run.
ZAHN: Well, Let's talk about that a moment with Senator Hutchison. Do you share any concern about not only the feasibility, but the wisdom in going ahead with a tax cut at a time when you're not sure what the cost of a potential war might be and the postwar costs?
HUTCHISON: If I accepted Senator Corzine's premise, I would be concerned. But the tax cut is about $670 billion. And I think it's going to spur the economy.
The only reason for a tax cut right now is to try to spur the economy, get people back to work, and I think that when you look at the tax cuts of the past, President Kennedy's major tax cut, President Reagan's major tax cut, in the five years after those tax cuts, jobs increased, the economy was spurred, and it was a -- the right thing to do at the time.
ZAHN: Do you have a concern, though, about the mounting deficits?
HUTCHISON: I do. I do have a mounting concern about the deficits. And I am very concerned that we are in this situation where we're having added costs that we didn't expect. And we aren't getting the help that we hoped we would get.
After we finish with the liberation of the Iraqi people, I hope that other countries will come in to help us rebuild Iraq with the Iraqi people. But you don't know what that's going to cost.
But we're all concerned about deficits. We want to make sure we are prioritizing spending and doing things in a responsible way. But I think this tax cut is going to add revenue, not subtract.
ZAHN: Senator Corzine, I'm sure you just heard the same thing I heard when Senator Hutchison was talking about the liberation of the Iraqi people, making it sound as if this war is a done deal. Is it coming?
CORZINE: I think the die is fairly well cast on this situation. We have 200,000 troops, men and women, in the Middle East, or about to be there. I think there is a commitment to -- a policy commitment that will be very hard to turn back from.
But I don't think it is right to ask for sacrifices from those 200,000 people for the American people to prosecute this war. Almost -- not single-handedly, but with a high percentage of the responsibility being on the shoulders of the American people, and then turn around and have -- the only thing I disagree with what Senator Hutchison said, there's not a single objective economist that I know that doesn't say that the -- accelerating the tax breaks that the president's talked about and the dividend tax cut are going to cost $1.5 trillion. That expenditure of tax dollars relative to the need to make sure that we fund our men and women in uniform make sure that we fund our homeland defense is hard for me to understand. I think it's reckless, and it's a poor policy.
There can be different kinds of programs that stimulate the economy. But making $1.5 trillion bet at the same time we're going to war I think is a very, very tough position to be in.
ZAHN: Senators, we'll have to bring you back on another morning to debate the merit of the proposed tax cuts. In the meantime, We'll be looking to your perspective of what the timeline of the U.N. talks on Friday mean and as we move ahead into next week.
Thank you both for joining us this morning.
Thank you, Paula.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
