Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Jumping the Gun?

Aired July 16, 2003 - 08:34   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It started with 16 words in the State of the Union Address, but the firestorm over intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction shows no signs of slowing down. To talk about that and other hot issues of the day, Democratic consultant Victor Kamber joins us now, also Republican strategist Cliff May.
Good morning, gentlemen. Nice to see you, as always.

Let's begin with what the president has to say. He says, my intelligence is darn good. He says, it is time to move on. And yet the issue really seems to be gaining steam.

I want to take a look at what political action groups, which pretty much automatically glommed onto the issue, had to show when they were running ads. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: George Bush told us Iraq was a nuclear threat. He said they were trying to purchase uranium, that they were rebuilding their nuclear facilities. So we went to war. Now there's evidence we were misled. And almost every day, Americans are dying in Iraq. We need the truth, not a cover-up.

Logon to misleader.org today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Let's throw the first question to Victor this morning. Essentially, this seems to be one of the first issues that Democrats have an opportunity to grab onto. In addition to that, do you think that it's a valuable debate for the American people as well?

VICTOR KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT: Well, I certainly to answer the last, believe it's a very valuable debate. I, frankly, think that we should be having a congressional hearing that's open to the American public. What did we know, and what didn't we know? What information was properly used and what information was potentially played with? This administration, unlike others in the past, came into office on a pledge of, you know, we're going to be open, we're going to be direct with the American public, we're not going to cover up, we're going to choose our words carefully and we're going to make those words count.

Well, they did choose their words carefully, carefully to avoid telling the American public the truth, so it seems, and that's what I think we have to come to know. And if, in fact, the president lied, directly or played games, he should suffer the consequences. If he didn't, then let's get on with the business of this country.

O'BRIEN: Cliff, is a bigger problem that while it seems that George Tenet has basically thrown himself on the sword, there seems to be little accountability from the White House? The president seems to blame the CIA, seems to blame his speechwriters, but will not say this was my mistake?

CLIFF MAY, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I think the White House has sort of bungled the PR elements. But I think there a couple of facts that are getting lost here. One, I know of no Democrat who voted for the war against Saddam Hussein who changed his mind as a result of anything that came out.

Secondly, pretty much everybody agrees -- George Tenet of the CIA, British intelligence -- that Saddam Hussein was trying to rebuild his nuclear weapons program. He had a chemical weapons program, we know, and a biological weapons program. If you're going to rebuild a nuclear weapons program, you need uranium. If you need Uranium,where are you going to get it from? Probably not New Jersey. Africa is a good place.

The British in recent days, and this has been missed, although CNN has reported it, they say we absolutely stand by it, and they've given some reason why. In 1999, there was an Iraqi delegation that went to Niger, and the belief was on the part of Nigerian officials that they were there to buy uranium. Now, did they succeed in buying it? No, we don't think they did. But was Saddam Hussein shopping for uranium? Yes, we believe he was. And if he had gotten it, that would have been very, very dangerous.

KAMBER: It's very interesting the two letters almost caused the downfall of the last president, the two letters were I-S -- is. And the two letters here that Cliff keeps using are I-F -- If. If this happened, if this happened, if this happened. Well, the president made a statement that said it was happening, that this was based upon intelligence that we had, and that was verified intelligence. Well, if it was not, and if the president or his people, I don't care who it was, Tenet or whoever, misled us, the buck stops in one place, the president's office.

MAY: For some Democrats I understand this is payback for their anger over Clinton, but this is really too important of an issue for that.

KAMBER: You're right, it was.

MAY: Saddam Hussein was a threat to the U.S. Saddam Hussein killed tens -- hundreds of thousands of his own people. We're still coming up with mass graves. He had weapons of mass destruction programs. And it is no if here.

Again, the point is this, was Saddam Hussein trying to rebuild nuclear weapons? I think so. I think does the CIA think so? British intelligence thinks so. Was he shopping? Was he trying to acquire? Again, there's a difference between trying to acquire uranium and actually having done so. The administration did not claim that Saddam Hussein actually got tat uranium. They understood that...

KAMBER: Cliff, you're playing semantics and you know it.

MAY: It's not playing semantics.

O'BRIEN: Let's take a moment, because we're running out of time, and I want to get to another issue. As you've heard, of course, the third ID, looks like they're going to be staying longer in Iraq than they had originally thought they were going to be. And is this an indication with the addition that few foreign nations are stepping forward to donate their own troops to the process, that the post-war planning was just a wreck and not really well thought out? Victor?

KAMBER: I'm convinced there was no post-war planning in a true sense. I think they honestly believed that the Iraqi people would be dancing in the streets, en masse delighted that Saddam Hussein was gone, and this would be over, and the process would end. I mean, we didn't know how bad the electrical circuits were. We didn't know the water problems. That's outrageous with our intelligence that we didn't know what was going on.

O'BRIEN: Cliff, are you outraged, as well?

MAY: I'm not outraged. The Kurdish land is free. The Shiite areas are quiet. We've got some problems there. And what this raises is an important question -- I think Democrats and Republicans need to think about it seriously -- how do we do nation building successfully? Is the Army, a combat force, the right force to then do peacekeeping and nation building after? We have not been successful in nation building in recent years, Not in Haiti, not really in Kosovo or Bosnia. We did it in Germany and Japan after World War II. Do we want to do it, or willing to pay the price to do it? The remnants of the Baathist forces, and probably the Al Qaeda and other foreigners who are there are a danger to us, and we need to clean them out. But are we willing to stay there and see if we can build the first Democratic country in the Arab world?

KAMBER: Five billion to $5 billion a month.

O'BRIEN: Cliff May and Victor Kamber, as always, we're out of time. The two of you probably could go on for a really long time. Thank you for joining us this morning.

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 July 16, 2003 - 08:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It started with 16 words in the State of the Union Address, but the firestorm over intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction shows no signs of slowing down. To talk about that and other hot issues of the day, Democratic consultant Victor Kamber joins us now, also Republican strategist Cliff May.
Good morning, gentlemen. Nice to see you, as always.

Let's begin with what the president has to say. He says, my intelligence is darn good. He says, it is time to move on. And yet the issue really seems to be gaining steam.

I want to take a look at what political action groups, which pretty much automatically glommed onto the issue, had to show when they were running ads. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: George Bush told us Iraq was a nuclear threat. He said they were trying to purchase uranium, that they were rebuilding their nuclear facilities. So we went to war. Now there's evidence we were misled. And almost every day, Americans are dying in Iraq. We need the truth, not a cover-up.

Logon to misleader.org today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Let's throw the first question to Victor this morning. Essentially, this seems to be one of the first issues that Democrats have an opportunity to grab onto. In addition to that, do you think that it's a valuable debate for the American people as well?

VICTOR KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT: Well, I certainly to answer the last, believe it's a very valuable debate. I, frankly, think that we should be having a congressional hearing that's open to the American public. What did we know, and what didn't we know? What information was properly used and what information was potentially played with? This administration, unlike others in the past, came into office on a pledge of, you know, we're going to be open, we're going to be direct with the American public, we're not going to cover up, we're going to choose our words carefully and we're going to make those words count.

Well, they did choose their words carefully, carefully to avoid telling the American public the truth, so it seems, and that's what I think we have to come to know. And if, in fact, the president lied, directly or played games, he should suffer the consequences. If he didn't, then let's get on with the business of this country.

O'BRIEN: Cliff, is a bigger problem that while it seems that George Tenet has basically thrown himself on the sword, there seems to be little accountability from the White House? The president seems to blame the CIA, seems to blame his speechwriters, but will not say this was my mistake?

CLIFF MAY, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I think the White House has sort of bungled the PR elements. But I think there a couple of facts that are getting lost here. One, I know of no Democrat who voted for the war against Saddam Hussein who changed his mind as a result of anything that came out.

Secondly, pretty much everybody agrees -- George Tenet of the CIA, British intelligence -- that Saddam Hussein was trying to rebuild his nuclear weapons program. He had a chemical weapons program, we know, and a biological weapons program. If you're going to rebuild a nuclear weapons program, you need uranium. If you need Uranium,where are you going to get it from? Probably not New Jersey. Africa is a good place.

The British in recent days, and this has been missed, although CNN has reported it, they say we absolutely stand by it, and they've given some reason why. In 1999, there was an Iraqi delegation that went to Niger, and the belief was on the part of Nigerian officials that they were there to buy uranium. Now, did they succeed in buying it? No, we don't think they did. But was Saddam Hussein shopping for uranium? Yes, we believe he was. And if he had gotten it, that would have been very, very dangerous.

KAMBER: It's very interesting the two letters almost caused the downfall of the last president, the two letters were I-S -- is. And the two letters here that Cliff keeps using are I-F -- If. If this happened, if this happened, if this happened. Well, the president made a statement that said it was happening, that this was based upon intelligence that we had, and that was verified intelligence. Well, if it was not, and if the president or his people, I don't care who it was, Tenet or whoever, misled us, the buck stops in one place, the president's office.

MAY: For some Democrats I understand this is payback for their anger over Clinton, but this is really too important of an issue for that.

KAMBER: You're right, it was.

MAY: Saddam Hussein was a threat to the U.S. Saddam Hussein killed tens -- hundreds of thousands of his own people. We're still coming up with mass graves. He had weapons of mass destruction programs. And it is no if here.

Again, the point is this, was Saddam Hussein trying to rebuild nuclear weapons? I think so. I think does the CIA think so? British intelligence thinks so. Was he shopping? Was he trying to acquire? Again, there's a difference between trying to acquire uranium and actually having done so. The administration did not claim that Saddam Hussein actually got tat uranium. They understood that...

KAMBER: Cliff, you're playing semantics and you know it.

MAY: It's not playing semantics.

O'BRIEN: Let's take a moment, because we're running out of time, and I want to get to another issue. As you've heard, of course, the third ID, looks like they're going to be staying longer in Iraq than they had originally thought they were going to be. And is this an indication with the addition that few foreign nations are stepping forward to donate their own troops to the process, that the post-war planning was just a wreck and not really well thought out? Victor?

KAMBER: I'm convinced there was no post-war planning in a true sense. I think they honestly believed that the Iraqi people would be dancing in the streets, en masse delighted that Saddam Hussein was gone, and this would be over, and the process would end. I mean, we didn't know how bad the electrical circuits were. We didn't know the water problems. That's outrageous with our intelligence that we didn't know what was going on.

O'BRIEN: Cliff, are you outraged, as well?

MAY: I'm not outraged. The Kurdish land is free. The Shiite areas are quiet. We've got some problems there. And what this raises is an important question -- I think Democrats and Republicans need to think about it seriously -- how do we do nation building successfully? Is the Army, a combat force, the right force to then do peacekeeping and nation building after? We have not been successful in nation building in recent years, Not in Haiti, not really in Kosovo or Bosnia. We did it in Germany and Japan after World War II. Do we want to do it, or willing to pay the price to do it? The remnants of the Baathist forces, and probably the Al Qaeda and other foreigners who are there are a danger to us, and we need to clean them out. But are we willing to stay there and see if we can build the first Democratic country in the Arab world?

KAMBER: Five billion to $5 billion a month.

O'BRIEN: Cliff May and Victor Kamber, as always, we're out of time. The two of you probably could go on for a really long time. Thank you for joining us this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com