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Israeli Prime Minister Addresses U.N.; Nuclear Concerns Play Out at U.N.; Government Shutdown

Aired October 01, 2013 - 12:30   ET

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

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: This was published in 2005.

I quote. Here's what he said. "A country that could enrich uranium to about 3.5 percent will also have the capability to enrich it to about 90 percent.

"Having fuel-cycle capability virtually means that a country that possesses this capability is able to produce nuclear weapons."

Precisely, this is why Iran's nuclear weapons program must be fully and verifiably dismantled, and this is why the pressure on Iran must continue.

So here's what the international community must do. First, keep up the sanctions. If Iran advances its nuclear weapons program during negotiations, strengthen the sanctions.

Second, don't agree to a partial deal. A partial deal would lift international sanctions that have taken years to put in place in exchange for cosmetic concessions that will take only weeks for Iran to reverse.

Third, lift the sanctions only when Iran fully dismantles its nuclear weapons program.

My friends, the international community has Iran on the ropes. If you want to knock out Iran's nuclear weapons program peacefully, don't let up the pressure. Keep it up.

We all want to give diplomacy with Iran a chance to succeed, but when it comes to Iran, the greater the pressure, the greater the chance.

Three decades ago, President Ronald Reagan famously advised, trust but verify. When it comes to Iran's nuclear weapons program, here's my advice -- distrust, dismantle, and verify.

Ladies and gentlemen, Israel will never acquiesce to nuclear arms in the hands of a rogue regime that repeatedly promises to wipe us off the map. Against such a threat, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself.

I want there to be no confusion on this point. Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone, that in standing alone, Israel will know that we will be defending many, many others.

The dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran and the emergence of other threats in our region have led many of our Arab neighbors to recognize, finally recognize, that Israel is not their enemy, and this affords us the opportunity to overcome historic animosities and build new relationships, new friendships, new hopes.

Israel welcomes engagement with a wider Arab world. We hope that our common interests and common challenges will help us forge a more peaceful future.

And Israel continues to seek a historic compromise with our Palestinian neighbors, one that ends our conflict once and for all.

We want peace based on security and mutual recognition in which a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the Jewish state of Israel.

I remain committed to achieving historical conciliation and building a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Now, I have no illusions about how difficult this will be to achieve. Twenty years ago, the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians began. Six Israeli prime ministers, myself included, have not succeeded at achieving peace with the Palestinians.

My predecessors were prepared to make painful concessions, so am I, but so far, Palestinian leaders haven't been prepared to offer the painful concessions they must make in order to end the conflict.

For peace to be achieved, the Palestinians must finally recognize the Jewish state, and Israel's security needs must be met.

I am prepared to make a historic compromise for genuine and enduring peace, but I will never compromise on the security of my people and of my country, the one and only Jewish state.

Ladies and gentlemen, one cold day in the late 19th century, my grandfather Nathan and his younger brother Judah were standing in a railway station in the heart of Europe.

They were seen by a group of anti-Semitic hoodlums who ran towards them, waving clubs, screaming, "Death to the Jews."

My grandfather shouted to his younger brother to flee and save himself, and he then stood alone against the raging mob to slow it down. They beat him senseless. They left him for dead.

And before he passed out, covered in his own blood, he said to himself, "What a disgrace, what a disgrace, the descendants of the Maccabees lie in the mud, powerless to defend themselves."

He promised himself then that, if he lived, he would take his family to the Jewish homeland and help build a future for the Jewish people.

I stand here today as Israel's prime minister because my grandfather kept that promise, and so many other Israelis have a similar story, a parent or a grandparent who fled every conceivable oppression and came to Israel to start a new life in our ancient homeland.

Together, we've transformed a bludgeoned Jewish people left for dead into a vibrant thriving nation, defending itself with the courage of modern Maccabees, developing limitless possibilities for the future.

In our time, the biblical prophecies are being realized. As the Prophet Amos said, "They shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine.

"They shall till gardens and eat their fruit. And I will plant them upon their soil, never to be uprooted again."

(SPEAKING HEBREW)

Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Israel have come home, never to be uprooted again.

(APPLAUSE)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And there's the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, delivering his address before the United Nations General Assembly, a very, very tough statement, saying he doesn't believe anything that this new Iranian leader has suggested so far, Hassan Rouhani, a very direct reply.

Also saying Iran is building a nuclear -- trying to build a nuclear bomb and Israel will simply not allow that to happen, even if Israel needs to act alone.

He's urging the international community not to accept this new, more moderate tone coming from the new Iranian president.

Christiane Amanpour is standing by. She was listening to the speech, together with all of us.

Christiane, you spent some time with Rouhani. You know this man. You've obviously got a good sense of what's going on right now.

I was pretty surprised at how tough Netanyahu was in rejecting, basically, all this new, more moderate tone coming from the Iranian leader.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I wasn't. The speech had basically been previewed ever since Rouhani made his speech.

And everybody knew that this Tuesday at the U.N. podium would be the Israeli very, very tough response to what they view as, in the prime minister's words, "a wolf in wolf's clothing."

They feel, I guess, somewhat isolated right now because, obviously, the West is not just the United States but it's the rest of the -- most of the countries who are willing to give diplomacy a chance and who want to re-establish some kind of negotiations, especially amongst the P-5-plus-1, the U.N. formula for negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. And, of course, you know, things have taken many, many leaps forward this past week, not least, the historic conversation between President Obama and Rouhani, the first between the presidents of those countries in 35 years.

So this shows that diplomacy is moving in a way that Israel is worried about.

And, of course, the Israeli prime minister has been to see President Obama, and the truth of the matter is that actions, of course, are going to be what is the proving ground.

And if there's no, you know, substance to either what the U.S. says or what Iran says, then, sure, this is not going to work.

So the proof will be in the substance of what comes out of any negotiations, whether Iran agrees to certain restrictions and, you know, much more transparency and whether the United States and the West agrees to lift meaningful sanctions, and they have some kind you have reciprocal arrangement going forward.

If that doesn't work and you know there are plenty of hardliners on all sides who don't want it to work, not least in Iran, in the United States, in Israel, many people who are very suspicious of this whole process.

It may not work, but the substance is what's going to be the proof of the pudding, not smiles or words or other such things.

BLITZER: Here's the key statement I think that the prime minister of Israel made, saying that Israel will never allow the Iranians to go ahead and build a nuclear bomb.

Listen to this, Christiane.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NETANYAHU: Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone, that in standing alone, Israel will know that we will be defending many, many others.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Christiane, is there sort of a good cop, bad cop element here that the prime minister of Israel, the bad cop, saying, I don't believe anything you're saying so far, prove it, you got to the take these four steps that he outlined in this speech?

And maybe President Obama, who did make that phone call late last week to the departing Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, maybe the good cop in this effort right now?

Do you see an element of coordinated strategy here between the U.S. and Israel? AMANPOUR: You know, this is not a change. What Prime Minister Netanyahu said is exactly what he's been saying all the time, including, as he mentioned, last year from the podium.

Their position is, and to be honest, it's the position of the international community, the United States, the Western nations and others, they will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

That is what President Obama also said from that same podium last year. That's a basis. That's what they say.

Now, the difference is that President Obama does not want to go to war and does not want to resolve this militarily. He might. He hasn't taken it off the table, but he doesn't want to do that. He wants to give diplomacy a chance.

And likely he probably said to the prime minister, let us let diplomacy try to work. Let's see where it goes, but obviously as I say, it's the substance that's going to matter. It's the actions that will matter and not just the words.

So I think everybody's on the same page except that Israel does have a much more, you know -- certainly the prime minister has a much more forward leaning view towards military action.

And he then said there today that he would do it alone if he had to.

You know, there's all sorts of debates we can have about that, but clearly, they are very, very concerned about this outreach from Iran. They're worried that it's not, as he said there, that it's not going to actually translate into the anything meaningful and that it's just a stalling tactic.

He's been saying that ever since the president was elected, President Rouhani, so he came to the U.N. and delivered exactly the speech that we all expected.

BLITZER: The state-run, English-language television service in Iran, what's called PressTV, took the prime minister, the Israeli prime minister's speech live and broadcast it. This is the English-language version of the state-run TV in Iran.

I don't know about the Farsi-language version. I suspect they didn't take him live.

But what do you make of the fact that at least the English-language version of state-run Iranian TV took the prime minister's speech live?

AMANPOUR: Well, look, I think it's really important, and I think that it's interesting. I'm not sure -- I can't tell you right now whether it's the first time they've done that, but obviously it's really important. Next we'll see, you know, the commentary that goes on around it.

As I say, I'm sure they were not surprised by that speech. It is a very similar speech to last year. And it's the speech that this prime minister and his aides and his government said that he would make. He would warn the world, in their words, not to trust the new Iranian president.

Now, the United States has decided not to the trust but to try to go ahead with -- to see whether diplomacy is possible and also to verify, verify, verify. So that, I think, pretty much -- most people are on the same page on this. The Arab countries, the Sunni Arab countries, America's allies such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf allies, they're also just as worried as the Israeli prime minister for different reasons because they feel that a rising Iran and an Iran that is maybe potentially in the future has better relations with the United States and the west is a direct threat to their power. So that is also a problem with those countries. They don't want to see that at all. So there are a lot of special interests, a lot of interests at play in this whole thing.

BLITZER: Right.

AMANPOUR: Interestingly from here, there was all sorts of commentary in the British press and in the European press. All those problems that Prime Minister Netanyahu laid out, people say that if there is a reproachment (ph) between the United States and Iran, that could be the most significant, positive political development, precisely because of those problems that the prime minister just laid out since the end of the Cold War. So it's viewed very differently in very many different quarters of the world, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Christiane Amanpour helping us better appreciate what we just heard from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Christiane, thanks very much.

The other big story we're following here in Washington, the government shutdown. President Obama getting ready to speak from the White House Rose Garden momentarily. He'll be walking out of the Oval Office, down those stairs to the podium. We're going live to the White House to hear the president.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: All right, you're looking at live pictures of the White House. The president is still in the Oval Office right now. He's getting ready to come out of the Oval Office. That's the West Wing. He's walking down those stairs fairly soon. In a few minutes, he'll be addressing the nation on this first day of this government shutdown. We're anxious to hear what he has to say. Obviously, he is not very happy about what's going on.

Gloria Borger is here, our chief political analyst. Newt Gingrich is here, the new co-host of "Crossfire," as well.

Gloria, set the scene for us because there's - it's - there's a real deadlock now, all these hours into this first day of the government shutdown. It doesn't look like there's any significant movement.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: No. BLITZER: I haven't seen any significant movement between the House - the House led - the Republican-led House and the Democratic-led Senate.

BORGER: Well, you know, Wolf, and you were there with us late last night, there was an offer to -- by the Republicans to start negotiations. And the Democrats said, are you kidding me, we've been trying to negotiate with you on the budget for months. And suddenly, in the 11th hour now, an hour before the shutdown, you want to negotiate? So the answer to that is absolutely no.

So I think we are where we were days ago leading up to this. There -- as Dana Bash has been reporting, there seems to be some willingness on the part of some more Republicans to kind of get this over with. And I -- and they're trying to figure out a way to wave a flag without making it look like they're waving a white flag. But I believe that's what they'd be doing.

BLITZER: You worked out a lot of deals when you were the speaker, Newt, in '95, '96 with then President Bill Clinton. How do they make sure that this government shutdown ends and 800,000 people can get back to work?

NEWT GINGRICH, HOST, CNN'S "CROSSFIRE": I don't think they do.

BLITZER: They've got to do it. I mean they've got to do it somehow.

GINGRICH: No, they don't have - they have to. That's the whole point.

BLITZER: You want -- you want this government shutdown to go on for a long -

GINGRICH: No. No, I'm not - I'm not saying I want anything. I'm saying, under our Constitution, if this president comes out in a few minutes and makes another partisan hostile attack, he pushes the shutdown further down the road. When Harry Reid says, no, I won't negotiate, he pushes it further down the road. There's no incentive right now for the House Republicans to do anything. They've already crossed the Rubicon. We're in a shutdown. Now, why would they give up - why would they go to this much trouble and then say, OK, we'll give you a clean continuing resolution. We surrender. We bow to the president. He's in charge of everything.

BORGER: But I don't - but would they be really bowing to the president?

GINGRICH: Sure.

BORGER: I mean they'd be actually bowing to public opinion, which is 2-1 against this.

GINGRICH: It doesn't matter.

BORGER: They'd be actually -- why doesn't it matter?

GINGRICH: This is -- this is a great shock to reporters. The election is in November of 2014. Not this week.

BORGER: But there was one in 2012.

GINGRICH: And the Republicans won the House and the president won the White House.

BORGER: But the president won the White House and the president's health care reform bill had passed.

GINGRICH: So now you have -- now you have - and now you have a deadlock because you have a president who won the White House who doesn't want to negotiate, you have House Republicans who have a very tough position and nobody's talking.

BORGER: What can he give the Republicans? I mean - my --

GINGRICH: He could give them a lot of things. He could agree to repeal the tax on medical devices, which even his own --

BORGER: Separately. Why does that have to come in this context? That's my question.

GINGRICH: Because - because in this setting, they're now set up psychologically that if he's not prepared to give the House Republicans some victory, I mean why would that --

BORGER: Why does he have to give them a victory? I - I mean that's --

GINGRICH: Why? Because that's how the process works between two equal branches. This is not the president and all these little, you know, people down here. This is the executive branch and the legislative branch. And the Republican side of the legislative branch is saying, we want to get something out of you, you're not giving us -- they could have given them the repeal on the tax at any time in the last six months. They haven't done anything.

BORGER: But Boehner could bring it up on the House floor, get a vote and -- on a clean continuing resolution and it would pass if he would be willing to --

GINGRICH: But, look, that would be - look, he could also bring up the repeal. I mean -

BORGER: To make those Republicans unhappy.

GINGRICH: If the president wanted to do a dance, he could agree that if Boehner passed the repeal of the tax on medical devices, that Reid would bring it up in the Senate and pass it, not as part of the continuing resolution.

BORGER: Separately.

GINGRICH: And given that commitment, you might well be able to move a clean, continuing resolution. But you'd have to have a real public commitment. Here are the two or three things that, you know, Keystone Pipeline, clear that a majority of the country wants it, clear that given what's happening in the Middle East it would be good for us to do it. You could have the same again. It doesn't always have to be on the same bill.

BLITZER: So if you were the speaker of the House right now, what would you do, not with Bill Clinton but with Barack Obama as president of the United States? How would you behave on this first day of a government shutdown?

GINGRICH: I probably would go down to the World War II Memorial and say that it is a total disgrace that the president of the United States is deliberately taking on World War II veterans to cause maximum pain. Some of the stuff this administration is doing is just insultingly cynical.

BLITZER: So you wouldn't go and call up the president and say, Mr. President, we have to get together.

GINGRICH: No.

BLITZER: We have to meet. Let's not do so much partisan jabbing at each other.

GINGRICH: Yes, I mean -

BLITZER: Let's have a serious -- let's have dinner.

GINGRICH: Sure.

BLITZER: Let's spend a few days and let's resolve this. There's too much at stake now to get into a food fight politically.

GINGRICH: Well, if I -- look, it's very -

BLITZER: That's what you did with Bill Clinton.

GINGRICH: It's very hard to compare the two because the last call, as I understand it, that Barack Obama had with John Boehner, he opened the call by saying, I will not negotiate. Now, what are you going to say (INAUDIBLE)? As Clinton has said publicly on Piers Morgan's show, we fought -- we were able to compartmentalize. We fought here and we negotiated here, but it wasn't either or. We understood that we had to have enough fighting to have the heat high enough, but we had to have some - a lot of talking to get a deal.

BORGER: But -

BLITZER: All right.

BORGER: But isn't this a fight with - and you're familiar with these -- isn't this a fight within the Republican Party.

GINGRICH: Not much.

BORGER: And how can the president -- well, sure it is. And how can the president --

GINGRICH: You had -- you had two votes. You had two no votes.

BORGER: Help John Boehner resolve -- how can he help him resolve the problems within his own caucus? The president's not going to do that.

GINGRICH: Look, you had two no votes last - you only had two Republicans -

BLITZER: Only one vote last night. They had 12 Republicans who voted against the speaker.

GINGRICH: OK. But -

BLITZER: But that - but, you're right, they need at least 17, 18, 19 -

GINGRICH: And none of the 12 -

BLITZER: If there - if there was a real open vote on the House of Representatives.

GINGRICH: But of the 12, a number were to the right.

BLITZER: All right, hold on, hold on for a minute. Don't go away. The president of the United States momentarily, he'll be in the Rose Garden there. You see live pictures. The president will be speaking. We're going to also hear not only from the president, but in the next hour we'll hear from Kathleen Sibelius. This is day one of Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. People are signing up for it, but there are some glitches. Our special coverage continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

The president of the United States momentarily will be coming out of the Oval Office and addressing the nation. Today being the first day of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare, as it's called. People can go online and start signing up.

He's invited some guests to the Rose Garden. There you see them right there. Right there. They'll be standing behind the president. These are people who will be able to take advantage of some of the benefits of Obamacare. The president will mention them, single them out, explain some of the positive elements of this new national health care reform law. Today's the first day people can sign up for it.