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American Morning

Interview With Chuck Hagel

Aired January 21, 2004 - 08:33   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: President Bush's State of the Union address last night offered a robust defense of his decision to go to war with Iraq. Mr. Bush said the discovery of "significant amounts of equipment points to the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs would have posed if left unchecked."
It was a point that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi criticized in the Democratic response to Mr. Bush.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence. He embraced a radical doctrine of preemptive war unprecedented in our history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: We're joined this morning by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Nice to see you, sir.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R-NB), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us.

HAGEL: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Overall, polls said 76 percent of people polled who watched the speech said they thought it was a positive speech or a very positive speech. Some analysts, armchair quarterbacks, would say they thought it was a little timid, they felt it wasn't his best speech.

What do you think of it?

HAGEL: Well, I thought he did what he needed to do. It was an inventory of the last three years of accomplishments under his leadership. It was a defining of the agenda for this year and also laying out a vision for the country and the world. And I thought within that hour speech, he accomplished most of what he needed to accomplish. He appealed to his political base, he reached out internationally. He obviously opened with Iraq and a strong defense of why he took the action he did.

Imperfect, they always are, but overall I thought it was a pretty good speech.

O'BRIEN: The focus of that hour was national security, a little bit less time on the economy and miscellaneous other stuff. The president talked about weapons of mass destruction programs but did not mention that in the past 10 months that they've been looking, no actual weapons found.

Do you think the American public will have a problem with this? Does the American people need more of an explanation that we didn't get in that speech last night?

HAGEL: Well, I think the American people is always willing to give a leader some time to develop his policy and his plan, his program. There's no American that I'm aware of that didn't understand that Saddam Hussein represented some threat. Now, we can get into arguments as to whether an immediate threat, did he have weapons of mass destruction. But I think overall the president's policy on Iraq will be judged not just on those specific areas, but in the end the result.

O'BRIEN: So you don't think that if no weapons of mass destruction are found that the American people will have a problem with that, as it was used to a large degree as a justification to go to war?

HAGEL: There are questions about that and there should be questions about that. The Democratic candidates for president are addressing it, are talking about it. It will be a campaign issue. It should be a campaign issue. But what I'm saying, again, is most of the time on these big issues, big wide lens, wide angle issues of foreign policy, the American people is willing to give a president some room there, some latitude. And I think it will be determined more as a result of that policy plays out versus did he fudge the intelligence, did he misrepresent?

Big questions? Yes. Real questions? Yes. Should those questions be asked and the Iraqi issue debated in this presidential year? Yes.

O'BRIEN: The economy was sort of the second largest topic to be covered. A thousand jobs created last month, a thousand, falling well short, obviously, of goals.

How big a President Bush is this going to be for the president, who in his speech sort of went through the laundry list of economic up sides?

HAGEL: Well, there's little question by every measurement that the economy is bouncing back. We are seeing a renewed strength in the underlying dynamics of the economy. The one thing that is lagging, but normally, historically, it does always lag, and that's job creation.

Now, where we'll be in six months, I don't know. If we are still seeing a lag in job creation in six months, then that could be a very significant President Bush for the president. But overall the signs are good that the economy is back on its feet and growing.

O'BRIEN: What do you think voters care most about, national security or the economy? Or is it a combination of the two?

HAGEL: I think all these issues are woven into one fabric and I think because we live in the kind of world we live in today, September 11, 2001 changed everything. Most voters are not single issue voters. There was a time when that was a preference with many. But I don't think so today.

Security, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are interconnected to our safety, to our future. So security, Medicare, health care, all of these things are impacted by the greater general agenda. And I think most Americans will look at a potential leader on the basis of do they feel confident that that leader has the judgment and the ability to lead this country and deal with all those issues?

O'BRIEN: As you mentioned, this was a speech that looked back to assess the last three years. Some people have said then the speech itself lacked the vision thing, as people like to say. It didn't talk about Mars, it didn't talk about space. Things that the president has been talking about in past weeks didn't make it into the speech.

Do you think that's a President Bush in the speech?

HAGEL: Well, you can go through the litany of specifics that didn't make it in and say well, why didn't he do it? He had an hour to make that speech and yes, he could have included some of those things. I was a little surprised that he made such a big deal about the introduction of a new space program but that wasn't not included in the visionary part of his speech.

But overall I think he hit most of the important agenda items, at least important in the eyes of most Americans that will affect them both directly and indirectly.

O'BRIEN: Senator Chuck Hagel, nice to have you.

HAGEL: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us this morning.

HAGEL: Thank you.

Thank you very much.

O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.

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 January 21, 2004 - 08:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush's State of the Union address last night offered a robust defense of his decision to go to war with Iraq. Mr. Bush said the discovery of "significant amounts of equipment points to the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs would have posed if left unchecked."
It was a point that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi criticized in the Democratic response to Mr. Bush.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence. He embraced a radical doctrine of preemptive war unprecedented in our history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: We're joined this morning by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Nice to see you, sir.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R-NB), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us.

HAGEL: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Overall, polls said 76 percent of people polled who watched the speech said they thought it was a positive speech or a very positive speech. Some analysts, armchair quarterbacks, would say they thought it was a little timid, they felt it wasn't his best speech.

What do you think of it?

HAGEL: Well, I thought he did what he needed to do. It was an inventory of the last three years of accomplishments under his leadership. It was a defining of the agenda for this year and also laying out a vision for the country and the world. And I thought within that hour speech, he accomplished most of what he needed to accomplish. He appealed to his political base, he reached out internationally. He obviously opened with Iraq and a strong defense of why he took the action he did.

Imperfect, they always are, but overall I thought it was a pretty good speech.

O'BRIEN: The focus of that hour was national security, a little bit less time on the economy and miscellaneous other stuff. The president talked about weapons of mass destruction programs but did not mention that in the past 10 months that they've been looking, no actual weapons found.

Do you think the American public will have a problem with this? Does the American people need more of an explanation that we didn't get in that speech last night?

HAGEL: Well, I think the American people is always willing to give a leader some time to develop his policy and his plan, his program. There's no American that I'm aware of that didn't understand that Saddam Hussein represented some threat. Now, we can get into arguments as to whether an immediate threat, did he have weapons of mass destruction. But I think overall the president's policy on Iraq will be judged not just on those specific areas, but in the end the result.

O'BRIEN: So you don't think that if no weapons of mass destruction are found that the American people will have a problem with that, as it was used to a large degree as a justification to go to war?

HAGEL: There are questions about that and there should be questions about that. The Democratic candidates for president are addressing it, are talking about it. It will be a campaign issue. It should be a campaign issue. But what I'm saying, again, is most of the time on these big issues, big wide lens, wide angle issues of foreign policy, the American people is willing to give a president some room there, some latitude. And I think it will be determined more as a result of that policy plays out versus did he fudge the intelligence, did he misrepresent?

Big questions? Yes. Real questions? Yes. Should those questions be asked and the Iraqi issue debated in this presidential year? Yes.

O'BRIEN: The economy was sort of the second largest topic to be covered. A thousand jobs created last month, a thousand, falling well short, obviously, of goals.

How big a President Bush is this going to be for the president, who in his speech sort of went through the laundry list of economic up sides?

HAGEL: Well, there's little question by every measurement that the economy is bouncing back. We are seeing a renewed strength in the underlying dynamics of the economy. The one thing that is lagging, but normally, historically, it does always lag, and that's job creation.

Now, where we'll be in six months, I don't know. If we are still seeing a lag in job creation in six months, then that could be a very significant President Bush for the president. But overall the signs are good that the economy is back on its feet and growing.

O'BRIEN: What do you think voters care most about, national security or the economy? Or is it a combination of the two?

HAGEL: I think all these issues are woven into one fabric and I think because we live in the kind of world we live in today, September 11, 2001 changed everything. Most voters are not single issue voters. There was a time when that was a preference with many. But I don't think so today.

Security, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are interconnected to our safety, to our future. So security, Medicare, health care, all of these things are impacted by the greater general agenda. And I think most Americans will look at a potential leader on the basis of do they feel confident that that leader has the judgment and the ability to lead this country and deal with all those issues?

O'BRIEN: As you mentioned, this was a speech that looked back to assess the last three years. Some people have said then the speech itself lacked the vision thing, as people like to say. It didn't talk about Mars, it didn't talk about space. Things that the president has been talking about in past weeks didn't make it into the speech.

Do you think that's a President Bush in the speech?

HAGEL: Well, you can go through the litany of specifics that didn't make it in and say well, why didn't he do it? He had an hour to make that speech and yes, he could have included some of those things. I was a little surprised that he made such a big deal about the introduction of a new space program but that wasn't not included in the visionary part of his speech.

But overall I think he hit most of the important agenda items, at least important in the eyes of most Americans that will affect them both directly and indirectly.

O'BRIEN: Senator Chuck Hagel, nice to have you.

HAGEL: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us this morning.

HAGEL: Thank you.

Thank you very much.

O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.

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