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Parker Spitzer

Unrest in Libya; New Wisconsin Showdown Strategy

Aired February 21, 2011 - 20:00   ET

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

KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Kathleen Parker.

ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program.

Tonight, the regime of Moammar Gadhafi is teetering as evidence mounts to a virtual civil war in Libra. Just a short time ago in an apparent attempt to reassure the world Gadhafi appeared on Libyan TV. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOAMMAR GADHAFI, LIBYAN LEADER: I'm not in France or in Venezuela. I'm still -- all these dogs. I'm still here.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: If you could not make out what Gadhafi was saying, I'll repeat it. I wanted to show them I am not Tripoli, not -- I mean in Tripoli, not Venezuela. Don't believe those dogs in the media.

He's talking about us, by the way. We're the dogs in the media. He's apparently referring to reports that he had left Libya and fled to Venezuela.

So now we know where Gadhafi is but what we do not know is if he has any control at all over what is happening in his own country. Just a short time ago, a plane full of people fleeing Libya landed at London's Heathrow Airport. Listen to how they described the scene on the streets of Tripoli.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Horrific, scary. A lot of gunfire last night. Heavy artillery, a lot of deaths we weren't expecting in Tripoli. Pretty scary. So, yes. But -- yes, it was tough. But we all got out, so.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: Shootings and street clashes are reported all over Libya. Its second largest city Benghazi is under the control of rebel forces. But it's not even clear who those rebels are or o who indeed is controlling them. In Tripoli, witnesses report that armed militiamen are firing on protesters. But the people firing on Libyan citizens are believed to be outsiders, mercenaries who may be the only army Moammar Gadhafi has left.

Late today Secretary of State Hillary Clinton harshly criticized Libya's actions. In a statement she said, and I quote, "We joined the international community in strongly condemning the violence in Libya. Now is the time to stop this unacceptable bloodshed".

As we watch the disintegration of Libya, it's worth taking a moment to remember exactly who Moammar Gadhafi is. For more than 40 years, he has perplexed the world as an unpredictable, often destructive leader. In the 1970s and '80s, Gadhafi became known as America's public enemy number one, a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism.

Listen to what President Ronald Reagan said about him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD REAGAN, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: This mad dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution, Muslim fundamentalist resolution, which is targeted on many of his own Arab compatriots.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: In the past 40 years, of course, Gadhafi has regressed from a powerful young military strongman to one who is eccentric, rambling and some say crazy.

Here is Gadhafi in 2009 talking to Larry King about how a leader should be judged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GADHAFI (Through Translator): But any head of the state or any leaders of the people, they should be viewed from the perspective of their own people, whether their own people like them, or don't like them, they are supporting them, not supporting them. They are with them or against them. This is how they should be viewed.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: Well, meanwhile, there's only one western journalist in Libya, and it is our CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman. He just arrived there hours ago and gives us a perspective no other news organization has.

SPITZER: We do not want to disclose his exact location, but he joins us now from the eastern part of the country.

Ben, can you hear us?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Eliot. Well, the eastern part of the country there's appears to be under the full control of the anti-Gadhafi forces. As we drove in, we saw sort of gaggles of young men with shotguns and AK-47s. They're trying to maintain some semblance of authority in this part of the country.

But I can tell you when we cross the border, there were no government officials, there were no soldiers or policemen, no formalities to speak of. But we just crossed over. And as we drove along, we saw some interesting things. For one thing, gas stations are open. There's some stores open, electricity seems to be functioning normally.

The cell phone system isn't working very well. It's impossible to call out from here. You can receive phone calls and make local phone calls, but other than that, the Internet has been down for three days.

What we saw is there's an exodus of Egyptian workers leaving the country. There are about two to three million Egyptians here, and we were told at the border that today alone 15,000 of those Egyptians crossed back into their country.

One thing we did see as we drove into the eastern part of Libya is we saw an ammunition dump on fire. And it was just sort of exploding constantly as we drove by throwing projectiles into the air. We were told that with the fire set by elements of the Egyptian -- of the Libyan army.

I was able to speak with one of the leaders of the anti-Gadhafi movement in this part of the country. He told me that by and large the Libyan army in the east has joined the anti-Gadhafi forces.

However, their concern at the moment is that there could very well be some sort of counterattack. They're particularly worried about the use of Libyan aircraft that we saw against protectors in Tripoli. They're afraid that they may also be used against the eastern part of the country.

SPITZER: You know, Ben, yesterday in the speech that Moammar Gadhafi's son delivered, that sort of long, rambling bizarre speech, Saif Gadhafi said there would be rivers of blood and there would be a civil war.

So who do the rebels -- or who are they most fearful of? You say the air force is the remaining part of the military so far other than in eastern Libya loyal to Moammar Gadhafi? What do we know about that?

WEDEMAN: Well, it does appear that what the government is using against the anti-Gadhafi forces are these mercenaries. And we were told that hundreds of those mercenaries have either been killed or captured by the anti-Gadhafi forces. And many of the people I spoke with said these are mercenaries coming from Sub-Saharan Africa, they don't speak Arabic, many of them speak French.

And -- so that's one of -- one of the concerns that the government is yet again using foreigners against their own people.

PARKER: Ben, do you have any sense of a leader or an individual who is sort of helping motivate these protesters as they had in Egypt with Wael Ghonim? Is there anyone like that -- Ghonim. Is there anyone like that there?

WEDEMAN: Not as far as I can tell. A lot of the leaders of this movement just seem to be local people who have simply had enough. Eastern Libya has traditionally been a hot bed of anti-Gadhafi sentiment. And therefore it appears that it's something that has united everybody.

One man was telling me that the initial protests were young people. But when the government started to use live ammunition against the protectors that motivated and mobilized the community as a whole. So one of the leaders of the anti-Gadhafi movement I spoke to, he's in his 50s. But there doesn't appear to be a single unifying figure.

This really does appear to be a mass movement that includes people of all ages and all of the various tribes, at least in the eastern part of Libya because it's a very tribal country. Seemed to -- simply united not around a figure, but united in hatred for Moammar Gadhafi and his 42 years of rule of this country.

SPITZER: All right. Thank you, Ben, for that exclusive report inside Libya.

Here with an insider perspective on the unrest in Libya is expert on the region, Parag Khanna and James Traub, contributing writer for "The New York Times" magazines.

Welcome to you both.

Parag, let me begin with you. You know Gadhafi. You have dealt with him and his son, I believe. Am I correct?

PARAG KHANNA, AUTHOR, "HOW TO RUN THE WORLD": I've been in the country. I've written about it in my previous books. I've traveled there pretty extensively. Yes.

SPITZER: Are we seeing a leader in Moammar Gadhafi who is completely unraveled, who is emotionally unstable, who actually is dealing with facts in a rational way? Or someone disassociated to reality?

KHANNA: He's been all of those things that you've just described for quite a while actually in terms of being disassociated from reality and not being connected to facts on a ground. Living in his tent and so forth. And from that video that we just saw, I mean, he's really trespassed into the realm of the bizarre.

One thing to be clear about is that he's not like Ben Ali or Mubarak. He's not going to leave the country. Rumors that he would've gone to Venezuela or whatever are absurd. This man will never leave Libya. He is a true revolutionary. At the age of 28, he drove around the country in a Volkswagen beetle and recruited various tribes without further resistance that overthrew the government. So he is -- he is part of the soil of the country, quite literally. He will never leave it. He will fight until he dies.

PARKER: But his son seems to be a different kind of person. He's well educated. He's got a PhD in political theory. A couple of book on liberalization, democratization. So --- and he has said that he doesn't want to be a dynastic heir but rather would want to be participant in the elections.

KHANNA: Right.

PARKER: So how do you see his role?

KHANNA: He said all of those right things. He's become a darling of the west, he obviously speaks English very well. And so forth. But when it comes down to having influence within Libyan society, you have to play to the elements, you have to know the tribal relationships, you have to be able to be -- to manipulate those relationships the way his father did so well for four decades.

Unfortunately his time outside of the country has cost him a little bit of that influence because you lose a little bit of the nuance when you are away. And he's had two struggles to rebuild that. Obviously his father has used him as something of an informal ambassador, roving around the world and sending the right, you know, messages. Or even testing the waters.

But now he's in a very reactionary position. He's saying the things that his father is almost making him say. Hence that rambling speech yesterday that was making all of the same anti-colonial rhetorical assertions that his father has made for decades. That's not really like him himself. That's what he's being spoon-fed to say.

PARKER: Right.

JAMES TRAUB, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: I think also, you know, there's the phenomenon of the son in the Arab world who the west always fixes on. Whether it's -- whether it's Gamal Mubarak, whether it's Pashar Assad, who is a doctor and I think an optometrist. And so one always hears, they get it.

We can talk to these guys. They're modernizers, and so the west -- you know, takes hope in these people. It always turns out that the apple doesn't fall as far from the tree as you think. They always wind up disappointing the westerners who think that they will somehow lead the country towards liberalization.

These are countries that their whole dynamic is to resist any change like that. You can't -- this whole idea of a kind of slow movement towards liberalization, especially in Libya, which as Parag said, has a revolutionary ideology. It's not going to happen.

SPITZER: What do we know about the army in Libya and to whom it is loyal? Because clearly in Egypt -- I'm hesitant to draw lesson from the metaphor of one other country, but in Egypt, of course, the critical decision was the army would not fire on the civilians.

Here we have seen just the opposite. And Saif Gadhafi said rivers of blood. What do we know about the military, where it will go, how hard it will fight and for whom?

KHANNA: That's one of the complicating factors. And remember as with other Arab countries, it's not just the military, but also the secret police. Very loyal to Gadhafi himself. Obviously we've heard that in the eastern part of the country there have been defections away from that.

But Gadhafi has always relied on outside mercenaries, as well, as a suppressive force. So you've got your secret police elements, those elements of the military that are still there, outside mercenaries still doing the dirty business of the government, which is to say being totally willing to wipe out using gun ships, helicopters, whatever it takes, to suppress the population.

They will continue to do that. And so in a way, I think that obviously Saif was wrong to talk about the west will come in if we have a civil war and so forth. But this violence -- they are absolutely brutal and certainly willing to carry this forward until the streets are totally pacified.

TRAUB: Also it's a much more -- this is a -- it's a regime that seeks to be totalitarian. It's not really a totalitarian country but it has a revolutionary ideology. And so the army has always been the enforcer of a revolutionary ideology. It's very different. Certainly Egypt, which is a conscript army, and therefore an army of the people, that's not the case here. But also this is an army which has been the principal strict for carrying out the (INAUDIBLE), the revolution.

And so it's a -- it's a system which is much harder to dislodge than the case of any of these other countries you've seen. Certainly then compared to Tunisia or compared to Egypt where there's a big difference between the state is a kind of separate entity. Here there's very little that hasn't been fully absorbed into the Libyan revolutionary ideology.

KHANNA: It's so important to remember that Gadhafi is the government, he is the state, those who are loyal to him. It's not like Tunisia where Ben Ali goes but you can appoint a new prime minister, you can have constitutional reform, you can have elections, you can do a variety of things. Those mechanisms and instruments do not exist in the country of Libya.

SPITZER: But we're also seeing what we've just heard from Ben Wedeman is at least in eastern Libya there seems to be success on the part of the revolutionaries. Whether it's been Benghazi or the second largest city or not, we don't really know at this point. But they seemed to have taken a significant part of the country, which means maybe there will have to be a civil war between factions within the military to sort this out. KHANNA: Well, as with the southern part of the country, the tribes of the eastern part of the country have modus avendi. They always have. And they -- as Ben mentioned, it's been a hotbed of anti-Gadhafi sentiment for a very long time. So that -- those groups of people are able to take control of Benghazi and say we're going to establish our own law and order here.

That's perfectly fine because they've always had those relationships with each other. So that doesn't constitute, though, a united revolutionary front at this point in time. But they're able to at least self-govern for a while in that part of the country.

That's a big accomplishment given how important the city of Benghazi is. But that doesn't mean that they can take over Tripoli.

TRAUB: I think also, by the way, what's going to happen, is it's more a question of whether the tribes will peel away and which tribes will peel away as opposed to the military itself. The military is organized along tribal lines.

So far, at least from what I've read, three of the major tribes have essentially stood up and said we repudiate this guy. There was a report that another major tribe earlier this evening had also done so. And so that's the dynamic, I think, to watch.

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: Go ahead.

KHANNA: He's going to attempt to call together people's congresses potentially in the next couple of days. The question is if that's too little too late. If he's -- if he does convene them and they weren't done, you know, very regularly in the same way that Mubarak never bothered to appoint a vice president. You know? You never -- you never think you need these bodies until you do. And then it becomes too late.

But he is able to get them together he could attempt to paper over some kind of reconciliation. But from the looks of what's happening on the streets, it's really too late for that.

PARKER: James, just to shift gears, one thing we've learned from watching all these countries is that they're -- we can't generalize about Muslim countries or Arab countries.

TRAUB: Right.

PARKER: And their responses are different to their circumstances and our responses are probably going to be different.

What should Barack Obama be doing right now?

TRAUB: There's so little he can do. I mean think -- you know, what we've learned is that even in the cases of countries where the United States has very strong and deep ties, like Egypt, the United States had almost no role whatsoever despite years of democracy promotion in actually causing those events to happen.

So much the west, what would have in the case of Libya. Now in the case of Egypt or Tunisia or Bahrain, the Obama administration was really hamstrung because these were important allies. Didn't know which way to turn. It's easy in the case of Libya. There's no problem.

You can denounce them from now until the crack of doom, it doesn't matter. It's not going to have any affect at all on Gadhafi.

SPITZER: Let me ask this question. We view Gadhafi as being a lunatic, on the fringe of reality. Is he viewed that way within his own country? They're susceptible, of course, to the propaganda. Don't have all the media we do. How is he viewed domestically?

KHANNA: No, I think you've done a very good job actually of capturing despite the limited access the views on the ground of people. The kind of vitriolic rhetoric they are using towards him. You're mad, you're crazy, you're megalomaniac.

This is in fact what quite a few people say. And they'll say it privately in my time traveling around the country. People have said those things to me, but very much under muted sort of tones. So they do feel that way. They do realize they have a very eccentric leader.

Remember this is in an educated country. For a long time they educated the oil elites and so forth of the rest of the Arab world.

SPITZER: All right, James Traub, Parag Khanna, fascinating insight. Thank you for being here.

When we come back, we'll hear from a top Libyan official, one who has turned against his leader, accusing his long-time boss of genocide. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: A key development today. Some of Moammar Gadhafi's key people began turning on him. One of them is a top diplomat at the United Nations. Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi says it's time for the Libyan leader to step down and accuses him of genocide.

He joins us tonight.

SPITZER: Ambassador, thank you for being here.

IBRAHIM DABBASHI, LIBYAN DEPUTY AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Thank you for having me.

SPITZER: You have dealt with Colonel Gadhafi for many years now. You've been at the very, very top of the Libyan diplomatic corps. Is Moammar Gadhafi emotionally and intellectually unstable?

DABBASHI: I think so. I think so.

SPITZER: Mr. Ambassador, we heard the son's speech yesterday where he talks about rivers of blood. Chilling, chilling words to use. Are you aware that the military has been told to actually shoot? Have you heard those commands? Do you know that people have been given that command? Or is the military acting on its own, out of some sense of fear and terror right now? Who is giving these orders?

DABBASHI: We know there is no one in command now in Libya except Colonel Gadhafi. He is controlling everything before and he's controlling everything now.

Who are now killing the Libyan people are the mercenaries and those militias. The few battalions of the Libyan army who are still there, most of them have already been on the part of the Libyan people. They left the -- their position and the protection of the regime. And they join the Libyan people.

SPITZER: So if I hear you properly, you're saying something very important, which is the military is going to take the side of the people, but the mercenaries are the ones who are doing what Colonel Gadhafi wants them to do. Am I correct in that? And if so, where are the mercenaries from?

DABBASHI: Yes, the mercenaries are two categories. One category is some Africans who came to Libya for work or for illegal immigration to Europe. And the second category, it's the regular army of some countries who are government by dictators in Africa. I suppose one of them is Zimbabwe.

PARKER: Mr. Dabbashi, can you tell us -- we've heard reports about, you know, helicopters firing on protesters. We've also heard reports of military personnel whose burned bodies were found. And those people, they were burned because they were unwilling to shoot on the protesters.

Can you verify any of this for us and give us a sense of actually how many civilian casualties there have been?

DABBASHI: I think everything is right. We know the nature of Colonel Gadhafi. I think he cannot live without the blood -- I mean the whole 42 years in power, he was shooting the people. And everyone knows what he did -- the genocide that he did in the Abu Salim prison. He killed the 1,200 in one day.

So I think it is -- and now it is clear that he declared war on the Libyan people, and he will kill as much as he can.

SPITZER: You have made statements today that are clearly directly contrary to his interests. What is going to happen to you now that you've spoken this honestly to the people of the world?

DABBASHI: I am really -- I'm not worrying about my safety. I am worrying about the safety of the Libyan people. I am one person with -- I am alive or I die doesn't mean anything. There are hundreds of people who are -- who are shot dead every day in the country. So I don't -- this is -- this is I think not the issue.

SPITZER: All right. Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us.

DABBASHI: Thank you.

PARKER: When we come back, Wisconsin braces for another week of protests as the budget battle heats up and half the legislature remains on the land. The latest from two key players, one still in hiding up next. But first a look at the protests in Madison tonight. Featuring a museum from the band Rage against the Machine. Take a listen.

(MUSIC)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: In Wisconsin today, the massive protests against Republican Governor Scott Walker's budget cuts continued. And the Democratic state senators remain on the lam avoiding the vote.

The main issue at stake, the governor's attempt to shut down state workers' ability to collective bargain.

SPITZER: Both sides have dug in their heels. The GOP has announced they're going back to work tomorrow with or without their colleagues. The Democrats threatening to hold out through the end of the week.

We're going to speak to the other side of the aisle. And joining us first from an undisclosed location, Democratic state Senator Jon Erpenbach.

Welcome back to the show.

JON ERPENBACH (D), WISCONSIN STATE SENATE: Thank you.

SPITZER: Senator, I've just got to ask, we all know there's a standoff, we all know you guys are at loggerheads. How would you on the Democratic side of the aisle close the budget that is at the heart of this controversy?

ERPENBACH: Well, it's about $130 million that's actually at the heart of this controversy over a $60 some billion document. What I would do is we recently within the past couple of weeks passed legislation giving businesses $150 million worth of tax breaks in Wisconsin.

I think we should probably revisit that issue. But again, the money in the end isn't the issue because the public employees and the teachers have already agreed to give Governor Walker every single penny he's asked for in return to remove the collective bargaining language that the governor has.

That would basically stamp out workers' rights in the workplace all over the state of Wisconsin.

PARKER: All right. Well, you say that the governor -- you all have agreed to all the financial aspects of the budget repair bill. So what is it in your view that -- why is the governor so determined to eliminate your collective bargaining position?

ERPENBACH: You see, I'm not certain, only because that wasn't the issue when he first introduced this. He said Wisconsin has a budget crisis. And we do, we have a budget deficit that we definitely need to deal with. There's no question about that.

So we introduce it as a budget repair bill that he says that will get us back on track and plug a current budget hole that we have. And he's right, that's what it does. But at the same time, it now appears that it could be his priority all along were to strip workers of their rights to organize and collectively bargain their contracts.

And if you know Wisconsin at all, you know we're famous for the Packers and we're famous for cheese and all of our dairy products. But we're also a very pro-worker state. The union tradition in the state of Wisconsin goes back decades. As a matter of fact, public unions were formed in Wisconsin.

And to take those rights away from the workers is just unbelievable and it's unconscionable. And so that's why that language needs to be removed.

SPITZER: Well, Senator, I'm with you on your position. I don't quite understand what the governor is trying to do. I'm also with you on the cheese, not so much the Packers, but will get to that later.

Here's my question. You're talking 130 million bucks, that is the immediate crisis.

ERPENBACH: Right.

SPITZER: Really you are looking over a two-year period -- you know $3 to $4 billion gap depending how you measure. Are you going to look at some of the other big pieces from the Democratic side of the aisle? Do you have a proposal you're going to make about how to control Medicaid spending or some of the other big programs that drive your state budget?

ERPENBACH: Well, one of the things with the Medicaid spending, there's actually addressed -- it's addressed in the budget repair bill and it's something that I'm very, very concerned about. There's a gubernatorial takeover on Medicaid programs in the state of Wisconsin, like BadgerCare, SeniorCare, really good programs that help low-income or no-income people who live in Wisconsin. And the governor takes those programs over. He takes away legislative oversight of the program so only he and the Department of Health and Family Services cabinet secretary he's picked can rewrite the rules for those programs. And he hasn't said word one about what he wants to do about that or do with the programs.

Now we understand very fully that people, more and more people in the state of Wisconsin are eligible for the Medicaid programs. But part of the reason why they are is where they work right now may have rolled back their health care benefits altogether, for example, and because of their income they qualify for these programs that they paid for with their taxes all along. KATHLEEN PARKER, HOST: Senator, your Republican colleagues tomorrow are planning to go ahead and reconvene and conduct some of the business other than the physical issues. Are you at all concerned that you'll be perceived by voters as having gone AWOL?

ERPENBACH: No, because we're doing our jobs right now, obviously. We're in contact with our constituents back in the district. We're answering e-mails. We're doing that, obviously. We're talking with people like you to get the word out, as well. I wish they wouldn't do it, but we completely expected them to do something like this. And again, it's their prerogative. When there are committee hearings, we'll be able to attend by phone like a lot of other Republican legislators do in Wisconsin when they're out of town or back in their districts and there's a hearing at the capitol. So obviously, we wish they wouldn't do it.

The governor has said we have a budget crisis in the state. The governor has said that his number one priority is to get the spending in line. The governor said that his number one priority "a" is to make sure that this budget repair bill passes as quickly as he possibly can get it done. So I would hope that the Senate Republicans instead rather than focus on other issues, focus on the issue at hand that the governor has told them to focus on and that's to get this job done.

SPITZER: Senator, quickly, maybe you can help me understand something that's also in the governor's budget. He has a provision here that permits the sale of energy assets without requiring there be competing bids for those assets. Just, you know, he unilaterally can figure out who the buyer is going to be. (INAUDIBLE) Excuse me, 16.896. I don't know why I was poking around that. Why does he do that without requiring competitive bids, do you know?

ERPENBACH: I have no idea, which is why we kind of took a walk on this in the first place. It was very evident when Governor Walker introduced it the previous Friday afternoon, he wanted it law by the end of the following week. He didn't want people to take a look at what's in this thing. He didn't want people to have a chance to sit down and digest it and see how it was going to affect their lives. He wanted it open and closed as soon as he possibly could get it.

Now, that being said, this is a budget repair bill. Sometimes they're controversial, sometimes they're not. But they're never loaded up with non-fiscal items like we're seeing with the workers and what they're doing as far as protecting their rights. And there's other little things that are tucked in here that are just amazing. So again, it's one of these things where I can understand why some people are upset at what we did. But now at the very least they can see why we're doing what we did.

PARKER: All right. Democratic Senator Jon Erpenbach, thanks so much for joining us.

Now let's get the opposing point of view from Wisconsin's Republican Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. He comes to us from Madison, Wisconsin. SPITZER: Senator, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

Senator, I've got to just begin by asking you this question. I've looked at a bunch of numbers in your state budget, and I've listened to both sides here. Just seems to me there's a disconnect between what you're trying to do, which is trying to break the union, and the deficit that you're facing. The union has said we'll give you all the financial givebacks you want, but you're saying the only thing we want is to break the union. Explain this to me.

SCOTT FITZGERALD (R), WISCONSIN STATE SENATE: No, I have to disagree with you. I mean, what's going on right now is that Governor Walker is about to announce major, major cuts in both education and shared revenue, which is the revenue stream that makes its way down to the local levels of government. In other words, the county and municipal level. And the problem is that 80 percent of the salaries and benefits make up those budgets at the local level. So unless there's a change to collective bargaining, those local levels of government are not going to be able to survive these cuts.

SPITZER: Senator, look, as you may know, I've been in government. I've negotiated budgets and contracts with the public employee union. They've been very tough in doing that. But the union has said, we will give you all the givebacks you need to close this budget deficit and take our fair share of that burden, but it is irrelevant whether we negotiate individually or collectively. We'll negotiate with you, do what's fair and what's right. Why do you have to break the union in addition to this?

FITZGERALD: No, the 12 percent in health care and the 5.6 percent on pensions does not even come close to closing the gap on the $3.6 billion deficit that we're facing right now.

SPITZER: No, no, senator --

FITZGERALD: And Governor Walker made a pledge.

SPITZER: But Senator, wait.

FITZGERALD: Governor Walker made a pledge during the campaign cycle to say, hey, listen, you know, if we're going to make these serious reductions, everybody is going to take a haircut, otherwise there's going to be major layoffs. And that's the other piece that he's going to announce in his budget this next week. And unless we stick to our guns and make the decisions in relationship to collective bargaining, we're never going to get the job done. This empowers school boards. It empowers county boards, and it empowers mayors around the state to make the very difficult decisions at the local level. And if 75 percent of their budgets right now just as you had at one time -- 75 percent of those budgets are in wages and fringe benefits, there's no other place to go for this. There's no other way to get to the bottom of this huge, massive debt that exists in many states right now.

PARKER: Senator, this is Kathleen Parker. They're pretty insistent in saying they will not come back as long as collective bargaining is still on the table. And you all seem to have decided to go ahead and conduct the business without them. So both sides are digging in their heels. How do you see this getting resolved ultimately?

FITZGERALD: Well, the assembly is going to convene tomorrow, and the Democrats in the assembly have shown up for work. So they're going to have a full debate on the governor's budget repair bill starting tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. And I'm told that the Democrats in the assembly have hundreds of amendments that are drafted to the governor's bill. And they'll probably be there all day, all night, and maybe even into the morning. And that's the way we do business.

You know, I was in the minority as minority leader over the last two years. And when the majority brought forth some items that I really disagreed with, our caucus showed up. We debated the bills. We offered amendments to the bills. We did the work. And if we lost in the final vote, we lost. That's the way the process works. These Democrats by going to Chicago have tried to shut down Wisconsin government, and we're not going to allow that to happen.

PARKER: All right, Scott Fitzgerald, thank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: The chaos in Libya may be dominating the headlines today, but fallout from recent uprisings and a fresh wave of protests continue to ripple throughout the region. In Bahrain, some 1,000 protesters remain in Pearl Square today after retaking the iconic landmark from government forces this weekend. In Morocco, five people were found dead this afternoon, a day after thousands demonstrated in at least six cities throughout the country. Despite the deaths, human rights watch reports most of the demonstrations were peaceful.

PARKER: Relative calm is also the mood in Yemen where thousands of antigovernment protesters took to the streets for the 11th consecutive day. Earlier demonstrations were marked by violent clashes with pro-government supporters leaving up to 12 dead. And in Egypt, the post-Mubarak era gathered steam today as investigators announced they've frozen the assets of the former president and his family. Protesters, meanwhile, issued a reminder to the military that they're keeping a close eye on the reform process. And we'll do the same. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: As the Libyan government threatens civil war against its own citizens, violence continues to spread throughout the region. In Iran this weekend, thousands of security forces met a wave of demonstrators with batons, pepper spray and gunfire. But the protesters aren't backing down and they're finding a lot of support among Iranian Americans.

PARKER: One vocal opponent runs an Internet talk show here in the states. You may not have heard of him, but in Iran, he's considered a terrorist. And according to recent diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks, the Islamic regime may have paid an assassin to take him out. CNN's Drew Griffin is here now with exclusive details behind the story.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT CORRESPONDENT: Kathleen and Eliot, it's a crazy story, really. The Iranian agent, if that's who he was, was arrested right here in the U.S. where we picked up his trail.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN (voice-over): It's the type of California town you dream of. Sunny skies, green mountains, palm tree-lined streets. Glendora, California, is not the type of town you'd expect paid assassins plotting international killings ordered by a totalitarian regime. But according to this diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, that is exactly what happened here. A conclusion supported by Glendora's police department. Would-be killers, a mastermind and a hired hit man holed up for four days in a low budget motel plotting, stalking, and on the verge of carrying out their elaborate plot.

(on camera): It was July 28th, 2009, the morning the murder was to take place. But the hit man got cold feet and instead pulled into this gas station, picked up his cell phone and dialed 911. And an international assassination plot unraveled.

LT. TIM STAAB, GLENDORA, CA POLICE DEPT.: This person went on to tell us that for the past four days they together had been scheming how to assassinate, how to kill a Glendora resident.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): To say it was a shock to Glendora Police Lieutenant Tim Staab is an understatement. The man hired to be the hit man offered proof too. Details of a plot involving a cheap van purchased at a local car dealer to be used accidentally to run down and kill the target. A payoff to his mother overseas, and a wad of $100 bills suspiciously wrapped.

STAAB: They were crisped, new, $100 bills and there was a stack of them. They're all sequentially numbered. And around it they had a bank wrapping around it, and the writing was in Farsi.

GRIFFIN: The money had come directly from an Iranian bank. And soon Lieutenant Staab was arresting the mastermind. His name -- Reza Sadeghnia, an unemployed house painter from Michigan. And the plot was rapidly thickening.

STAAB: Our informant was Iranian. The person, the suspect, the mastermind of this assassination attempt, if you will, was also Iranian. And those two wanted to kill the Glendora resident who not only was Iranian but he hosted an Internet talk show in Glendale, and just happened to live in Glendora.

GRIFFIN: And that led police to the next shock. The victim, and what the WikiLeaks cable suggests was the motive.

(on camera): This was an Iranian government plot?

JAMSHID SHARMAHD, IRANIAN DISSIDENT: Yes.

GRIFFIN: On American soil to assassinate you?

SHARMAHD: Exactly.

GRIFFIN: Scary? I mean, you're laughing. That seems pretty serious.

SHARMAHD: This is serious. This is clear.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Jamshid Sharmahd is an Iranian-American who opposes the current Iranian government.

(on camera): And let's be clear, your mission, your purpose is to overthrow the regime?

SHARMAHD: That's clear, yes.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Sharmahd is the radio voice of an Iran dissident group called Tondar. The group says it is behind a grassroots movement in Iran that has led to massive anti-government protests. The Iranian government says Tondar is a terrorist organization.

(on camera): Any doubt in your mind that the Iranian regime was behind this assassination plot?

SHARMAHD: No doubt.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): And that is supported in this, this leaked diplomatic cable written from the U.S. embassy in London to the State Department in Washington. The cable says the alleged mastermind, Reza Sadeghnia, admitted his surveillance of Sharmahd and more. He also plotted to kill a Voice of America commentator in London.

(on camera): The overall plot was to kill you, get you out of the way and hijack your radio, your television, your movement.

SHARMAHD: That's right.

STAAB: After looking at all the information, it sure adds up that the person that we arrested back on July 28, 2009 was a true bad guy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: That real bad guy was arrested and convicted, put behind bars last year for attempting to carry out an international assassination on American soil.

The end of the story? Hardly. It's just the beginning.

SPITZER: Unbelievable, Drew, this is like a thriller chapter one and chapter two is coming up right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PARKER: Back now with Drew Griffin's exclusive special investigation -- Drew?

GRIFFIN: The alleged Iranian assassin is in jail in southern California. He's entered a plea of guilty on a charge of solicitation of murder. But playing out at almost the same exact time, another drama involving a different Iranian-American. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN (voice-over): It was 2008. California businessman Reza Taghavi was on a trip to Iran finalizing a deal. As a favor, he also delivered $200 cash to the friend of a friend. A casual task, or so he thought.

REZA TAGHAVI, SOLUTIONS2GO.COM: They arrest me after a month. Exactly a month after that, they arrest me.

GRIFFIN: Taghavi would spend the next 29 months in Iranian jails.

(on camera): For $200?

TAGHAVI: For $200, yes.

GRIFFIN: And you spent --

TAGHAVI: Twenty-nine months in jail.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): He was being accused of giving that money to an Iranian dissident group, Tondar, terrorists the government said who had bombed a mosque. He denies it all and believes the Iranian government had other plans.

TAGHAVI: I'm pretty sure they knew I don't have anything to do with these terrorist people. They knew, but they hold me. Maybe they get something out of it.

GRIFFIN: What happened next was straight out of a spy thriller. Those involved say Iran and the U.S. engaged in a swap. The Iranian hit man, Reza Sadeghnia, jailed in California for plotting the assassination of a member of the Iranian dissident group Tondar, served just eight months in prison. He was released last July and placed on five years probation.

LT. TIM STAAB, GLENDORA, CA POLICE DEPT.: While on probation, he petitioned his probation officer to be able to leave the country to visit Iran. And he hasn't been seen since.

GRIFFIN: The Iranian mastermind was now back in Iran. Two weeks later, American businessman Reza Taghavi was allowed to go home to California. Taghavi insists the puzzling release of a known Iranian assassination operative and his release have nothing to do with each other, but the target of the assassination insists it was nothing short of a swap.

GRIFFIN (on camera): No doubt in your mind?

JAMSHID SHARMAHD, IRANIAN DISSIDENT: I give your man back, you give my man back.

GRIFFIN: You were the target of this assassination. Is that fair to you?

SHARMAHD: I'm still alive.

GRIFFIN: How sensitive is this case? So sensitive that the prosecutor here in Los Angeles that put this man in prison refuses to even discuss it with CNN. Not on camera, not on background. Not even off the record.

(voice-over): Requests for comment have also been denied by the FBI and the U.S. State Department. Jamshid Sharmahd says the reason is simple. Iran played the U.S. Jailing an innocent American businessman and using the American as a pawn to negotiate the release of a man claiming to work for Iranian intelligence. A deal Sharmahd says undermines the U.S. in dealings with a totalitarian regime.

SHARMAHD: If you start to trade with terrorizing regime, you're tolerating them. This is a big mistake in the last 30 years. And tolerating means of a small part cooperating.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: Once again, the State Department will not comment on this, Kathleen and Eliot, but I just want to say that that target and the target in London both believe that they, indeed, this was a swap that took place between these two governments.

PARKER: Well, it's just an amazing story. And as you say it's like a spy thriller except it's sort of, I don't know, the stakes seem a little smallish, you know. I mean, this radio fellow.

GRIFFIN: Right. It does seem small. Tondar is outside. You know, they're on the fringe of the anti-Iranian government group. But the Iranian government considers them a terrorist organization and they have gone to great lengths to silence or marginalize every single group opposed to them.

SPITZER: Here we have evidence of the Iranian government plotting assassinations in the United States. This evidence, you look at that, there's not a lot of doubt about that. They're doing this.

GRIFFIN: That's right. We've got the money, right? The money that came directly from an Iranian bank. We've got this cable from the U.S. embassy in London to the State Department of the U.S. which says, look, the guy's photos, the surveillance photos were taken was found in Iran on an intelligence minister's desk. It seems pretty darn clear that the Iranian regime was involved in this on American soil. And as these critics say, why are we doing any kind of swap with a regime like this?

PARKER: Well, I suppose we should feel gratified that their assassin was sort of inept.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

PARKER: But what if he had been successful? What would that have meant?

GRIFFIN: Well, if he was successful and caught, hopefully the guy would still be in prison.

SPITZER: Are there assassinations that we think may have been successful? In other words, this was not going to be clearly an assassination. He was going to hit by the side of the road and there's not going to be evidence. How many other individuals who are working against the interest of the Iranian government have died under mysterious or not such mysterious circumstances here, which means this might be going on as we speak?

GRIFFIN: You know that's a good question.

PARKER: Hard to know.

GRIFFIN: I don't know the answer to that. And I wouldn't know if this fellow was hit by that truck, as you said, as it was planned out. He might have been just changing his tire. Would we have known? Would we have put that puzzle together? I'm not sure of it.

SPITZER: Unbelievable. Drew, thank you for that fascinating story. That is our show for tonight.

PARKER: Good night from New York.

"PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts right now.