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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With David Silverstein, Julianne Malveaux

Aired August 31, 2003 - 07:35   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.


JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: The cost of rebuilding Iraq is adding up. The numbers are staggering. So far, it's estimated that the U.S. has spent about $50 billion and it's climbing every day, along with the federal deficit.
For more on this, we're joined by David Silverstein, deputy director of the Foundation for a Defense of Democracy. That's a conservative think tank and Julianne Malveaux, a liberal syndicated columnist.

So let's go to ladies first. And we'll start out by asking you, Julianne, the U.S. taxpayers, should they be footing the bill for all of the reconstruction of Iraq?

JULIANNE MALVEAUX, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Oh, absolutely not. The cost that you saw from the clip, no one can even pin down the costs. We may be talking about trillions. I saw an estimate of $1.3 trillion. Meanwhile, we've had a tax cut. We have 35 states in some form of financial crisis. We have college tuitions at the public university rising at the double digit level. No, we should not be financing it. Frankly, we should not have gone there. And we shouldn't be there. We should have our allies, the United Nations, helping us, but no, we shouldn't pay for that.

VAUSE: Well then, David, the U.S. role in all of this, the United States started it. Many people were arguing, though, that the United States should finish the job. Countries like France and Russia very reluctant to chip in.

DAVID SILVERSTEIN, FDN. FOR A DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY: Well, that's true, but countries like France and Russia and Germany and some others didn't want to be there in the first place.

In fact as you recall, they were playing a very negative role of trying to obfuscate the role of Saddam Hussein in supporting terrorism and developing weapons of mass destruction. And they were trying to prevent us from liberating the people of Iraq.

I think the important thing to keep in mind here is that there are some 19 countries, 19 countries, the Poles, the Danes, the Bulgarians, and so on, who are helping us, either in terms of troops or in terms of direct contributions to the efforts in Iraq.

And so the point is that no, Julianne's right, we shouldn't be paying the whole bill. But there's no one else who's going to foot that bill. And the U.N. certainly wouldn't do it by themselves. And we certainly wouldn't want to trust France or Germany to do it. We know what they'd be up to.

VAUSE: David, let's be realistic here though. Poles, Danes, Bulgarians, while I'm sure while their contribution is very valued, and they're doing what they can, compared to what the big power houses like France, Germany and Russia can do, it's negligible, really.

SILVERSTEIN: Well, let's talk about the big power houses. The United States obviously is footing most of the bill, but the Spanish are coming in for a good chunk of it, and so are the British.

You know, there are other countries out there that make all kinds of in kind contributions. The single greatest cost to the United States is in terms of troops. And when we talk about $4 billion a month, as Secretary Rumsfeld alluded to in the intro, the fact is that much of that comes in the form of soldiers' pay.

So when you send troops from other countries who don't get paid as much as U.S. troops, quite frankly, you have a cheaper option, paid for by someone else entirely. And that frees up U.S. troops to do other things, whether in Iraq, or hopefully in short order elsewhere around the world where they're needed.

MALVEAUX: But David...

SILVERSTEIN: Yes.

MALVEAUX: To raise the Spanish as a possibility I think is laughable in terms of their potential contribution. It's so much less of the burden that's been placed on the United States.

And we can talk about $4 billion a month if we want to, but let's talk not only about the trillions that we may be looking at, let's talk about the loss of lives, about the fact that we've lost as many lives after this war as we lost during it.

You mentioned, David, the weapons of mass distraction. The fact is that we haven't been able to find any yet. And so, the very foundations of this war are, you know, questionable. The foundations of...

VAUSE: OK, Julianne, we don't want to go into the questions of the war.

MALVEAUX: Well, even more than that, I mean...

VAUSE: Let's just stick with the cost, Julianne.

MALVEAUX: OK.

VAUSE: Let's just stick with the costs. Sorry to interrupt.

SILVERSTEIN: Let me respond.

VAUSE: David, respond to the first part, what Julianne had to say. SILVERSTEIN: Sure, let me respond. The fact of the matter is that no reasonable, responsible person is suggesting that this is going to cost trillions of dollars. The U.S. national GDP in any given year is somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 trillion. Does anyone really believe that we're going to spend one-seventh or two- sevenths or three-sevenths of the U.S. national GDP in Iraq? I don't think so.

First of all...

MALVEAUX: There are responsible tank said $1.3 trillion...

VAUSE: Julianne, let David finish.

MALVEAUX: ...$1.3 trillion.

VAUSE: Julianne, let David finish. David, go ahead.

SILVERSTEIN: There are completely irresponsible individuals who are suggesting this will be trillions of dollars. In any event, Iraq has its own source of wealth. It has oil. As soon as those oil pipelines are up and running fully, not just what they're running now, which is about 50 percent, they'll be financing themselves.

The bottom line is things will cost a lot of money in Iraq. Trillions of dollars? I don't think so.

VAUSE: OK...

SILVERSTEIN: Hundreds of billions? Not even close.

VAUSE: ...another question to Julianne. Can the United States afford what is essentially working out to be a Marshall type plan in Iraq and still sustain huge tax cuts in this country?

MALVEAUX: I think not. I think that's at the bottom line is part of the issue here. And when David talks about the oil he's being disingenuous. We can't take these people's oil. And that's really one of the reasons why we're there. But when we talked about the dollars, even if you wanted to take the $1.3 trillion estimate and cut it in half, even if we look at President Bush asking in March for, I think, $75 billion to last us through September, and he'd said he'd come in and ask for another nearly equivalent amount, what does that cost us in terms of our own Marshall plan?

We have -- we've got schools that have not been constructed, crumbling and decaying health care system, people who don't have access to health care. We're talking about restoring services in Iraq. And we don't even have an electrical grid here that can sustain a blackout in New York. (Unintelligible.)

VAUSE: David, fair comment? Your reply?

SILVERSTEIN: No, it's completely unfair. The bottom line is that liberals can't have it both ways. You can't complain about blood for oil, which is the charge she's leveling against President Bush, then compare it with what goes on now.

We are not stealing anyone's oil. We are not marketing it for our own sake. We are going to sell it at some future date to help Iraqis finance their own reconstruction.

VAUSE: David, I have another point to you...

(CROSSTALK)

SILVERSTEIN: The bottom line about Iraq is that we cannot withdraw. We have liberated an entire people. We have freed the world from an evil dictator. For us to withdraw right now would essentially paint Osama bin Laden in a positive light.

VAUSE: But David, here we're facing in Iraq is you're talking about a country here, which by some estimates already owes the rest of the world $100 billion.

SILVERSTEIN: You know your right. It's a (unintelligible.)

VAUSE: Assuming the oil revenue already -- would getting to be used to pay off those debts...

SILVERSTEIN: It's a good point.

VAUSE: ...before the U.S. gets any.

SILVERSTEIN: You've got a fabulous point. And you know what? If France and Germany and Russia and all those countries that complain loudly about not having a role in Iraq want to do something positive, they will relieve the Iraqi people of that debt, most of which came in terms of weapons sales that they made to Saddam Hussein.

The fact is that if they really wanted to play a constructive role, they would do exactly that.

MALVEAUX: That's just ridiculous. You know what really needs to happen is that the Iraqi people are to be the ones who determine how their oil was sold, what debts they repay, how this all happens, the United States has to step out of the way, let the United Nations and let the Iraqi people run their own reconstruction.

We cannot be in charge of the world. There's an enormous arrogance in saying oh we've liberated these people from a horrible dictator. Six months ago, what we were saying was we have to go in there because there are mass distraction. Make up our minds.

We're there, and certainly Saddam Hussein was a horrible, tyrannous dictator, but that's not why we went there. We went there because of these weapons that put us theoretically...

VAUSE: OK, Julianne, I am going to drop as time...

SILVERSTEIN: (Unintelligible) steal the oil from Iraq, Julianne.

VAUSE: OK, we're going over old ground. OK, thank you both very much for joining us very early on a Sunday morning.

MALVEAUX: Thank you.

SILVERSTEIN: Thanks.

VAUSE: We appreciate your time today.

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 August 31, 2003 - 07:35   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: The cost of rebuilding Iraq is adding up. The numbers are staggering. So far, it's estimated that the U.S. has spent about $50 billion and it's climbing every day, along with the federal deficit.
For more on this, we're joined by David Silverstein, deputy director of the Foundation for a Defense of Democracy. That's a conservative think tank and Julianne Malveaux, a liberal syndicated columnist.

So let's go to ladies first. And we'll start out by asking you, Julianne, the U.S. taxpayers, should they be footing the bill for all of the reconstruction of Iraq?

JULIANNE MALVEAUX, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Oh, absolutely not. The cost that you saw from the clip, no one can even pin down the costs. We may be talking about trillions. I saw an estimate of $1.3 trillion. Meanwhile, we've had a tax cut. We have 35 states in some form of financial crisis. We have college tuitions at the public university rising at the double digit level. No, we should not be financing it. Frankly, we should not have gone there. And we shouldn't be there. We should have our allies, the United Nations, helping us, but no, we shouldn't pay for that.

VAUSE: Well then, David, the U.S. role in all of this, the United States started it. Many people were arguing, though, that the United States should finish the job. Countries like France and Russia very reluctant to chip in.

DAVID SILVERSTEIN, FDN. FOR A DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY: Well, that's true, but countries like France and Russia and Germany and some others didn't want to be there in the first place.

In fact as you recall, they were playing a very negative role of trying to obfuscate the role of Saddam Hussein in supporting terrorism and developing weapons of mass destruction. And they were trying to prevent us from liberating the people of Iraq.

I think the important thing to keep in mind here is that there are some 19 countries, 19 countries, the Poles, the Danes, the Bulgarians, and so on, who are helping us, either in terms of troops or in terms of direct contributions to the efforts in Iraq.

And so the point is that no, Julianne's right, we shouldn't be paying the whole bill. But there's no one else who's going to foot that bill. And the U.N. certainly wouldn't do it by themselves. And we certainly wouldn't want to trust France or Germany to do it. We know what they'd be up to.

VAUSE: David, let's be realistic here though. Poles, Danes, Bulgarians, while I'm sure while their contribution is very valued, and they're doing what they can, compared to what the big power houses like France, Germany and Russia can do, it's negligible, really.

SILVERSTEIN: Well, let's talk about the big power houses. The United States obviously is footing most of the bill, but the Spanish are coming in for a good chunk of it, and so are the British.

You know, there are other countries out there that make all kinds of in kind contributions. The single greatest cost to the United States is in terms of troops. And when we talk about $4 billion a month, as Secretary Rumsfeld alluded to in the intro, the fact is that much of that comes in the form of soldiers' pay.

So when you send troops from other countries who don't get paid as much as U.S. troops, quite frankly, you have a cheaper option, paid for by someone else entirely. And that frees up U.S. troops to do other things, whether in Iraq, or hopefully in short order elsewhere around the world where they're needed.

MALVEAUX: But David...

SILVERSTEIN: Yes.

MALVEAUX: To raise the Spanish as a possibility I think is laughable in terms of their potential contribution. It's so much less of the burden that's been placed on the United States.

And we can talk about $4 billion a month if we want to, but let's talk not only about the trillions that we may be looking at, let's talk about the loss of lives, about the fact that we've lost as many lives after this war as we lost during it.

You mentioned, David, the weapons of mass distraction. The fact is that we haven't been able to find any yet. And so, the very foundations of this war are, you know, questionable. The foundations of...

VAUSE: OK, Julianne, we don't want to go into the questions of the war.

MALVEAUX: Well, even more than that, I mean...

VAUSE: Let's just stick with the cost, Julianne.

MALVEAUX: OK.

VAUSE: Let's just stick with the costs. Sorry to interrupt.

SILVERSTEIN: Let me respond.

VAUSE: David, respond to the first part, what Julianne had to say. SILVERSTEIN: Sure, let me respond. The fact of the matter is that no reasonable, responsible person is suggesting that this is going to cost trillions of dollars. The U.S. national GDP in any given year is somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 trillion. Does anyone really believe that we're going to spend one-seventh or two- sevenths or three-sevenths of the U.S. national GDP in Iraq? I don't think so.

First of all...

MALVEAUX: There are responsible tank said $1.3 trillion...

VAUSE: Julianne, let David finish.

MALVEAUX: ...$1.3 trillion.

VAUSE: Julianne, let David finish. David, go ahead.

SILVERSTEIN: There are completely irresponsible individuals who are suggesting this will be trillions of dollars. In any event, Iraq has its own source of wealth. It has oil. As soon as those oil pipelines are up and running fully, not just what they're running now, which is about 50 percent, they'll be financing themselves.

The bottom line is things will cost a lot of money in Iraq. Trillions of dollars? I don't think so.

VAUSE: OK...

SILVERSTEIN: Hundreds of billions? Not even close.

VAUSE: ...another question to Julianne. Can the United States afford what is essentially working out to be a Marshall type plan in Iraq and still sustain huge tax cuts in this country?

MALVEAUX: I think not. I think that's at the bottom line is part of the issue here. And when David talks about the oil he's being disingenuous. We can't take these people's oil. And that's really one of the reasons why we're there. But when we talked about the dollars, even if you wanted to take the $1.3 trillion estimate and cut it in half, even if we look at President Bush asking in March for, I think, $75 billion to last us through September, and he'd said he'd come in and ask for another nearly equivalent amount, what does that cost us in terms of our own Marshall plan?

We have -- we've got schools that have not been constructed, crumbling and decaying health care system, people who don't have access to health care. We're talking about restoring services in Iraq. And we don't even have an electrical grid here that can sustain a blackout in New York. (Unintelligible.)

VAUSE: David, fair comment? Your reply?

SILVERSTEIN: No, it's completely unfair. The bottom line is that liberals can't have it both ways. You can't complain about blood for oil, which is the charge she's leveling against President Bush, then compare it with what goes on now.

We are not stealing anyone's oil. We are not marketing it for our own sake. We are going to sell it at some future date to help Iraqis finance their own reconstruction.

VAUSE: David, I have another point to you...

(CROSSTALK)

SILVERSTEIN: The bottom line about Iraq is that we cannot withdraw. We have liberated an entire people. We have freed the world from an evil dictator. For us to withdraw right now would essentially paint Osama bin Laden in a positive light.

VAUSE: But David, here we're facing in Iraq is you're talking about a country here, which by some estimates already owes the rest of the world $100 billion.

SILVERSTEIN: You know your right. It's a (unintelligible.)

VAUSE: Assuming the oil revenue already -- would getting to be used to pay off those debts...

SILVERSTEIN: It's a good point.

VAUSE: ...before the U.S. gets any.

SILVERSTEIN: You've got a fabulous point. And you know what? If France and Germany and Russia and all those countries that complain loudly about not having a role in Iraq want to do something positive, they will relieve the Iraqi people of that debt, most of which came in terms of weapons sales that they made to Saddam Hussein.

The fact is that if they really wanted to play a constructive role, they would do exactly that.

MALVEAUX: That's just ridiculous. You know what really needs to happen is that the Iraqi people are to be the ones who determine how their oil was sold, what debts they repay, how this all happens, the United States has to step out of the way, let the United Nations and let the Iraqi people run their own reconstruction.

We cannot be in charge of the world. There's an enormous arrogance in saying oh we've liberated these people from a horrible dictator. Six months ago, what we were saying was we have to go in there because there are mass distraction. Make up our minds.

We're there, and certainly Saddam Hussein was a horrible, tyrannous dictator, but that's not why we went there. We went there because of these weapons that put us theoretically...

VAUSE: OK, Julianne, I am going to drop as time...

SILVERSTEIN: (Unintelligible) steal the oil from Iraq, Julianne.

VAUSE: OK, we're going over old ground. OK, thank you both very much for joining us very early on a Sunday morning.

MALVEAUX: Thank you.

SILVERSTEIN: Thanks.

VAUSE: We appreciate your time today.

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