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State of the Union
Interview With Robert Gates; Interview With Senators Bayh, Corker
Aired September 27, 2009 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John King, and this is "State of the Union."
A wrenching debate over whether to send thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. And startling revelations about a secret underground bunker in Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GATES: This is an illicit nuclear facility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: And a candid assessment of the pressing global challenges from Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Plus, the political divides on foreign policy and health care. We'll talk to two influential senators, Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee and Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana.
Then, our "American Dispatch" from the Mississippi Delta. Unemployment is pushing 20 percent, things look bleak, and every job matters.
This is the "State of the Union" report for Sunday, September 27th.
We'll get to our interview with the Defense Secretary Robert Gates in just a moment, and you won't want to miss his thoughts on the new nuclear showdown with Iran and the president's debate over sending thousands of more troops to Afghanistan.
First, though, let's set the scene with some remarkable new images of the Iranian nuclear facilities at the heart of this high- stakes confrontation. You see Iran up on the map here. The world, for some time, has been watching 17 nuclear facilities. You see them highlighted there across Iran. Well, we want to zoom you in now to the new area of interest the world has been watching more closely. You see the Iranian city of Qom here. Some facilities to the north.
This is an image I want to show you now. Watch it load up on the screen. This is a little more than three years ago, almost four years ago, near Qom, out in the desert. You see some rudimentary construction here, but look at all this open space. Now watch closely as we fast forward to an image from January of this year. This one takes a moment to load, stay with us. You see here a dramatic change in that landscape, including deep underground construction. Let me go back to that. Sorry, we'll come right back to it.
Come to January here, it will load right up, deep underground construction here, including steel reinforcement beams underneath, more construction over here, even more construction up in here. Now, remember, this is January, just eight months ago. This is a dramatic new image just into CNN yesterday. We want to show you once we bring this up. Here's January. Watch us fast forward now. This is now. A building constructed here where you saw that underground ditch. This was all open a few minutes ago, tunnels into the hillside. Up here, covered again, more tunnels into the hillside. Again, we want to put this into context for you by coming back in time. Here is this image, the area four years ago, three, four years ago, rudimentary construction. Here we are now, a major facility under way, underground access, ventilation up here, ways out up in the countryside. All of this in an area under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
So the question now for Secretary Gates and others, what does the Obama administration know and what actions will it take?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us.
We learned as the week came to an end about a new underground secret Iranian nuclear bunker, and the president described it this way. "The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program."
Tell us more about what we know, and do you have any doubt Iran was using this facility or planned to use this facility to develop nuclear weapons?
GATES: We've been watching the construction of this facility for quite some time, and one of the reasons that we waited to make it public was to ensure that our conclusions about its purpose were right. This is information shared among ourselves, the British, the French, as we've gone along. And I think that, certainly, the intelligence people have no doubt that this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only because the Iranians kept it a secret. If they wanted it for peaceful nuclear purposes, there's no reason to put it so deep underground, no reason to be deceptive about it, keep it a secret for a protracted period of time.
KING: Take me back in time. You say you've known about it for some time, dating back into the Bush administration. You, of course, were serving in the Bush administration. How far back?
GATES: Well, it's hard for me to remember, but at least a couple of years we've been watching it.
KING: At least a couple of years. Because the former vice president, Dick Cheney, is on record as saying in the closing months of the administration, he was an advocate for possibly using military action against some of these Iranian sites. Was this one of his targets, this area we've just learned about?
GATES: Well, I think I'll just let his statement speak for itself.
KING: All right. We know -- and correct me if I'm wrong, please -- that you were skeptical about that, in fact, opposed to that. You didn't think that was the way to go. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has said publicly many times how skeptical he is about the military options here. I just want you to help an American out there who says, we can't trust Ahmadinejad, this has been going on for years. We don't think sanctions will work. Why don't we do something about it? Explain to that person out there, whether they work in the United States Congress or whether it's just an average American, when you look at the contingencies that you have available to you and the president has available to him, are there any good military options when it comes to these deep underground facilities?
GATES: Well, without getting into any specifics, I would just say we obviously don't take any options off the table.
My view has been that there has been an opportunity through the use of diplomacy and economic sanctions to persuade the Iranians to change their approach to nuclear weapons.
The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time. The estimates are one to three years or so. And the only way you end up not having a nuclear capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons as opposed to strengthened.
So I think, as I say, while you don't take options off the table, I think there's still room left for diplomacy. The P5 plus 1 will be meeting with Iran here shortly. The Iranians are in a very bad spot now because of this deception, in terms of all of the great powers. And there obviously is the opportunity for severe additional sanctions. And I think we have the time to make that work.
KING: I want to get to that diplomacy in just a minute, but when you shared this intelligence with others, I want to ask you specifically about the case of Israel, which you know in the past has been very skeptical about the diplomatic route. And many have thought perhaps Israel would take matters into its own hands because it is in the neighborhood. What did the Israeli government, specifically the Israeli military, say when they learned of this intelligence, about this new second facility?
GATES: Well, Israel, obviously, thinks of the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel. We've obviously been in close touch with them, as our ally and friend, and continue to urge them to let this diplomatic and economic sanctions path play out.
KING: And as that goes forward, President Sarkozy was quite skeptical and he was very clear, this year, December, he wants to see progress or else we'll see tougher sanctions. From your perspective, what sanctions would have the most teeth, would work? GATES: Well, there are a variety of options still available, including sanctions on banking, particularly sanctions on equipment and technology for their oil and gas industry. I think there's a pretty rich list to pick from, actually.
KING: If you look at that list, though, in some of those cases, you'll find the suppliers, gasoline, imports, some of the equipment and technology would be China, would you not?
GATES: China's participation is clearly important. KING: And the early indications are they will or won't help?
GATES: Well, I haven't had -- I haven't had an opportunity to talk to the president or those who were with him in Pittsburgh, so I don't know the nature of the conversations that they had with the Chinese there, but I do have the sense that the Chinese take this pretty seriously.
KING: Let me ask you about the situation in Iran, as this diplomacy goes forward. You're the defense secretary now. You have been the director of Central Intelligence. When you look at post- election Iran, all the talk of turmoil, reports of tension between Ahmadinejad and the clerics, Ahmadinejad and the reforms, is the water bubbling or is the water boiling in the sense that you just see trouble or do you see potential seeds of revolution?
GATES: Well, I guess I would say it's simmering. It's clear in the aftermath of the election, that there are some fairly deep fissures in Iranian society and politics, and probably even in the leadership. And frankly, this is one of the reasons why I think additional and especially severe economic sanctions could have some real impact, because we know that the sanctions that have already been placed on the country have had an impact. The unemployment among youth is about 40 percent. They have some real serious problems, especially with the younger people.
So I think that we are seeing some changes or some divisions in the Iranian leadership and in society that we really haven't seen in the 30 years since the revolution.
KING: And if you think sanctions work and this is a clear violation -- they hid this from the world, they hid this from everybody, in clear violation of their commitments -- why wait? Why not slap tougher sanctions now? Why wait until the end of the year?
GATES: Well, the opportunity exists in the October 1st meeting and over the next few weeks to see if we can leverage publicizing this additional illegal facility and activity to leverage the Iranians to begin to make some concessions, to begin to abide by the U.N. Security Council resolutions.
GATES: I think we are all sensitive to the possibility of the Iranians trying to run the clock out on us. And so nobody thinks of this as an open-ended process.
KING: And so, lastly, on this point, this facility, obviously, is not on-line yet. It is under construction, not on-line. So Iran's capability in terms of being ready to perhaps have a nuclear bomb, in the past, the public statements have been a year to three away. Is that still operational?
GATES: That would be my view.
KING: The defense secretary, Robert Gates.
We'll be back in just a moment with another big decision facing the secretary and the president, whether to send thousands more U.S. troops into Afghanistan. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back with the defense secretary, Robert Gates.
Very momentous decision. Recommendation you will have to make to the president, the president will have to make to the nation about whether to send thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of more troops into Afghanistan. I want to start with a threshold question. Do you have full confidence in the commanding general, Stanley McChrystal, on the ground in Afghanistan now?
GATES: Absolutely. I think we have in General McChrystal the very best commanding officer we could possibly have there.
KING: Does the president share that?
GATES: I believe so.
KING: And then is it a logical extension then to go on to say, if you have such full confidence, that if General McChrystal says, I need 40,000 more troops, he will get them?
GATES: I think we are in the middle of a review. The president, when he made his decisions on strategy in Afghanistan at the end of March, said that after the Afghan elections, that we would review where we are and review the strategy.
We now, in addition to that, have General McChrystal's assessment of the situation. He found a situation in Afghanistan that is more serious than we had thought and that he had thought before going out there. So we're in the middle of a process of evaluating, really, the decisions the president made in late March to say, have we got the strategy right? And once we confidently have the strategy right, then we'll address the question of additional resource...
(CROSSTALK)
KING: As you know, some of your friends on Capitol Hill are saying, why wait, in the sense of because of the ominous warnings, General McChrystal sounds, in his report, among them, this: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term, over the next 12 months, while Afghan security capability matures, risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible." If the situation is that dire and he believes he needs more troops, why wait?
GATES: Well, first of all, I would like to remember -- remind people that the debate within the Bush administration over the surge took about three months, from October to December 2006.
It's very important that we get this right and there is always a dialogue between the chiefs -- the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Centcom commander, and our commander in the field. We had the same kind of dialogue with General Odierno about the timing of pulling our combat units out of Iraq. And the conclusion of all of that was actually for General Odierno to take some additional risk. And it has proved to work very well.
So the question is, there has got to be some dialogue between the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the commander of Central Command, as well as General McChrystal, and then a discussion among the president's national security team.
KING: You know the conversation in town,though, some, understand the surge debate, find this one rather remarkable in the sense that you now have General McChrystal, part of his report has leaked out, saying he needs more troops. Admiral Mullen has testified to Congress recently he believes we're going to need more troops. Some see an effort to almost put the president in a box before he deals with the other issues.
If you have the military, the admiral and the generals on record saying we need more troops, does the president really have a choice to say no?
GATES: Well, I think the president always has a choice. He's the commander-in-chief.
The reality is, do we need additional forces? How many additional forces? And to do what?
And it's the "to do what?" that I think we need to make sure we have confidence we understand before making recommendations to the president.
KING: Help me on that point, because there's a lot of questions about the legitimacy of the election. Did President Karzai commit fraud to the level at which he perhaps has stolen the election? The political vacuum could be months. You may have to make your decision uncertain as to the political leadership in Afghanistan unless you wait. There could be a runoff. There could be contestments (ph) and challenges. Would you prefer some sort of power-sharing arrangement to move past this vacuum?
GATES: Well, I don't think it's up to us to tell the Afghans how to organize their government. The reality is that you still have an election process playing out. You have both the Afghan and the international election commissions evaluating the ballots. And if they come to a conclusion that there was a real winner, then I think it has legitimacy for both the international and the national -- and the Afghan audience.
But I think, above all, what's important is whether or not the government of Afghanistan has legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghans. All of the information that we have available to us today indicates that continues to be the case.
KING: Let's turn to the debate back home. You try to stay of the politics, but it does influence what happens in this town. As you know, a growing number of people on Capitol Hill want a clearer exit strategy. They want benchmarks. They want to know where the end is. Some have even said -- a few, but some have said we need a time line to get U.S. troops out. And now a liberal organization that was very vocal in the Iraq political debate is urging its members to call the president, e-mail the White House and say, don't send tens of thousands more U.S. troops to be stuck in a quagmire.
Is Afghanistan a quagmire?
GATES: I don't think so, and I think that with a general like McChrystal, it won't become one. I think that we are being very careful to look at this as we go along. We've put out metrics so that we can measure whether or not we're making progress. And if we're not making progress, then we're prepared to adjust our strategy, just as we're looking at whether adjustments are needed right now.
So I think that the notion of time lines and exit strategies and so on, frankly, I think, would all be a strategic mistake. The reality is, failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the United States. Taliban and Al Qaida as far as they're concerned, defeated one superpower. For them to be seen to defeat a second, I think would have catastrophic consequences in terms of energizing the extremist movement, Al Qaida recruitment, operations, fundraising, and so on.
I think it would be a huge setback for the United States.
GATES: I think what we need is a strategy that we think can be successful and then to pursue it, and pursue it with confidence and resolution.
KING: You mentioned the history, and you're a student of history, and you're on the record talking about how this did become a quagmire for the Soviets, who had about 120,000 troops in Afghanistan. And you have said many times the Afghan people began to view them as occupiers, not as friends.
Where's the line for the United States so that you don't cross that very same line?
GATES: Well, I think the analogy of the situation with the Soviets really doesn't hold. The Soviets' presence in Afghanistan was condemned by virtually every country in the world. They conducted a war of terror against the Afghans. They probably killed 1 million Afghans, made 5 million of them into refugees, tried to impose an alien social and cultural change on the country.
So the situations are completely different. And I think that the -- I think the Afghans continue to see us as their ally and partner.
KING: General McChrystal, in an interview that will air on "60 Minutes" tonight, talks about the breadth and the geographic spread of the violence in Afghanistan. He says, "It's a little more than I would have gathered."
We've been at this nearly eight years. Why are we still surprised?
GATES: Well, I will tell you, I think that the strategy that the president put forward in late March is the first real strategy we have had for Afghanistan since the early 1980s. And that strategy was more about the Soviet Union than it was about Afghanistan.
KING: You served in the Bush administration. That's a pretty broad damnation of the Bush strategy.
GATES: Well, the reality is, we were fighting a holding action. We were very deeply engaged in Iraq. I increased -- I extended the 10th Mountain Division the first month I was on this job in January of '07. I extended -- I put another brigade into Afghanistan in the spring of 2007. And that's all we had to put in there. Every -- we were -- we were too stretched to do more. And I think we did not have the kind of comprehensive strategy that we have now. KING: And if it comes to the point of sending more, this time, if the president agrees and General McChrystal gets -- maybe it's 20,000, 30,000, or 40,000, do we have the troops now? If you needed 40,000, could you find it?
GATES: Well, I think, if the president were to decide to approve additional combat forces, they really probably could not begin to flow until some time in January.
KING: We're about out of time. I want to ask you a couple quick questions in closing. One is, do you see any chance now, because of the delays in the political problems, that the administration will keep its promise to close Gitmo, the Guantanamo Bay detention center, in one year, as promised?
GATES: Well, I think -- I think it has proven more complicated than anticipated. I will be the first to tell you that, when the president-elect's national security new team met in Chicago on December 7th, I was one of those who argued for a firm deadline. Because I said that's the only way you move the bureaucracy in Washington.
And you have to extend that date, if at least you have a strong plan, showing you're making progress in that direction, then it shouldn't be a problem to extend it. And we'll just see whether that has to happen or not.
KING: And lastly, you served eight presidents. What makes this one unique, or is there anything unique when it comes to these decisions of war and peace?
GATES: He is very analytical. He's very deliberate about the way he goes through things. He wants to understand everything. He delves very deeply into these issues. I'm not going to get into comparing the different presidents. I very much enjoy working for this one.
KING: Mr. Secretary, thank for your time.
GATES: Thank you.
KING: So how will a decision to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan sit with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, and what should the president do about Iran?
We'll talk it over with two key senators, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: I'm John King and this is "State of the Union." Here are stories breaking this Sunday morning.
War games in Iran. The country's state-run TV says Tehran tested a multiple missile launcher for the first time and two types of short- range missiles today. The tests are expected to be held for the next week and a half, including a long-range missile test tomorrow. The exercises come just two days after Iran admitted the existence of a second uranium enrichment facility.
A suicide car bomber targeted the convoy of Afghan's energy minister today. He survived that attack. Four Afghan civilians, though, were killed. NATO officials say six international troops have been killed this weekend in separate attacks across Afghanistan.
Film director Roman Polanski is under arrest in connection with a rape charge in the United States dating back to the 1970s. Swiss authorities arrested Polanski on his way to the Zurich film festival. He faces possible extradition in connection to a 1977 case in which he pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl, but he fled to Europe before he was sentenced. Those are your top stories this hour on "State of the Union."
A shot of the Capitol, there, on a late September Sunday here in Washington. Joining us now, two men who work in that building, two leading senators in both the foreign policy and military debate and on domestic policy.
Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana is here with me in Washington and Republican Senator Bob Corker joins us from Tennessee.
Let me start -- you just heard Secretary Gates, and, Senator Bayh, let me start with you, because you're on the Intelligence Committee. He says there's no doubt this is an illicit nuclear site. Iran has now acknowledged it exists. The United States has made it public, will have its first conversations across the table with Iran coming this week.
In those conversations, should there be any carrots at this moment or all sticks? BAYH: Well, it needs to be both, John, but more sticks, frankly, at this moment than carrots. We've tried a variety of inducements to the Iranians over the years: being included in the global economic trading system, a number of other things. Frankly, none of that has worked.
What they respect more than anything is strength. They're contemptuous of weakness. The one time the Iranians have actually reached out to us behind the scenes and offered to be cooperative was following the invasion in Iraq, where we had invaded first Afghanistan, then Iraq, and they began to think, whoa, are we next?
So I think it needs to be mainly stiff economic and financial sanctions, with the possibility of other options lurking in the background if they don't change their behavior. That gives us the best chance of getting them to give up their program.
KING: And, Senator Corker, should the United States sit down one-on-one with Iran right now, or is that in and of itself a gift they don't deserve?
CORKER: I think the P-5-plus-1 meeting that is set up this week is the right venue. I think the table couldn't be set better for that meeting. And I agree with Senator Bayh. I think we should be very -- very tough on them.
The fact is, the world community is now, I think, more united than ever to confront Iran. And this is information we've had for some time. I think making it public this week and Iran actually coming forward and saying that it was true certainly turns the table.
CORKER: And I think we have a tremendous opportunity for the first time in a long time for a breakthrough.
KING: So let's consider the moment. You will have this meeting this week. Iran has been caught, essentially, defying its commitments to the world community. But everyone is saying, well, have these meetings and maybe have sanctions down the road. Some would say, you might have more leverage if you imposed the sanctions now and then had the meetings, so that Iran had a steeper hill to climb. Would that be a better approach?
BAYH: Well, sooner is better than later, John. Time is a- wasting, here. But the problem is, in order for sanctions to be effective, you've got to get the Russians and the Chinese on board. That may take a little time.
So if it's just us and our Western European allies, we could do that very quickly, but the Chinese are now providing a third of the gasoline for Iran. That really is their Achilles' heel. And so, to be effective, you really need the Chinese to come to the table, and they're notoriously slow in these kind of things. The Russians have been making more positive noises recently, but I suspect they may take at least a month or two to, you know, nail down exactly what we're going to do. KING: And so what happens, Senator Corker, if the Chinese are, as Senator Bayh puts it, notoriously slow? Do the United States have many options if the Chinese are reluctant to go along with very tough sanctions?
CORKER: Well, we have lesser options, sanctions-wise, if they do not go along, but I think, instead of moving ahead, you know, let's see how quickly they're going to let our inspectors in. The fact is, we know they're probably today clearing out evidence of what they're doing there. So how quickly are we going to get our inspectors in? How assured will the Chinese be as to what was happening there?
This facility clearly -- I went through a classified briefing Friday. This -- this facility, I can assure you, was not set up for commercial purposes. And -- and I think to, again, the Chinese have just seen this intelligence this week, to allow them to digest this, hopefully to become more rigidly opposed to what's happening there is important.
And, again, let's -- let's -- we've got a few weeks here in front of us. They're very important. I don't know how the table could be better set, as I said earlier. And let's let this play out over the next couple of weeks.
I think we now see, though -- Israel had this same intelligence -- I think we now see why they've been certainly very concerned about what's happening there, as it does impose an existential threat to them, and I think we can see why they've been very concerned.
KING: Well, let me ask the question this way, Senator Bayh. An intelligence success here, but is this the only one? What do we know? Or what don't we know? Are you worried about that?
BAYH: Well, as you know, we can't discuss specifics on the air, John, as much as you might like that. But let's just say, Iran is more open than North Korea, but we have imperfect knowledge with regard to Iran. And one of the difficulties with a military strike -- and, you know, all options need to be kept on the table -- frankly, for one of the purposes of bringing the Chinese about.
But one of the problems with a military strike is, by definition, you can only attack what you know where it exists. So the possibility does exist that there may be other sites about which we are simply unaware at this time.
KING: And, Senator Corker, when you heard Secretary Gates saying, look, all options should be kept on the table, but let's be candid, essentially, was his point. He said a military strike would set them back. You couldn't take them out, especially because they're reinforced underground facilities.
Is that the right posture for the administration? I mean, if you're the president of Iran right now, you essentially know the Obama administration says, "Well, sure, the military option is on the table, but it's not so great"? CORKER: Well, look, I think we need to also take into account, there are movements inside Iran that have not existed in decades. And the fact is, there's a lot of turmoil internally. I think we need to look at which sanctions actually calls that to move ahead. Military action certainly would unify the country very quickly against us.
So, look, military option certainly needs to be on the table. I know Israel certainly has their antenna up in that regard.
But the fact is, we have an opportunity, with all of the countries now, the P5-plus-one, to actually put sanctions in place. It will do severe damage. Again, let's let that play out. Let's don't jump ahead. We've got a couple of weeks here that I think are going to be very, very important, and we haven't had this opportunity that I can remember.
KING: Senator Corker describes the stakes. I want you to come in, but I want to ask you a question about what we hear from our government. This is the National Intelligence Estimate. It was published in November of 2007. This is a public document.
At the moment this was published, the Bush administration knew about this facility in Iran. That was knowledge of the intelligence community at that time, according to Secretary Gates. But this document says that the government has high confidence -- high confidence -- that Iran has stopped the weapons aspect of its nuclear program.
Help me out here. If they say there's no doubt this facility is to develop nuclear weapons, Senator Corker says he saw the briefing, he has no doubt, why would our government put out a document that says, "Well, they're not at the nuclear weapons business anymore"?
BAYH: John, I objected strongly to the wording of this estimate at the time because I did think it was misleading. And you need to look at a footnote in there that actually explains what's going on.
There are three different parts to a nuclear program. One is getting the fissile material. They're going rapidly ahead with that part of it. Second is a delivery mechanism, ballistic materials, that sort of thing. They're going rapidly ahead with that aspect, as well.
The third is the design of a warhead. And that is what they apparently suspended some years ago. But they've got the designs -- this is something else they lied about -- they got the designs, the know-how to in fairly short order go forward with that.
So the NIE made it look like they'd suspended the entire program, when, in fact, it was just one component of it, which they could restart on fairly short notice.
KING: And lastly on this point, Senator Corker, Iran now knows the world is watching and this -- these conversations, negotiations are about to begin this week, and we wake this morning. They're testing a multiple missile launcher. They're testing short-range missiles. They're planning to test a long-range missile. In terms of a signal to the world about how you view the moment, what does that tell you?
CORKER: Well, I think that, look, this exercise was preplanned. I think the world is going to be watching tomorrow when they launch the Shahab-3 to see if it actually works. In the past, it hasn't. That is the missile that has the ability to deliver to Israel and other U.S. bases a nuclear warhead. So we're going to be watching that, but these exercises, again, were preplanned.
KING: They could have stopped them.
CORKER: They have nothing to do with what's occurred...
KING: They could have stopped them.
CORKER: They could have stopped them. They could have stopped them. Again, I don't look at it as a provocation. But, you know, again, we've got a couple weeks here to use our -- our heads. I think we have a great opportunity -- I'm sure Israel is -- is glad that finally the world community is focused on Iran in a way that they believe to be appropriate. And let's take advantage of it.
BAYH: John, can I make a quick point? KING: Sure.
BAYH: If we want to try and force Iran to give up their nuclear program without resorting to military conflict, we need to focus on energy, first, the imports of refined petroleum products into Iran. For another 12 months, that's a real Achilles' heel for them. We could really hurt their economy.
In the longer term, the connection to energy is their exports of oil. A Russian expert in energy (ph) -- energy minister told me in Moscow a year ago, the Iranians are terrified, terrified about the possible cutting off of their exports of oil. Because we're so dependent on their oil, the rest of the world, we can't do that without delivering a body blow to the world economy, but that's what would really hurt them.
KING: I need to get a break in here, so it's a yes-or-no question. If the Chinese wouldn't go along, then should the world economy, absent the Chinese, put up a blockade of some sort?
BAYH: The Chinese have a real incentive to go along to prevent that very kind of prospect.
KING: All right. We've got to work in a quick break. We'll be back with Senator Corker and Senator Bayh in just a minute. We'll talk about whether the president should send more troops to Afghanistan and some domestic fights here at home. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back with Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. Gentlemen, I want to move on to the big decision the president faces about Afghanistan and your thoughts on what appears to be a bit of a conflict. You have General McChrystal, the commanding general on the ground, who says he needs more troops, perhaps as many as 40,000. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has told Congress we're going to probably need more troops in Afghanistan.
Secretary Gates in the interview we just had didn't quite say so, but those who know him well say, if you listen closely to his talk about we cannot fail, we cannot give the Taliban this victory, and his rejection of the comparison with the Soviets, that that was Secretary Gates' way of leaning forward in the idea that he would support more troops.
And then, Senator Bayh, you have Vice President Biden, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, who we are told are very skeptical of sending more troops into Afghanistan, worried, A, that it won't work, and, B, that politically it could become a Vietnam-like scenario.
Do we need more troops in Afghanistan? And are you worried the administration has an internal conflict?
BAYH: The number of troops is a tactical question, John, in pursuit of a strategic goal. The president sets the strategy and then will listen to his commanders about how many troops he needs to achieve that strategy. And what you heard the secretary say is, very clearly, we need to decide an essential question. Is Afghanistan capable of being a coherent nation-state? Can they reconcile their differences enough where their government can have enough trained troops and police to control their own territory?
If so, that's the ideal outcome, and it warrants us giving them another couple of years to try and develop that capability so we can withdraw. If not, if they're just going to be different ethnic and religious groups, always a weak and corrupt central government, then devoting more resources to try and prevent the inevitable probably doesn't make much sense and you ought to deal with this with a lighter footprint.
So that's the question the president is trying to resolve, and it was made more difficult by the recent elections, which were very corrupt. Karzai is not a strong leader, doesn't have much authority around the country, so that's really what he's deciding.
Can Afghanistan, with our help, be a coherent nation-state? If yes, more troops would be warranted; if no, you take a different approach.
KING: But, Senator Corker, Senator Bayh lays out a pretty rational -- let's ask these questions and get to an answer, but as we have this process, we already have the commanding general on record saying I need more troops and, if we don't act quickly, the enemy might win.
CORKER: Well, look, I think it's -- I met with Secretary Gates on Thursday morning and, as you know, was in Afghanistan on Election Day. I think it's perfectly -- and I met with McChrystal there -- I think it's perfectly legitimate to spend some time trying to articulate what success is.
It's easy to talk about what failure in Afghanistan might mean. I think it's been more difficult to actually articulate what success is. And until we can do that, I think it's appropriate to take some time.
Look, at the end of the day, counterterrorism leads to a strategy of counterinsurgency, which means winning the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan. In a poor country like Afghanistan, that ends up meaning nation-building.
And so I've heard discussions lately of partial nation-building, maybe focusing on the Department of Interior. To me, it's still a little fuzzy as to what success means.
And I think it's -- again, I think we should sit down, understand what success is, and then put in place the ability to make that happen. And, again, even talking with Secretary Gates Thursday morning -- and when he speaks, I listen. I think he's the most credible person on this topic. But I think he was having some difficulty with me even articulating what success is.
So let's spend -- let's spend a little time talking about that. Let's realize we're dealing with a president that is, let's face it, has some -- has many deficiencies, someone who I think looks at this mission in many ways as more our mission than his, or at least that's what he has said directly to me.
So we have some issues there. Let's -- let's spend a little time and let's make sure we get this right. That's what we should do when we have men and women in harm's way.
KING: Let me try to bring us back home in our closing couple of minutes here. I want to focus on the health care debate. We have two men here who have been skeptical about a public option. Senator Bayh, you have said maybe, but you have to prove to me you're going to reduce the deficit. Senator Corker, you say you think it's a bad idea. As you watch the Finance Committee, let me just a simple question here, because they have so much work still to do. Are we -- are you confident, are we any closer to a bill that can have broad bipartisan support, or are we, in fact, closer to a Democrat-versus- Republican Armageddon in the Senate?
BAYH: Well, it looks as if it's going to be unlikely, to use your term, John, to get broad bipartisan support. You might get Olympia Snowe. I mean, Bob Corker's a very reasonable person. We could agree on many things, but there may be some elements in this he just ultimately can't agree with.
So the real debate is within the Democratic Party. And even getting that consensus -- which I think will ultimately be achievable -- is taking time and will be difficult.
KING: Senator Corker, do you see any evidence -- I know you have said let's do this incrementally -- if they go the 51 votes in the Senate, what's going to happen? CORKER: Well, I think it's going to rip our country apart in many ways, and I think it's short-sighted. So I think there's so much, John, that we have common ground on that we could focus on and -- and move the ball 50 yards down the field and then let's focus on some of the tough sledding that has to do with the delivery system.
There's many pilots and other things that need to occur at HHS and CMS. Much of what we do in the public arena affects the private delivery system itself. And I just think it's a shame that things are going as they are.
To me, the night the president gave his speech, that was a departure date of moving towards something that was more partisan, something that I think is regretful, something that I think is going to be damaging to our country.
KING: All right, gentlemen, we'll watch what comes out of the committee and we'll bring you back when we have something specific in front of us to debate. Thank you for your views on the world issues especially. Senator Corker in Tennessee, Senator Bayh right here with us, thank you very much.
And up next, we head to the Mississippi Delta. Imagine a town where 1 in every 5 people you see is unemployed. We'll show you the poverty and the struggle, but also -- you won't want to miss this -- some remarkable resilience.
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KING: Here in Washington, there is talk among policymakers from the president on down, the economy finally shaking its slump, beginning to grow again. But that optimism comes with a sober warning, the recovery will be slow and uneven, meaning many places across the country, this is the unemployment right here, will continue to hurt even as the jobs come back elsewhere.
Places like southwest Mississippi, we traveled this week to Jefferson County, 86 percent of the county is African-American. It is the fourth-poorest county in the United States, 18.6 percent, twice the national average, is the unemployment rate.
So in our "American Dispatch" this week, we went down to Jefferson County, we wanted to get a firsthand look at what it's like to live in a place where the unemployment rate again is twice the national average.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): Jefferson County hugs the might Mississippi. It is rural, remote, and dotted with tiny churches.
Fayette is the county seat, its monument to Confederate soldiers, a tribute to the past that seems very much at odds with this community's present. Nine in 10 residents are black, the highest percentage of African-Americans of any county in the United States. The shuttered store fronts are a sign of a less desirable distinction, 18.6 percent unemployment, the highest jobless rate of Mississippi's 82 counties.
ANGELA SHELVY, UNEMPLOYED SINGLE MOTHER OF THREE: It has not always been this bleak, it has not always been this way.
KING: Angela Shelvy has been looking for six months.
(on camera): And there's nothing out there.
SHELVY: Nothing.
KING (voice-over): Shelvy is a single mother of three who quit a job as a teacher's assistant to join a union that provides workers for nuclear power plants. Twice the pay, but the work was sometimes as far away as Arizona. And while her parents took care of the children, the strain became too much, especially for her 4-year-old.
SHELVY: I'm like, you have granny. He would say, no, I don't want granny, I want you to hold me. And I just decided I couldn't go back.
KING: But since March, no luck, despite searching as far as 90 minutes away.
SHELVY: And they're not hiring. They're either saying they're not hiring or I'm not qualified, I don't have enough years of experience, we'll call you later, get back with us. And it has been stressful for me.
BRENDA BUCK, JEFFERSON COUNTY, MS, ADMINISTRATOR: It becomes very depressing to some people who are trying to struggle. And it is a struggle day to day.
KING: Finding jobs is County Administrator Brenda Buck's obsession. She knows the struggle firsthand. With no jobs around here, her husband works at the moment 900 miles away in Indiana.
BUCK: Right now he's employed with a company that has been going into a lot of the car plants doing refabrications.
We have four kids, but he's here, basically, maybe two months out of the year.
KING: Most of Buck's time with county supervisors is spent on economic development. No luck so far, winning federal stimulus money to improve the roads.
This work site is also part of the county's Washington wish list, at the moment, 10 employees each making $100 a day, cutting and packaging firewood.
General Manager Paul Southerland says the noise often attracts others down on their luck.
PAUL SOUTHERLAND, GENERAL MANAGER, RELIABLE MAT LLC: I see a lot of people come by, you know, looking for jobs.
KING: Southerland's main product is these giant wood mats used in oil and gas fields, orders are suddenly hard to come by.
SOUTHERLAND: Mississippi is always last to feel the effects of a recession, and most of the time it's always the last to pick back up.
It hit us about June. It really hit us hard, too.
KING: Still, Sutherland hopes to expand if the county secures a federal grant to buy a bigger saw mill.
SOUTHERLAND: You know, that's what it's all about. If we have that saw mill, we would be able to add eight or 10 more folks. KING: Eight or 10 jobs might not sound like much, but in a place so remote and so poor, progress is measured a little differently.
BUCK: If you can just imagine eight men making $10 to $11 an hour, can actually come home and be at home at night with their families, the impact that it would make, not just from the economical standpoint, but from the social standpoint of that father's presence there in that household and not having to travel so far, I mean, you have a double whammy. It's a win-win situation for any family.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Our thanks to the great people of Jefferson County.
And as you know, one of our goals is to get out of Washington as often as we can. We've traveled now to 37 states, including Maine, Mississippi, South Dakota. Where should we go next? You can e-mail us at stateoftheunion@cnn.com, tell us why we should come visit your community.
We want to say goodbye to our international audience for this hour, but up next for our viewers here in the United States, Howie Kurtz sits down with the always outspoken Joy Behar.
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KING: I'm John King and this is STATE OF THE UNION.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): President Obama takes on the media, is his criticism fair or just frustration about the press's coverage of his administration?
Plus "The View" co-host Joy Behar talks about her dozen years of doing combat with conservatives on daytime TV and her entry into the primetime cable wars.
In this hour of STATE OF THE UNION, Howard Kurtz, as always, breaks it down with RELIABLE SOURCES.
