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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

President Bush Pledges Action Against Terrorism; Controversial System Set Up to Try Terror Suspects

Aired March 21, 2002 - 19:00   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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, THE WAR ROOM: As deadly bombings rock Jerusalem and Peru, President Bush pledges action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are resolved to fight the war on terror.

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BLITZER: A controversial system is set up to try terror suspects who have already been found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: One that protects both the rights of the defendant to a fair trial, but also protects the rights of the American people to their security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Where is the next battleground in the war against terror? Will the U.S. strike Iraq? I'll ask the No. 2 man at the Pentagon, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as we go into THE WAR ROOM.

Good evening. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting tonight from Washington. It seems to be happening almost every day, terrorist attacks with deadly results. They have struck again in Jerusalem as well as in Lima, Peru, where President Bush is heading this weekend.

Just back from his own 10-day visit to the Middle East, the vice president, Dick Cheney, went to the White House this morning to brief the president. In public, Arab leaders may have opposed a U.S. military strike against Iraq, but Mr. Bush made clear he's not backing away from a potential battle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BUSH: This is an administration that when we say we're going to do something, we mean it. BLITZER (voice-over): Without mentioning Iraq by name, President Bush again threatened action against Saddam Hussein. He had just been briefed in the Oval Office by Vice President Cheney, who is just back from briefing U.S. allies in the Middle East.

BUSH: And the vice president did a fine job of delivering that message.

BLITZER: Also on the agenda: the escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians and whether Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will get a meeting with Cheney.

BUSH: In order for us to have influence in terms of achieving any kind of peaceful resolution, he must, he, Mr. Arafat, must do everything in his power to stop the violence.

BLITZER: Those words were barely out of the president's mouth when word came of yet another suicide bombing. At least three Israelis killed, more than 50 wounded in downtown Jerusalem. Claiming responsibility, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigade, part of Arafat's Fatah movement.

Achieving a ceasefire while gathering Arab support for a possible attack on Iraq is a huge challenge for the Bush administration. Cheney cited reports of Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons against his own people.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's not the kind of man we want to see develop even more deadly capacity, for example, nuclear weapons. And my experience is that our friends in the region are just as concerned about those developments as we are.

BLITZER: It was a day when events on the ground seemed to provoke the president to show his resolve against terrorist threats which are not limited to the Middle East. As police search for clues into a deadly car bombing near the U.S. embassy in Lima, Peru, Mr. Bush was asked if he was concerned about his trip to that nation in the coming days.

BUSH: You know, two-bit terrorists are not going to prevent me from doing what we need to do, and that is to promote our friendship in the hemisphere. You bet I'm going.

BLITZER: And in El Paso, Texas, as he embarked on his journey to Latin America, he struck a defiant tone.

BUSH: It doesn't matter for me how long it takes. It doesn't matter how long it takes. We're going to hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

(APPLAUSE)

If they bunch up again in Afghanistan like they did in the Shah- e-Kot mountain range, we'll send our soldiers in there.

(APPLAUSE) The last time they bunched up, they didn't like the results.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (on camera): The United States already has its hands on hundreds of terror suspects, and the Pentagon has now established a controversial process to bring some of them before military tribunals. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says justice will be served.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUMSFELD: We are a nation of laws. We have been attacked by lawless terrorists. The manner in which we conduct trials under military commissions will speak volumes about our character as a nation, just as the manner in which we were attacked speaks volumes about the character of their adversaries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Will the detainees from Afghanistan get fair trials? Will the United States take its war against terrorism to Iraq? A short while ago, I was joined here in the CNN WAR ROOM by the No. 2 man at the Pentagon, the deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Secretary Wolfowitz, thanks very much for joining us. Let's talk a little bit about the news of the day, these military commissions, as you call them, the military tribunals that have been set up for a selected number of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. How many do you expect will be tried before these military tribunals?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY: We really have no idea. It's a very deliberative process that we're going through. I think the president on November 3 directed Secretary Rumsfeld to set up these commissions so that we would have an instrument for trying terrorists. And we have now nearly taken four months.

We've come out with the basic rules by which they would operate and we have spent a lot of time trying to make sure that on the one hand, they would meet standards of fairness because that's the American way to give people a fair trial. At the same time, were unusual circumstances of this war on terrorism. We have classified information we have to be able to deal with. We have information that may be collected on the battlefield. So, normal legal process really is not adequate for some of the people we may have to trial. But it's much too early to say who they will be.

BLITZER: You will reserve these commissions only for high- ranking al Qaeda, Taliban detainees?

WOLFOWITZ: No. It's the president who will ultimately decide who goes to trial before one of these commissions. The only thing that I can tell you for sure is no U.S. citizens will go before these commissions. And I think it will be quite, probably a while still before we have enough information about any of the people that we have detained to really know what they're guilty of. This is a very slow process getting information on these people.

BLITZER: And it's possible no one will come before any of these commissions?

WOLFOWITZ: I suppose theoretically, yes, although we have got that instrument definitely available to use.

BLITZER: A lot of critics are suggesting that the deck is really stacked against these detainees, if they should come before these military tribunals. The prosecutors will be U.S. military officers. The defense attorneys will be U.S. military officers. The judges will be U.S. military officers. And the president of the United States will be the ultimate appeal process, and he's already said that those detainees at Guantanamo Bay are killers.

WOLFOWITZ: Well, for one thing, some of those things are not even true. The defense, if they want to -- the defendant, if he wants to, can hire a civilian attorney as well as a military attorney. I think we have seen in our own military court system that military judges are perfectly capable of dealing fairly and that's actually been the history in previous military commissions.

We have had these before in history, and I think they can handle things fairly. We've been very careful that the defendant has the presumption of innocence. It has to be a proof beyond a reasonable doubt, It has to be a two-thirds majority of people voting for a conviction. There's an automatic appeal. I think if people will not deal with the theories they developed when this was first announced four months ago and look at the rules that are actually published today, I think they will see that this is a fair procedure.

BLITZER: The major difference between a civilian procedure is that hearsay evidence will be allowed to be submitted into that court.

WOLFOWITZ: It won't automatically be ruled out. It's going to be up to the judges. Remember, it has got to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But we are going to be dealing with people about whom some of the evidence was picked up on a battlefield. We don't have the kinds of chain of evidence that you would have in a normal civilian proceeding. We don't have the ability to necessarily bring in the original sources of evidence.

It's important, let's be clear. There are two objectives we're trying to achieve here. One a is a fair trial, and I think we will achieve that with these rules. The other is to protect the American people and to make sure that people who are guilty of some pretty terrible crimes are in fact convicted.

BLITZER: If someone comes before that military commission and is not convicted, will he or she be allowed to leave?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, if they're acquitted, the prosecution has no ability to appeal an instant verdict.

BLITZER: That person will walk free? WOLFOWITZ: Well, there are two -- the people we have in Guantanamo, remember, are not there because they are necessarily going to go before a trial at any point. They are there because they are enemy combatants seized in wartime. And, in fact, they're probably -- I don't know the exact legal terminology, but I think of them as unlawful combatants. They may or may not be guilty of a specific crime, but they're definitely enemy and we will be treating them as enemy, and probably until the end of the war.

BLITZER: We have an e-mail question from Kevin in Ontario, Canada, who writes: "Terrorism is an international problem. Wouldn't justice be better served in an international court?"

WOLFOWITZ: I would suggest Kevin go up to New York and stand on the site of the World Trade Center; 3,000 Americans -- well, not only Americans, but 3,000 people were killed on our territory; 150 people were killed where I work at the Pentagon, I don't know how many widows and orphans. I think the American people are entitled to see that justice is done by American rules. And I think the world will see that American rules are fair rules.

BLITZER: And just to wrap up this whole issue, those other detainees who are deemed not going to be going before these military commissions, what happens to them? There are hundred at Guantanamo Bay.

WOLFOWITZ: We're still in the process of sorting them out. There are hundreds that we didn't even -- that the Afghans took and we said these are really foot-soldiers, do what -- basically we hoped they released them or sent them back home to Pakistan.

Among the people in Guantanamo Bay are probably people who are bad actors, but may not be guilty of a specific crime. We may want to hold them at least until we think there's no longer a danger of their going back and joining al Qaeda. There will be some that probably are, before long, can be sent back to the countries they came from and those countries may try them under their own legal systems.

You know, to get a perspective on this, the man who came in, the millennium bomber who was planning to blow up the Los Angeles Airport was held in detention in Seattle for a year, saying nothing. And then after a year, he finally decided to tell us everything and reveal this whole plot. It takes time to develop the information we need about these people.

BLITZER: So, you are hoping that will happen among those hundreds of detainees at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo?

WOLFOWITZ: And I think we're -- slowly we're getting information, but it is a slow process.

BLITZER: You're getting useful information?

WOLFOWITZ: Some useful information and a lot of misleading information, as you might imagine. BLITZER: And do you expect that camp to grow significantly in the terms of the numbers? Supposedly, they're gearing up for perhaps a few thousand.

WOLFOWITZ: We're trying to keep the numbers -- it's a big burden on people down there. We're not -- we're trying to manage the numbers. That's one of the reasons too that, where it's appropriate, to send people back to other countries for trial. We'd like to do that. And I can't predict on the numbers. We have about 300 in Guantanamo. We have almost another 300 in Afghanistan. But I can't predict the future.

BLITZER: All right. Let's talk about the war in Afghanistan right now. The chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Bob Graham, said to me the other day that based on his briefings, that this war looks like it's going to be moving now from the mountains, from the rural areas, increasingly to some of the urban areas, including cities like Kabul.

WOLFOWITZ: I guess that's the feel he has. I have a feeling that there's a lot of people holed up in the mountains. Remember, we're talking about a huge country. It's the size of the state of Texas. And that doesn't do it justice because the terrain is much more formidable. The terrain is like the Rocky Mountains.

BLITZER: So do you have enough troops, U.S. troops in the country at this point, or will you be sending more in?

WOLFOWITZ: I think our biggest gap is intelligence. When we get intelligence, I think we have the people that will pursue it, but it's a constant search for intelligence. And there will -- Senator Graham is right. These people are trying to figure out, having been blocked in the routes they were using before, they're trying to figure out new routes. We have had a few, I would say, so far minor incidents in Kabul. But they obviously -- they've declared very clearly their desire to kill foreigners, and especially Americans. And they will be working on us anywhere we are present.

BLITZER: So, U.S. troops, you would say at this point, are still very much in danger?

WOLFOWITZ: It's one -- well, I think the U.S. troops take good security precautions to deal with that danger, but they're definitely targeted.

BLITZER: The al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who are still out there, supposedly, if you listen to the testimony of George Tenet, the CIA director, the other day, they're regrouping and they're positioning themselves to take action in Afghanistan again, against U.S. troops?

WOLFOWITZ: I think that's exactly their objective. And that's why you can't sit on your hands in this kind of operation. There's no question that our successes in the first months of this conflict have disrupted them, have broken up their plans and made them have to move. And every time they move, I'm sure that they have to reorganize. But if you give them time to organize, they remain weaker, but still an organization with the same objective, which is to kill Americans and they're working on that in 60 countries in the world, including Afghanistan.

BLITZER: And is it your working assumption, because you obviously don't know, at least based on what you have said publicly, that Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants are still hiding someplace in Afghanistan?

WOLFOWITZ: We are certainly looking for them very hard there, but I'm hesitant about working assumptions. We go on the evidence that we get. We have had very little evidence for a while now about where he is, or I suppose even that he's alive, although, I know -- the general belief is that he's probably still alive, but it's not based on much hard evidence.

BLITZER: You are not ruling out that he could be dead.

WOLFOWITZ: I think that's a possibility, too. You know, something that I think the people don't understand enough, we have incredible intelligence capabilities and it's marvelous in the way that we can focus on one spot in Afghanistan from halfway around the world and see what people are doing is incredible. It leaves the impression that we know everything that's going on, and that's the wrong impression. I would say more than half of what these people do, they're able to hide from us. And that's a good thing to keep in mind. It's part of the reason why we have got to keep the pressure on.

BLITZER: You still have the headline in the "New York Times" on the front page today, "U.S. Might Pursue Qaeda and Taliban to Pakistan Lairs. Spring Offensive Feared. American General Says Move Would be Last Resort to Protect Afghan Gains." Will you send, will the U.S. send its military forces directly across the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan to chase al Qaeda, Taliban fighters if necessary?

WOLFOWITZ: It's important to emphasize Pakistan has really stepped up to the bar in this marvelously. We have had very close cooperation with Pakistan. Anything we do on Pakistani territory is something we're going to coordinate very closely with President Musharraf and with the Pakistanis. And they have extraordinary capabilities. They have been doing most of the work on their side of the border for months now. So I wouldn't exaggerate that report.

BLITZER: So, what's the bottom line, though? Will you -- will U.S. troops cross the border into Pakistan?

WOLFOWITZ: In some limited circumstances, that's a possibility. I don't see that being anything large scale.

BLITZER: And you have the blessings, the authorization from the Pakistani government, if necessary?

WOLFOWITZ: We're well coordinated along the border with the Pakistanis.

BLITZER: Secretary Wolfowitz, we have to take a quick break. We have a lot more to talk about.

When we come back, I'll ask the deputy secretary of defense about Iraq. Is the U.S. preparing to strike at Saddam Hussein? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

We're continuing our conversation with the No. 2 man at the Pentagon, the deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz. Mr. Secretary, Iraq: The president and the vice president today were both very outspoken, without mentioning Saddam Hussein by name, in making the statement that the U.S. has to do something about the potential of Saddam Hussein's using weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors or others. How close is the Bush administration to taking action against Iraq?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, we take action every day. I think you're meaning taking military action. The decision to use military force is a decision that only the president can make and only the president could tell you the answer to, if he were even to predict.

What the president has said, he said it clearly in the state of the union message, he and the vice president have said it again today, we have a very serious problem when you have a government that supports terrorists, develops weapons of mass destruction, has declared open hostility to the United States. And I think what the president has made clear is we have to find a solution to that. I don't think he has said what that solution will be, but waiting forever is not a solution.

BLITZER: Is there any evidence at all directly linking Iraq to the September 11 strikes?

WOLFOWITZ: That's not really the point. I think what the president -- you know, if we didn't have any evidence before September 11 that somebody was about to blow up the World Trade Center, I think what the president has said, we can't wait until we have evidence that somebody is using weapons of mass destruction against the United States, before we do something to prevent it. And that's what he's focused on, that's what his State of the Union message, I think, said so clearly.

And I think the world is starting to understand that that's what he's talking about. And he hasn't come to a conclusion about how to deal with that. I mean, one has to be skeptical about the prospects of diplomacy alone working with a man like Saddam Hussein. But there are many options and all of them are not on the table.

BLITZER: One of the options is the resumption of U.N. weapons inspection teams going back into Iraq. That seems to be the preferred course at least in the public statements that were made during the vice president's trip to the Middle East, from Arab allies in that part of the world. Do you have confidence that those inspection teams can find everything that Saddam Hussein maybe engaged in, as far as weapons of mass destruction?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, I think we've also said they would be severely challenged. I mean, he's had three years or some people would say four or five years to hide everything. The inspectors were getting as far as they were before partly because his son-in-law defected and gave us a treasure trove of information. So, it would have to be a very, very forceful inspection system to work. But as I say, all the options are on the table. I don't think that the president has ruled anything out.

BLITZER: You have heard what Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee has said, that those inspection teams would be counter-productive if they went back in. Because he could hide stuff and he could keep them on a run-around for a few years, and in the mean time develop his biological, chemical, perhaps even nuclear capabilities.

WOLFOWITZ: Look, there are a lot of different ways of going at this. Inspections are part of it, support for the opposition is another part of it. The president has really gotten the world's attention, and I think he's made it clear there has got -- we just can not continue living with this threat over our head for years and years.

BLITZER: So how much time is there left before the president will have to make a decision?

WOLFOWITZ: I know you want me to predict it, but I can't, Wolf.

BLITZER: Is it weeks, months, years?

WOLFOWITZ: I just can't predict it.

BLITZER: But you obviously, this is not a secret, the military does have contingency plans at work.

WOLFOWITZ: We have to, of course we do.

BLITZER: Before I let you go, on this Iraqi issue, is the Israeli-Palestinian crisis a stumbling block in preventing the U.S. from taking action.

WOLFOWITZ: I think we have two problems, and we have to work on both of them at the same time. We have got the threat from Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. We have got a terrible tragedy taking place between Israel and the Palestinians. And there's some connections between both of those, and I do believe that progress on each one would facilitate the other problem. But we can't wait to deal with one until we have dealt with the other. We have got to do what we can on both.

BLITZER: Mr. Secretary, thanks for joining us.

WOLFOWITZ: Good to be here. Thank you.

BLITZER: And when we come back, we'll check the top stories for this hour. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Leading our "News Alert," the jury reaches a verdict in the California dog mauling trial. The jury found Marjorie Knoller and her husband, Robert Noel, guilty of all charges today. Thirty-three-year-old Diane Whipple was attacked and killed by the couples' two 120 pound Presa Canario dogs in January of last year. Knoller, found guilty of second degree murder, faces up to 15 years to life in prison.

At least nine people were killed by a car bomb near the U.S. embassy in Lima, Peru today. Senior U.S. administration officials say they have an idea whose responsible for the blast, which left at least 25 people injured. Peru is one of the stops on the current four day trip to Latin America by President Bush.

That's all of the time we have tonight. Please join me again tomorrow, twice at both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.

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