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April 24, 2006
Special Report Roundtable - April 24
FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume 
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I strongly condemn the killings that took place. The innocent life loft -- lost in Egypt - this a heinous act against innocent civilians. The United States sends our condolences to the families of those who were killed. We keep those who were injured in our thoughts and prayers. And I assure the enemy this, we will stay on the offense. We will not waiver. We will not tire. We will bring you to justice for the sake of peace and humanity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUME: That was the president reacting to the bombings in the Egyptian resort town of Dahab. That's on the Red Sea in the Sinai Peninsula. At last report the death count was over 20. Many more injured. This number is likely to get worse. No doubt will. No claim of responsibility yet but the Egyptian president has called this an act of terrorism and it obviously is. Analytical observations on this now from Mort Kondracke, executive editor of "Roll Call," Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio and the syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, Fox News contributors, all.
Well, this comes sort of on the heels of another one of these Osama bin Laden audiotapes which says various things, some of them more coherent than others, I suppose. How do you see this even, Mort?
MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": Well, it's new information, new round what is obviously a war. We're at war. And if Osama bin Laden could destroy this crusader nation, as he calls us, he would. If he could pull off another 9/11 he would. If he could do something worse, he would. They apparently can't or not ready to so they're going after softer targets like tourists in Egypt.
But the long term implication instead of squabbling amongst ourselves and undermining our own war effort with CIA leaks and attempts to censure the president for tapping terrorists, it seems to me we ought to get back together again and start figuring out how to win this war.
MARA LIASSON, NPR: When you say they committed this, what is interesting is this might not have been an Osama bin Laden directed attack but there are now so many groups that are using al Qaeda-like tactics it almost doesn't matter when he is in charge or not. And I think clearly what happened in Egypt today was an act of terrorism whether or not it was al Qaeda itself doesn't matter.
Clearly there is kind of metastasizing terrorist groups around and to me they're going after soft targets. Countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, in Europe, but not here.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: And these two, the leaders of al Qaeda are important. Remember they began their careers, Osama as an enemy of the Saudis wanting to remove and destroy the Saudi governing family and Zawahiri, number two, is an Egyptian doctor who despises the Egyptian government and always considers it an infidel government. So they have a special hatred for Egypt. This is the third attack in Egypt.
There was an attack at Sharm el Sheikh, another resort in el Arish (ph) and now a third attack here in the Sinai. But if you listen to Osama you get a sense from his tape, that as you say they probably are losing operational control, but he is kind of expanding his orbit.
In that tape he talked about the Sudan. To give you an idea of how evil these people are, what is his new cause? Calling on the mujahadin to go out and kill peacekeepers who haven't even arrived in western Sudan were genocide is going on. So it shows what these people are about. It is an unbelievable inhumanity proudly proclaimed and is out there and as Mort says it is time we sort of remember who they are and what we have to do to fight them.
HUME: Does this suggest, this attack in Egypt that there's a reason why we're not being attacked in our homeland or is it just a matter of time?
LIASSON: I think it would be hard to say that there's a reason because it could happen tomorrow. We could sit here and say .
HUME: Well, we don't know whether it could happen tomorrow or not. We don't .
LIASSON: We don't know. That's the whole point. We don't know. We certainly know that if somebody wanted to they could probably walk into a shopping mall with a backpack full of explosives like people do in Israel and kill a certain number of people. That hasn't happened. And either they're waiting for a more spectacular attack or unable to mount one either because they're so crippled or because our defenses are good. And we don't know the answer to that.
KONDRACKE: I don't think we have the slightest clue as to why they haven't done it. Look, they did it. They tried to topple the World Trade Center once, they failed and tried it again and succeeded.
LIASSON: Many years later.
KONDRACKE: Many - yeah. And they've got a long time horizon.
HUME: So we are just as vulnerable as ever?
KONDRACKE: I don't think we're just as vulnerable as ever but we're vulnerable. We're clearly vulnerable.
HUME: When we come back with our panel, Iraq's new prime minister designate works to form a ruling coalition. Not making much news but we'll talk about it anyway.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZALMAY KHALILZAD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: He has the reputation to be a strong leader. Speaks clearly and bluntly when he has to. And he has sent out very good messages since he was nominated about unity government made up of competent ministers, working with all Iraqis to deal with the problem of militias.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUME: And who is our ambassador to Iraq talking about? He is talking about Jawad al Maliki, there he is. Is the new prime minister designate of Iraq whose job it will be in cooperation with his fellow leaders there to now form a government and make the necessary cabinet appointments to fill out a government. But the deadlock, the political deadlock appears to have been broken there. So I heard about this the other night. And I started reading the newspapers and boy you had to scrounge around a bit to find the stories. This really is a case where good news is thought to be dull news, I suppose.
KONDRACKE: It clearly is good news insofar as it's been since December that we've been watching the Iraqis fumble around to try to form a government. Jaafari, the weak sister prime minister - former prime minister tried to hold on, is now gone and Maliki is in his place. He's got Sunnis, he's got Kurds backing this nomination. That's a very good sign. It's not a civil war. If the Sunnis and the Kurds are signed on to this guy they want to continue going forward and he's got a chance.
Now the question is does he know how to govern? He's never governed anything before. Can he form a government? Presumably he can because there is momentum here. Will it be an effective government? Who knows? There's a lot left, but this is good news.
LIASSON: This is the first step forward. I think it is pretty clear he is going to be able to form a government. The big question is will he reign in are the militias which often are the police. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference and will he stop the sectarian fighting?
HUME: Let's talk about what we do know. Charles, is this really the first step forward as Mara suggested or is this more like the 21st?
KRAUTHAMMER: Out of a series of 100.
LIASSON: The first step towards -- they were stuck and they needed to take this first step.
KRAUTHAMMER: And the next step is who runs interior, who runs defense, who runs the oil. And that's going to be subject to negotiation. But the guy I like who is overlooked is the new speaker of the parliament who is a Sunni, who is a tough guy, jailed by Saddam, but he's a tough nationalist. He opposed the American invasion and when he stood up in the parliament all the leaders introduced themselves he made a speech in which he pledged to cut off the hands and tongues of aggressors against Iraq at which point the leader of the Communist Party stood up in parliament and objected to the use of that language in a place where presumably you have the rule of law.
And interestingly the speaker said, in essence apologized and said he was only speaking in allegory. That Sunni leader is the guy who you want in our camp. If he comes over, if he supports the government as he does and if he can work on Sunni tribal leaders some of whom were changing over and supporting the new Iraq, that's the key to a success. That's why I think we ought to keep an eye on this guy. He's anti-American in a sense but he's a nationalist and if that works it will help us to ultimately get out and leave something behind.
KONDRACKE: Assuming he is not going to be the prime minister, the Sunni is the speaker of the house which is a parliamentary position. It's not as though he has a lot of power. But it is a good sign that. That a Sunni is willing to line up - that a militant Sunni is willing to line up with this government and support it. That means that the Sunnis -- these are responsible Sunnis -- are aboard.
LIASSON: But Sunnis have already made the decision to come aboard. I think the real key not just getting Sunnis aboard but making Sunnis feel safe and there are not going to be reprisal attacks and when the police knock on the door you know they're the police and not a death squad.
KRAUTHAMMER: And that's why the identity of the Ministry of Interior who is in charge of police is going to be the key event in the next month in which the government will be formed.
KONDRACKE: The one problem here is that Maliki says that the militia should be folded into the military. The question is are they dissolved, these militia people, and dispersed or do they have institutional -- organizational integrity.
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