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June 26, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - June 26

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America and for people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: That's President Bush today on the disclosure at the end of the week by the "New York Times" that the government, for some time now, under the Bush administration, has been trying to track possible terrorist financing channels through the international banking system with cooperation from important elements within that banking system. Some analytical observation on this issue now from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the "Weekly Standard"; Mort Kondracke, executive editor of "Roll Call"; and Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, FOX News contributors, all.

Pete King, the republican congressman from New York state has gone farther than the president went and has suggested that the treason statutes might be applied here to the "New York Times" and presumably also, as well, to whoever in the government leaked this. What about it -- Fred.

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": Well, I wouldn't go that far, first. I tell you what, Pete King is the chairman of the House -- Homeland Security Committee, why not have hearings, immediately? Why not call Bill Keller, the editor of the "New York Times" tomorrow and bring him before and explain? Not in the same form as is absolutely absurd and condescending letter that he had in his paper on Sunday defending the decision to run the story about these banking records and how the administration had used them. But bring him, ask him where'd he get this from, maybe he doesn't want to name the source, but I would start there and then see if you want to have a grand jury investigation. Have him under oath before he comes to the committee. I mean, do that right away. This is a serious problem. There's no telling what classified information the "New York Times" would not be willing to run in the national security area, and as one of your guests, I think it was Dave (INAUDIBLE) said that if this information had been given directly to Osama bin Laden, that would have been treason on the parts of the person who put it out. But if that person gives it to the "New York Times" and they run it and Osama bin Laden reads it, will the "Times" says, no problem.

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": Yeah, the problem with any kind of a trial here, is not only that of proving that you had intent to help the enemy, which the "New York Times" presumably didn't, but also, it's in the discovery process, proving that this was a -- important to national security might lead to the revelation of other secrets that are even more valuable to the enemy. You know, it's a no-win proposition. I think that's a good idea having hearings. But another thing that would be useful is for not President Bush and Tony Snow and John Snow to bear the whole burden of making the case that this was reprehensible, but I'd like to hear from John Murtha, if that's what John Murtha thinks, and I'd like to hear from Tom Kane and Lee Hamilton and Joe Biden and everybody else, saying that the "New York Times" is ill serving the country and have some pushback on this to make them feel embarrassed. I mean, right now.

HUME: Well you heard from Tim Roemer who was part of at 9/11...

(CROSSTALK)

KONDRACKE: Let's hear it. I think there ought to be a full blown chorus denouncing what the "New York Times" did.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Although, the administration might get more support from Congress defending a program like this if more members of Congress knew what it was. They just read about it in the paper of the first time, most of them, and.

HUME: Well I know, but Mara, isn't it inescapably true that if your going to try to keep something secret and you have to brief members of Congress, you brief it as few as possible if you don't want it all over town?

LIASSON: That's true, but there's a lot of questions about how many were briefed. Not necessarily even the ranking members of these committees where -- they did brief more of them when they knew it was coming out in the paper, clearly they wanted more support for this, I think they probably could have gotten more support if they had briefed more of them in the first place.

BARNES: I think the support's there, I think what Mort's calling for is for the -- those who agree with the administration to speak out and.

HUME: Let's.

BARNES: Now wait a minute, I do want to say that the matter of the number of people who they had actually briefed before is -- I don't think that's a side issue, that's an evasion to be caring about that, at this point with what's been printed in the "New York Times."

HUME: All right, let's talk a little bit about the "Times'" justification for this. As I read it, the Keller explanation, it was that the administration's arguments for not publishing it, A, that it would (inaudible) the program, basically, by making it known and that it would drive the members of the banking community who have participated in this, particularly this one company, to withdraw its cooperation. And the "New York Times" says it doesn't think that's going to happened, but I was a little unclear why the public needed to know this. It said that members of Congress debate it if they don't know about it and same for the public. It was a little unclear whether there was a debate needed about this. I mean, it doesn't seem to be -- I'm not sure what, what, what.

(CROSSTALK)

BARNES: Well, Brit, what they didn't take on and deal -- Bill Keller did not deal seriously with the national security issue that's involved here. He just sort dismissed, well al-Qaeda, probably knows all about this anyway and...

HUME: Well, if that's true, though, if al-Qaeda knows all about this and is aware that there are extensive efforts underway in the international banking system to track terrorist financing, then what we have here are the details of one of the ways that that's being done. Why is that news?

KONDRACKE: Look, I think the only justification that I could see in this is that there was quote, unquote, discomfort on the part of some of the people who were involved in this program with the legality of the program. That's what Keller said and one of his reporters was on the radio this morning.

HUME: He didn't make that argument very vigorously.

KONDRACKE: Well, he didn't make it very vigorously, but that was it. And the other argument was, well, this was an emergency measure after 9/11 and the question is now, whether we still need it perpetuity, which is to say that the "New York Times" have decided that we're not really at war, that this is not a war, it was an emergency back then, but now the heat's off and so now we can go back to living our lives as we used to do, even though Keller said, you know, that New York was the place that 9/11 happened. I think they've forgotten that New York is that place that 9/11 happened.

LIASSON: There's an argument about whether or not the program should exist at all, which I don't hear too many people in Congress saying that it should not. There's also a question about how it should be handled and what kind of oversight there should be. By the way, I don't think that that company voluntarily cooperated; I think they were responding to a subpoena.

HUME: That's true. That's true. All right, when we come back on our panel, we'll talk about the political repercussions resulting from the Iraqi plan for a reconciliation and amnesty. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRY REID (D), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: According to the news reports from Baghdad over the weekend, the prime minister will pardon those who engaged in legitimate acts of terrorism -- I'm sorry, legitimate acts of resistance is what he says. Acts of resistance? Against who, Mr. President? Acts of resistance? What does this mean?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well, what it means apparently is that some of those who have been part of the opposition in Iraq, some of those who have been part of insurgency would be forgiven if they're one to lay down their arms and join society there. Back with our panel.

So what about this? Democrats made a fuss about this issue when it first arose and now it has arisen again in the form of a plan by Prime Minister Maliki to try to reconcile the county. I know from talking to people at the Pentagon that this is a very big deal and it is strongly supported out there and by General Casey and others as well and the secretary. So the question is, what about that resistance to it and is it well founded?

KONDRACKE: Well, I think, look, I think that the way Maliki described it left a lot of things very vague and I think purposely vague. On the one hand, he wants to offer amnesty to people who are in the Sunni rebellion and on the other hand, he doesn't want to say up front that any killers or terrorists are going to get amnesty because it would raise that kind of objection that you heard from Harry Reid.

HUME: In the United States.

KONDRACKE: So -- yeah. So he's got to play both sides. The Sunnis want, you know, lots of people to be.

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: Well (INAUDIBLE) as a practical matter, Mara, if there was going to be some kind of amnesty among the Sunni areas that have been strongholds of the rebellion, how would anybody really know who killed whom?

LIASSON: Nobody would know. First of all, the decision on who's going to get amnesty and who's not is going to be made by the sovereign government of Iraqi. We're not going to have anything to say. Of course.

HUME: Well, we can have something to say.

LIASSON: Of course, we're going to say that we don't want people who killed Americans to be pardoned or given amnesty and I'm sure the Iraqi governed will say, of course not, but we -- there's no way -- we don't have control how this program is going to be run.

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: Well let me turn the question around another way. Could you reconcile the Sunnis without some kind of amnesty for many of those who have been in a resistance?

LIASSON: No, certainly not. I mean, that's what this whole program is meant to -- meant to do, it's meant to co-opt a whole bunch of people who are not taking up arms against the elected government of Iraq. And.

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: So is this a tempest in a teapot, this controversy?

BARNES: Largely. Essentially, particularly since both Maliki and his national security advisor had said this will not allow -- we're not going to, at least knowingly, give an amnesty to people who killed Americans or Iraqis, for that matter, people who were involved in terrorist acts. Of course it's going to be, as Mara pointed out, it's going to be hard to know who was, but I think they'll try to weed them out. This, and democrats, you know what, they know that. They're just making it a political issue. They know perfectly well what this program consists of and what it doesn't consist of.

HUME: Let's talk about the other plan, which emerged over the last several days, which was -- reports of a plan that was presented more or less, as it were, a settled plan with a timetable for American troop withdrawal. What about this?

KONDRACKE: Well, you know, General Casey and General Abizaid have been talking about this kind of thing, this withdrawal down to 100,000 troops, for a long time and now it came out in the "New York Times" with a big blast, major leak, as though this were the only plan. And the White House says it's not the only plan that there are other plans. But, this looked like it was an authorized leak on the part of the Pentagon to put pressure on the administration that this is where we're going. There's a lot of political wind behind it, even republicans would like to see a withdrawal and the president will have to stand up against this if he doesn't think that's the right thing to do. And there are a lot of people.

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: What do you think this is? Do you think this is the Pentagon wanting to get out of the war?

KONDRACKE: Absolutely.

LIASSON: Look, the president has said all along that he's going to take the recommendations of the commanders in the field as to what level of troops we should have there. I don't know if this is the commanders in the field saying that this is their recommendation or not, but you did have Secretary Rumsfeld testify before Congress not long ago when he was asked point blank, do you think there will be significant withdrawals by the end of the year and he said no.

BARNES: Look, I wish these generals would -- I know this was a leak, but they talked publicly about withdrawals a lot. Shut up! You know, that doesn't do any good, that just -- that just makes the Iraqis nervous. And don't be talking about that. Look, when the time comes and they've decided some American troops can be -- whether it's 10 or 20,000, they can be sent home, just do it. And it will have a wonderful impact politically.

HUME: Do you believe, as Mort does, that the Pentagon and the secretary and the high command at the Pentagon, want out of this place?

BARNES: Well, I think they're a little more eager than the president is.

KONDRACKE: Yeah, you know, I was talking to a scholar for the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Rubin, who was just there and he said that the Iraqis want us to stay. They don't want us to start leaving; they think we need more troops.

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