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August 13, 2006

Michael Chertoff, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Ned Lamont, Roundtable

Fox News Sunday

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I'm Chris Wallace. Israel and Lebanon agree to a cease-fire, but intense fighting continues. The latest next on "Fox News Sunday".

A plot to commit mass murder on transatlantic flights is foiled, but who was behind it, and can we stop other terrorists? We'll ask the secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff, and Pete Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

An election shocker in Connecticut -- Joe Lieberman loses the Democratic Senate primary. We'll have the first Sunday interview with the winner, anti-war candidate Ned Lamont.

Plus, both parties look for a political advantage from the failed terror plot. Will it work with voters? We'll ask our panel, Charles Krauthammer, Elizabeth Shogren, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams.

And our Power Player of the Week helps put back together the bodies and spirits of wounded American soldiers, all right now on "Fox News Sunday".

And good morning again from Fox News in Washington. In the Middle East today, diplomacy and war are proceeding on separate tracks. For the latest we turn to Fox News chief Jerusalem correspondent Jennifer Griffin.

Jennifer?

JENNIFER GRIFFIN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Chris, the Israeli cabinet has just approved the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. The cease- fire is expected to begin 16 hours from now. The cabinet voted 24-0 with one abstention, that of former defense minister Shaul Mufaz.

Cabinet ministers wanted to know why Israel launched a massive invasion of Lebanon just two days before a cease-fire was scheduled, tripling the number of troops in Lebanon since Saturday, why such an invasion didn't take place earlier.

Just before Lebanon's cabinet adopted the resolution unanimously on Saturday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared victory. He accepted the agreement but added as long as there are Israeli troops on Lebanese soil, his fighters would shoot at them, meaning this cease-fire, Chris, is likely to include skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces south of the Litani River until the new U.N. force arrives to accompany Lebanon -- the Lebanese army's deployment.

We're just getting, Chris, an air raid siren about to start. It could mean Katyushas coming in, so I'll wrap up. But Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni just spoke. She said that she is calling on the Lebanese army to deploy immediately, and she said that the Israeli troops will not withdraw until the Lebanese army and the new U.N. force, which is not expected to arrive for another one to two weeks, deploy to the south along the border.

Chris?

WALLACE: Jennifer Griffin reporting live from the Israel-Lebanon border.

Jennifer, thanks for that, and take cover.

Also this morning, the first photos of Cuban leader Fidel Castro since his illness two weeks ago. Today is his 80th birthday. And Castro promised to fight for his health.

For more on the other major story of the week, the terrorist plot to blow up transatlantic flights, we're joined now by the secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff.

And welcome back to "Fox News Sunday".

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Good to be here.

WALLACE: Britain's home secretary said today that it's highly likely that there will be another attempt at a terrorist attack and that there, in fact, may be more plotters still out there. What can you tell us?

CHERTOFF: I think that explains why the British and we have continued to maintain the alert level at red in Britain and orange in the rest of the United States.

Obviously, they believe they've picked up the main players, but it's a plot that's international in scope. We haven't fully analyzed the evidence. And therefore, we're still concerned there may be some plotters who are out there.

And we also have to be concerned about other groups that may seize the opportunity to carry out attacks because they think we are distracted with this plot.

WALLACE: In fact, do you know that there are other plotters still at large?

CHERTOFF: We don't know there are specific individuals that are high up on the list of plotters that are out there, but we also don't know what we don't know. And we know in general that there are other groups and pockets around the world that want to do us a lot of harm.

WALLACE: The Pakistanis arrested a key player in this operation, Rashid Rauf, who has close ties to Al Qaida. The Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. says there is definitely an Al Qaida connection to this.

After looking over all the information over the last few days, Mr. Secretary, what was Al Qaida's role?

CHERTOFF: Well, first of all, let's distinguish between whether there was a command and control relationship, something that was specifically approved at the higher levels of Al Qaida, or whether we're dealing with a looser network that is related to Al Qaida.

I think we're still in the process of forming a definitive conclusion partly because, as I say, there's a huge amount of evidence to be gone through, but certainly this plot bears the earmarks or the hallmarks of an Al Qaida-type plot in sophistication, global reach, and really the nature of the plot itself, which is multiple terrorist attacks at the same time.

WALLACE: Still no signs of any involvement, any presence here in the U.S.

CHERTOFF: Chris, this is our number one priority. We are literally, minute by minute, reviewing the evidence as it comes over to see if there's any sign of plotting or operational activity in the U.S. by these plotters. We have not seen that at this point. But that's going to be something we'll be watching literally hour by hour.

WALLACE: British laws give their authorities more latitude to pursue these terror plots than we have here in the U.S. It's easier for them to get search warrants. They can go further than we can on arrests and detention. They have MI-5 devoted exclusively to domestic surveillance.

In fact, do the Brits have more weapons to fight the war on terror than we do?

CHERTOFF: In some respects, they do. They have an easier time getting electronic surveillance and they also can detain people up to, I think, 28 days without charging them, and those are very useful tools when you're trying to intercept an ongoing and very dynamic plot when you may not have collected all the evidence.

I do have to say they have actually a little bit more of a challenge when it comes to bringing the cases in court because there are legal restrictions on their using evidence that we do not have. So in that respect, we have a little bit of advantage when we actually prosecute the case.

WALLACE: Is there anything that they have that you'd like to get and, in fact, are going to call for?

CHERTOFF: Well, I think certainly making sure that we have the ability to be as nimble as possible with our surveillance is very important. And frankly, their ability to hold people for a period of time gives them a tremendous advantage.

Now, there are some legal restrictions here under the Constitution that they don't have, but their nimbleness and their flexibility are important tools we want to have here as well.

WALLACE: So you'd like to see some changes in our laws?

CHERTOFF: I think we should always review the law to see whether there are some things that would help us intercept these plots more readily.

WALLACE: Speaking of the laws, it's been widely reported that U.S. officials went to the FISA court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to get warrants for some surveillance done in this country. Was that because there was concern that doing it without warrants would be illegal?

CHERTOFF: Well, first of all, I was not involved in the process of whether warrants are obtained or not, and I'm not going to talk about specific techniques.

I think one of the challenges we face now is there's been so much churn in the legal environment that we want to make sure that we're clearly on the right side of the law. But that, again, underscores the importance of our ability to do electronic surveillance and other kinds of techniques in a very fast and efficient way.

And we've got to have a legal system that lets us do that so that we can prevent things from happening rather than punishing people or reacting after the fact.

WALLACE: Let's talk about your department. There has been criticism that DHS -- and this is criticism since the plot was exposed -- that DHS is too focused on fighting the last war, that you're too focused on preventing another 9/11 with box cutters when, in fact, you should be worried about new threats.

For instance, we have known since the Bojinka plot was exposed in the Philippines in 1995 that Al Qaida was trying to use liquid explosives, yet, Mr. Secretary, as we sit here today, 10 years later, your department still does not have the capability to detect liquid explosives on carry-ons.

CHERTOFF: Actually, Chris, let me set the record straight on that. First of all, last fall, when we announced that we were going to cut back on some of the restrictions involving nail clippers, we made exactly the point you've made now. And this is, of course, months ago.

We said we felt we had gotten the cockpit security to the point we didn't need to worry so much about 9/11 plots, and we were going to put our resources and our training into explosives. We've run six pilots on liquid explosive detection.

We have retrained 38,000 screeners in up-to-date techniques for spotting detonators and modern types of explosive devices. So in fact, we have done the very thing you're suggesting.

WALLACE: But wait. But as we sit here today, if these plotters had come through with bottles of clear liquid in their carry-on, you couldn't have detected that.

CHERTOFF: It's actually unclear whether we would have or not. But of course, until we can ascertain that our techniques allow us to spot this kind of plot, we want to make sure we're safe rather than sorry.

The challenge here, Chris, has been this. It's not that we can't detect the chemicals. It's that the chemicals are very common, and there would be a lot of false positives. And a regime that required us to open every bottle would make it intolerable to get on line and wait to get on an airplane.

What we have to do is build a system that is efficient as well as one that's capable of detecting.

WALLACE: The Government Accountability Office says that in 2003 DHS redirected more than half of its $110 million in research funds to pay for more screeners.

And as a result, in 2005, GAO said this, and let's put it up on the screen. "TSA delayed development of a device to detect weapons, liquid explosives and flammables in containers found in carry-on baggage or passengers' effects."

Then this June, after DHS considered taking another $6 million away from technology, the Senate Appropriations Committee called your research arm -- and again, let's put this up on the screen -- "a rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course."

Mr. Secretary, aren't those serious problems?

CHERTOFF: Well, let me make this point. You can't look at the screening of bags for explosives as merely a technology issue. Technology is certainly one solution, but you know, human ingenuity is a huge part of this, and that's exactly why retraining and hiring screeners is important.

Look what the Israelis do. The Israelis do not rely only on technology. They have people who are trained in pattern recognition, who ask very probing questions. That is exactly what we've done over the last year, Chris. We have reprogrammed our training to focus on pattern recognition and giving screeners the tools to look at the most modern detonating devices.

So it's wrong to look at technology as the only solution. It's part of a system of solutions.

WALLACE: Finally, and we've got about a minute left, let's do a lightning round -- quick questions, quick answers -- on some security issues that are going to affect a lot of people. Would you ever consider banning all carry-on luggage for safety?

CHERTOFF: Unlikely at this point.

WALLACE: Why?

CHERTOFF: Because I think that we can do the job with our screening, screening training and our technology without banning all carry-on luggage. And we don't want to inconvenience unnecessarily.

WALLACE: How soon will you lift the code red on all flights from the U.K. to this country?

CHERTOFF: I think that's going to be something that's going to very largely depend on where the British investigation is.

WALLACE: Finally, all Muslims aren't terrorists, but all these terrorists are Muslims. Why not, even if it's not politically correct -- why not engage in security profiling instead of wasting time taking my 85- year-old mother -- who's not 85; I don't want her to get mad at me -- but taking my mother out of screening and checking her?

CHERTOFF: Well, we're not against using common sense. And obviously, screening 85-year-old grandmothers probably isn't very sensible.

WALLACE: But it happens all the time.

CHERTOFF: But I will tell you that the terrorists themselves focus on using people who do not look like our ordinary conception of terrorists precisely in order to get around our security.

So if we become too focused on a particular profile, we're likely to be dropping our guard precisely where the terrorists are going to be acting next.

WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for coming in today.

CHERTOFF: Good to be on, Chris.

WALLACE: For more on the terror plot, we turn now to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Pete Hoekstra, who joins us from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Mr. Chairman, I know that you got a full briefing from intelligence officials on Friday. Do you think that Al Qaida was involved? And what do you know about this question of whether members of this plot are still at large?

REP. PETE HOEKSTRA (R), MICHIGAN: Well, I think it's very clear, as Secretary Chertoff talked about, this has all the hallmarks of Al Qaida being involved in the process -- the types of attacks that were planned, the scope of the attacks.

Remember, this was an attack that was going to be as big, if not bigger, than 9/11, over 3,000 Americans potentially dying on a single day within a few hours of each other. This has all the hallmarks of, at minimum, an Al Qaida-inspired type of attack.

WALLACE: And are some of the members of this plot still at large?

HOEKSTRA: I think we need to look at the principle here, Chris. This is a war. There may be some members of this specific plot who are still at large, but we also need to recognize that there are probably other plotters and other plans ongoing as to how they can attack the U.S. in the homeland or our interests abroad.

WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of questions about Pakistan, which did a good job in arresting some of the key plotters, but on the other hand, time after time turns out to be headquarters for maybe some would say Ground Zero for a number of these terrorists.

Is President Musharraf doing everything he can to roll up the terrorist networks inside his country?

HOEKSTRA: I think the principle here is this is a global effort. We need to fight this on a global basis. President Musharraf, I think, has done a number of things that have been very, very helpful in this war on terror.

We obviously see that one of the other places that we need to focus on is Great Britain and Europe, where there are a tremendous number of radical Islamists who have participated in these types of plots. But they've also been found in Canada. They've also been found in Australia.

We need to fight and engage this battle on a global basis and build the alliances that will enable us to be successful.

WALLACE: Let's pick up on that, because as you well know, Chairman Hoekstra, President Bush says that the central front in the war on terror is Iraq.

Doesn't this plot show that, in fact, Al Qaida has many more direct ways to attack us, and to attack us here in our homeland, than in Iraq and Afghanistan?

HOEKSTRA: Well, I think that what you see here is it is a global war. This is a real war. It is fought on a global basis. The techniques that we need to employ are offense, not defense.

We need to reach down into these terrorist organizations and get them at the planning stage, which is exactly what happened in this case. We need to tip our hats to the intelligence community. This was a tremendous success last week.

The tools that we've put in place, the strategies that we've put in place worked. I told the intelligence folks this on Friday. They said thank you.

Now we need to go back to work because this is an ongoing effort. Yes, we were successful this week, but the threats are still very, very real and very significant.

WALLACE: Let's talk about this question of international cooperation. I know that a number of other countries have concerns about the ability of our government, of our intelligence community, to keep secrets, to keep these things from not appearing on the front pages of the New York Times. Was that an issue in this investigation?

HOEKSTRA: I think it, again, is an ongoing issue. It raised its head here again because what happened here in the U.K. -- it moved from foreign intelligence, which is how we're treating it -- in the U.K., this is now a law enforcement issue.

The British have to take these folks that they've arrested, put them into the legal process and now prosecute the case successfully. And as information comes out through the U.S., leaks, the problem is it may jeopardize their ability to prosecute some of these individuals.

Leaks are absolutely devastating our ability to build these international connections that we need in this global war.

WALLACE: Let's discuss the issue that I brought up and discussed with Secretary Chertoff. Are the British better equipped than we are to fight the war on terror, legally better equipped? And would you like to see changes in some of the U.S. antiterror laws?

HOEKSTRA: I think what we need to do is we need to take a look at this specific plot, take a look at the tools that were used that allowed us to effectively stop that plot and see if we need to implement some of those in the United States.

What I'm more worried about, Chris, is we have people here in the United States who want to take away some of these tools that we've developed.

Our strategy for excellence in this war on terror, our ability to stop financing, our ability to link foreign intelligence with domestic law enforcement, and our ability to do the kind of surveillance and get the speed that we need to get within the decision-making cycle of the terrorist groups -- there's folks that in the United States want to get rid of some of the tools that we have developed over the last five years.

When we start talking about change, those are the changes that I'm most nervous about.

WALLACE: Well, we've got less than a minute left, and I want to ask you about that, because in this particular case, according to reports, authorities, U.S. authorities, went to the FISA court and got warrants to carry out surveillance.

Doesn't that, in fact, show that you don't need some of these programs the president started after 9/11, like warrantless wiretaps?

HOEKSTRA: I don't think it shows that necessarily at all. I'm not going to talk about specifically what tools were used in this case. We do know that we need speed.

The other thing we know we need, Chris -- we need to get back to bipartisanship. You know, a threat on this scale shows that this is a real war. This is a real threat. No one should use this event or this war for political advantage.

WALLACE: Congressman Hoekstra, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for sharing your Sunday with us.

HOEKSTRA: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: Up next, he's the Democrat's man of the hour, the new Senate nominee from Connecticut, Ned Lamont. You'll meet him when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: When the political dust settled late Tuesday in Connecticut, Joe Lieberman was out as the Democrat Senate nominee and our next guest was in. With us now for his first live Sunday talk show interview ever is Ned Lamont.

Mr. Lamont, welcome to "Fox News Sunday" and congratulations on your victory this week.

NED LAMONT, CANDIDATE FOR U.S. SENATE (D-CT): Thank you, Chris. Delighted to be here.

WALLACE: After the primary this week, Vice President Cheney said that your victory as an antiwar candidate encourages the Al Qaida types. And Joe Lieberman picked up on that same theme after word of a terror plot in England. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

U.S. SENATOR JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT): If we just pick up as Ned Lamont wants us to do and get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes and this plot hatched in England.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Mr. Lamont, does your victory show that at least some Americans are weakening in their will to fight the war on terror?

LAMONT: No, I think on the contrary. What this election showed is that a lot of people in Connecticut think that the invasion of Iraq has nothing to do with our war on terror. It's been a terrible distraction.

Here you are talking about the failed terrorist plot today. It originated in Pakistan, goes through London, and here we have 132,000 of our bravest troops stuck in the middle of a civil war in Iraq.

I think it was that disconnect that a lot of people focused on in Connecticut.

WALLACE: When Vice President Cheney said that your victory encourages the Al Qaida types, did you find that offensive?

LAMONT: Yeah, I did find that offensive. I find that terribly harsh and wrong. Look, what's going to -- what we ought to be doing is fighting the war on terror in a serious way. I think we've gotten a little bit complacent, to tell you the truth. Maybe we've had a wake-up call in the last couple of days.

We ought to be focused on homeland security. We ought to be focused on our ports, on our airports and public transportation, a lot of which you were talking about here today.

We also are much stronger when we work in concert with our allies, when we have shared intelligence. And I think that we've taken our eye off the ball there a little bit, and I think it's time to focus.

WALLACE: Let's talk, though, about some of the weapons that President Bush authorized after 9/11 to fight the war on terror.

You say that the NSA warrantless wiretaps are illegal. You've called for President Bush to be censured because he allegedly broke the law. You also have been very critical of the Patriot Act.

Now that we've had word of the terror plots -- and we know as we've been discussing today that Britain already has a lot of laws, legal tools that we don't -- would you really take away some of the weapons we have now to fight terror?

LAMONT: No, it's not a question of taking away any laws. It's a question of having a president of the United States who follows the law. And if he wants to change some of the laws, if he thinks the FISA rulings were too slow and he needed some help, go back to Congress and change the laws, but don't do it unilaterally.

What I objected to was the fact that we had a president and some of his team that thought they were above the law, and then they said we'll fix the laws after the fact. I thought that was wrong.

WALLACE: You've also been critical of the Patriot Act. Are there some elements of that that you wish had not been passed?

LAMONT: Look, when it comes to the Patriot Act, again, I think it ought to be tightly drawn to respect our civil liberties but also give the American intelligence community all the tools they need to fight the war on terror. And I think it's a careful balance we have to have there.

WALLACE: Is there any specific measure in the Patriot Act that's in there now that you would like to see taken out?

LAMONT: Well, certainly, there's been an awful lot of talk about going after librarians and seeing what books that, you know, Chris Wallace's kids are taking out and not taking out. That seemed to be casting a net a little too wide, that jeopardizes some of our liberties, sure.

WALLACE: Of course, your big issue is your opposition to the war in Iraq, and you've pointed it out again today. You think that it's a distraction from the war on terror.

Last week you were asked the following, and let's put it up on the screen, what would you do right now if you were in the Senate about Iraq? Your answer, "I would have supported, you know, the Kerry-Feingold amendment which calls for pulling out all U.S. troops out of Iraq by next July.

Mr. Lamont, what do you think happens to Iraqis who trusted us to protect them from the insurgents? What do you think happens with all the sectarian violence if we pull all of our troops out in less than a year?

LAMONT: Look what's happening now. We've been there three years. We've gone from greeted as liberators to just a few dead- enders, to some sectarian violence, to civil war. You know, unlike Senator Lieberman, unlike President Bush, I think we've got to look at the facts on the ground.

Things are getting worse, and our very visible front-line presence is making the situation worse in many ways. So let's be clear with the Maliki government. Let's say we have no permanent intentions upon your military bases. We're going to not be here on a permanent basis. It's not unconditional. We're going to start bringing our troops home, and we ought to have them home within a year.

I think that's reasonable, gives them time, their 200,000 troops to step up. But it's a basic message. I mean, President Bush says we'll stand down as soon as the Iraqis stand up. I turn that on its head. I think the Iraqis won't stand up until we stand down.

So let's negotiate a phased withdrawal. Chris, we'll be there. We'll be there for humanitarian support. We'll be there for reconstruction. But now's the time to get the very American face off of this perceived occupation.

WALLACE: But the prime minister, al-Maliki, was here just recently and said we need U.S. troops to continue to be there. What if you're wrong, Mr. Lamont, Senator Lamont? What if you're wrong? You vote for this, to get them out, and there's a blood bath?

LAMONT: There is a blood bath. What if it keeps getting worse? What if it gets even worse? No, I don't think I want to have 132,000 troops back in the middle of a civil war. I think only the Iraqis will be able to solve this for themselves.

We'll be there for support. We've got our troops in Kuwait. We have our maritime presence. We'll make sure that Iran and others don't come in to create any mischief. But I think the big difference between the president and I, the senator and I, is I think it's now time for the Iraqis to step up and take control of their own destiny.

WALLACE: So under all circumstances, all troops out by next July.

LAMONT: I don't know about all circumstances whatever. But right now I think our policy ought to be let's be clear with the Maliki government. We're going to have our troops out within a year. We'll be there for reconstruction, training, everything else in the background. But yes, I think let's set the record straight.

WALLACE: This week you even linked the war in Iraq to what's going on in Israel. Take a look at this, if you will.

LAMONT: Sure.

WALLACE: This is what you had to say. "Hezbollah has been emboldened. They're attacking Israel. I think you can just look around the Middle East right now and you can see just the many factors of how this invasion of Iraq was a disaster."

Mr. Lamont, here's a brief history of Hezbollah, and let's put it up. In 1983, they bombed the U.S. embassy and the Marine barracks, killing 258 Americans.

In 1996, they helped the Iranians blow up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 servicemen.

They have been at war with Israel for a quarter century. Can you really blame Hezbollah on the war in Iraq?

LAMONT: I'd say the war in Iraq has emboldened Iran. An emboldened Iran doesn't have its historical enemy, Iraq, right there, makes Israel more vulnerable. Iran, Syria, Hezbollah -- there is a nexus there.

Yes, I think we've destabilized the Middle East and we've done nothing for Israel's security because of this.

WALLACE: And you think that this Hezbollah attack -- you can link it to the fact that we're in Iraq?

LAMONT: Well, what I said was our invasion of Iraq has done nothing for Israel's security and has emboldened Iran. Absolutely.

WALLACE: Let's do a lightning round, because for a lot of people this is the first time that they have ever met and heard Ned Lamont. So let's do a series of quick questions and quick answers to get a sense of who you are and what you stand for.

You're for immigration reform. Would you include a path to legalized citizenship?

LAMONT: I'd certainly include a path to legal status. Look, I teach classes at a high school in Bridgeport, and I can tell you an awful lot of these kids just weren't fortunate enough to be born in this country. They're not going to jump ahead of anybody in line.

They're going to earn their way to a legal status. But we're not going to ship 11 million people home.

WALLACE: You're for energy independence. Let's talk about some of the components of that. Drilling in ANWR?

LAMONT: I oppose that. I just think it's a false choice. That's going to buy us a few months, six months. Doesn't get the job done.

WALLACE: Wind turbines in Nantucket sound?

LAMONT: Look, I don't think it's for the federal government to pick and choose which of these renewable energy sources is going to be the winner, which is going to be the loser.

I can tell you at $75 a barrel, a lot of these things are economical right now. And I think the free market's going to go there. And I think the federal government ought to have a crash course when it comes to real research in terms of making progress.

WALLACE: Is there any issue that you can identify right now where you break with liberal democrats?

LAMONT: I'm a strong fiscal conservative. I think we've got to live within our bounds. I don't know whether that breaks with liberal Democrats or not, but I can tell you there's nothing conservative about this administration -- you know, $9 trillion in debt.

You know, we're borrowing from our kids. We're mortgaging their future instead of investing in their future. I feel strong about that. I'm a business guy. That's what we believe.

WALLACE: Let's talk a little politics as well. There's a new poll out today, the first since the primary, and let's put it on the screen. It shows Lieberman at 46 percent, you at 41 percent, and the Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger, at 6 percent.

Given those numbers, would you agree that Joe Lieberman is a legitimate candidate and not a spoiler in this race?

LAMONT: Well, look, I don't spend too much time on polls. As you may know, I started out as less than an asterisk about six months ago, and here we are virtually in a dead heat with a three-term incumbent.

Look, I played by the rules of the primary. The primary said I'm going to endorse the winner of this primary, we're going to go forward united. You know, Senator Lieberman had a different choice. He said I'm going to start up my own party and jump-start this again.

Is he playing the role of a spoiler? I wouldn't go that far. But I would say I wish he'd reconsider what he wants to do. I think it's important that we have a unified front going forward.

WALLACE: The fact is you think he's going to drop out because he doesn't have enough money, correct?

LAMONT: No, I can't read Senator Lieberman's mind, obviously, and I have no idea what he's going to do. I can tell you there are an awful lot of people asking him to reconsider.

WALLACE: Do you think that Joe Lieberman is a true independent candidate or do you think that he now, in effect, is the candidate for the Republicans in the White House?

LAMONT: I know he's getting an awful lot of Republican support. You know, you mentioned Vice President Cheney's attack. That was, you know, mimicked by Senator Lieberman soon thereafter. So I do sense there's a little bit of coordination going on there.

But I'll take him at his word. He says he's going to run as an independent.

WALLACE: Mr. Lamont, we're going to have to leave it there. We want to thank you so much for coming by this morning, and we'll see you along the campaign trail.

LAMONT: Nice to see you, Chris. Thanks.

WALLACE: Coming up, our Sunday panel on the other big story of the week, the U.N. cease-fire resolution for the Middle East. Will it really put an end to the fighting? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: With the passage of this resolution, the international community has helped to open a path to lasting peace between Lebanon and Israel that will end the suffering and the violence of this past month.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaking on Friday to the U.N. Security Council.

It's panel time now, and we welcome a newcomer, Elizabeth Shogren of National Public Radio.

Thanks for joining the group today.

ELIZABETH SHOGREN, NPR: Nice to be here.

WALLACE: And here as well, Fox News contributors nationally syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, and Juan Williams, also for National Public Radio.

Well, as we reported earlier, all sides are signing on to the cease- fire resolution, but at the same time -- and it was quite dramatic to hear Jennifer Griffin with the air raid sirens -- the fighting continues.

Bill, what's going on?

BILL KRISTOL, WEEKLY STANDARD: I guess it will continue for another 24 hours and then be reduced. I don't think it will stop entirely. You know, Hezbollah is saying they've won and, of course, they would say that anyway.

But in this case, I'm afraid the truth is that a terrorist group launched an attack across an international border a month ago, and though they have paid some price in their own -- in having a lot of stuff destroyed, basically they have not been decisively defeated.

And their state sponsors of terror, Syria and Iran, have paid no price at all. They're not mentioned in the U.N. resolution that we signed off on Friday night.

WALLACE: So, Juan, a victory for the bad guys?

JUAN WILLIAMS, NPR: Well, I don't understand how you can have a victory when you see the condition of Lebanon -- I mean, the place has been torn apart -- unless you're saying that really what Hezbollah is after is simply making a show of their hatred of Israel and serving as a surrogate for Iran.

In that case, I guess they come out of this not unscathed, but certainly surviving, and that's all they needed in order to generate tremendous support from those who opposed Israel throughout the Arab world and carry around signs of Nasrallah and make him some sort of folk hero.

But I think the larger story here is this week what happened between the U.S. and Israel, and the U.S. for the first time saying, you know, Israel did not take advantage militarily of the 30-day period that was given them to degrade Hezbollah strength and questioning exactly -- not only Olmert but questioning Israeli policy.

Was it in the best interest of Israel to do what has happened here? Israel looks weakened after this incident.

WALLACE: Charles, before we look back, let's look forward. You've got this U.N. resolution which calls for 15,000 Lebanese soldiers, also a U.N. force of 15,000 international soldiers to go into southern Lebanon and, as they do, Israel to withdraw.

Do you see the elements here, the foundation, for a lasting cease-fire or not?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: No. No one knows exactly what the U.N. and the French and the others are going to do. The mandate is not as robust as intended. It's not a Chapter 7, which is U.N. language for having the real enforcement mandate.

Our history with U.N. forces in Lebanon is completely hopeless. They have done nothing in the past. Look, if you compare what's happened to what Israel had hoped and declared, and what the prime minister had boasted would happen -- unconditional release of the soldier, the destruction of Hezbollah, or at least a disarmament -- it's a failure.

The only good thing that you can say is you compare to what Israel was at the beginning, that the real defeat was in 2000 when Israel left Lebanon, got nothing in return, and Hezbollah entrenched itself on the border with watch towers, bunkers, all these forces. That probably is not going to return.

You'll probably have at least a mile or two where you're not going to have Hezbollah armed and dangerous, able to shoot rifles into Israel. And probably there'll be some disarmament up to the Litani. But Hezbollah is there, and it will resume the war at its timing and Iran's timing in the future.

WALLACE: Elizabeth, are you as bleak as your colleagues here on the panel?

SHOGREN: Well, I think that it's -- I'm afraid I don't think that this cease-fire is going to stop hostilities between the two sides. I think that what we've seen happen -- and even as late as this week, you heard the top Bush administration officials saying that it's going to take time before peace takes hold.

The troops will have to come in and then we'll still see what happens. I don't know. If I were a peacekeeper right now, I don't think I'd want to go in between the Israeli forces and Hezbollah, because I don't think it's going to be peaceful.

Even the way the peace agreement is -- the cease-fire agreement is laid out, Israel doesn't have to lay down whatever it calls its defensive operations, and I think Israel has a pretty broad definition of what defensive operations means.

WALLACE: Bill, let's look back now over the past month of fighting. As you look at Israel and Hezbollah, Iran and the U.S., who are the winners and who are the losers?

KRISTOL: Well, I'm afraid Iran is probably the winner. I mean, they unquestionably signed off on Hezbollah starting this. It was a distraction from the alleged -- well, not the alleged -- the Security Council move-in on Iran's nuclear program, which no one's talked about now for a month.

And as I say, Iran has paid no price, zero price, for clear state sponsorship of a terrorist group attacking across an international border. I think the Olmert government initially will be the loser, and I'd be surprised if it survives.

There's a huge amount of criticism of his performance as prime minister from both left and right in Israel. And they have a parliamentary system, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a new cabinet there pretty soon.

WILLIAMS: So what you get is Benjamin Netanyahu and the right wing in Israel, I guess, would gain, although I was saying to you earlier, in some ways, it sounds incredible coming out of my mouth, but you wish Sharon was around, because I don't think Sharon would have gone into this trap in terms of the prisoner being captured and then trying to get some kind of extended stay into Lebanon.

I think he would have dealt with it more deftly. And instead, what we see is, I think, Israel walked into this thing, and it has not been -- obviously, air strikes proved ineffective.

So you know, coming out of it, you'd have to say that Olmert is being attacked and the military is being attacked, and Israel's sense of invincibility, strong militarily, strong intelligence, has been undermined.

That's not good for the Israel. It's not good for the Middle East, not good for the U.S.

WALLACE: You've got the situation, Charles, where first of all you had the air campaign, which was ineffective, then a belated ground offensive, then the acceptance of the cease-fire resolution, which, as you point out, doesn't give Israel all the protection it needs.

How much trouble is the government of Ehud Olmert in?

KRAUTHAMMER: I think he falls soon. Remember, the party he leads is not really a party. It was cobbled together as a party of Sharon, and Sharon is gone. It doesn't have any history. It's basically a committee of people who are not colleagues, who haven't shared ideologies.

The minister of defense is a former union organizer. Livni, the foreign minister, is untested. I think it falls apart and we will resume the old politics of left and right, the center having had a catastrophe.

WILLIAMS: Now, Charles...

WALLACE: Wait, let's let Elizabeth in.

You get the last word here.

SHOGREN: Well, I think it's interesting because you have seen him scrambling in the last couple of days trying to say that there's something that he's brought out of this confrontation.

Is it that, in fact, the peacekeepers are going to be able to go in and change the situation so Hezbollah isn't as armed anymore? You see him scrambling and reaching for those things. And I think it shows that he's in a desperate situation.

WALLACE: All right. We do have to take a break here.

But coming up, the plot to blow up transatlantic flights -- what does it mean for the war on terror? And does it change the political landscape for the November elections? Our panel tackles that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 2004, Hurricane Charley struck Florida. The Category 4 storm, packing 150-mile-per-hour winds, killed 29 people and did more than $15 billion in property damage.

Stay tuned for more from our panel and our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL STEPHENSON, DEP. COMMISSIONER, SCOTLAND YARD: You cannot stress too highly the severity that this plot represented. Put simply, this was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was the deputy police commissioner from Scotland Yard after British authorities broke up the plot to bomb planes flying from the U.K. to this country.

And we're back now with Charles, Elizabeth, Bill and Juan.

Well, obviously, foiling this plot was a huge victory, but, Bill, does it tell us anything we didn't know about the state of our enemy and how we need to go about fighting them?

KRISTOL: Well, it tells us that Al Qaida is alive and hopefully not too well, but alive enough to plan a major plot, alive in Pakistan, and alive, unfortunately, in some of the Muslim areas around London and in Great Britain. And that's worrisome, obviously, for the future.

The good news is the British intelligence seems to have been on top of it. We seem to have cooperated with them ably. We managed not to leak the story, which is awfully good.

Mike Chertoff told me before the show that on Sunday he came in a week ago Sunday to prepare for the homeland security, you know, special meeting, cabinet meeting, cabinet-level meeting, and he typed up his notes for the meeting on his own classified computer because they didn't want to let any of the assistants even know.

No one except at the very highest level knew. And it's important to do that, because if foreign intelligence agencies are going to cooperate with us, they need to be confident that we're not going to leak.

And I give the Bush administration a lot of credit for managing to prevent the leaks.

WALLACE: For keeping a secret? Boy, that's...

KRISTOL: Well, but look. Look, it hasn't been so easy in the past.

WALLACE: No, I understand.

KRISTOL: And I think the leaks have done damage in the past.

WALLACE: Juan?

WILLIAMS: Well, I think that -- you know, give all credit to homeland security in this case. I think that they did an effective job.

You know, the larger problem, I think, here is, you know, you start to get into the back and forth, the political back-biting that attends this, and now you see Democrats and Republicans all over each other, and Vice President Cheney saying that something like a Ned Lamont victory is good for the Al Qaida types.

I mean, why do we need that? Why isn't there a Bush administration that can understand that Democrats and Republicans are all against terrorists in this country?

WALLACE: Let me talk about that and explore it with you, Charles, because we did see this political firefight this week. Republicans say hey, this shows we can keep you safe and Democrats can't. Democrats say that Iraq is a huge distraction from the war on terror.

Who's got the better political side of that argument?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, it depends how the election is framed in November. If the frame is the war in Iraq, the Democrats are going to win. If the frame is the war on terror, the president's going to win.

And in the last presidential election, the president succeeded in having the second frame, having it as a larger issue. Of course, Iraq was not as much of a drain in '04 as it is today. But I think it is -- that's going to be the tug-of-war.

The hard part for the president is to turn a non-event, the fact that we have not had a second attack, into a political plus. It's the absence of an event. It's a tremendous achievement. But it's not with you daily, and it fades with memory.

Look, we're approaching the fifth anniversary of 9/11 as a kind of a nostalgic historical retrospective with the movies and all of this stuff. And now we see that it's alive and well. So in that sense, it helps the Republicans in reminding us the war is still on, but will that last until November? I don't know.

WALLACE: Well, that's exactly right, Elizabeth, I mean, because chances are although this is big news now, it will be forgotten by November. We know Iraq will be in the news in November.

SHOGREN: That's true. And I think that the kind of things that we hear the president say, that we hear the Bush administration say, that we heard Cheney say this week -- they're starting to sound a little old to Americans, saying that somehow that Democrats aren't tough on terrorism, or Democrats -- and using Democrats and tying the war together with this.

I don't think that this is going to be as effective next time as it was in the last election. I think people are sick of hearing it. And I think just the polls -- the poll numbers showing that Americans don't want more -- don't want the war in Iraq anymore is going to influence things more.

WALLACE: Bill, after the events of this week -- and I know you're not going to like this question, but can you argue that the working class neighborhoods in Britain are a bigger threat to the United States than what happens in Baghdad?

KRISTOL: No. Look, there are lots of threats. It is a global war. The Bush administration, I think, is deeply correct about this. And what you do on one front affects what happens on the other front.

Cheney's statement is indisputably correct. It doesn't mean that Ned Lamont likes Al Qaida or wants Al Qaida to win. But the notion that a retreat in Iraq would not embolden terrorists elsewhere in the Middle East and terror recruiters in the suburbs of London is ludicrous. Of course it would.

Now, if you want to say we should get out of Iraq anyway because we can't win, and this is the price we have to pay, fine. But it's just factually true that our pulling out of Iraq will be bad for us in the global war on terror.

WILLIAMS: Well, you know, here's what I think. And when you were talking about Al Qaida earlier and you said well, they're able to manage this operation, I think you have to redefine Al Qaida.

It's not the Al Qaida that attacked us five years ago. This is an Al Qaida that has cells, that's created sort of a movement in getting these kids, alienated kids, in the London suburbs with roots in Pakistan and going to Pakistan and get some support, then putting on this event.

This is not something that's led by Osama bin Laden. And you know, it's amazing we still haven't captured him. But it's not led by bin Laden.

And it's based on human intelligence, people infiltrating that and ten going after it. So when it comes to Iraq -- you don't have terrorists in Iraq. That's sectarian violence. That's civil war. So why would they be bolstered if we decided that we want a different approach in Iraq?

KRAUTHAMMER: Look, we have jihadists all over the place. It is a global war. There are jihadists in Iraq. There are jihadists in Pakistan, and one church. That's the Sunni church of Al Qaida. There's a second church. It's the Shiite church in Tehran. That's a second war.

It's just like in the Soviet era. You had China and Russia and their own acolytes and clients. And now we have a two-headed monster here. And we saw the second head, Iran, active on the front in Lebanon. Of course, Syria and Hamas -- that's one axis. The other is Al Qaida.

It's all one war against us of different shades, but it is jihad against America and the west and Israel as the front line, and it's all linked. Yes, it's not as if all of them speak with each other, and in some way Iran and Al Qaida are rivals. But the threat and the objective is the same.

WALLACE: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you, panel. That's it for today. See you next week.

Time now for some mail about one of our panelists. Edward Gray of Missouri -- you're going to love this -- wrote, "Would someone at Fox please buy Bill Kristol his own bag of plastic army men and send him to the basement to watch the History Channel? More troops appears to be his stock answer to all situations."

And Pat Wadsworth of California had this advice for Bill, "As I am old enough to be his mother, I feel comfortable informing him he is not the fount of all wisdom and suggest he take a humble pill once in a while."

KRISTOL: Can I say one thing?

WALLACE: Yes.

KRISTOL: We need more troops.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: The boy didn't play with soldiers when he was a kid.

Anyway, we all need humble pills. Be sure to let us know your thoughts by e-mailing us at fns@foxnews.com.

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