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August 20, 2006

Pete King, Rafi Ron, Rand Beers, Chuck Hagel, Roundtable

Fox News Sunday

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Safety in the sky. In its effort to prevent another 9/11, is the government missing the latest threat? We'll ask the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, the man who headed security at Israeli airports and a former presidential advisor on counterterrorism.

From the war on terror to the 2006 election, what does the GOP need to do to get on track? We'll talk with Republican senator and possible presidential hopeful Chuck Hagel.

Plus, a federal judge says President Bush's warrantless wiretap program is illegal, a topic for our panel, Brit Hume, Anne Kornblut, Bill Kristol and Mort Kondracke. And our Power Player of the Week is a leader in baseball and business, all right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And good morning again from Fox News in Washington. Here's a quick check of the latest headlines.

In Baghdad, snipers attacked a Shiite religious procession today, killing at least 17 pilgrims and wounding more than 200, according to Iraqi officials. Tens of thousands of Shia took part in the march. Police say they killed four snipers.

In Beirut, the Lebanese defense minister warned all groups, including Hezbollah, the army will deal decisively with anyone who breaks the cease- fire. Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan declared a raid Saturday by Israeli commandos a violation of the truce.

And the family of Fox News correspondent Steve Centanni has released a video directed at the people in Gaza holding him and cameraman Olaf Wiig.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN CENTANNI: He is far more valuable to the Palestinian people free as a journalist than as a captive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Steve and Olaf were kidnaped last Monday. Following last week's foiled plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic, we want to take a look at whether there are still serious gaps in air safety.

To discuss that, we're joined by Pete King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and here in studio by Rafi Ron, former chief of security at Israeli airports, and Rand Beers, who served as a counterterrorism aid to President Bush before becoming a top foreign policy advisor to John Kerry.

Well, let's start with the issue of profiling, the politically incorrect idea that some passengers should be treated differently. I asked Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff about that on Sunday, and here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Chairman King, what do you think of that, this idea that if you say target young Muslim men, then the terrorists are going to find someone else to carry out these acts?

REP. PETER KING, (R) NEW YORK: Well, I'm not saying we should be targeting people, Chris, but I think we should put political correctness somewhat to the side and say that a screener or even an airline should have the right to factor in a person's national origin.

We know that the threat is coming from Islamic terrorism and from Islamic terrorists, and obviously you can have a Richard Reid. You could always have a Timothy McVeigh coming through.

But the fact is the overwhelming odds are that it is going to be someone of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent and of the Muslim faith. And I think a screener should be allowed to factor that in as one of many factors.

Like if we were told that the Ku Klux Klan was going to attack Harlem or Bedford Stuyvesant, I think we'd spend more time looking more closely at whites than we would at African-Americans. Or if it was the IRA, you'd look more closely at Irish Americans.

So I'm saying it's a factor that should be in there and a screener or an airline shouldn't be worried about being sued, or losing their job or being hit with a civil rights action if they factor that in as one of a number of other issues they look at.

WALLACE: Mr. Ron, anyone who's flown in or out of Israel knows that your security people give everyone the third degree, but do you profile -- do you focus, for instance, on young Muslims?

RAFI RON, FORMER CHIEF OF SECURITY AT ISRAELI AIRPORTS: Well, not necessarily. I mean, we do take into consideration the background of the person and that is one of the things that we certainly look for.

But we pay more attention to details that would characterize them as a potential high-risk passenger, or in other terms, what is the probability of him being a terrorist compared to others.

WALLACE: Mr. Beers, should TSA profile, if -- to take an example like Peter King's, if we suddenly heard there was a plot of Norwegians against our airplanes, would it be wrong to take into account that someone is blond and blue-eyed and speaks Norwegian?

RAND BEERS, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL COUNTERTERRORISM ADVISOR: No, of course it wouldn't be a problem, but as Secretary Chertoff said, we shouldn't leave ourselves in the position of only focusing on one particular profile as opposed to making sure that we're still keeping up our guard more generally.

But I don't think there's any way around the notion that you at least have to take into account the possibility of this kind of threat.

WALLACE: But you know as well as I do, Mr. Beers -- I mean, the 85- year-old grandmother being pulled out of the line -- isn't that...

BEERS: Oh, I'm not saying that 85-year-old grandmothers need to be pulled out of the line. I'm...

WALLACE: But they are.

BEERS: I understand that they are, and I have a problem with the rigidity of the random checks that are being instituted. So I'm not saying it should be random. What I am saying is that there are a number of factors that can be taken into account.

And I think, quite frankly, there's no way around the notion that perhaps asking a question or two of an individual traveling passenger may be the best way to come up with some kind of a reaction that says I better talk to this person or inspect this person.

WALLACE: Let's get to that, Mr. Ron, because taking a broader look at this, you say that U.S. airport security makes a mistake by focusing too much on trying to find the weapon instead of trying to find the bad guy, the terrorist. Explain.

RON: Yes, this is true, because in order to find the weapon, you need to invest tremendous amount of resources both in terms of time as well as in other terms, which is impossible to do for 100 percent of the passengers.

So you need to develop a tool that will allow you to focus on a very small number of people that you want to spend a lot of time before you allow them to fly. This was the case with Richard Reid when he flew to Israel.

WALLACE: Well, let's explain. Richard Reid, of course, was the...

RON: Richard Reid, the shoe bomber.

WALLACE: ... alleged shoe bomber who tried to blow up a plane with an explosive in his sneaker in December of 2001.

RON: That is correct, and Richard Reid flew seven month prior to his attempted attack on American Airline to Israel by El Al. And he was determined as a extremely suspicious individual through this interview and was subjected to close to a one-hour search, one on one, before he was allowed on board.

And only after it was made sure that he was clean that he was allowed on board. That's something you cannot afford to do to everybody, so you need to develop this tool which is based both on behavior as well as on verbal encounter or, in other term, on an interview.

And it is these tools that allow you to decide who are the high- risk people you want to spend more time with.

WALLACE: But, Mr. Ron, would Israeli security techniques work in this country? Take a look at these numbers. There are 8.9 million passengers a year in Israel and 62,000 flights. Here in the U.S. there are 746 million passengers a year and 11 million flights.

Question: Can you do the same kind of intense screening when you have so much more air traffic in this country without grinding the system to a halt?

RON: Let me put it this way. I think that if the level of risk and the way the risk is being perceived here would be similar to the one in Israel, I think you would go as far as necessary in order to stop it, even if we are talking about using similar steps like the Israelis are using.

But at this point in time, I don't think that it is similar. I don't think that there is a justification to impose a system like the one in Israel on American aviation, and we can still use steps that are a little bit milder than that that, that we are still not doing.

WALLACE: Let's talk about that, Chairman King. There's been a lot of criticism of DHS recently, that it is too focused on fighting the last war, too concerned in preventing another 9/11 instead of dealing with newer threats.

And there's a story today that indicates that the House, your side of Congress, is so concerned with the way that the research arm of DHS is failing to do its job that there is talk about cutting its budget in half. Is DHS off the tracks here?

KING: I think they're going in the right direction. I think for several years they were behind the curve. I do think in the last year, though, with people like Kip Hawley and Michael Jackson, the department is starting to go forward.

But for instance, my own committee is having a hearing. And this was scheduled a month ago. It's going to be held on September 7th when we get back on the science and technology directorate at the Department of Homeland Security. I think more does have to be done as far as technology.

But also, if I can go back to what Mr. Ron said, we can only go so far with technology. Listen, we have to get the best technology possible. But we're never going to be 100 percent safe. We have to have as many layers of defense as possible.

So I think we should be going more for behavioral training and looking at that, because even Ben Gurion Airport is not 100 percent safe. But as many layers as we can throw up as possible we should. So we should go more to behavioral training.

Also, they do have to do more as far as technology. I do think that Kip Hawley at TSA is moving more in that direction than they had been in the past. But more has to be done. Yes, I agree with that.

WALLACE: Would you briefly, Congressman King, like to see questioning of every passenger before they get on a plane?

KING: I don't know if we can do every one, because again, you know, 740 million passengers a year is an awful lot. We have to be selective. We have to realize we can never be perfectly safe, but we have to go where the greatest threat is, the greater threat, and try to minimize those threats and, you know, really go after them. But we should certainly, again, be screening everyone.

And there's another place where DHS has to do a better job, and that's getting the terrorist screening list more up to date so that we'll know -- have a better idea in advance who's coming in, who's not, and also better backgrounds on the people, focus on them, screen others randomly.

But you can't do 100 percent, no. But we should really try to narrow down those who we know we want to get or who could be a potential risk.

WALLACE: Mr. Beers, there is some rudimentary form of behavior screening which, in fact, Mr. Ron helped set up at Logan Airport, but it's only at a dozen airports now. They've created these puffer machines that you go through and it blows some air and it tries to detect any trace of explosive residue. That's only in 36 airports. Is DHS still behind the curve?

BEERS: I think that they are. My biggest concern here is, as we've been talking today, it's not technology. It's people. And the people start at the very top, and the turnover at DHS is extremely troubling to me.

The fact reported in the paper today that we have now the fourth person to head the science and technology directorate in three years represents, I think, a serious indication that we haven't gotten the management at the top right yet. And we really need to focus on that, and then all the way down to the TSA screeners.

And I agree with Congressman King. Kip Hawley appears to be doing a very good job as a manager at that level. But he has to make sure that his management guidelines translate into effective screening by the screeners at each and every airport around the country.

WALLACE: Chairman King, let's do a lightning round, if we can, and -- quick questions, quick answers. Let me ask you about some of the threats out there right now, new threats, and our ability as we sit here today to be able to deal with them. First of all, liquid explosives.

KING: Liquid explosives -- the technology is being pursued. We have technology that can do bottle by bottle. It cannot do it quickly enough. It's really not ready for prime time. Hopefully that can be perfected within the next year.

WALLACE: So basically, liquid explosives right now -- if they wanted to carry it on a carry-on bag with a bunch of stuff, there'd be no way of detecting it.

KING: It's possible. Not the guarantees that we should have, no.

WALLACE: Air cargo on passenger flights -- I was astonished to read that only about 10 percent to 15 percent of the 6 billion pounds of air cargo that's put on passenger flights is ever inspected.

KING: All of it is screened -- again, not effectively enough. They have known shipper programs. There's also 4,000 different lists as far as known shippers, and what is being done at San Francisco Airport has to be looked at. It's a combination of canine and technology which hopefully can bring us a lot more along as far as screening all of it or actually inspecting all of it.

But no, that is a concern. I think industry should be doing more and the department should be doing more.

WALLACE: Finally, shoulder-fired missiles -- how real a threat and what are we doing to try to prevent that?

KING: Well, it's a remote threat, but on the other hand it is possible. It costs about $11 billion right now, and that doesn't include maintenance.

I think one thing we should consider is what DOD is actually looking at, and that's having perimeter security at airports to stop MANPADS from being shot out. But again, we're never going to get 100 percent security. And besides, we have subways, chemical plants, tunnels, bridges, all of these out here.

We have to decide what we're going to protect against. I think perimeter security at airports is probably more feasible than actually equipping 6,800 different planes with protections against MANPADS. But again, it is being looked at. It is being researched. We have to go forward.

WALLACE: Mr. Ron, as you look at air travel in the U.S. today, what's your biggest concern?

RON: I think my biggest concern is that terrorists can still make their way through our system and reach the aircraft. It has been only lately that TSA started to divert more attention under Kip Hawley to the human factor, as we have been discussing this morning.

We still have a way to go. We don't yet talk to people enough at the airport. We have to increase the skills of the people that are doing it in order to be much more effective.

WALLACE: And we have less than 30 seconds left. Mr. Beers, if you were suddenly secretary of Homeland Security, what's the first thing you'd do?

BEERS: Well, I would agree with Mr. Ron, but I would also say on the cargo inspection I think we have to do a better job. That's a self- inspection system by shippers, and there is no inspection of packages that are one pound or less.

And we had one pound in Pan Am 103 and it blew the side of the plane, and it went down in 1988. We can't afford to do that again.

WALLACE: We're going to have to leave it there. Gentlemen, thank you all so much for coming in today.

KING: Thank you, Chris.

RON: Thank you.

BEERS: Thank you.

WALLACE: Up next, Senator Chuck Hagel on wiretaps, Iraq and presidential politics. We'll be right back.

WALLACE: Joining us now, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, member of the Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of administration policy.

Senator, welcome to "Fox News Sunday."

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL, (R) NEBRASKA: Chris, thank you.

WALLACE: A federal judge this week ruled that the NSA's warrantless wiretap program is unconstitutional, and the president very shortly thereafter responded that those who support the judge's decision do not understand the world we live in.

In this particular case, do you find yourself siding with the president or the judge?

HAGEL: Chris, I'm one of the senators who has authored legislation to address the balance, which is, I think, critical -- has been for all the years that our country has been a thriving democracy, a balance between guaranteeing the rights of individuals enshrined in the Constitution and the security of our country.

We've done that very successfully. I think we will continue to do that successfully. On the court case itself, I'm not surprised that you had a judge challenge that. We have legislation now in the Senate, and I understand the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter, will hold another hearing, maybe even a markup, on September 7.

Based on his compromise with the White House...

WALLACE: But basically, you think the president had overstepped his bounds.

HAGEL: I do. And I think that we need to find a new law. Of the law that we are operating with now was crafted in 1978. Technology has taken all of these issues far beyond that law, so we need a new law. And it needs a law -- we need a law that is relevant to today's threats.

WALLACE: But, Senator, your party jumped on this decision. I want you to take a look at something that was issued by the Republican National Committee the day of the decision. Here's the title: Liberal Judge Backs Dem Agenda to Weaken National Security. And a Republican spokeswoman says that this shows the fundamental choice between Republicans and Democrats.

HAGEL: Excuse me. Well, Chris, I can't speak for the party. I don't speak for the party. I don't defend the party. They do a very adequate job of that themselves.

But I would say this. Both parties are at significant peril in the election this year if they continue to define down to the lowest political common denominator this issue of terrorism.

We have on the one side the Democrats running around saying well, the Republicans are warmongers, they want to take your rights away from you, you can't trust them. The Republicans, evidenced by that headline you threw up, are saying about the Democrats they're cut and run, you can't trust them.

What's going to happen here -- not only is there going to be a response to this in the November 7th election, but if you continue to debase this issue, a very serious issue -- terrorism is a serious issue. It is a threat. It's real.

If you continue to define it down to the lowest political common denominator for both parties, then what you're going to find is the American people not taking it seriously, that it's just another wedge issue. I've talked about that.

I don't think those kind of headlines do any good. I don't like it. I've said it, even though it's my own party. This is a real issue. This is consuming our country, this one issue. For the last five years, we have been consumed with terrorism. We've been consumed with the concern of our security.

We're engaged in two wars overseas right now, and so it's too serious to be left to headline seekers of politicians or political parties.

WALLACE: All right. Let's turn to one of those wars, Iraq. In an interview you gave to the Omaha World Herald a couple of weeks ago, you said -- and let's put it up on the screen -- "Conditions in Iraq are an absolute replay of Vietnam." You said, "U.S. soldiers are easy targets in a country that has fallen into absolute anarchy."

Question: Is the president's effort, policy, mission to create a unified democratic Iraq a lost cause?

HAGEL: Well, history will determine that. I can't determine that. You can't either. The fact...

WALLACE: Do you think it's going to happen?

HAGEL: The fact is we are where we are. We're not going to go back and replay or unwind the bad decisions, and I think we made them right from the beginning, beginning with the fact that we didn't have enough troops going in. But that's essentially irrelevant now.

It's how do we get out of this mess. We've got a very unstable Middle East, I think the most unstable Middle East we've seen since 1948. And you can measure that any way you want. The fact is the future of Iraq will be determined by the Iraqi people just like it was in Vietnam.

The answer, in my opinion, is not to just keep feeding more American troops into it. The Iraqi people have already made some decisions here. We, in fact, are in probably a low grade, maybe a very defined, civil war.

You've got corruption everywhere, as bad as it's ever been. You've got uncontrollables that we can't control, we can't deal with. Iran probably has more influence in Iraq than we do at this point.

So what do we do? We have to play the cards we have right now, and that is that we are going to have to do everything we can, as we have been doing, to assist Iraqis to start governing, to start defending themselves, start supporting themselves.

Now, we've made a big deal out of the fact that they have a functioning constitution -- that's a significant achievement. An elected, fair free government, unity government -- significant achievement. Now they must govern themselves. They must support themselves.

WALLACE: But you have said that you think that we should begin pulling troops out within six months.

HAGEL: I do.

WALLACE: How is that going to make things better?

HAGEL: Well, how is it going to make things better for us to continue to kill Americans and put Americans in the middle of a civil war that we have less and less control and influence over every day? How does that stabilize things?

This is going to play out, Chris, on its own. I'm not saying pull out of Iraq. That's not what I've said. I've said start withdrawing troops. We have to show the Iraqi people -- and this obviously cuts right to the great anti-Americanism by any poll, by any measurements there -- that we are not there to predetermine their outcome. We're not there to control or to govern. They are going to have to do that.

Now, the fact is -- bottom line, Chris -- there are very few options here. We don't have any good options. We've got a mess on our hands in the Middle East. We've got two wars. We just lost four Americans yesterday in Afghanistan. Things aren't going well there. We've got a peace in Lebanon that is barely holding.

So to continue to feed American troops into this I think takes away America's diplomatic options and military options because we're more and more bogged down.

WALLACE: After we announced your appearance this week, we got some e- mail from our conservative viewers saying, hey, this guy's really a Democrat. And I'm sure today, listening to this, some of them are saying that.

Let's go over some of your positions and put them up on the screen. You favor direct talks with Iran, Syria and Hamas. Three weeks ago you called for an immediate truce with Hezbollah, saying the Israeli offensive was hurting our standing in the Middle East.

You've been very critical, as we've just heard, of U.S. policy in Iraq. And you have problems with NSA wiretaps and parts of the Patriot Act. When it comes to national security, are you closer to John Kerry than you are to George W. Bush?

HAGEL: Chris, I'm going to go back to the comment I made earlier. When it comes to war, Americans dying in a war, national security, it should never be held captive to a political agenda. I think that's wrong. I've said it's wrong.

I don't base my analysis and judgment and votes on war, national security, on a party position. I don't think that's the right thing to do. I don't think Americans really want us to do that.

Now, if you look at my record, my voting record -- I've been in the Senate 10 years. Do you have any idea what my voting record is in support of the Bush administration position the last six years, the Republican Party? It's about 95 percent over 10 years. My record is about as conservative as any conservative Republican in the United States Senate. It is constantly -- the American Conservative Union constantly rates me as one of the highest.

So I don't apologize, Chris, to you or anyone else for my position. My conservative credentials are pretty clear.

When it comes to war, Democrats die in war just like Republicans, and we debase war and the responsibility we have when we try to make it captive to a political position or a political party. I won't do that.

WALLACE: All right. Let's talk some politics. I know you don't like politics and national security, but this is pure politics. Connecticut Senate race -- Ned Lamont or Joe Lieberman?

HAGEL: That's up to the people of Connecticut.

WALLACE: Would you agree that Ned Lamont's positions on all these issues we've discussed today are closer to yours than Joe Lieberman's are?

HAGEL: No. That's -- Ned Lamont's position on issues...

WALLACE: On Iraq, on...

HAGEL: ... all the issues...

WALLACE: ... on the Patriot Act, on NSA warrantless wiretaps?

HAGEL: Those are some issues. But when you're...

WALLACE: Pretty big issues.

HAGEL: But we also have a lot of other issues like pro-life, like tax policy, like spending policy. See, that's my point, too, Chris. Being a United States Senator is more than just talking about Iraq.

And no, I'm not very close to Lamont on the whole scope of issues. He's a liberal Democrat.

WALLACE: Let's talk -- you gave an interview early this year about the prospects of the GOP in November, and you said there were storm clouds over this party, that they elected us as the majority to rule and if we don't, they're going to hold us to account.

That was in January. We're now in August. Do you think that the Republicans have lived up to that challenge?

HAGEL: Well, the facts of life are we are accountable. We are the majority party. We have been the governing party for 12 years. We had a little blip there in the Senate when Senator Jeffords left the Republican Party, but that's what life is about, Chris. It's about accountability.

And so you can't go out and read off talking points and then not have some connection to actually getting it done as the governing party.

WALLACE: How much trouble is your party in?

HAGEL: Well, we'll find out on November 7th. I don't think the answer is the alternative that the Democrats present because I don't know what that alternative is. What I think the answer is as a Republican -- I've been a Republican all my life.

First time I voted was in 1968 on top of a tank in the Mekong Delta. I voted a straight Republican ticket. The reason I did is because I believe in the Republican philosophy of governance. It's not what it used to be. I don't think it's the same today.

Where is the fiscal responsibility of the party I joined in '68? Where is the international engagement of the party I joined, fair, free trade, individual responsibility, not building a bigger government, but building a smaller government?

I think we've lost our way. And I think the Republicans are going to be in some jeopardy for that and will be held accountable. Now, the people of each state and of this country will make their own decisions.

WALLACE: Finally, you've left open the possibility of running for president in 2008. In a new book about you, your wife, Lilibet, is quoted as being less than thrilled at the prospect of being first lady. Here's what she has to say, according to the book: Lilibet said having her husband in the White House wouldn't be number one on her list of desirable occupations.

Fair to say, Senator, that that's the first primary you're going to have to win?

HAGEL: Well, I am a long way from making a decision on what I'm going to do. I think it just shows the immense good judgment of my wife and how sane she is. I don't know of any spouse who would wish the job of president on their husband or wife. It's a big job. It's a tough job.

Obviously, it's a great privilege to serve this country in any job, and I'm very, very happy and proud that I have the opportunity and privilege to serve my country and my state in the United States Senate.

WALLACE: Senator Hagel, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for...

HAGEL: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: ... joining us, and please come back.

HAGEL: Thank you.

WALLACE: Up next, our panel on that federal judge's ruling that the NSA warrantless wiretap program is unconstitutional. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: We must give those who are -- whose responsibility it is to protect the United States the tools necessary to protect this country in a time of war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was President Bush Friday criticizing a federal judge's ruling against his warrantless wiretap program.

It's panel time now, and we welcome a newcomer, Anne Kornblut of the New York Times.

Thanks for joining our merry band.

ANNE KORNBLUT, NEW YORK TIMES: Thank you.

WALLACE: Here as well, Brit Hume, Washington managing editor of Fox News, and Fox News contributors Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard and Mort Kondracke of Roll Call.

So Judge Anna Diggs Taylor came out against the NSA warrantless wiretap programming with guns blazing this week, and let's put up part of her ruling. Here it is. "There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution."

Brit, there was an interesting article in the New York Times Saturday, the Times, of course, the paper that broke the whole story of the NSA program last December, which said that a lot of legal experts agree with the judge's ultimate conclusion but find her legal reasoning lacking.

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Well, she said several things. First of all, she said that the plaintiffs, who were a number of people represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, did have standing to sue.

She found that these people had been able to establish that, yes, they had been actually injured or affected by this program, although there was no hard evidence to that effect and they couldn't get any because it was a secret. And that's the first hurdle she got over. A lot of people think it's doubtful that she was on solid ground doing that. Having done that, she then found that the program violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, which has these courts you're supposed to apply to for warrants for wiretaps in certain situations.

And in addition to that, she said it violated First and Fourth Amendment constitutional guarantees. My sense about that is that she went so far as to basically say that if Congress were to authorize such a program that it would still be a constitutional problem because of the First and Fourth Amendments.

I doubt that that's going to stand. But at some point, Chris, I think it's fair to say some judge was going to issue some ruling like this, and then the game would be afoot in the appellate courts, which is where this is now headed, and probably ultimately to the Supreme Court.

WALLACE: Anne, what do you make of the whole ruling?

KORNBLUT: Well, look. I'm no legal expert, but what I found interesting...

WALLACE: That never stops anybody on this panel.

KORNBLUT: What I thought was interesting was the political context for this. You know, immediately, obviously, President Bush came out. He took great issue with it. And in general, in the past election cycles, we've seen that whenever you're talking about the right of the president to defend the country, that's a winning issue for Republicans.

Democrats, however, were heartened by this somewhat because whenever you're talking about, as the ruling did, the president potentially overstepping his bounds, an imperial presidency, that at least gives them an opening on this issue. This has been a huge loser for them in the last two election cycles.

WALLACE: Bill, you know, going back to the ruling itself, a lot of legal experts were most surprised that Judge Taylor never mentions what a lot of people think was the strongest grounds for her ruling against it, which was the Hamdan decision by the Supreme Court two months ago which threw out the military tribunals on the basic grounds that the president was taking too expansive a view of executive power. She never mentions it in the...

BILL KRISTOL, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: I'm grateful to the judge, because I thought there were hereditary kings in America, and it's good that we have liberal judges to instruct us on the principles of the Constitution.

It seems like a very weak decision, but politically I don't know which way it cuts. Republicans hope to run against liberal judges and liberal Democrats who don't want to give the president the tools he needs in the war on terror, and I think there's a credible, substantive argument to make there.

But Democrats I've spoken to, like -- I agree with Anne on this -- think, you know, voters don't focus on who appointed this judge. And if a judge says the president overstepped, it gives some credibility to the notion that gee, that maybe the president went too far, a non-partisan judge has now handed down a ruling.

So I'm not sure it plays much one way or the other politically.

WALLACE: But, Mort, are there some troubling -- even if, to take this argument, that she made the right decision or an arguable decision for clearly wrong reasons, the Supreme Court -- the Courts of Appeal are going to take an independent look at this and judge it by their own lights.

In the Supreme Court case, they basically say that the president's citing of the authorization to use force after 9/11 did not give him a blank check, and they also talk about that the president can't just go around Congress, and you have the FISA Act which seems to restrict what the president can do when he wants to wiretap someone.

So even if she didn't bring it up, are there some possible obstacles down the road there for the president's program?

KONDRACKE: If and when this whole thing gets to the Supreme Court, you have the Hamdan precedent, which was a 5-3 decision against the administration, but that was a case where people's liberty was going to be -- they were going to be deprived of their liberty and tried in these military tribunals.

This is a case of the president's power in foreign intelligence gathering. Nobody is being sent to jail because of these intercepts overseas. And the previous court ruling suggests that the court sides with the administration when it comes to his powers on foreign intelligence.

Now, I think that both sides right now ought to take a leaf from what Senator Hagel said and what some of them themselves have said. John Conyers -- very liberal, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee -- Senator Leahy -- same thing on the Senate side -- Senator Biden and others have said let's pass a law that allows the administration to wiretap terrorists.

Well, let's get on with it. Let's do that, and you could make it easier for the FISA court to issue warrants in these kind of cases, and it seems to me that this would preemptively put the administration on sound ground, and when -- if the court ever got a case, it would find in his favor.

WALLACE: Which raises the question, Brit, do the politicians up on Capitol Hill and in the various party headquarters -- would they rather solve this problem or would they rather have the issue for the November elections?

HUME: Well, at the moment, I think the Republicans are sufficiently confident that the issue works in their favor that they may be in no hurry to get the issue over with. But you know, it takes -- there will be objections and efforts to stop this. I mean, Democrats -- although Mort is quite right in citing the Democrats he cited, their reflective response, automatic sort of knee- jerk response to this decision, was to applaud it, suggesting that they agree with it and all of its particulars, and particularly the stuff about kings and royalty, I suppose. That appeals to Democrats. They don't like kings.

But you know, I think that's sort of where the matter stands at the moment. I don't think the -- the decision, by the way, is stayed until the appellate courts have had a chance to deal with it, which means it is of no immediate force and effect.

WALLACE: Anne, let's talk about the politics of this, though. As we discussed with Senator Hagel, the Republicans jumped right on this and put out that press release saying judge backs democratic agenda to weaken America.

But there has been some polling recently of the so-called security moms, mothers with children who are very concerned about protecting the country, which finds that the war on terror and the Republican efforts to make it their issue is not cutting as strongly in their favor as it did in 2004. What's your sense of where that plays in 2006?

KORNBLUT: Or even in 2002, obviously. I mean, look. For one thing, as I think we saw with Senator Hagel, you know, civil liberties is not totally unimportant to voters, you know, not even just Democrats. And I think that Democrats have at the same time made a compelling case for some voters that the world is less safe.

And I think that what you're seeing with the security mom vote and you're hearing from the Democrats who are running strong on national security now is that they believe that they can say we will defend you and at the same time preserve your civil liberties.

I think that that's true, that it's actually not cutting as strongly, now that we've had two more years of this and especially with Iraq not going as well.

KRISTOL: Here's the most revealing poll data I've seen. This is from Scott Rasmussen. On election day in 2004, voters were asked the overall war on terror -- I think voters do have a sense there's a global war on terror, attacks here at home, Iraq, Iran -- the whole thing is kind of one big effort on our part. And the overall -- are we winning the overall war on terror. Fifty percent of voters said yes, 29 percent no. About 20 percent said not sure.

Last time that was asked, 38 percent yes, 34 percent no, the rest unsure. That number -- are we winning the war on terror -- has dropped from 50 percent to 38 percent. That's exactly the drop in Bush's approval rating over the last 18 months. So it is one big war, and voters are more uncertain than they were that in total are we winning that war.

WALLACE: And obviously, that's in large part the drag of Iraq. We're going to have to take a break here, but when we return, U.N. and Lebanese forces start to deploy in south Lebanon, but what exactly will they do to keep the peace? Our panel takes that on in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 1998, President Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on alleged Al Qaida targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. The attacks were retaliation for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALLOCH BROWN: It's not going to go in there and attempt large- scale disarmament. Rather, it is going to police the political agreement which triggers disarmament called for under the resolution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That's the U.N.'s deputy secretary general, Mark Malloch Brown, making it not quite perfectly clear what an international force is going to do in south Lebanon.

And we're back now with Brit, Anne, Bill and Mort. Well, Israeli commandos raided a Hezbollah stronghold deep inside Lebanon yesterday, Saturday. Lebanese officials and Kofi Annan, the head of the U.N., both said that it was a clear violation of the cease-fire. The Israelis say they were trying to disrupt armed shipments from Syria and Iran.

Mort, where are we on the cease-fire?

MORT KONDRACKE, FOX NEWS: Well, this is the prelude to the next war, I think. This war ended in a kind of a military -- probably a tie where the Hezbollah got a lot of damage. I mean, they lost a lot of troops and lost a lot of equipment and certainly a lot of infrastructure. However, politically, Hezbollah and our adversaries in the war on terror, Iran, Syria, the Islamic radicals, end up being the winners because they stood Israel down or they survived the attack.

And you know, the end game here is a fiasco. The U.N. force can't get itself together. The French promised that they were going to send 2,000 troops. They're sending 200 more for a total of 400, mainly engineers. We got snookered by the French again on another U.N. resolution.

Our side ends up losing. In the beginning of this, we said we were not going to accept anything that was the status quo ante. We have -- and that this was going to be, you know, the birth pangs of a new Middle East. Well, the new Middle East looks like a monster.

WALLACE: Brit, let me put up first, because this is my favorite picture of the week -- put up, if you will, the French reinforcements. There they are. That's the French multinational force arriving in southern Lebanon. They are going to solve the problem between Hezbollah -- but, Brit, this was an astonishing thing.

The French were the ones pushing for this international force of 15,000 that was going to sit there and separate the Israelis and Hezbollah, and then when they finally came, they had this meeting to ante up the forces. The French said well, the rules of engagement, which they helped set up in themselves and write...

HUME: Are insufficient.

WALLACE: Yes, were deficient, were not sufficiently adequate or robust, and so they were only going to send 200 troops.

HUME: This is what it's like when you're dealing with people like the French. And of a piece with this, of course, is Kofi Annan's reaction to Israel's attempts to break up an arms resupply operation in Lebanon, which is itself a violation of the cease-fire. However, Annan, typically, reacted only to the Israeli response to it.

And I think, you know, this is what you're up against. You're dealing with people who either don't like Israel, do not mind terrorist entities like Hezbollah and their supporters in Syria and Iran, and like the French, who won't fight. This U.N. force that's been there along the border all this time has never done anything. And it looks as if we're headed toward another U.N. force that isn't going to do anything either if they can even get it populated.

WALLACE: Anne, when you look at the Lebanese army, which has said we are not going to disarm Hezbollah, they can hide their weapons as long as they don't wave them around in front of us, they can keep them, and the U.N. force -- and they're having trouble getting up to the 15,000, but they say, as you heard Mark Malloch Brown, that they're not going in there to attempt a large-scale disarmament, have we got the kind of sustainable cease-fire that Condi Rice was talking about for the last month?

KORNBLUT: Well, I mean, I have to defer here to Mort. I mean, if he thinks that the next war is on the way, I will take his word for it.

What I would say, and I will do my thing here and talk about politics for a second, is I found it remarkable that President Bush took such ownership of the victory earlier this week. I mean, he made it the focus of his radio address yesterday. He talked about Lebanon as a front in the war on terror.

And I think really whatever happens here is inextricably tied to President Bush. Win or lose, if this erupts once again, it can't be good for him.

KRISTOL: Well, there's no question that Hezbollah's attack did open a new front or reopened a front in the war on terror. But we accepted this U.N. security resolution. Condi Rice flew to New York to vote for it. The president heralded it.

And I hope it teaches us a lesson about depending on the United Nations to deal with serious issues, and I hope it teaches us a lesson on Iran, which is the next great moment where the U.N. Security Council is going to act.

And you know, maybe we will -- having gone through this exercise, and having -- I agree with that -- and sort of foolishly, overly embraced a U.N. Security Council resolution, it seemed -- the one thing I -- one of the many things I dislike about the Security Council resolution is, incidentally, it seems to legitimize the notion that the way to solve these problems, the way to resolve different battles in the war on terror, is to go to the United Nations Security Council.

And maybe we will agree that that is not the only or even a very useful way to deal with problems, and we will be more serious about dealing with Iran...

WALLACE: So why did we finally do it?

KRISTOL: Well, Israel had not actually -- you know, Israel may have wanted it by that point. The Olmert government had so mishandled things, I think. And we were feeling international pressure to resolve the -- you know, stop the killing and destruction in southern Lebanon.

But unfortunately, that particular front of the war is probably going to start again. And then again, Iran is the big thing looming behind all this. Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy.

On Tuesday, August 22nd, which is the 27th day of -- what's the name of that month? -- Rajab on the Islamic calendar -- Ahmadinejad has said he's going to give the west its answer to the demand that the nuclear program be stopped. That is the day of Muhammad's night ride. It's the day of Saladin's re-conquest of Jerusalem. It's an important symbolic day for jihadists.

And I'm curious to see what happens on Tuesday. He may just say no or he may do something a little more dramatic, launch a missile or something, to show that -- Iranian defiance of what looks like an impotent west.

WALLACE: Let me ask you about that, Mort, because Iran faces -- whatever deadline they impose for themselves, the U.N. Security Council has imposed an August 31st deadline that Iran has to answer whether they're going to stop their nuclear program, and it's been reported that the aforementioned Kofi Annan is going to Tehran a couple of days before to meet with the Iranians.

Is that a good development or bad development?

KONDRACKE: Well, he may urge the Iranians to stand down from their nuclear program, but he's going to be no more successful, and he certainly is not going to be more energetic than the United States has been in this.

And as Bill says, the Iranians are going to greet this whole effort with derision, partly because they deserve derision. I mean, you have no will on the part of the west to resist what is arguably the greatest threat that civilization faces. That is, Iran, with this sort of apocalyptic view of history, armed with a nuclear weapon and willing to help terrorists all over the world.

You have no impetus on the part of any of the Europeans to impose really serious economic sanctions like, for example, cutting off their gasoline. They're a net importer of gasoline. You could starve their economy if you really had the will to do it. But there is no will.

In the clash of civilizations, if that's what's going on now, I'm afraid that our side is losing, and the Iranians are ascending.

WALLACE: Ten seconds.

HUME: I think we're buying into the -- too much into the mythology with which the Middle East is drenched in which defeat and terrible military losses are turned into victories and so on. This isn't going well, but it's not going nearly as badly as Mort and Bill seem to think.

WALLACE: We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you, panel. That's it for today -- a brief, hopeful note. Time now for some mail, first about our interview last week with Connecticut's Democratic nominee for the Senate, Ned Lamont. Mary McLemore from Alabama writes, "Lamont is not only unwilling to admit any nexus between Iraq and terrorism, he is advocating playing pure defense. He is as clueless as McGovern was."

But Mark Evans from Oregon had a different take. "This might arouse anger from my fellow Republicans, but I like Ned Lamont. I actually agree with a lot he said on "Fox News Sunday."

And finally, we got plenty of feedback about last week's letters chiding Bill Kristol. Denise Brown from Pennsylvania spoke for most, "Stop picking on Bill Kristol. He's incredibly smart, articulate, calm and insightful."

Bill, you can call off your family.

KRISTOL: I was about to say, thank you, relative Denise Brown. Right.

WALLACE: Be sure to let us know your thoughts by e-mailing us at fns@foxnews.com.

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