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August 14, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - August 14

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HASSAN NASRALLAH, HEZBOLLAH LEADER: Without any exaggeration, we have won a strategic and historic victory for Lebanon. All of Lebanon for the resistance and to all the nation.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There going to be a new power in the south of Lebanon and that's going to be a Lebanese force with a robust international force to help `em seize control of the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANGLE: Very different views on the outcome of the war in Lebanon. Now some analytical observations from Bill Sammon, senior White House correspondent for the "Washington Examiner"; Jeff Birnbaum, columnist with the "Washington Post"; and the syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer, FOX NEWS contributors all.

So gentlemen, two very different views of the outcome in Lebanon. Prime Minister Olmert in Israel also said that Israel won, though took some responsibility for things not going as well as they might have.

Charles, what is your sense -- there's some bravado on both sides here, and it's a little early to know exactly how things will shake out, but what is your sense of now that the guns have been silenced, what is the outcome of that war?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, Israel didn't win, and in this kind of psychological warfare, a tie goes to the terrorist. This is a psychological success for Hezbollah. For the Israelis, Olmert is saying, you know, under the U.N. resolution, there's a strategic change because Hezbollah is out of the south, but that assumes the U.N. resolution is going to be enacted. It will not be. After all, we've had resolutions going back to 1978 that have called for the eviction of Hezbollah from South Lebanon. That's never happened. It didn't happen in this war and it's not going to happen.

We saw the pictures earlier of the Lebanese returning to the south. You can be sure there are Hezbollah among them. The resolution calls for embargo of arms from Syria. No one is going to stop the importation of arms along those roads on the frontier between Syria and Lebanon. It calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah. Nasrallah today in his speech said that it's not going to happen. Who's going to do it if the Israelis did not disarm them, it's not going to happen. So, under the resolution, yes, you could argue Israel had some success, but if it's not implemented Israel has lost.

ANGLE: Now Jeff, one thing that's different in this case, from the previous cases where, in fact, in the last case were the Lebanese government was suppose to go in there, they didn't even go -- in this case past, the Lebanese army is being forced to go in along with the U.N. force, so in a sense the international community and this war have forced them, at least, to confront physically, this problem. Does that change things in your view?

JEFF BIRNBAUM, "WASHINGTON POST": Yeah. I'm not as gloomy as Charles is...

ANGLE: I think he's skeptical. I wouldn't call him gloomy.

BIRNBAUM: I'm not as skeptical as Charles is.

KRAUTHAMMER: We could try morose.

BIRNBAUM: I think Israel did DO quite a bit to reduce the armaments of Hezbollah and to clean out the immediate border of Northern Israel. And I do agree that because the Lebanese soldiers are going to be part of the international force there, that it will at least give a chance for the Lebanese government to have some say other than Hezbollah in that region.

But I do agree that because Hezbollah was not defeated, it was a victory for them. And that this -- we should think of this as part of a hundred-year war, that this is a struggle that will go on as long as there are radical elements that believe that Israel should not exist, disagree with the kind of government and capitalism and Israel and the nexus with the United States possesses, and every time that group is not defeated, they have a victory and can generate more terrorists against us.

ANGLE: There's another aspect of this too, Bill, and that is that obviously Hezbollah could not have mounted this war, would not have had the rockets they had or the financial support that they used to keep this war going without Iran's support. The president mentioned that today. Not only in terms of support for Hezbollah but also Iran's aims in the region. Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Iran has made clear that it seeks the destruction of Israel. We can only imagine how much more dangerous this conflict would be if Iran had the nuclear weapon it seeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANGLE: Now, there's a chilling thought, that and a report that the Hezbollah -- that Hezbollah is getting about 25 -- was getting $25 million a month from Iran, a figure that may have doubled when Ahmadinejad came in.

BILL SAMMON, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": See, that's another big question mark in terms of this settlement, is that how are we going to stop Iran and Syria from continuing to be state sponsors of Hezbollah? I would also take exception with Charles in terms of talking about psychological victory for Hezbollah. This was a war. And I think first and foremost, you have to look at it in military terms. And the reports that we saw tonight about the, you know, 73 bridges destroyed and 7,000 homes destroyed in Lebanon and actually more people killed, unfortunately, a lot were civilians, I think in military terms, and the fact that the military of Hezbollah was degraded, whereas the Israeli military potential and capacity hasn't really been degraded. They may have been embarrassed that they didn't do better than they did. But in purely military terms, I think clearly Israel won this and Hezbollah lost. So we can talk about psychological or sort of cosmic victories for Hezbollah, but that doesn't change the facts on the ground.

KRAUTHAMMER: Let me make it less cosmic here. Destroying artillery pieces is useless way to count who wins and loses. Anything Hezbollah lost will be replaced in six months. What's important is who gains the strategic objective? Israel enunciated its (INAUDIBLE) objective to destroying Hezbollah and disarming it had failed. And Hezbollah's objective was to kill a lot of Israelis, disrupt the Israeli north, to put a million people in shelters and to show itself standing up against Israel. In a sense it won. So, artillery pieces is no way to count who wins and loses.

SAMMON: But Charles, look at where Hezbollah is now, as opposed to before. Before they could operate with impunity in Southern Lebanon. Now at lease ostensibly you're going to have this other force that's going to try to displace them. Israel still is at a status quo where they were at. I think its a net loss for Hezbollah.

KRAUTHAMMER: To assume that the U.N. is going to displace Hezbollah is to assume the impossible. The U.N. forces have been in Lebanon since `78. They have not displaced a child, let alone Hezbollah.

ANGLE: Quickly.

BIRNBAUM: A political change, I think the Olmert government may be toppled because of this and Hezbollah may get more political power in the sovereign government of Lebanon.

ANGLE: OK. All right, when we come back with the panel, is the thwarting of the terrorist plot to blow up airlines headed for the USA a victory for the Bush administration or an indictment of its policies? We'll take up that question in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: The lessons of the past week is that there's still a war on terror going on and there's still individuals that would like to kill innocent Americans to achieve political objectives. That's the lesson. And the lesson for those of us in Washington, D.C., is to set aside politics and give our people the tools necessary to protect the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANGLE: Well, we're back with our panel. Charles, setting aside politics, the president says, perhaps too big a goal if he was hoping that would be the case, because that clearly has not been the case over the past few days. You've had Republicans and Democrats pointing to this episode as the -- as the origin of a great lesson. What is that great lesson in your view?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I mean the hypocrisy of either side as saying that the most important issue of our time ought not be in politics is absurd. Of course we ought to be debating it. That's what Democratic politics are about, if not the war on terror, 9-11, what ought we be discussing? And the Democrats, as we hear from Harry Reid, believe we ought to be essentially spending a lot of the money on hardening and protection, counting all containers. Republicans believe the way to fight the war is to fight them abroad and to change the Middle East. That's a huge distinction. We ought to have that debate.

ANGLE: Now let me -- you mentioned Harry Reid and his was one of many statements from Democratic critics last week. Let's look at this. And here you see he talks about, "The Iraq war has diverted our focus and more than $300 billion in resources from the war on terrorism and has created a rallying cry for international terrorists."

In fact, there was a Muslim group in Great Britain today, Jeff, that said essentially the same thing that Great Britain is at fault for supporting the U.S. in the war in Iraq and that's what is riling up extremists around the world.

BIRNBAUM: Well, this is -- this will be either the great divide or the great conflation of the debate. Is Iraq a separate problem is it part of the problem with the war on terror. The Republicans led by President Bush believe they're one problem and the Democrats are trying very hard to break them apart. And I think that if you look at the polls, whether you like it or not, the -- most Americans or a large number and a growing number of Americans are siding with the Democrats. Believe -- not liking the policy -- policy in Iraq and worrying about the spread of terrorism.

ANGLE: Well Bill, even if you don't like the war in Iraq, one thing that was sort of odd about this is a lot of critics jumped past the fact that we foiled this plot. That intelligence was able to disrupt it and immediately looked for some other lesson in this thing. The president seems to be saying the lesson is that good intelligence works, and that things like the terrorist surveillance program and the terrorist financing program, all of those things seem to work for disrupting terrorist plots.

SAMMON: Yeah. In fact, President Bush today, unprompted, brought up the terrorist surveillance program and the Patriot Act. Now, that tells you that that's a political winner for him, at least in his perception. And you know, we all beat up on President Bush when he made miscalculations about Iraq and when things go badly in Iraq, but I think you have to give him credit when the foil the terrorist plot and that's actually a good thing. I mean, Bush and Blair must feel sometimes like they can't win for losing. You know, you foil a plot and no it's because you started the chain of events that caused the plot, you know.

So I think that the fact that Bush was touting this today was testament to the notion that things may have turned in his favor. And that coupled with the -- when he talked about the events of the last week, he's also alluding to the Lamont victory which clarified the choice between Republicans and Democrats by making Democrats look more like the anti-war party.

BIRNBAUM: I think there's increasing danger, unfortunately, for the president that the more chaos there is, the more trouble his party seems to have.

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