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September 10, 2006

Condoleezza Rice, Howard Dean, Roundtable

Fox News Sunday

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I'm Chris Wallace. A top Democrat says the U.S. would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power -- next, on "Fox News Sunday."

September 11, 2001:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: September 11, 2006: Is our country stronger and safer? We'll ask the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

And five years later, where are the Democrats in the war on terror? We'll talk with the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean.

Also, does the president need new weapons from Congress to fight the terrorists? We'll ask our Sunday regulars: Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams.

And our power player of the week: For him, honoring the 9/11 victims at the Pentagon is personal.

All right now, on a special "Fox News Sunday."

And good morning again from Fox News in Washington. We're going to spend this hour taking an overview of what we've done and what we still need to do in the war on terror. But we begin, as always, with the latest headlines.

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, says the world would be better off if the U.S. hadn't invaded Iraq, even if that meant Saddam Hussein was still in power. Rockefeller also accused the Bush administration of, quote, "cynically and deliberately manipulating public opinion" before the war.

The tough CIA interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a top Al Qaida operative captured in 2002, prompted a bitter fight between the CIA and the FBI. According to a story in today's New York Times, Zubaydah was taken to a safe house in Thailand, where he was stripped, held in an icy room and forced to listen to ear-splitting music.

And in Afghanistan today, NATO and local forces killed almost 100 Taliban insurgents in the southern part of that country. But a provincial governor was killed by a suicide bomber.

And joining us now is the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

Secretary Rice, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: Thank you. Good to be with you, Chris.

WALLACE: Let's start with the big picture. Five years later, where do we stand in the war on terror? Where do we stand in the conflict against Islamic extremism?

RICE: I think it's clear that we are safe -- safer, but not really yet safe. And we've done a lot. In terms of homeland, we're more secure, our ports are more secure, our airports are more secure.

We have a much stronger intelligence-sharing operation, not just within the country, where we've broken down walls between law enforcement and intelligence agencies to get all of the information to break up terrorist plots, but also across the world. We have, really, an intelligence network across the world of sharing information.

We've clearly hurt badly the Al Qaida organization that planned and plotted and executed September 11th, capturing many of their major field generals. When the president talked the other day about bringing to justice people like Abu Zubaydah, people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, you're really talking about the people who were at the center of that kind of plot of 9/11.

And, Chris, we are making progress for the long run, in having liberated 50 million people and then having new allies in the war on terror, like Afghanistan and, indeed, Iraq.

WALLACE: Any failures?

RICE: Well, certainly. I'm sure there are many things that could be done better. We would like to make more progress. People would always like to make more progress. But...

WALLACE: But anything specifically that you say that, you know, five years later, the war on terror hasn't gone as well?

RICE: History will have to judge, Chris. I think that the record will show that the last five years have been years of reorganizing the United States government, reorganizing our international alliances for this long war, and reorienting our strategic policy toward one that simply will not accept the conditions in the Middle East and in other places that have allowed extremism to flourish at the expense of moderation.

WALLACE: All right. Let's talk about some of the concerns that people have. President Bush calls Iraq, and again this week called Iraq, a central front in the war on terror. But I want to look at some of the other statements made by your administration recently. And let's take a look.

In April, your State Department said, "Al Qaida in Iraq has about 1,000 fighters. That's about 5 percent of the total insurgency."

Last month, the Pentagon said, "The core conflict in Iraq changed into a struggle between Sunni and Shia extremists seeking to control key areas of Baghdad."

Secretary Rice, what evidence do you have that the homegrown Sunnis and Shia fighting each other in Iraq -- and, of course, that, at this point, is the vast majority of the violence -- that they have any interest in attacking the U.S.?

RICE: Well, clearly, the person who set off much of this sectarian violence, who plotted the nation that Shias should go after Sunnis and you should try and spark civil conflict, actually was the Al Qaida leader at the time, Zarqawi, who has...

WALLACE: But he's gone.

RICE: ... been killed.

Well, but it was his strategy -- and we know that -- to try and set off sectarian violence.

Now, we have to ask the question, why did he try to do that? Because he understood and Al Qaida in Iraq understood that when there is a stable and democratic Iraq, then their plans, the plans of Al Qaida and the extremists, for a Middle East in which there is indeed sectarian violence, in which there is extremism, in which there are repressive regimes of the Taliban type, that will not be possible when there's a democratic Iraq.

And so, yes, Iraq is going through very difficult times, there's no doubt about that. But if you have a broad view of what it will take to defeat extremism, meaning that there will have to be a different kind of environment in the Middle East, it's hard to imagine that different kind of environment with Saddam Hussein in power and Iraq at the center of a nexus between terrorism and conflict.

WALLACE: But I think here's the concern a lot of people have. When we went in there, allegedly to remove the weapons of mass destruction, people understood that as the war on terror. Even when we deposed Saddam Hussein, people understood that as the war on terror. When we were fighting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, people understood that as the war on terror.

Now we've got Shiites fighting Sunnis, Muqtada al-Sadr -- this are rivalries that go back centuries, tribal rivalries, religious rivalries. Aren't we involved in a terrible case of mission creep here that has nothing to do with the war on terror?

RICE: Chris, it is the Iraqis who will have to settle their own differences. And, indeed, that's why they talk about a process of national reconciliation. That's why they're trying to build security forces that bridge sectarian divides.

Our role, though, was to indeed remove Saddam Hussein. And it's hard to imagine that the world could possibly have gotten better with Saddam Hussein in power, that the Middle East could possibly have gotten better...

WALLACE: Is it our responsibility to solve these ethnic, sectarian problems?

RICE: It is clearly Iraq's responsibility, Iraqis' responsibilities to do that. We...

WALLACE: But we're involved in the fighting.

RICE: Well, but we have to give them an environment in which they can do that. We have to help them build security forces. We have to help them build political institutions.

And, Chris, it would simply be wrong to say that the only problem in Iraq is sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shia. There is still a considerable problem of terrorism from extremists who simply want to see Iraq be part of a Middle East in which the bin Ladens of the world control, not the Malikis, the moderates of the Middle East.

WALLACE: Meanwhile, there is Afghanistan, which used to be the safe haven for Al Qaida and where some of its leaders are still at large.

On Friday, a suicide bomber -- and we have the pictures here -- attacked an American military convoy in Kabul, killing 16 people. The Taliban, which most Americans thought we wiped out back in 2001, is back on the march in the south. And NATO forces, this week, are asking for more troops.

Secretary Rice, why didn't we finish the job in Afghanistan?

RICE: Well, it was not possible, Chris, to, quote, "finish the job" in Afghanistan. This is going to be also a long process of bringing stability to Afghanistan.

We have made enormous progress over the last 4 1/2 years in Afghanistan. You actually have a national government that is elected in Afghanistan, whose forces are fighting alongside of us rather than the Taliban, which was both harboring Al Qaida and giving them support. You now have for the people of Afghanistan the possibility of a better life. Women are not being beaten in stadiums that were given to the Taliban by the international community.

You have a situation in which, yes, the Taliban is trying to make a strike at the Afghan government because they do not want it to succeed. But the Taliban is not going to succeed. And they're not going to succeed because you have strong NATO and coalition forces and U.S. forces that are beating them back. The Taliban is taking a beating in this.

And, Chris, I want to be very clear. The notion that somehow this is a strategic threat to the Karzai government, I think this is not the case. You are talking about a Taliban that is able, particularly in the south, to wreak a lot of havoc and to bring death and destruction to civilians. But they are being beaten back.

WALLACE: But, again -- and just this week, the head British commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Ed Butler, said -- and let's put it up on the screen -- "The fighting is extraordinarily intense. The intensity and ferocity of the fighting is far greater than in Iraq on a daily basis."

I'm sure a lot of Americans are saying, isn't it a -- we had them on the run. We had the Taliban completely disrupted. Isn't it a failure to have allowed the Taliban to regroup?

RICE: Well, now, Chris, it's very hard to say that we didn't expect them to fight back. Of course they're going to fight back. Even if they're on the ropes, they're going to fight back. And, yes, they came back somewhat more organized and somewhat more capable than people would've expected. But that's why they're being beaten back by the NATO forces that are there.

I think they also believed that when the United States forces moved out and NATO moved in, that it would be easier to make advances. And they're learning a very brutal lesson, as they encounter NATO forces that are destroying them in very large numbers.

WALLACE: I don't have to tell you that one of the criticisms of the Bush administration -- we heard it again today from Senator Jay Rockefeller -- is that all of you manipulated intelligence to push the country into war.

I want to discuss just one area, the issue of whether Iraq helped Al Qaida with weapons of mass destruction.

Here's what the president said in October of 2002.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: We've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaida members in bomb- making and poisons and deadly gases.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And in March 2003, just before the invasion, you said, talking about Iraq, "and a very strong link to training Al Qaida in chemical and biological techniques."

But, Secretary Rice, a Senate committee has just revealed that in February of 2002, months before the president spoke, more than a year, 13 months, before you spoke, that the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded this -- and let's put it up on the screen.

"Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful CB" -- that's chemical or biological -- "knowledge or assistance."

Didn't you and the president ignore intelligence that contradicted your case?

RICE: What the president and I and other administration officials relied on -- and you simply rely on the central intelligence. The director of central intelligence, George Tenet, gave that very testimony, that, in fact, there were ties going on between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein's regime going back for a decade. Indeed, the 9/11 Commission talked about contacts between the two. We know that Zarqawi was running a poisons network in Iraq. We know that Zarqawi ordered the killing of an American diplomat in Jordan from Iraq. There were ties between Iraq and Al Qaida.

Now, are we learning more now that we have access to people like Saddam Hussein's intelligence services? Of course we're going to learn more. But clearly...

WALLACE: But, Secretary Rice, this report, if I may, this report wasn't now. This isn't after the fact. This was a Defense Intelligence Agency report in 2002.

Two questions: First of all, did you know about that report before you made your statement?

RICE: Chris, we relied on the reports of the National Intelligence Office, the NIO, and of the DCI. That's what the president and his central decision-makers rely on. There are...

WALLACE: Did you know about this report?

RICE: ... intelligence reports and conflicting intelligence reports all the time. That's why we have an intelligence system that brings those together into a unified assessment by the intelligence community of what we're looking at.

That particular report I don't remember seeing. But there are often conflicting intelligence reports.

I just want to refer you, though, to the testimony of the DCI at the time about the activities...

WALLACE: That's the head of central intelligence.

RICE: Yes, head of central intelligence -- that were going on between Al Qaida and between Iraq.

But let me make a broader point. The notion, somehow -- and I've heard this -- the notion, somehow, that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power seems to me quite ludicrous.

Saddam Hussein had gone to war against his neighbors twice, causing more than a million deaths. He had dragged us into a war in 1991 because he invaded his neighbor Kuwait. We were still at war with him in 1998 when we used American forces to try and disable his weapons of mass destruction. We went to war again with him, day in and day out, as he shot at our aircraft trying to patrol no-fly zones. This was a mass murderer of more than 300,000 of his own people, using weapons of mass destruction.

The United States and a coalition of allies finally brought down one of the most brutal dictators in the Middle East and one of the most dangerous dictators in the Middle East, and we're better off for it.

WALLACE: We have about a minute left, and I want to get into one last area.

There have been several stories this week that you prevailed over Vice President Cheney in the debate over whether or not to pull these top, high- valued prisoners, like Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, out of the CIA prisons. Also, reports that you now have more clout with the president than Vice President Cheney because of mistakes in judgment he made in the first term.

Have you replaced...

RICE: Oh, I think these are...

WALLACE: ... the vice president?

RICE: These are truly among most of the ridiculous stories. These stories float around Washington -- who's up, who's down.

The vice president remains a crucial adviser to the president. His role is different than my role. But not only is he a crucial adviser to the president, in whom the president relies, but he's also someone on whom all of us rely, including me, for advice and counsel because of his great experience and because of his great wisdom on these issues.

No, these stories are simply ridiculous.

WALLACE: You have not replaced the vice president as the president's top foreign policy adviser?

RICE: I'm the secretary of state, Chris. I have a different role from the vice president.

But let's remember who ultimately makes the decisions on foreign policy. It's the president of the United States himself.

WALLACE: We're going to have to leave it there. Secretary Rice, thanks for coming in...

RICE: Thank you.

WALLACE: ... and thanks for giving us your perspective on this fifth anniversary.

RICE: Thank you.

WALLACE: Coming up, as we continue our coverage of where our country is five years after 9/11, we'll talk with the head of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: Joining us now to look at what's happened since 9/11 is the head of the Democratic Party, former Governor Howard Dean.

And, Governor, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

HOWARD DEAN, DNC CHAIRMAN: Thanks for having me on, Chris.

WALLACE: Let's start with the same question I asked Secretary Rice. Five years later, where are we in the war on terror?

DEAN: I think we're in trouble. We have not pursued the war on terror with the vigor that we should have because we've gotten bogged down in this civil war in Iraq. What we ought to be doing is going after Osama bin Laden full-scale. We ought to capture him, we ought to kill him -- or kill him. And then we need to fight the terrorists which blew up the World Trade Center and killed 3,000 Americans.

WALLACE: Now, you say that we're in trouble. How do you explain the fact that, five years after 9/11, there has not been another attack on the U.S. homeland?

DEAN: Look, there has been improvement. I mean, we've done some things that we should've done, in terms of improving our intelligence and so forth.

But we proposed, the Democrats proposed, port security money, rail security money, airport security money, chemical plant security money. The Republicans turned it down. There's a lot of politics in this.

We need to do a much better job.

There was an article in the paper today -- I'm sure you saw -- that Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld said, "We don't want a post-war plan for the reconstruction of Iraq," and then he threatened to fire any general who proposed one.

We are not paying attention to what needs to be done. Today, or this week, northern Pakistan was written off by President Musharraf of Pakistan. They have now a treaty that they won't go -- or an agreement with the tribes that they won't go in and enforce their jurisdiction.

You know, Afghanistan is turning against us, and that is where the fight on terror is. That's where Osama bin Laden is. Osama bin Laden has not been captured five years later. That's a big problem.

WALLACE: Let's talk, because you talk about the things that haven't been done. The White House, the Republicans counter that your party won't give the president the powers he needs to fight the war on terror.

Let's take a look at the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program, because after it was revealed last December -- and let's put it up on the screen -- "The Bush administration's secret program to spy on the American people reminds Americans of the abuse of power during the dark days of President Nixon and Vice President Agnew."

Do you really compare protecting the American people to Watergate?

DEAN: No, I compare protecting the American people to -- what the Bush administration has done to protect American people to some of the abuses of power that Nixon and Agnew were doing, which was listening in on Americans.

Here's the problem...

WALLACE: There's a big difference, though, isn't there, Governor? One was for political gain; the other, even if it you think it's being done wrong, is to try to protect America.

DEAN: Well, unfortunately, as you said in the last section, there's mission creep here. We think it's a great thing to spy on Al Qaida; of course we should spy on Al Qaida. The problem is that's not just all they've been doing. It turns out they've had a broad-brush program so they can listen to everybody's phone calls if they want to. And they have.

And now there's a protection set up to do that. You could do all the things the president is doing and still obey the law under the Constitution if you simply went and got a warrant. In fact, there's a provision in the law that says you can get a warrant after the fact.

So there's nothing the president can't do within the scope of the 1976 law that -- where he needs additional authority. And the Democrats have said they'll give him additional authority. But we've got to obey the law under the Constitution.

The Constitution is all that stands between us and the people we're fighting against.

WALLACE: There are a couple of points here. First of all, I have had General Michael Hayden, the former head of NSA, now the head of the CIA, on this program. He says that in the NSA warrantless wiretap program, they never wiretapped, eavesdropped on a communication or a phone call unless there was probable cause to believe that it was terror-related. That's point one.

DEAN: If that's the case, why not go and get the warrant?

WALLACE: Well, all right. Here's the question. The administration's argument is that they don't need to get a warrant and that, for reasons that they won't tell us, that they can't get a warrant.

Arlen Specter...

DEAN: Which the courts now said is illegal.

WALLACE: Well, one court has said it's illegal.

DEAN: That's right, one court has said it's illegal.

WALLACE: Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has got legislation in which the White House would go to the FISA court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, that is the expert on this, the court you talk about, to review judicially, independently, whether or not this was a legal program. And the White House says it will go along with that legislation.

DEAN: Well, then we may have the makings of a deal. We'll have to -- I haven't seen the specific legislation.

Here's what the Democrats want out of this. The Constitution is set up so that not one branch has all the authority, so that if one branch has to do something to defend the United States of America, i.e. the executive branch, they have to check before they start spying on ordinary Americans. That's the whole purpose of the FISA court.

That's all we want. All we want is to make sure that we don't slide toward an imperial presidency, which is what the Nixon-Agnew problem was. And if there was...

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: ... an independent judicial review...

DEAN: That's correct. Then I'm very interested in that. I think you might get some Democratic support for that. Let's see what's in the Specter bill. I don't want to speak for Congress. I don't know what's in the bill. But that's basically what we're looking for, is judicial review.

WALLACE: Aren't you Democrats playing with political fire here?

You know, I think back to 2002 when it was the Democrats who came up with the original idea for a Department of Homeland Security and then got in a fight with the White House over the issue of collective bargaining rights, and, as a result, the Republicans were able to tar Democrats in that election -- effectively got some Democrats, like Max Cleland, out -- as being soft on terror.

If you block, or if you're seen as blocking, the NSA warrantless wiretaps or military tribunals, don't you run the risk of exactly the same thing happening in 2006?

DEAN: Well, you know, I think the Republicans have some risk here too. Bill Clinton tried to expand wiretap authority, and the Republicans all wouldn't give it to him when he was president of the United States. So there's always politics, and you always have to watch politics on both sides.

What the Democrats want here is not politics. We think the president has played too much politics.

You know, the president got rid of the CIA unit that was supposed to track down Osama bin Laden. Then in the last three weeks, he's stepped that up again.

We think there's a lot of politics in this. We think there's a lot of politics in the president's speeches -- one every day on terrorism. They think they can't win the elections unless they talk about terrorism all the time. We think we ought to talk about a new direction for the country.

So there's always the risk of politics. But in defending the United States, the best thing to do is do what you think is right. We want to get the terrorists. We think the civil war in Iraq has become a distraction to getting the terrorists. And we do want our Constitution and our laws to be upheld, because that, as I said before, that's what stands between us and the people we're fighting against.

WALLACE: Let's talk about Iraq, because I've been looking at what you have said over recent weeks, months, years about U.S. troops in Iraq, and I'm trying to figure out where you stand. Let's take a look at this.

In December 2005, you said, "Bring the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately."

This August, you said, "I think that most Democrats would agree that we ought to be out of there by the '08 elections."

This week, you said, "I'm with George Aiken, the wonderful Vermont senator, who once said about Vietnam, 'Declare victory, and get out.'"

At various points, you've called for getting out in 2007, getting out in 2008, getting out immediately. You can set the record straight here today on "Fox News Sunday." When do you think that all U.S. troops should be out?

DEAN: Those, actually, quotes are all part of the same piece. The person who proposed getting the National Guard and Reserve troops out was actually a former Reagan defense official named Larry Korb. They have a plan to redeploy our troops, which I think is still a solid plan.

I'm sure I did say at one point we could be out by the end of '07. That was probably a year and a half ago. Clearly the times have gone by.

WALLACE: When, right now, do you think we should get all the troops out?

DEAN: The bottom line here is the Democrats think we shouldn't be in Iraq and the Republicans want to stay there forever, it seems to me, to leave this problem to the next president.

We think, as a party -- and I'm speaking for the party now -- we think we shouldn't be in Iraq, and we don't think we can withdraw our troops precipitously. I have also said...

WALLACE: So when would they all be out?

DEAN: I have said as an individual, there probably is a consensus that we could leave Iraq and be out by the end of 2008 in the party. But that doesn't encompass every single party position.

And there is a plan that is widely accepted by both moderates and liberals and conservatives in the Democratic Party that allows us to do that. And that plan was put together by a former Reagan defense official.

Look, 60 percent of the American people think we shouldn't be in Iraq. They think it was a mistake. And I am one of those people.

WALLACE: And you don't see any problem if we pull out -- you say we shouldn't be in Iraq -- so if we just pull out of Iraq over the course of the next two years?

DEAN: We have to have a phased redeployment. The first thing is, bring the National Guard and Reserve home.

The second thing is, we're not doing the job in Afghanistan. We don't have enough troops in Afghanistan. That's where the real war on terror is. That's where Osama bin Laden, five years after he killed 3,000 Americans, is still holed up. The Taliban is resurging. You know, I admire Secretary Rice, but she is wrong about what's going on in Afghanistan. Things are significantly worse in Afghanistan today because we don't have the manpower.

There is a fascinating article in The Washington Post today which says that President Bush pulled out the special ops forces who were chasing Osama bin Laden so he could put them in Iraq. That is exactly why the Democrats think Iraq is a mistake. It is hurting our attack on the war on terrorists.

WALLACE: We have about 30 seconds left. On a related subject, you piled on Karl Rove and the White House pretty good about the Valerie Plame leak case. Let's put up what you said.

You said, "The president should fire him." You said, "There's no question that Rove was the one that leaked the information about the CIA agent's name."

Governor, now that we've learned that Rove wasn't the one who leaked the name, that in fact the original source of the leak was Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, are you going to give Karl Rove an apology?

DEAN: Absolutely not. I still think he should be fired. Karl Rove discussed the name of a CIA agent at the time of war with a reporter. You're not supposed to do that. And President Bush said that he would fire anybody who did. He did not do that.

Look, we need a new direction in this country. We need a new direction to defend America. We need a new direction in the war on terror. We need to stop the Republican war on middle-class Americans who are having trouble sending their kids to college. We need a new direction.

That's what the election is about: Are we going to have a new direction in this country, or are we going to keep doing what we're doing? And I think the path we're going down is a big mistake.

WALLACE: Governor Dean, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you.

DEAN: Thank you.

WALLACE: Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with us.

DEAN: My pleasure.

WALLACE: Coming up, our panel of Sunday regulars on the war on terror, both victories and defeats. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Many Americans look at these events and ask the same question: Five years after 9/11, are we safer? The answer is, yes, America is safer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was President Bush on Thursday, defending his administration's record in the war on terror.

It's panel time now, and the gang is finally all here: Brit Hume, Washington managing editor of Fox News, and Fox News contributors Mara Liasson of National Public Radio, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, and Juan Williams, also from National Public Radio.

It's good to have you all back here around our little table again.

All of us have our own thoughts about these last five years.

Brit, where are we in the war on terror?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS WASHINGTON MANAGING EDITOR: Well, we're certainly safer. I think that's clear. I find it remarkable that there's been no further attack on the American mainland. And we know there have been some attempts, and they have been able to be thwarted, for which we should all be grateful.

Obviously this is a living thing, though, this terror movement, and it has many forms. And it's going on in many places.

And there are two ways to look at this. One is that you can sort of build up your own walls and borders and protect yourself from attack in that way. And the other theory is that you go where the terrorists are, you find them, and you fight them, and you defeat them, and you try to change the regimes that support them.

And that is where the controversy is, and that's where it is to this day. And we're in this war in Iraq, which is not popular and which the people do not seem to connect particularly with the war on terror -- is the central theater there, in a way. And that's where the political trouble is here.

MARA LIASSON, NPR: Yes, I also think that the enemy is not very diffuse; it's all over the world. It also involves things like Iran's developing nuclear program, which could easily fall into the hands of terrorists. Same thing with North Korea.

The sentiment that was behind the 9/11 attacks I don't think has diminished around the world, whatever you want to call it, Islamofascism or political Islam. That's still out there, and I don't think that that has lessened.

Although I do think that the initial perpetrators of the attack, Al Qaida, have been certainly weakened, to a large extent. But I think that the threat is now much more diffuse, much harder to take care of.

WALLACE: Bill, let me ask you about that, because I read an article today that basically made that argument and certainly credits the fact, which I think is remarkable, that we have not been attacked again in the last five years -- who among us on 9/12/2001 would've imagined that possible?

But it makes the argument that we are losing, not winning, the war on terror: Iraq; Iran is more dangerous; North Korea's more dangerous. And the argument -- and I want to see what your reaction is -- that, for every terrorist we're killing in Iraq or Afghanistan, we're radicalizing even more people around the world.

BILL KRISTOL, WEEKLY STANDARD: It was a global war before 9/11, you know. It wasn't just that there were a few terrorists. Where did the terrorists in Afghanistan come from? They weren't mostly Afghans. We've been fighting a global war against jihadist Islam.

I think we're winning it. But it's a tough war. And they fight back, and they recruit more terrorists. And things we do do have some negative side effect, though I still think it's, by far, a huge positive to remove Saddam Hussein. I think we're winning the war against jihadist Islam.

The biggest problem is that we're in denial that we're fighting a war. When Governor Dean says that the center of the war of terror is in Afghanistan, that's ridiculous. Afghanistan's not the center of the war on terror. It was one front of the war on terror.

It was extremely important to remove the Taliban government there, to deny the jihadists a sanctuary. But they are happy to set up sanctuaries elsewhere. They're happy to take over regimes elsewhere. They're happy to have the Iranian regime pursue nuclear weapons. So it's a global war.

And even the question that we all have to answer, "Are we safer?," in a way, is the wrong question. The question is, "Are we winning?," not, "Are we safer?"

WALLACE: And are we winning?

KRISTOL: Yes, I think we're winning. But we would win more thoroughly and more completely if we were in less denial about the fact that it's a global war; and that if Iraq's the central front, we should do everything it takes to win there, not try to do it on the cheap.

And if Iran is now, which I think it is, the center of gravity in the next stage of this global war, then we need to do everything it takes to deny that jihadist regime a nuclear weapon.

So I think we're winning, but we could do a little better.

JUAN WILLIAMS, NPR: I don't understand what you just said, because it seems to me that that's where Al Qaida was when we were attacked on 9/11, and I think the central job was to go after Al Qaida. And today, as we look back, what we see is that most Americans think that, in fact, terrorists worldwide have about the same ability to attack us as they did on 9/11.

And it's just a different type of structure. Al Qaida seems to have been weakened, although they have some resurgence lately, in Afghanistan. But what we're seeing is that there's this terrorist network all over the world, and that you have this increased U.S. military presence throughout the world.

And most Americans think that's one of the sources for generating anti-American sentiment that leads to the creation of terrorists, the recruiting of terrorists. That's not good for the U.S.

And if you ask most Americans, they say let's decrease that military presence, that you want to increase; they say let's decrease dependence on oil, which feeds some of these regimes that support terrorists around the world; let's do a better job of dealing with things like prisoners, black sites in Guantanamo Bay and like, because what that does is anger our allies and make it more difficult for our allies to work with us in this war on terror.

HUME: There's a very interesting new book out called, "The Looming Tower"...

WALLACE: I'm reading that right now.

HUME: ... by Lawrence Wright, who makes, I think persuasively, the argument that after the initial conflict in Afghanistan, and after Tora Bora indeed, even though Osama and key lieutenants escaped, that Al Qaida was essentially dead, finished, washed up as a major force in the world terror movement.

And he goes on to argue that the war in Iraq has given what he would call the progeny of Al Qaida new life, but that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida has essentially been weakened to the point of not being very important anymore.

And I think that's probably true. I think what we learn as we go here is that this is more a terror movement than it is a network, and that where you can defeat or destroy one terror operation -- to wit, bin Laden's Al Qaida in and around Afghanistan -- that others will form and emerge to take its place.

I'm struck to hear Juan and others say, as they do, that we need to be focusing all our energies on Al Qaida. Well, who's been the big troublemaker more recently? Well, you look in the Middle East; it's Hezbollah who's been tremendously important. Hezbollah is the sworn enemy of the United States, funded by Iran.

Do we then chase around the mountains of Afghanistan in an effort to catch one or two or three Al Qaida leaders now weakened, or do we go after Hezbollah?

Now, those are the kinds of questions, it seems to me, you need to ask. And simply talking endlessly about Osama bin Laden being on the loose or, as I think it's more likely, on the lam, it seems to me, goes nowhere.

WALLACE: Mara, I want to pivot to another aspect of looking -- the overview from 9/11. Back in the first days after 9/11, I think we would all agree, one of the few blessings was the way in which all of our political leaders, Republicans and Democrats, joined together.

This is the picture that I think none of us will ever forget, on the night of September 11th, when all of those bitterly divided Republicans and Democrats gathered on the front steps of the Capitol and sang, "God Bless America."

Was it inevitable that this would end up becoming so political, so polarizing? Did that have to happen?

LIASSON: No, I don't think it was inevitable. That certainly is what's happened. But I don't think it was inevitable.

I think a lot of the good will was squandered, a lot of that unity was squandered. And I think an election came up, you know, which is what happened.

And there was a certain strategy, a kind of mindset -- and you could say it was a correct one -- that the best way to win elections for the Republicans was to rally its base, to not so much worry about the moderate voters in the center. There was actually thinking at the White House that that center had shrunk so much that it didn't matter; the most important thing was to get your base out.

And it turned out the Republicans were right; there were a lot more Republican voters that they could get. But if you go down that path, you want to sharpen differences as much as possible. And I think that's what happened.

I also think the Democrats -- there have been so many -- I don't know if they're centripetal or centrifugal, but the forces have been there that have forced both parties to the extremes for years and years. So you could say that some of that was inevitable. But I think it didn't have to happen.

WALLACE: All right. Let's take a break here, but let's talk about that. And coming up, this political debate that only seems to get hotter and hotter: Which party has the better plan for fighting and winning the war on terror? We'll discuss that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

U.S. SENATOR HARRY REID (D-NV): There's a reason, five years after 9/11, that America is not as safe as it needs to be. It's because Republicans play politics of national security but fail when it comes to the policy of national security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That's Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, taking the political battle over the war on terror to the president and Republicans this week.

And we're back now with Brit, Mara, Bill and Juan.

So, Bill, let's pick up on this conversation. Did this have to become a political food fight? Or is there a way -- and you can blame it on the Republicans, blame it on the Democrats -- that we could've maintained that unity of purpose we had right after 9/11?

KRISTOL: How? We don't suspend politics in times of war; we don't suspend elections in times of war. And so, we've had debates.

And I think a lot of these debates, incidentally, have been healthy. I mean, would we prefer a situation where no one criticized the Bush administration for having gone into Iraq or for the way it's pursuing the war in Iraq? I, myself, disagree with the Democrats on about 90 percent of what they've been saying, but I wouldn't say they don't have the right to say it, and I wouldn't say that you don't want an opposition party saying some of this.

I mean, I think there have been times when especially the Democrats, in my view, have sort of not understood the unseemliness when you have soldiers fighting in the field, et cetera, to turn every event, including now the fifth anniversary of 9/11, into a partisan fight. But it happens.

HUME: You know...

KRISTOL: And, actually, there's less bitter partisanship during this war than in previous wars -- much less than during Vietnam, much less than during the Civil War. And, actually, if you look at World War II, that wasn't exactly, you know, (inaudible) misconduct in that war. There were bitter partisan elections in 1942 and even in 1944. HUME: Well...

WILLIAMS: What I think is going on here is that you have the Republican Party, much as Mara said, using fear. I mean, they've turned Winston Churchill on his head. You know, Churchill said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." The Republicans...

HUME: That was Roosevelt.

WALLACE: That was Roosevelt.

WILLIAMS: At the moment, Republicans are saying we have nothing but fear. And they're selling fear and they're using fear in this midterm election.

HUME: Oh, Juan.

WILLIAMS: And I think it's being done in a way that polarizes people, that drives apart.

I mean, the fact is, as you were just saying, Democrats have been largely supportive of this administration. I mean, even in this ongoing debate right now about Guantanamo Bay and how we will handle these prisoners at these tribunals, it's Republicans -- it's McCain, it's Chuck Hagel, it's Lindsey Graham -- who are having to come to the forefront because Democrats don't want to get caught in the political trap of being the opposition, even though I think they have a legitimate question to raise, as the Supreme Court has said.

HUME: I think it's worth looking at the reasons why we had that moment of national unity and what's happened since that's caused it to fade.

The moment of national unity was caused by this immediate sense we all had of a nation wounded, and so we rallied around, frightened, vulnerable, determined, wounded. That moment lasted for a while. Things began to get a little controversial about Afghanistan.

But what made all this division again, political division, and fighting and business as usual possible was the fact that we haven't been attacked again. That people look around in their daily lives and, as they come and go, they experience some inconveniences at airports and concerns elsewhere, but basically life has gone back to normal. The economy has recovered. America is much like it was before 9/11. And things feel normal.

And people don't like the war in Iraq. They have deep disagreements - - they two parties deeply disagree about their approaches to the world, about the style of war you use to fight the war on terror. So those divisions emerged.

If we were attacked again, I suspect the unity would recur. Who wants it?

WALLACE: But, Mara, I mean, we had almost -- and I agree, things have certainly changed -- almost unanimous support for the Patriot Act. We had tremendous support when the president went to Congress in October 2002 and wanted authorization to fight in Iraq. I mean, it went on for a while, it went on for more than a year.

LIASSON: Yes, it did. But things change. And I also think that politics is the method in the United States that we hash out differences. And as long as that's going to be the case, I think you're going to have these debates.

And I agree with Bill. Some of these debates are absolutely essential. I mean, what is the best strategy for fighting the war on terror? And what's the best way to solve the problems in Iraq, which are now much thornier than they were in the beginning? We're not just fighting insurgents; we're trying to keep this country from splitting apart and partitioning itself and also, if that happens, prevent the Iranians from having outside control there.

These are important questions. Now, I don't know if either party is coming up with very good solutions in this election season. But they are important questions and have to be debated.

KRISTOL: I just want to strongly object to one thing. And I'm willing to be critical of President Bush's management of the war in all kinds of ways. But it is a totally false charge that he has played the politics of fear.

Compared to previous presidents at wartime, he has been incredibly responsible. He has never said a word about the Clinton administration. He has never tried to blame past failures on them. He's been scrupulous about that. He has bent over backwards not to make this a war against Islam. He's said Islam's a religious of peace. He's tried to be very careful in not demonizing enemies.

I mean, look at Joe McCarthy. Look at Harry Truman, a man I admire. Look at his rhetoric against Tom Dewey in 1948: "Fascism is coming back." Look at normal rhetoric used by presidents who were in political trouble. Bush has been, I think, very careful and very responsible.

WILLIAMS: I appreciate what he's done in terms of not trying to isolate especially Muslims here in the United States. But he is the same person who's been using recently rhetoric like "Islamic fascism," which I think goes overboard.

But the second...

HUME: Juan, you concern yourself about this, what you called, fear campaign by Republicans. There is a big difference between Democrats and Republicans on this issue, it seems to me, and between conservatives and liberals. And that is, conservatives believe that we have something very serious, very dangerous to be afraid of.

And the sense one gets, despite what they may say about it, time and time again from the American left is that this whole war on terror was really an overreaction, that it should be a police and intelligence operation, that it should be a matter of justice. That's the way the Clinton administration chose to fight this. And that the president uses 9/11 as a political -- well, 9/11 was a real thing. And what it said about the worldwide terror movement is true.

WILLIAMS: OK, Brit...

HUME: And so, if you believe that...

WILLIAMS: ... I agree with you, we are at war. I agree with you and the president; we're at war.

HUME: Right.

WILLIAMS: But in the last week, what have we seen, Brit? We've seen the start of a fall campaign season in which Republicans are in dire trouble, the president's unpopular, the war in Iraq's unpopular. What does the president do?

He doesn't start a conversation about dealing with the key issues of the day. He switches the conversation, switches the agenda to his strong point, which is the war on terror, the one point on which Americans give him some support. And he does it conveniently, tactically and purposely. He politicized 9/11 and the memory of it as we come to this five-year mark.

HUME: I'll let...

WALLACE: You have 10 seconds.

HUME: Well, the fact of the matter is that this is the issue we ought to be talking about, Juan, unmistakably.

WALLACE: Gentlemen, have to leave it there.

Thank you, panel. See you next week. To be continued.

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