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July 06, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - July 6

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

SEN PETE DOMENICI, (R) NEW MEXICO: We need a new strategy for Iraq that forces the Iraqi government to do more, or else. I'm not calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, or a reduction in funding for our troops, but I am calling for a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to continuing home.

ANGLE: All right. There is senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico. He is the latest of the Republicans to express some difficulty with the president's Iraq position and a desire for a different policy.

Now analytical observations from Fred Barnes, Executive Editor for The Weekly Standard, Jeff Birnbaum, columnist for the Washington Post, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, FOX News contributors all.

Now, before we get started, I want to read you something that Harry Reid said. And you will be able to see that up on the screen. He said "We will not see a much-needed change of course in Iraq until Republicans are willing to stand up to President Bush and his stubborn clinging to a failed policy, and, more importantly, back up their words with action"

Reid went on to say that as evidence mounts that the surge is failing to make Iraq more secure we cannot wait until the administration's September report before we change course.

So, gentlemen, the idea here was that we would have a report from General Petraeus in the Fall. He would come back and say here's how the surge is working, here's where we stand. And at that point people would make a judgment.

You have several Republicans now, Senator Lugar before Senator Domenici, making a judgment sooner than that, even though the last installment of the surge troops have only recently arrived. And you have the Democrats planning, this month some time, Charles, to move forward and force some sort of change in policy through funding.

Where do we stand on this? And aren't Republicans beginning to abandon the president altogether or just slightly inch away from an open ended policy?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, they are trying a half abandonment, and it's not going to help them politically, as we saw with Harry Reid's response. Domenici is up for reelection, and it's not going to help him to have said, well, I want to go to plan B rather than a complete withdrawal.

The only thing that's going to save Republicans on this issue of Iraq is some success in Iraq, not a mild distancing for the President's current policy. That's why I think it is politically unfortunate, and in policy terms unfortunate, because the premise of this new plan, a plan b, which is to retreat to enclaves, not to have Americans in combat, that plan B makes sense if and when the surge has failed. That would be where we would go logically.

To propose it when we are, as you say, at the beginning of the surge, and when you have David Petraeus telling us publicly that he believes it will succeed, otherwise he would not be throwing his troops into danger and losing troops--unless you believe that Petraeus is a dishonorable and a liar, you've got to say whose judgment do I trust on this? Domenici and Reid, or Petraeus, who thinks it can work?

And as long as it has a chance of working, that the policy that we ought to pursue, that and not a semi-withdrawal that is premature.

ANGLE: Jeff?

JEFF BIRNBAUM, COLUMNIST, WASHINGTON POST: I think we've seen this pattern before. There is beginning to be a rush of members and senior members of the president's own party--they see the writing on the wall, they believe that it is inevitable that there will have to be a withdrawal. And they were using the word gradual withdrawal.

ANGLE: Because of the military circumstances, or because of the political circumstances?

BIRNBAUM: A combination. I believe they, like most Democrats, don't see a good ending on the ground in Baghdad.

And I've spoken to a number of moderate Republicans of some standing who believe that the president politically would be wise to get out ahead of what would be a rush against him, and to propose a gradual withdrawal, to embrace, basically, the Iraq study group proposal even before September, or lose control of the issue, and by so doing, to steal the main political issue that the Democrats have been hammering the president and the Republicans with, sort of sweeping out the platform that they have.

ANGLE: Well, let me ask Fred about this. Because here, what you have are some Republicans now seeming to embrace in a centrist position, with some Democrats, Ken Salazar's proposal to basically embrace the Iraq study group proposal, which was to take out a log of combat troops, except those going after terrorists, but to leave, the Iraq study group said, about half the force.

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, WEEKLY STANDARD: Well, the Iraq study group also didn't rule out the surge. I mean, the Iraq study group had 79 proposals. About 20 of them are no longer meaningful, others are contributory. To turn that into a law, I'm not sure what that means. It's fuzzy and crazy.

Here's another way of looking at this. With the surge, and with the counterinsurgent strategy, we have asked the troops there to take greater risks. They are going to be more in combat, they are going to have more casualties. And what have they done? They went uncomplaining. They have done that.

And we'll see whether there's progress. We know that Domenici's wrong about one thing, he said the Iraqi government, they haven't moved, we need to make them move. The Iraqi National Government isn't what matters right now. It's the political change is on the ground in the various provinces.

We've seen Sunnis flip and become against Al Qaeda and the insurgents in Anbar province. We've seen it in other provinces. There was a story on the front page of "The New York Times" by Michael Gordon about exactly these political changes that are happening on the ground.

And for weak senators to come along and betray these brave soldiers over there, who are taking the risk, I think it is very wrong-headed.

ANGLE: OK, when we come back with the panel, an appeals court hand the Bush administration a victory for its terrorist surveillance program. We'll look into that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To say they have no standing is really a technical way of saying the doors of the courts are closed on this issue for you.

ANGLE: OK. We had a court decision today from an appeals court that vacated an opinion from a judge in Detroit, Charles, who had declared the terrorist surveillance program unconstitutional, and had looked at a complaint from a number of writers and journalists who said they were assuming that their international calls were in fact intercepted and that, therefore, they were bringing their complaints before the court.

What do you make of the significance of this decision today?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I think it vindicates the Bush administration. The court's ruling was fairly narrow, in the sense that it said those who sued had no standing, i.e. that they no injury in order to enter into--

ANGLE: Because they couldn't prove they had actually been intercepted?

KRAUTHAMMER: Right, because nobody knows what was happening, and it certainly hadn't been targeted against them.

But the ruling was a little bit broader than that in a lot of its asides. It looked at the Detroit decision and said that this wasn't an opinion, it was a, and not half as well argued as Karl Marx's.

ANGLE: Just select someone out of the blue, right?

KRAUTHAMMER: You've got to check the footnotes. I know he didn't have a lot of time. But I did.

Look, it essentially said her idea that all--as the appellate court said-- her unprecedented ruling--unprecedented meaning never seen before and rather loony--that all searches have to be with a warrant, is, of course, ridiculous.

You try to take a car in from Mexico, they can take it apart entirely without a warrant. Or if you try to go onto an airplane. So it was, I think, a significant defeat for those who declared this program illegal and unconstitutional.

ANGLE: Now, Jeff, the ACLU, which was a major part of this suit, they were, obviously, somewhat disenchanted today with the outcome. And one of their lawyers said that this decision effectively protects the wiretapping program from any judicial review.

BIRNBAUM: No. I'm not sure that Karl Marx was mentioned, though I did read it. But I think the ACLUY is going pretty far in the other direction.

I think this is a defeat for the forces trying to get back at the Bush administration, but it is not the last word by any means. There are a cluster of these cases, maybe with some people who may have standing, that is, may have been injured out in California, and we'll see what happens there.

I think it's also even more important to say that there was an agreement in January between the Bush administration and the court that oversees this kind of surveillance, called the FISA Court, that would require that that court to oversee any kind of eavesdropping of this kind, even those kinds of eavesdropping that it's not required to look at, like those that are done overseas.

So, in many ways, this decision is moot.

ANGLE: I should explain to people that what happened was under the FISA law, and this is why we misunderstood, if you target someone overseas, even if they are calling the U.S., and you collect it overseas--let's say it's pulled down from some foreign location--that does not require a warrant.

Now, if you hear a terrorist talking to someone in, say, Detroit, and you say that person is planning a terrorist attack, then to start wiretapping them, then you have to get a warrant on that person. But, initially, for the overseas call, you do not.

That means it's warrantless, but it doesn't mean it's illegal.

BARNES: Yes, and all of these agreements that Jeff talked about between the administration and FISA court, since the FISA court looks at all these wiretaps, overseas in particular, all the ones that were targeted in this suit, it means any that go on, basically, have been approved--not necessarily with the warrant, but have approved by the FISA Court.

It took a left wing activist judge to send this case along, anyway. I mean, these people so obviously did not have standing, where you have to have an actual injury--

ANGLE: Meaning, where they had to show they were personally injured?

BARNES: This would be like my suing the federal government and saying I am a taxpayer, I have a stake in the government, so stop the war in Iraq. But that doesn't give me standing to sue.

KRAUTHAMMER: But even the agreement that the administration has made to go under the FISA law, which makes it moot, what's important here is the principle. Does the president have the inherent authority to listen in on the enemy in time of war? And that's an important issue, and this was a victory for those who say yes.

BIRNBAUM: But it's not the end of the politics, though, because the Senate Judiciary Committee has issued subpoenas on this issue. We're going to see a clash of subpoenas, and a very controversial hearing, I'm sure.

ANGLE: The want to look at the legal underpinning of the program. Those who were briefed from the outset on this and known all the details on the intelligence committees, have raised small objections, but not very major ones.

KRAUTHAMMER: And in the end, the courts decide.

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