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December 27, 2007

Giuliani, Romney, Thompson On "Hannity And Colmes"

Hannity & Colmes

ALAN COLMES, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Tonight on HANNITY AND COLMES, a nuclear nation rocked by chaos. Rioting in the streets of Pakistan after the murder of Benazir Bhutto. What does this mean for the stability of the entire Middle East? As the candidates head into Iowa, we've got live reaction from Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney. There's only one place to see it all, HANNITY AND COLMES, right now.

Welcome to HANNITY AND COLMES. Rich Lowry is sitting in for Sean. Nice to see you, once again, Rich.

RICH LOWRY, FOX NEWS GUEST ANCHOR: Hi, Alan.

COLMES: We get right to our top story, tonight, the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. It rocked the entire world this morning from Pakistan, where fears of a civil war are now growing, to right here at home, where today's tragedy is sure to shake up the presidential campaign. Joining us first tonight, from the campaign trail in Iowa, presidential candidate Fred Thompson. Senator, welcome back to HANNITY AND COLMES.

FRED THOMPSON, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, good to be with you.

COLMES: What should the United States reaction be?

THOMPSON: One of concern. Obviously, it's a tragedy for the nation of Pakistan, but it's of great concern to the United States. We have strong interests there. We have strong interests in making sure those nuclear weapons don't get into radical hands. We have strong interest in getting the Pakistani government to help us in western Pakistan, where the Taliban still resides. And we have a strong interest in democracy. They were moving in the right direction. A lot of things were coming together and looking good for that interest, and they were all fitting together, all the three interests I just mentioned.

And now we're back to square one. And right now the question of stability I think is foremost on our minds.

COLMES: Should we reevaluate aid to Pakistan, find out where the money is going, hold back until we find out what direction the country is going to go in?

THOMPSON: No, just the opposite. We should find out what direction the country's going to go in first, and we should help it go in the right direction. That's a rough neighborhood. Radical Islam, of course, carried this atrocity out. It reminds us of the kind of world we live in. It's not just that part of the world, it's all over the world. And this is a part of a much larger picture. We're in a battle with radical Islam, who declared war on us. They're willing to do everything they can, including killing their own people, in order to further their goals, which is nothing less than the subduing of the western world, and foremost in that is the United States of America.

COLMES: We don't know exactly who is behind this. We have our suspicions, but is this an indication of a broader war against democracy and the United States, or is this specific to Pakistan and Bhutto, who was a controversial figure in that country?

THOMPSON: No, it's just another indication of anyone who stands with the United States, any leader, anyone who stands for democracy, especially a woman, which is something they could not tolerate, leading a Muslim country. I think it's all of that. It's a part of a much broader picture. You're seeing it, of course, in the Middle East. You're seeing it in northern Africa. You're seeing it in various parts of Asia. Of course, Europe has had more than one attack. And it's a systematic effort that's been going on for many years, and carried out by Hezbollah, in many instances.

But these people were, of course, focused on this one particular goal in Pakistan. But it's indicative of the mind-set and the global effort that really is under way against us.

COLMES: Did we make a mistake trying to get Bhutto back in power? Supposedly, Condoleezza Rice and the State Department was very involved in trying to get her back into Pakistan, engineer some kind of match up with Musharraf. Some said that was a big mistake because they didn't like each other very much. Are we complicit in what happened here?

THOMPSON: No, I think we were doing the right thing. I think the long-term interest of stability in that part of the world, security of those nukes, assistance of us, with regard to the Taliban, all were served by having a more open and free democracy in every sense of the word. Musharraf, who I've had the chance to meet and talk with back a few years ago, had taken off the uniform; elections were declared for January the 8th; there was every indication that former Prime Minister Bhutto would have been elected as prime minister, and that they were prepared to work together, maybe even share power. Well, they would be sharing power if she'd have been elected, but in reality, and not just form.

So those things were moving in the right direction. Had it not been for this assassination, there's every reason to believe that that could have resulted in a successful outcome, and all those interests that I think lie with the United States would have been served.

COLMES: Mike Huckabee said earlier today those who are responsible have to be brought to justice. You then said it's a criminal investigation -- or not a criminal investigation, rather, but terrorism. Are you implying that Huckabee is not up to the job and not knowing what he's talking about here?

THOMPSON: Well, it is a matter of a global conflict. It is a matter of certainly terrorism, which is an indication of this conflict that I'm talking about. This business about the criminals must be brought to justice is fine and good. I mean, would that it be so. But it's probably not going to happen, and we all know it. These people are willing to blow themselves up, to commit suicide, to kill other innocent people. People like that are not terribly concerned about being brought to justice. They're concerned in carrying out their own notion of what the world ought to look like, and it's nothing that any civilized person would want.

And I don't know what the governor's ideas are on this. He said something about we should apologize, I believe, and I have no idea what he's talking about. If that wasn't a misstatement, then it reflects a lack of understanding of the nature of the world we live in.

LOWRY: Hey senator, it's Rich Lowry. It's great to see you tonight. Thanks for being with us. Let me ask you -- you already alluded to this a little bit -- let me push you on it some, in your scale of values, what is more important to you in Pakistan, promoting democracy or simply maintaining stability?

THOMPSON: If we don't maintain stability, nothing else is possible. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation. I think we were on the path to serving both of those interests. But when you come right down to it, making sure that those nuclear weapons do not fall into radical hands -- and there are some radical elements even inside the government. But certainly we saw today an indication of the presence of al-Qaeda and what they're capable of doing. And if you had turmoil -- if you had a civil war there -- if you had an abrupt change of government, based upon who was strongest in the streets, it would be extremely dangerous to the civilized world, all of the civilized world, and that has to be paramount.

As I say, we need to make sure that all those interests are served, but it's going to take some time. It's going to take some steady hands, and some wise people to walk this thing through and achieve a successful outcome.

LOWRY: Senator, to put a finer point on it here, if Musharraf comes out tomorrow -- and this isn't totally a hypothetical. It seems more likely than not -- and says, look, things are too unstable now. They're too dangerous to hold this election on January 8th, you would be OK with that?

THOMPSON: I didn't say that. I don't want to go down that road of hypotheticals. It would depend on what's going on. It would depend on what's going on in the street. Certainly Musharraf understands that it would not be in his long-term self-interest and in the interest of his country if he precipitously did something like that. I think he's being blamed for this by some people himself, this assassination, or his people behind it. I think that's extremely unlikely. This does not work to his benefit.

People have taken to the streets before. He declared martial law, and now it's been lifted a couple of weeks ago. I think that he understands that he cannot just clamp down and everything work out all right. I think that's the last thing that he wants to do. But you can't pre-judge a situation until you see how it's going to play out. Hopefully wiser heads will prevail, and there won't be a massive disruption in this country.

LOWRY: Senator, there's been a lot of talk on the campaign trail today, for obvious reasons, about how important foreign policy experience is. Now you have foreign policy experience. You've worked and thought about these issues in the Senate and afterwards. Obviously, also, Senator John McCain has experience. He was touting that very strongly today. Why, if I'm a conservative out there -- let me give you a chance to make your case -- why do I go with you instead of Senator McCain?

THOMPSON: I'm not going to put myself head to head with John or anybody else. And, frankly, if I remember correctly, John McCain and I were together when we had at least one discussion with General Musharraf a few years ago. I have been --

LOWRY: Was that in Pakistan, senator?

THOMPSON: Yes.

LOWRY: Tell us a little more about that.

THOMPSON: It was just a meeting with a few senators and him, and we went the Khyber Pass. We were in Pakistan. We were in Afghanistan. I'm not sure if that was the same trip or not. I think the Afghanistan trip may have been a different trip.

But getting back to your point, I've served on the Intelligence Committee. I've met with many foreign leaders, both friend and foe. I was the Republican floor manager when we passed the Homeland Security Bill, which I like to think has had something to do with the fact that we haven't been attacked again since September 11th. I concentrated on these issues while I was in the Senate.

I was the chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over issues of nuclear proliferation, as well as a lot of other things. So I have tried to concentrate on it, because I considered it to be the most important issue facing our country. If we don't have the safety of our people, we don't have anything else. But needless to say, John McCain has wide experience too in these areas.

LOWRY: Senator Thompson, thanks so much. Good luck out there. Coming up next, Rudy Giuliani reacts to Pakistan's national tragedy. And then former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton on what happens next for the country in crisis. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LOWRY: For more on the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, we are joined now by Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Mayor, thanks so much for being with us tonight.

RUDY GIULIANI (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, Rich.

LOWRY: Now, Mr. Mayor, throughout this campaign you've talked very forcefully about being on offense on the war on terror. What does being on offense mean in the context of Pakistan, where we don't have troops on the ground and there's a sovereign government there that we don't have a lot of control over?

GIULIANI: Well, we do have troops in Afghanistan right nearby, and the reality is, we have a relationship with Pakistan where we have a good deal of influence that we can exert, and I think we should exert that influence now to help them stabilize, to get to a situation of stability as quickly as possible and back on track toward a democracy.

LOWRY: How do we do that? How do we help them stabilize?

GIULIANI: We have to work with them and find out what they need and work internally and quietly. These are things that can't be done from the outside. This has to be done by the president, the secretary of state, the other officials in our government. We have to be in close contact with them to help them with the things they're going to need in order to stabilize the country as quickly as possible, and get them on a track toward democracy, which Mrs. Bhutto offered them.

The great tragedy of this is we were looking at an election coming up very shortly, and her involvement in that election was going to move Pakistan even more toward being a democracy. And now we're sort of back to making sure that stability is being maintained.

LOWRY: Mr. Mayor, I don't have to tell you, but it's high political season. So nothing happens without people taking political pot shots at each other. And John McCain took one at you today. He said, look, responding to a terror attack in a city is not the same as having foreign policy experience. Rudy Giuliani doesn't have foreign policy experience. He's never been to Iraq, according to the Arizona senator. How do you respond to that?

GIULIANI: I think this is not the time to do political campaigning, one side or the other. The fact is, I have a good deal of foreign policy experience. I've negotiated with governments when I was in the Justice Department. As the mayor of New York you get involved in foreign policy, just about every issue that's involved throughout the world. I've had a tremendous amount of experience handling crisis and problems in what's considered to be maybe the second or third toughest job in the United States. And over the last five or six years, I've been on 90 plus foreign trips to 34, 35 different countries. So I have a good knowledge of the world, and I have the kind of background and experience that many of the people that are elected president have, you know, coming out of governor's office and having executive experience, where you have to make decisions.

But I just say that in answer to your question. This is not the night -- this is not the night to make those kinds of political comments.

LOWRY: Let's go back to the region because you've raised the issue of Afghanistan, and obviously these two problems are intimately related, Afghanistan and Pakistan. You said today we perhaps have to think about redoubling our efforts in Afghanistan. Would you be open to sending more troops into Afghanistan, where our situation has been declining while we've been improving in Iraq?

GIULIANI: Yes, but Rich, I should tell you, I've been in favor of that for sometime now. I've been saying that I can't tell you how many months.

LOWRY: More troops?

GIULIANI: I think there's been a growing feeling that we accomplished a great deal in 2001, 2002 in routing the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and there was a growing feeling that they're reemerging. And sometime back, I said I thought it was time for us to redouble our efforts, to put more emphasis on that area to make sure they don't reemerge. That was a great victory we had. We don't want to see it slip. So I would certainly be open to that.

Obviously, the president has to decide that in the context of things we may not know. But if you're asking me my outside opinion, I think this would be a good time to do it. I think it would have been a good time to do it even a while back.

COLMES: Mr. Mayor, Alan Colmes. Welcome back to our show.

GIULIANI: How are you, Alan?

COLMES: Good, how are you feeling?

GIULIANI: I'm feeling very good, thank you. Thanks for asking.

COLMES: Good to hear that. Picking up on what you were just saying, because you did say earlier today that the efforts of our military in Afghanistan and Pakistan were great in 2001, 2002, routed out the Taliban, pushed back al-Qaeda, but have we taken our eye off the ball since then?

GIULIANI: I can't say we've taken our eye of the ball. I don't know that I would put it that way. I thought a while back, a few months ago, that we probably should redouble our efforts there, because we were hearing reports that al-Qaeda and Taliban were reemerging. And I had a meeting about a year ago with Hamid Karzai, and I had that kind of impression that came out of that meeting as well. So I'm not saying that just in response to this terrible assassination and terrorist act, but I think maybe that maybe underscores the reality that we should intensify our efforts in Afghanistan.

COLMES: Does this underscore though that we should we have focussed on that area all along, not gotten involved in Iraq, not diverted resources, stayed in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that part of the world, gone after al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and really made sure we could fix whatever the problems were there?

GIULIANI: Alan, it's not an either/or proposition. You need to emphasize both. Of course, I've been one that's felt that we should put very strong emphasis also on catching bin Laden. I don't think catching bin Laden is just a symbolic act. I think there's a substantive achievement there. There's a strategic achievement in being able to catch him and his high command. So that would be another reason to emphasize Afghanistan as well.

COLMES: We only have a moment here. Do we support -- do we continue to support Musharraf? Do we give him all the support he needs, all the money he asks for, or do we find out if he's complicit here before we do anything?

GIULIANI: First thing we do, we have to do the things that are necessary to bring stability. And that has to be an internal judgment that's made about what's the best way to bring stability to Pakistan. All of those questions have to be investigated. We're too early in this to come to some kind of conclusion on exactly who was complicit and how did it happen.

Al-Qaeda has taken credit for it, I understand. We have to look at that as well.

COLMES: Mr. Mayor, we thank you very much for your time tonight. Thanks for coming back on our show.

GIULIANI: Thank you very much. See you soon.

COLMES: Thank you very much. Coming up, violent riots break out in the aftermath of Bhutto's death. Will the country erupt into chaos? Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton will be here to react to all that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLMES: The international community sits in a state of mourning with the tragic assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto represented a moderate opposition to the Musharraf-led government. With more on the repercussions of this barbaric act, we turn now to the author of "Surrender is Not an Option," former United States ambassador to the United States, John Bolton. Ambassador, thank you so much for coming on our show tonight.

JOHN BOLTON, FMR. UN AMBASSADOR: Glad to be here.

COLMES: Did we make a mistake trying to push democracy too quickly in a region of the world where stability, to use the analogy Rich Lowry used earlier tonight, is more important than democracy? Are they sometimes mutually exclusive?

BOLTON: I don't think that's the question for the United States. I think for us the main strategic interest is the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. And I think by acceding to Benazir Bhutto's desire to get back into the game in Pakistan, seeing her as somebody as an alternative to Musharraf, we, in effect, helped precipitate this dynamic which has led to her tragic assassination. It's hard to see how that was the road to success.

COLMES: That's what I was getting at, that we were pushing democracy by way of Bhutto, thinking that if she could get in there -- we were trying to engineer these upcoming elections so she could become prime minister and have some kind of a partnership with Musharraf, one that would seem like a marriage made in hell.

BOLTON: Well, I think this ought to tell us not to try to micro- manage what goes on in a country like this. What we've got now is a prescription for chaos. The country is on the verge. We'll have to see what happens in the cities tomorrow, whether riots break out. This is exactly what the Islamic fundamentalists wanted, because now Musharraf himself has come under even greater criticism. The country is extremely unstable and control of those nuclear weapons is up for grabs.

COLMES: Is Musharraf capable of keeping order in the country? Is he the right guy in the right job right now?

BOLTON: Well, I think he's the person to put our money on. Otherwise we risk having the military fragment, and that would lead to the possibility of the radical elements in the military and elsewhere in society taking control. I'm not arguing that Musharraf is Jeffersonian Democrat. I'm simply arguing, at the moment, he's the one most likely to hold the military together, and therefore hold the country together.

COLMES: Was it a mistake for us to push to get Musharraf to step down from his military leadership?

BOLTON: I think it was at this point. I think this is part of the micro-management problem. At some point, that may be the right thing to do. What we need right now though is a kind of time-out. We need the responsible political leaders to go to their corners. Let's try to calm the situation down and work from there. Otherwise, the more passion, the more tension, the more action in the streets, the greater the chances the radical Islamists will prevail in the midst of the chaos.

LOWRY: Hey, Mr. Ambassador, it's Rich Lowry. Thanks for being with us. How much do we know about the disposition of those nukes and how safe they are?

BOLTON: Well, not that I'm going to talk about, but there's some that we know and some that we don't know. And what bothers me is not the technical security of the nuclear weapons at the moment; it's the possibility of losing command and control over them or having control over them fall into the hands of militant Islamists within the Pakistani military. That's a very grave danger at the moment, I believe.

LOWRY: Ambassador, let me put the administration's case to you, if you will. The case for trying to get a deal between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto was premised on the idea if Musharraf is actually effectively going to stabilize the country he can't be isolated politically, and has to have a broader base of political support, and aligning with Bhutto was the way to do it.

BOLTON: Look, the day she returned to Pakistan, she was the target of an assassination attempt that killed well over a hundred of her supporters. You can't say this wasn't foreseeable, and it's obviously led to her death, hardly a successful strategy.

LOWRY: On Musharraf, you know the rap on him. It's not just that he's un-Democratic, but that he's not doing enough in those tribal areas to run down the Taliban. It's that he's not routing the extremists that have burrowed in his security services. It's that he seems more interested in squeezing out the secular opposition in the country than he seems going after the Islamists. What do you think of that case against him? Is he really the right man for us in Pakistan?

BOLTON: Well, it's difficult to sit in Washington and New York and second guess which general you'd like to have in charge. Certainly, you have to look at the breadth of his responses from 9/11 down to the present. And it has not been entirely what we wanted, but it's been basically in line with what we've sought. I think there's more we could have done before this chaos erupted to get him to be more aggressive in the northwest frontier province.

But don't underestimate the infiltration of the Pakistani military by the radical Islamists. These are not people he supports or wants there. It's a fact of Pakistani society that he's trying to deal with.

LOWRY: Talk a little more about what a civil war would look like? It would involve the splitting of the military between a radical and less radical faction?

BOLTON: I think it could be the fragmentation of the military. What I worry about here is not some massive civil war with large military formations. I'm worried about, for example, Musharraf being assassinated. He's been the subject of at least three attempts already. And a small group within the military taking control. That is the gravest risk I think at the moment, if that small group were radical Islamists.

A subsidiary threat is that you lose command and control over even some of the nuclear weapons, and they get lose to al-Qaeda.

LOWRY: Great. Mr. Ambassador, thanks so much, always fascinating. Thanks for being with us tonight.

BOLTON: Thank you.

LOWRY: Coming up next, presidential candidate Mitt Romney responds to Bhutto's tragic death and what this means for the war on terror. Stick with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

LOWRY: Welcome back to "Hannity & Colmes". I'm Rich Lowry, in for Sean tonight. Joining us now to respond to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

Governor, thanks so much for being with us tonight.

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks, Rich. Good to be with you.

LOWRY: This isn't news to you, obviously, but I have to let our viewers know, in the interest of full disclosure, that my magazine, National Review, endorsed you two weeks ago.

Let me ask you about Pakistan. Governor, just how worrisome is the situation to you? What do you think the Bush administration's next move should be? Because obviously, this is a big blow to its policy which was premised recently on getting Benazir Bhutto back there and hoping that she became prime minister.

ROMNEY: Well, we certainly want to see the progress towards democratization in Pakistan continue. It's very much the hope of the people of this country that we'll see stability return to Pakistan and that they will be able to proceed with elections and have a democratically elected leadership. That's what we hope we'll see.

Obviously, things could unravel in some way, and we could have some period of tension and disruption, but that's -- that's something which we don't want to see.

This really underscores the fact, of course, that what's occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan is not unique to those areas alone, that there is radical jihadist effort around the world that's trying to topple not just western governments but moderate governments in the world of Islam.

And that we, as a nation, are going to have to work together with other nations to help moderate voices within the world of Islam and that -- with a wide array -- array of support.

But this is something we're going to have to do, not just in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq, but everywhere from Indonesia to Nigeria. There's a big amount of work ahead to help Muslims become strong enough to reject the extreme within them.

LOWRY: Governor, how important is foreign policy experience? Because that was an issue out on the trail today, John McCain talking about how much experience he has working with these -- these issues. Why shouldn't voters turn to a candidate who's been marinating in these kind of issues over the last few decades?

ROMNEY: Well, if we want somebody who has a lot of experience in foreign policy, we can simply go to the State Department and pluck out one of the tens of thousands of people who work there. They, of course, have been doing foreign policy all their careers.

But that's not how we choose a president. A president is not a foreign policy expert. A president is a leader who understands how to make difficult decisions and does so in a way that brings together the best voices, that considers the upsides and downsides and predicts the credibility and the strength that America has always projected in circumstances like this.

One of our great foreign policy presidents was Ronald Reagan, who even though he had not spent years in the Senate, understood a vision of what we had to do to overcome the greatest threat of the last half of the last century, and was able to bring together the various experts and the various viewpoints and sort them through and take action that led America to be successful in that great -- that great challenge that we faced then.

So the kind of experience you want is someone who knows how to make difficult decisions, to bring together the right people that consider the various options that you have, and then to act with strength and resolve.

COLMES: Hey, Governor, it's Alan, welcome back to our show.

ROMNEY: Thanks, Alan.

COLMES: You know, Ronald Reagan after the bombing of the barracks in Lebanon, removed those hundreds of soldiers who were there, took the troops out of Lebanon, saying we don't believe there.

We just had John Bolton, who was Bush's ambassador to the U.N., saying you know, we've got to stop micro-managing in these countries. Maybe Ronald Reagan wouldn't have us so involved in these countries to begin with.

ROMNEY: Well, I can't tell you what Ronald Reagan would say today, but my guess is Ronald Reagan would be projecting strength. He'd be doing what he did during the last half of the last century, which is to say we need a strong economy that can out-compete our competitors. And we need to have a strong military that makes it very clear to people around the world that if you push against the United States we'll push back.

And likewise, we want to communicate to the people in areas that are in conflict or under the threat of radical jihadism that America will stand with the voices of moderation and the voices that are moving towards democratization of society and modernity.

And the option of, instead, saying, "Let's retreat and become weaker" has never been a source of increasing peace. A strong America is the best ally peace has ever known.

COLMES: He did retreat from Lebanon, by the way.

John Bolton today said, in addition to what he said on this show, that the United States is partly responsible for this by pushing Musharraf to cut a deal with Bhutto and encouraging her to go back into the country. Do you agree with what Ambassador Bolton is saying about this?

ROMNEY: Well, you know, there's going to be a lot of evaluation and Monday-morning-quarterbacking about what could be done differently. I think the administration was correct in trying to encourage a process of democratization and not relying solely upon General Musharraf. And the effort to have Madam Bhutto become part of that process as well as Mr. Sharif, were efforts to move toward a more democratic selection of the leadership of the nation.

Of course, General Musharraf has been an important ally in the war against radical jihadism, and we want to be a strong voice in encouraging stability in that country even now. But I'm not going to be pointing fingers at this stage. This really is a time for us to be coming together as -- I believe as a nation and politicizing.

COLMES: I think people would want to know what President Romney would do, whether or not President Romney would follow the Bush policy and whether you agree with what President Bush tried to do in terms of trying to push a democracy in a country that some believe was not ready for it.

ROMNEY: Well, I think that the -- the idea that we would always have a leader in Pakistan that was the military leader was not something which was acceptable to the people of Pakistan or to the legal leadership, the supreme court of Pakistan and that there had to be a process moving toward democratization.

Was the process perfect? I don't know that we'll be able to assess that. But I do believe that long-term the stability of Pakistan does require a strong military, which the country has, and the military support of the leadership in the country, which exists, but at the same time a more democratic process in selecting the leadership, the political leadership of the nation.

COLMES: You said a couple of times today, including just a few moments ago to Rich, that a good president is going to have people in State he or she can depend on, and the State Department knows what foreign policy is.

State Department -- our State Department back in October, when Bhutto was going back there, was saying this is possibly a recipe for disaster because her turbulent past would further inflame an already volatile country. Should the president have listened to those bureaucrats of State who were saying those things?

ROMNEY: Well, of course, any president is going to listen to the widest array of voices about the risks inherent in any potential strategy. You know, in a setting like this, you're not looking for a person who has all the answers themselves, but instead you're looking for an individual who knows how to make very difficult decisions based upon gathering data and analysis directly from the scene, gathering information from people who have extensive experience in the region, firsthand contact with leaders in other parts of the world, and then looking at different options and selecting which option is the best based upon that analysis.

And that's the process you want to see, and that's the process I've engaged in, in the business world, at the Olympics and as a governor.

COLMES: Governor, we thank you for your time. Thanks for coming on our show tonight. Appreciate it very much.

ROMNEY: Thanks, Rich and Alan. Good to be with you.

COLMES: Thanks very much.

And coming up next, violence rages in Pakistan as world leaders fear the nuclear-armed nation will slip into an all-out civil war. Has democracy in Pakistan been compromised for good? We'll talk about it, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLMES: The tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto has put the world on notice. Today's shocking events pushed Pakistan dangerously close to an all-out civil war. Government officials have put military forces on red alert in an effort to quell the violence.

What impact will Bhutto's senseless murder have on the war on terror, and with us now, the author of "Because They Hate," terrorism expert Brigitte Gabriel, and former Bhutto advisor and Pakistani ambassador, Husain Haqqani.

We thank you both very much for being with us.

Ambassador Haqqani, you know -- you knew Bhutto, and I know you must be feeling a great sense of loss this evening.

HUSAIN HAQQANI, FORMER BHUTTO ADVISOR: It is a great sense of loss. She was a very dear friend. I spoke to her only two days ago on the telephone. We exchanged e-mails until yesterday. She was somebody whom I cared a lot about.

She had a vision for Pakistan, a democratic vision. She was, of course, a social democrat, but she was also somebody who understood that terrorism needs to be combated, and in all of those things, she took very courageous stands and suffered immensely.

COLMES: She, it seems, if you read a lot of what she's said over the last few months, almost foretold her unfortunate and tragic demise. And didn't she tell people in the security establishment that she needed more security and not enough was being done to protect her?

HAQQANI: Absolutely, in fact I communicated many of her concerns to American officials. She wrote letters to General Musharraf. She sought international security consultants for her own protection at her own expense, but that was denied. She wanted the FBI or Scotland Yard to investigate the first attack on her life that resulted in 160 deaths on October the 18th, and that was denied.

There was a lack of disciplined (ph) attitude, at least, if not criminal negligence on the part of the Pakistani...

COLMES: You believe Musharraf is complicit in this?

HAQQANI: I don't think it is fair to say that anybody is complicit without evidence, but I would say that there has been gross negligence. I'm not saying that Benazir Bhutto would still be alive if all kinds of security had been provided. We all know the dangers of suicide bombing.

But let us remember that when security is not adequate, then you feel greater sympathy for the victim and concerns about why those who were supposed to provide security did not provide security.

COLMES: Ms. Gabriel, why do you think that is? Why do you think this happened? And did the United States push too hard, too fast for democracy in a country that was not really ready to accept back Benazir Bhutto and have a relationship with Musharraf to help run the country? Brigitte?

BRIGITTE GABRIEL, AUTHOR, "BECAUSE THEY HATE": Are you asking me, Alan? Yes. It is -- I -- the unfortunate thing is that we did not help her, after inviting her to go back to Pakistan to ensure that she's going to be secure.

Here we have a moderate female leader in the Arabic world, in the Muslim world, who is a role model to the moderate Muslims within the Islamic world, who had a lot of support in Pakistan. And how have we allowed for her not to have such protections to ensure her safety, at least until the elections were held?

This is something that we ourselves and the leaders in the western world need to take a very hard look at. Here we are looking for moderates, for moderate voices, for moderate leaders to come out of the Islamic world, and we've failed in protecting one of the best and greatest and most courageous.

COLMES: Well, the question then becomes was this an inside job? Were security people involved in this? Was there intelligence involved in this? Was Musharraf -- I mean who -- what do you suspect led to this and who might have been complicit?

GABRIEL: There's a lot of speculation. We know that she suspected people within the Pakistani government. She even names in her letter four people within the government to Musharraf, saying what's up with these people? They want to kill me?

Now, we know that within the ISI, the intelligence service of the Pakistanis, there are radical Islamists who are sympathizers with al Qaeda and the Taliban, who wanted to kill her. She knew that. Al Qaeda has been trying to kill her since the '90s, and more attention should have been paid to that.

And the United States should put pressure on Musharraf. And I believe the intelligence community worldwide should immediately begin an investigation as to how did she die? Who was behind it? And they should begin an investigation and put the pressure on Musharraf and anybody involved to get to the bottom of it.

LOWRY: Hi, guys. It's Rich Lowry. Thanks for being with us tonight. I just want to make one statement before I go back to you guys. There's been a lot of bashing of the administration policy in the U.S. here tonight. Could we just be clear that ultimate responsibility for this horrific act lies with those extremists who carried it out?

Mr. Ambassador...

HAQQANI: Absolutely, Rich. Absolutely. I'm 100 percent with you on that. I think that the terrorists are the ones to be held responsible. And I would like to very kindly and politely take issue with two statements that Alan has made.

LOWRY: Go ahead.

HAQQANI: One of them is that Pakistan is not ready for democracy. We forget what has Pakistan...

COLMES: I asked it. It was a question, sir. I was asking a question.

LOWRY: Let him -- let him get it out.

HAQQANI: OK, fair enough. Fair enough. So it was just a question.

Pakistan is ready for democracy, Pakistan had a democracy until our military leadership decided to topple it. There can be corruption in a democracy. We have seen many scandals in the United States. That is no justification for the chief of the army to tell the chief justice to go home or to tell the president to just go packing and go into exile.

LOWRY: Mr. Ambassador, let me ask you something else, and I know this is kind of a sensitive question for you, being so close to her personally, but there's been a lot of commentary, even on the show tonight, that it was a mistake for her to go back. The situation was too unstable, too risky, and she shouldn't have done it.

HAQQANI: I think Benazir Bhutto made a very courageous decision to go back. If she hadn't gone back, we would not be discussing the real problems of terrorism in Pakistan. She mobilized millions of people against the terrorists.

The problem is that many people in the United States think that General Musharraf is their ally in the war against terror. General Musharraf is a reluctant ally at best. He changed sides after 9/11 when he was told that -- and he writes that in his own book, that, "I was told that Pakistan would be bumped into the Stone Age, and that is when I changed my position."

So therefore, his weakness has been that, while he has changed his own position, he hasn't been able to persuade everyone in Pakistan's security establishment to break their links with the Taliban and al Qaeda.

LOWRY: Do you think he's going to suspend this election?

HAQQANI: I think that it's very unlikely that the elections would go ahead on January 8, and if they do, they would have very little credibility without the major political parties participating.

LOWRY: Great. Thanks both of you for being with us tonight.

GABRIEL: Thank you.

LOWRY: Coming up next, Sean and Alan sat down with former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto just weeks after the September 11 attacks. We'll take a look back at Bhutto's views on al Qaeda, the Taliban, and America's war on terror. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LOWRY: Welcome back to "Hannity & Colmes." I'm Rich Lowry in for Sean tonight.

Just weeks after the world-changing attacks of 9/11, Sean and Alan had a chance to sit down with former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANNITY: We have now watched the second government reshuffle in as many days, most recently replacing the secret service chief. We see the anti-American protests going on. We see the support of the Taliban in Pakistan, formerly supporting the United States. How precarious do you view the situation?

BENAZIR BHUTTO, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF PAKISTAN: General Musharraf is concerned about the domestic outfall, and he's moved to secure his position with a major reshuffle in the Pakistani armed forces. The intelligence chief has been replaced, and so has several core commanders, including those of Peshawar and Quetta. Quetta is a city which saw the most violent protests.

HANNITY: Yes.

BHUTTO: And those protests concluded in the evening. Now there's a lot of attention, but I expect that attempts will be made again tomorrow.

HANNITY: Yes.

BHUTTO: However, the good thing is that the protests have remained confined largely to the areas where the Afghan refugees are lodged, rather than to areas in mainland Pakistan.

HANNITY: Ms. Prime Minister, I guess Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has become a source of much concern, not only to U.S. officials and the president and vice president, but to the entire world as we begin this campaign. Can you, from your sources and your contacts, tell us that you believe that that's secure?

BHUTTO: Well, I think that one of the reasons for the reshuffle could have been to prevent a reaction from hard-liners within the armed forces.

There has been concern about Pakistan's nuclear program and what would happen to Pakistan's nuclear devices if there was some kind of a fundamentalist takeover. I think General Musharraf wanted to reassure the world community that he was taking care of the hard-liners to prevent any kind of fundamentalist takeover, and that's one of the reasons that he made this major reshuffle at the time that the international strikes began.

HANNITY: But you -- you acknowledge what President Musharraf's moves were to secure in a worst-case scenario, a possibility that the Taliban could actually move into power in some capacity or some supportive element towards the Taliban, that they would not get a hold of Pakistan's nuclear capability. But in a worst-case scenario, the world has to realize that that is a possibility?

BHUTTO: In a worst-case scenario, that is a possibility. It's not a probability, but in a worst-case scenario, it's a possibility. I say it's not a probability, because the Pakistani people are moderate, and in elections they have always voted for moderate parties, rejecting the fundamentalists. But who can rule out a worst-case scenario?

COLMES: Madam Prime Minister, General Bhutto just -- rather, General Musharraf has just extended his term for three years. This is not a democratic form of government. Is that -- is he -- would you consider him a dictator, having just done that? And can we really do business with this form of government and trust what they tell us?

BHUTTO: Well, at the moment Pakistan does have a military dictatorship, but General Musharraf has taken the right decision in supporting the aims of the international coalition against terrorism. And so democrats like myself have put aside our partisan considerations to give him support.

My husband is in prison and so are my party workers, but we think that the issue is much larger, and it involves the very future of Pakistan. It has an international ramification. But we in Pakistan want to save our country from pro-Taliban forces, and that's why we're extending the support to Musharraf. Long-term democracy is the answer.

COLMES: Even though, as you say, your husband is in prison in Pakistan under the rule of Musharraf?

BHUTTO: That's right. I was hoping that he would take the steps to try and foment internal unity. But from our side, we've taken those steps unconditionally, because we think it's a time for crisis, and it's a defining moment for our country, a defining moment in terms of our future direction.

And we would like to see Pakistan be a responsible international player, fighting terrorism, fighting fundamentalists. And so we supported General Musharraf, but long-term, I believe that it's democracies don't go to war and democracies that stop terrorists.

COLMES: What is the relationship between Pakistan, between Musharraf and the Taliban? They still have an ambassador. They have not denounced the Taliban. What's the story there?

BHUTTO: Well, General Musharraf is a military man, and for a long time, Pakistan's security apparatus has believed that, having a government in Afghanistan that they can rely on gives them strategic depth.

This is where parties like my own are calling for a reappraisal of Pakistan's security position. Due to our conflict with India, we want a government that we can do business with. But if he reconciled to building peace to India, then our priorities over Afghanistan can also undergo a change. And we can have a government that is acceptable to a larger range of people within Afghanistan.

I hope General Musharraf can make that transition.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLMES: And coming up, we'll have more on the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. It's coming up on the other side of this break. Stay with us on "Hannity & Colmes."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLMES: Finally, just one thing about last night. I want to make a correction. We were talking about Will Smith and comments he made that -- about Hitler, and he got great objection from the Jewish Defense League. I said the ADL, not the JDL. It was not the ADL; it was the JDL. Not the Anti-Defamation League but the Jewish Defamation League.

LOWRY: That is correct.

COLMES: And actor Will Smith. I want to make that correction.

Really, an astounding day. It's interesting to hear the presidential candidates and how they would each deal with this. And I don't think anybody really knows how they would deal with this. But it's...

LOWRY: It's a real tough problem. And you can argue the policy forward and backwards. But I think the one thing everyone can agree on, this was an incredibly brave lady. Just incredible.

COLMES: Everybody who's met her speaks well of her. As we saw, she had been on this show right after September 11. She was greatly admired worldwide.

And I think the question does remain, and we've debated it here tonight, did our foreign policy cause us to move too quickly? Did -- Condoleezza Rice supposedly had great conversations with her, pushed her to go back to Pakistan. And was that the right move to make at that particular time?

LOWRY: This is where I agree with Ambassador Bolton. He always has very trenchant, well-defended views.

But Pakistan has always been a bit of a mess. And I really think we have to have realistic expectations there. There's not going to be a great flowering of democracy any time soon, obviously.

COLMES: And would she be alive today had we not pushed that marriage between...?

LOWRY: Well, she -- she made the choice.

COLMES: That's true. She went there of her own volition.

We thank you. Good to see you again, Rich.

LOWRY: Thank you, Alan.

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