BLITZER: Senator, thanks very much for coming in.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: You support the president's decision to try to block the release of these photos, although he himself says they're not really all that damaging, certainly not as bad as the photos of Abu Ghraib that all of us have seen -- have seen over these years.

So why is this a good decision?

GRAHAM: Well, it's more of the same. I think here's what the president did. He got some legal advice from the Department of Justice about the lawsuit. And he did something that is the sign of a good commander-in-chief -- he asked people what he should do that are fighting the war.

He got on the phone to General Petraeus and General Odierno and talked to Secretary Gates. And they believed -- and I think they're right to believe this -- if you release those photos, which are more of the same, you're going to inflame the public in the Mideast, where our troops serve, and you're going to put some young men and women at risk who did nothing wrong and it's not in our national security interests to do that.

So I applaud the president. He chose being a commander-in-chief over politics and that's a good -- a good thing for the country. He stood up for the troops. I think that's what motivated him. He listened to his commanders.

BLITZER: All right. You were at a long hearing today in the Senate. And an FBI interrogator -- a former FBI interrogator, a man by the name of Ali Soufan, who speaks Arabic...

GRAHAM: Yes.

BLITZER: ...did major interrogation work for the U.S. government with suspected terrorists. He says, you know what, you don't need to do waterboarding.

GRAHAM: Right.

BLITZER: You don't need to do what -- what he called torture. You can get better information by good, proper interrogation.

Did you buy what you heard from him?

GRAHAM: Yes, I generally believe that. I believe that if you use waterboarding, whatever information you receive -- and some of it may be good -- you will wind up regretting have been done that. And look at where we're at as a nation. It did come back to bite us.

But the question for the country is, that when you look back, did people who pursue that line of thinking, were they criminals?

Clearly not. The people who were trying to come up with interrogation policy were afraid another attack was coming. And there are some CIA agents who said these kind of techniques did work. But, overall, they were a net negative. So I, like the president, want to look forward.

So, yes. I think there's a way to defend the nation without waterboarding people. But those who made that decision right after 9/11, in my opinion, are not criminals and we need to move forward.

BLITZER: Do you agree with the former vice president, Dick Cheney, that the country now is less secure -- less safe because of the policies that President Obama has enacted?

GRAHAM: No, I don't. I believe President Obama is trying to do two things that we need to do -- repair our image that's been damaged. He has talked to me and others about going forward on GITMO, how you deal with these detainees. I think we can come up with a legal system that would treat these detainees within our value system, give them their day in court.

But the president, Obama is very realistic about the nature of our enemy. But, no, I don't -- I think what he did with the photos is a sign of a -- a president who listens and is able to adapt and change his mind when necessary.

What they're doing about GITMO makes sense. It is now time to move the prisoners somewhere else, to start over with a legal system we can be proud of, that protects the nations from vicious people, but lives within our value system. So I want to help this president start over.

BLITZER: There are several supermax -- what they call supermax prisons in the United States, like in Marion, Illinois, for example...

GRAHAM: Right.

BLITZER: ...and elsewhere, that house some of the notorious criminals ever...

GRAHAM: Yes.

BLITZER: ...mass murderers, if you will.

GRAHAM: Right. Absolutely.

BLITZER: What's wrong with moving some of those 200 or so detainees from Guantanamo to these maximum security prisons?

GRAHAM: I think it should be a military prison. The Geneva Convention now applies in this war. And under the Geneva Convention, you cannot let prisoners of war be tried in civilian court because that's a violation of the Convention.

But you make a very good point. We had 450,000 German and Japanese prisoners in American prison camps on American soil. I have never bought the idea or the argument that you cannot move 250 people inside the United States and protect the nation. I think we can. I think starting over is a good thing for the country, to come up with a new legal system that allows these people their day in court but also realizes we can't let them go if they present a military threat and let judges help us make that decision.

So I do believe we can close Guantanamo Bay. We can find a place to house these people within the United States, protect our nation and move forward and keep people off the battlefield who deserve to be kept off the battlefield based on evidence, not whims of the executive branch.

The good thing about this president, he's collaborative. He understands there's a role for the judiciary to play. I've always understood that. He's reaching out to the Congress. He's not arbitrarily using executive power. And if he'll stay on this course of collaborating with Congress and allowing the -- the judiciary to play an important role in this war, we'll be stronger as a nation.

BLITZER: We're out of time. But a quick follow-up to an interview I did in the last hour with your governor, Mark Sanford, of South Carolina. He's under enormous pressure to accept $700 million in federal stimulus money. The legislature in Columbia, South Carolina -- they're apparently on the verge of forcing him to take the money. He doesn't want to take the money and he offered his explanation why.

Where do you stand on this?

GRAHAM: Well, I voted against the stimulus package. I thought it created more government than it did jobs. The $700 million will help some in South Carolina and if we don't take the money, it goes to other states and people in South Carolina will be required to pay it back.

So I think, at the end of the day, we lost the battle on the stimulus package. It would be in South Carolina's interests to take the money.

BLITZER: Senator, thanks very much for coming in.

GRAHAM: Thank you.