Special Report Roundtable - December 15

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GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Donald Rumsfeld's tenure is clear. There have been more profound change -- there has been more profound change at the department of Defense over the past six years than at any time since the department's creation in the late 1940's.

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ANGLE: President Bush today paying tribute to departing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Now some analytical observations from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard; Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call; and the syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer -- FOX NEWS contributors all.

Gentlemen, we've talked a lot about Iraq, so we may have exhausted that or -- not entirely.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Never.

ANGLE: But we've talked a lot about Rumsfeld and that. But to look at the broader part of Rumsfeld legacy, what would you point to -- Charles. What do you see that is uniquely Rumsfeld?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I would start with where the president was, which he was the person who had the stature and experience to go after the entrenched bureaucracy of the military and to want to change it to be more light and adaptable, and that is a process that will be remembered as a very big positive.

Secondly, he's the man who gave us these amazingly swift victories to defeat and destroy enemy regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq with an economy and a swiftness nobody would ever have expected.

Remember also, we've gone five years without a terrorist attack. And all of this is his legacy. Of course, obviously, is the stalemate in Iraq, the decisions that were made early on, that were hard decisions, some of them in retrospect were not right. But Iraq is still in play and those who say his legacy is written on Iraq, I think are wrong. I think we're going to see how it turns out.

ANGLE: Mort.

MORT KONDRACKE, ROLL CALL: Well, I would say that his record is mixed. Look, he -- there's no question that he's a patriot, that he's intelligent, that he did what he did sincerely...

ANGEL: Energetic...

KONDRACKE: Energetically and all of that stuff. Transformation, we'll have to see. Deep strike and certainly, I think, missile defense is a tribute to him, getting that going, in view of the fact that our enemies are becoming nuclear. But he was dogmatic of small armies.

I mean, I think special ops, emphasizing that, that's good, but you know, and the dogmatism played in Iraq, and the reason that we're changing policies now in Iraq is that we didn't have enough troops there in the beginning, and that was his decision.

And also, his method of operation, I mean, was described to me by one of his former subordinates as "humiliation and intimidation" of people who disagreed with him, and you know, that -- he -- that's not good, you know.

FRED BARNES, WEEKLY STANDARD: Well, he's a tough guy. He held people accountable. And the truth is, you know, I was among a group of journalists who interviewed the president, oh, I don't know, a couple of months ago and we talked about Rumsfeld a lot, and you know what the president liked about him, and I agree with this -- is that he took charge of the Pentagon. It's hard for a defense secretary to do that, because, if you don't, if you don't assert yourself, the generals and the admirals are going to run the place and you'll just be there for ceremony.

ANGLE: It's a long entrenched bureaucracy, you're going to be a passing through and they know that.

BARNES: He took charge, but he really took charge, the president was proud of him for that. Plus the transformation of the military. Of course, in the same press conference -- the same interview, the president said, he's 100 percent behind him. So, I assume that he would be keeping him for the duration.

KRAUTHAMMER: But that is one -- the fact that he took on this bureaucracy is one of the reasons that there were all these leaks throughout the six years of people who opposed him, not on grounds -- I mean, essentially on grounds of turf, not ideology or even strategy, but he offended a lot of people and he took away their prerogatives and their pet projects in a way that I think was absolutely necessary. But it accounts for a lot of the hostility. Now...

KONDRACKE: You know, I think another negative is that he was totally dismissive of allies whom we need sometimes. You know, this old Europe business -- I mean, the French deserved it, you know, but the fact is that we need allies and there's a way to inspire them or move them without having to -- without insulting them.

BARNES: Mort, you're talking about sucking up to them.

KONDRACKE: I'm not talking about sucking up to them.

BARNES: I thought he treated the French and the Germans exactly as they should have been, particularly the French, they are old Europe. They're frequently irrelevant in the world context. They have helped some, particularly the French, in the war on terror but in other things, they're more trouble then they're worth.

KONDRACKE: We don't want them as enemies, though.

BARNES: Well, he didn't make them his enemies.

KONDRACKE: Pretty close. Pretty Close.

BARNES: Remember Degall (ph), you know we didn't along with them well then either.

ANGLE: OK, we're going to take a break, when we come back, members of Congress go to Cuba and Syria, two unfriendly nations. Is Congress helping or hurting U.S. foreign policy? The all-stars take a shot at that, next.

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SEAN MCCORMACK, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: Elected representatives from that branch of government, they will travel where they think they need to. We can council otherwise, but at the end of the day, it's their decision.

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ANGLE: And to some extent, they're paying no attention to the State Department. We're back with our panel.

Gentleman, that was Sean McCormack at the State Department talking about members of Congress who have gone to Syria and Cuba in recent days, two governments with which the U.S. has rocky relations. We have an embargo against Cuba and we've withdrawn our ambassador from Syria because they're suspected of having assassinated several Lebanese leaders. What do you make of this -- Charles.

KRAUTHAMMER: Well our State Department spokesman is polite and I don't have to be. These men are fools. You go to Cuba at its point of maximum weakness. It's a regime held together by scotch tape and Castro's charisma and after a month or two it's going to be only scotch tape and we are going to go open a dialogue, open economic relations in a way to save a regime that is dying. The only two communist regimes on the planet are North Korea and Cuba.

Here's the situation where we have an opportunity to give Cuba back to its people. And this delegation can only encourage the old guard of Raul how's a killer like Fidel, to hang on.

And in Syria, as you said, here's a regime where our main weapon is to isolate it. Egypt has isolated it, the Saudis are isolating it, the Europeans are and we are, because they shoot and kill and murder people in Lebanon and they are orchestrating a slow motion coup in Beirut, as we speak, against a democratic government and you want to reward them with our presence and opening up our relations. It's ridiculous.

ANGLE: What do you make -- Mort.

KONDRACKE: No, I disagree with Charles. I'm -- they are horrible regimes, there's no question about it, and they deserve what they get. But isolating -- isolation is not the answer, and especially for members of Congress. Members of Congress are not American diplomats, not negotiating on behalf of the United States. They are there -- they ought to be there, anyway -- John Kerry says he is there on a fact-finding mission, but he's his mind up. I mean, but finding fact out is what members of Congress ought to do. You don't want -- just want the executive branch to be saying, this is our policy, this is what the American people shall know about a regime like that. Let them flood the place...

KRAUTHAMMER: What facts about Syria are not known? Tell me one fact that's not known about Syria?

KONDRACKE: I want lots of people to look into the eyes of Bashar Assad, size him up and come back and say he's a bad guy.

KRAUTHAMMER: Is that news for you?

BARNES: Well, we know that anyway.

KONDRACKE: Well, it's not news. The deeper the extent of information that there is in the Congress, the wiser that they're going to be on the basis of information, instead of taking from the State Department that they don't trust. They don't trust this administration.

BARNES: Mort, here is why they're fools. There's a whole history there with Syria. We know exactly -- you know, as Condi Rice had said to you, because you were in the room when I heard her say it, for years and years early in the Bush administration over the last -- not the last year or so -- there were all these meetings, there were contacts all the time with Syria. And you get the same thing you've gotten for years and years, and that is they want a lot, they want to give up nothing.

Remember they wanted to Golan Heights back from Israel? They never wanted to give up anything in return. That's the way they operate. And Cuba -- Charles is right. Here is the moment where the charismatic leader is dying, and he'll be gone in a month or two and his brother, equally doctrinarian in his communism, but not charismatic, the is the moment when the government could fall. And to bail them out with free food the commerce with the U.S. is preposterous.

KONDRACKE: Well, we're clearly not going to do that. The policy is not going to change...

BARNES: But to have members of Congress to come back, and you know it, advocating exactly that, left the embargo. Republicans and Democrats...

KONDRACKE: They can advocate all they want, but they will be informed about what's happening in Cuba and I think that's good.

ANGLE: Well, that is what they're doing, Charles, they're going down to try to -- they're calling for an end to the embargo.

KRAUTHAMMER: Yeah, they called for an end to the embargo in advance of the visit. And the of course, it will be a conclusion as well (INAUDIBLE). Look, if you want a fact, open a book, you don't go and honor a regime by having your presence.

KONDRACKE: Oh please. Fred's been there and...