MSNBC Hardball - Transcript

MSNBC Hardball - Transcript
Thursday, November 10, 2005

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MATTHEWS: Thank you, David Shuster.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, he's the Democratic whip. He's the No. 2 Democrat in this Senate. He's calling on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to subpoena Chalabi to testify about his involvement in prewar intelligence.

Senator Durbin, is he a bad guy?

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: He certainly is. We bank-rolled this bogus conman as he gave us just terrible information leading up to the invasion of Iraq. You can go through the litany, as your lead-in story did, of things that were just plain wrong.

He provided us with defectors who were totally unreliable, who gave us information which turned out to be totally false. Americans lives have been lost because of the advice that he gave us.

And May 20 of last year, the Iraqi security forces with the United States cooperation raided his home in Baghdad, taking out documents because they have charged him with the possible transfer of critical American security information to the Iranians.

Now this man is being treated like the toast of the town in Washington, D.C. This may be some neocon reunion, but I want to tell you something. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered about Ahmed Chalabi.

MATTHEWS: Well, maybe it should be a large jamboree than that. Let me ask you this. We were paying him, and you know this, $330,000 a month to give us intel that would argue the case for going into war.

Why wouldn't you and other Democrats know if you are going to pay a guy $300,000 a month to tell you what you want to hear, he is going to tell you he's got weapons of mass destruction, come on in?

DURBIN: He even bragged about it.

MATTHEWS: Well, why did Democrats vote for this authorization of war, based on a guy who had been bought to tell us what we wanted to hear? Why would anybody believe him in the first place?

DURBIN: Well, I don't know that we had a specific vote on it, Chris, to be honest with you. But remember, we are in the minority here.

Let me tell you, when this fellow was confronted with the fact that he had misled leaders in America and the people of America about WMD and all these other things, he kind of bragged about it, and said, well, we got to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish.

The American troops went into Iraq and removed Saddam Hussein, and that was my goal. And frankly, this is not the kind of man that we need to be working with.

Twice this week, the FBI has announced that he is under active investigation for selling or giving critical American secrets to the Iranians that could have endangered our troops and our international security. Why in the world is this man being hosted for lunch with cabinet officials in Washington?

MATTHEWS: What is the relationship between the president and the Senate, Dick Cheney and Ahmed Chalabi? What is their relationship? Because he always sees them when he comes here.

DURBIN: Because throughout this whole invasion of Iraq, there has been one last stop before it went to the president, the American people, it was the desk of Dick Cheney. He was leading up, what Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkerson has now called this cabal with Secretary Rumsfeld, cooking up some stories about why we couldn't wait to invade Iraq. And so it's understandable why Ahmed Chalabi would be one of his close advisers.

MATTHEWS: Did you see me ask the Secretary of defense why he is one of your employees, because the Pentagon paid him $330,000 a month. He laughed at the idea he was employee. I mean, most would like to make $330,000 a month from somebody, who then disdains the fact that by saying, oh, that's something Congress did for this guy. Do you accept responsibility as a senator for having hired Ahmed Chalabi?

DURBIN: I can tell you, I am embarrassed by it. I don't know that we had a direct—we never had a direct vote on the question. But we were still bank-rolling this man after the invasion of Iraq when it was clear that he told us a pack of lies about WMD, about the threat, we were going to be welcomed as liberators. We still continued to bank-roll him.

I am sitting on the Intelligence Committee, where I can't speak publicly about what we are talking about. But I can tell you there was a lot of consternation in that room.

MATTHEWS: What do you think of Steve Hadley who said today, the national security adviser to the president—the Democrats as well as the Republicans bought the intel?

DURBIN: Let me tell you, a lot of us didn't. I voted no. And I think a lot of us who heard some of these intelligence analyses in the Senate Intelligence Committee couldn't believe what the American people were being told. That's why we called for a closed session last week in the Senate. The Democrats stood their ground and said we are going to finally have an investigation and get to the bottom of this.

MATTHEWS: Scooter Libby may be headed to jail. Do you think Ahmed Chalabi should be in jail?

DURBIN: Well, at the least, he should be interviewed. For goodness's sakes, here's this guy, a year-and-a-half after his home was raided by sources concerned about whether he had sold American secrets, comes around here and does this victory lap in Washington, D.C. And I guess as I said earlier, his motorcade had to speed up past the Department of Justice. I mean, why didn't they bring this man in for at least some interviews and questions to find out what he did?

MATTHEWS: We will continue to ask that question. Thank you very much, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10003305/