CBS Face the Nation - Transcript

CBS Face the Nation - Transcript

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Senator CHARLES SCHUMER (Democrat, New York): Good morning.

SCHIEFFER: ...I want to go back to the top of that interview. Do you agree with Senator Jay Rockefeller, your Democratic colleague, that perhaps we would be better off if Saddam Hussein were still there, because that would mean we
wouldn't have spent these billions of dollars? Or do you come down on the side of Secretary Rice who says no way are we better off if Saddam Hussein were still there?

Sen. SCHUMER: Well, somewhere in the middle. I do agree that we're better off without Saddam Hussein. It was a good thing to get rid of him. He was a brutal dictator. He gassed Kurds and everything else. But the problem is that once Saddam was gone, this administration had no plan as to what to do next. And right now we're in a quagmire in Iraq because we--it seems to be devolving into a civil war. We're policing the civil war. You never heard a plan of what was going to be put in place once Saddam left and how we were going to protect ourselves, guard the Iraqi people in the right way. And so that's the problem here. It's not getting rid of Saddam Hussein, it's that there was never a plan after he left.

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me ask you what--about what Vice President Cheney said this morning, because you have certainly stated some of the things that the administration disagrees with. The vice president said the debate going on in
this country just validates the terrorist strategy that we have no stomach for this long fight with terrorists. I mean, he says our doubts encourage the terrorists.

Sen. SCHUMER: Well, let me say this. Secretary Cheney represents what's wrong with this administration policy, because we can be both strong and smart. We've seen a lot of strength from this administration, no doubt about it, but we certainly haven't seen enough smarts. And that's why the things in Iraq are getting worse. Iraq is probably more of a danger now than it was a
few years ago. We seem to be policing a civil war where the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds just hate one another. And we need smarts. Now, we Democrats have proposed an alternative. We've proposed a year of transition where we focus on--where we redeploy our troops and focus only on four things. Not policing a civil war, but counterterrorism, force protection, training and logistics. It's a much better plan. We're just as strong and just as tough against terrorism as Vice President Cheney, but I think we'll be a lot smarter about it.

SCHIEFFER: All right, well, let's talk about here at home. You're at ground zero where this horrible thing happened.

Sen. SCHUMER: Yes.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think we are safer today than we were in those days, senator?

Sen. SCHUMER: Well, let me say this, and first I want to mention here at ground zero, every time you peer into the hole there, you think of those who were lost. It was just such a terrible tragedy. And you know, for many, maybe it's five years away. But for those who lost loved ones, it's just like yesterday. For many of us in New York, it's just like yesterday.

Now, are we safer? We have made some progress in homeland security, there's no doubt about it, but not close to enough. The Homeland Security Department has been a mess. And when you can say five years after ground zero we only
inspect 5 percent of the containers that come on board, when we have no detection devices to guard against nuclear weapons being smuggled into the country or somebody bringing explosives into a railroad station or an athletics event, when our police and fire still can't talk to one another on their radios, something is wrong. And the Department of Homeland Security has been plagued, plagued by under-funding, plagued by a lack of focus and sometimes plagued by politics. When it comes to the defense in the war on terror, on homeland security, this administration has talked the talk, but they have not walked the walk.

SCHIEFFER: Well, what about this whole idea of the Department of Homeland Security? On the whole, this is a massive bureaucracy, there's no question about that. But some people say maybe we ought to re-think the whole thing, maybe this wasn't the best idea after all. What do you think needs to be done about the Department of Homeland Security right now?

Sen. SCHUMER: Yeah. I think we ought to seriously think about breaking it up, because the Department of Homeland Security is a huge bureaucracy, doesn't seem to have much focus and it was sort of put together very quickly after the
9/11 Commission began, almost as a defensive reaction. It hasn't worked, and we ought to look at something new. Senator Byrd on the floor of the Senate before Homeland Security was put together said. `Let me quote a senator,' he said, `"When you don't have a real plan, reorganize."' He said that senator was senator--I forgot his name--like Brutus on the floor of the Roman Senate in 40 AD. I think he was very accurate.

SCHIEFFER: And how about this whole idea of the president now coming to the Congress and asking for some new legislation to create a system of justice whereby these 9/11 people, the worst of the worst--and I mean, I don't think there's any question about that--can be brought to some kind of justice. Is the Congress going to go along with that, senator?

Sen. SCHUMER: Yeah. Well, here's what's happening. You know, we want to give the president, Democrats and Republicans, every tool he needs to keep us safe. We want to give this president that tool, we want to give every
president in the future that tool. But you can do it consonant with the rule of law. The administration, again, is a little bit like a bull in a china shop, they don't obey the rule of law and now the Supreme Court, hardly a liberal organization, has thrown out their process for detainees, and we're worse off than we were had they gone to Congress originally. And we would
have given them what they needed, but we would have done it consonant with the rule of law.

The good news here, Bob, is that three leaders in the Senate--all Republicans who have military experience, Senator McCain, Senator Graham and Senator Warner--are trying to put together just the kind of plan that I was mentioning, something that protects us but is consonant with the rule of law.

SCHIEFFER: All right.

Sen. SCHUMER: And we're hopeful that they'll come to an agreement with the administration, and it is the intent of Democrats to follow their lead on this.

SCHIEFFER: Senator, thank you so much.

Sen. SCHUMER: Thank you, Bob.

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