Fox News - Transcript: Senator McConnell Is Interviewed On Fox News

Fox News - Transcript: Senator McConnell Is Interviewed On Fox News

Transcript: Senator McConnell Is Interviewed On Fox News - September 25, 2006

E.D. HILL, FOX ANCHOR: To the war on terror, President Bush says, you're safer, but you're not yet safe. So what about this new intelligence report, because it claims the terror threat has grown since 9/11 and that the war in Iraq has spawned a new generation of radical Islamic terrorists?

Well, Democrats say, aha, proof the war in Iraq is misguided.

Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell joins us now from Washington.

Good morning. Good to have you with us.

MAJORITY WHIP McCONNELL: Good morning, E.D. First, let me say I missed you this morning on "Fox & Friends." There I was on treadmill, and you were not there.

HILL: Well, that's because I wanted to save you for this new show. Thank you for being with me.

McCONNELL: Glad to be here.

HILL: Listen, have you gotten a chance to read this entire report? In fact, has anyone in Congress gotten to see the whole report?

McCONNELL: It's a classified document, E.D. It was apparently done last April and just now, in election season, leaked in part. And as Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, pointed out yesterday, only part of it was leaked. And he indicated that the conclusion of the NIE, the national intelligence estimate, was that actually the war in Iraq, if we were to pull out prematurely would do exactly what the president has been saying, which is bring the terrorists here to our shores again. They've not been here since 9/11. Obviously, we've been doing it the right way by staying on offense and going after these guys in Afghanistan and Iraq.

HILL: But what some say -- and it's not disputed by the people that have gotten a glimpse of some parts of it, is that it has had the effect of emboldening some terrorist organizations. Yes, they didn't need an excuse to attack us on 9/11 or before that, but this makes it even easier to recruit. Do you think that's valid?

McCONNELL: Well, they were pretty bold before. They tried to blow up the World Trade Center in '93. They blew up our embassies in East Africa in the mid-'90s, blew a big hole out of the USS Cole and killed 17 sailors in 2000, before the 9/11 attack. They were pretty bold. They were running Afghanistan. They were running an entire country before 9/11, had free rein in the entire country of Afghanistan. We've pushed them back now. Are they out there? Yes. But they were out there before we went on offense in Afghanistan and Iraq.

HILL: We know, though, that in Afghanistan the Taliban has made somewhat of a resurgence. I know that the president will be meeting with both the heads of Afghanistan and Pakistan later this week. But what are some of the options that are being looked at? How do we deal with that, if the way we've been using isn't necessarily working?

McCONNELL: I think the way we're doing it is working. And the best evidence of that, E.D., is that a lot of them are in jail. A lot of them are dead. A lot of them are hiding in their caves. And a lot of the others are on the run or doing their mischief in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, rather than Washington or New York.

HILL: That's true, but they came back in Afghanistan after we thought we had gotten them out of areas.

McCONNELL: I don't think we ever thought we'd completely eliminated them. There are a lot of them. It's a problem. You know, laying down and pulling out and running back home is not going to solve the problem. We have to engage these people. They hate us not because of the fact that we're standing up to them. They hated us before we stood up to them. The only difference is, now that we've stood up to them and taken the fight to them, we've been safer here at home.

HILL: So you think that regardless of whether we were in Afghanistan or in Iraq, their focus on attacking us wouldn't be any different?

McCONNELL: No. They hated us. They hated Israel and hated people that were not in their orbit, even including the moderate Arab regimes in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Jordan before 9/11.

HILL: OK. Well, thank you very much for joining us. And it's good to have you on the show.

McCONNELL: Thank you, E.D.

http://mcconnell.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=263711&start=1