CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports - Transcript

CNN

SHOW: CNN WOLF BLITZER REPORTS 17:00

HEADLINE: Army Arrests Another Member Suspected Of Espionage; Air Force Academy Cadet Attacked, Attacker Discharged Honorably; Women Accuse Wal-Mart Of Sexual Discrimination In Lawsuit

GUESTS: John Ferrugia, Ibrahim Hooper, Sen. Charles Schumer

BYLINE: Wolf Blizter, Steve Overmyer, Elizabeth Cohen, Jamie McIntyre, Jen Rogers, Bob Franken, Harris Whitbeck

HIGHLIGHT:
The military facing new heat, as it searches for suspected al Qaeda spies. Academy angst: a former Air Force cadet remembers the night she became a victim. Taking on Wal-Mart. Seven women looking for payday. Could millions more collect?

BODY:
BLITZER: CNN's Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Jamie, thanks very much.

Painful, baffling and outrageous. Those are some of the words he's using to describe the apparent security breaches at Guantanamo. Senator Charles Schumer is looking for answers. But he also has questions about the vetting of one of the suspects, a Muslim army chaplain.

Senator Schumer is joining us now live from Capitol Hill.

Senator, what's your biggest problem, your biggest concern right now?

SCHUMER: Well, my biggest concern is, obviously, the big picture, security at this base. Obviously, this is one of our most sensitive bases, having hundreds of, potentially, al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. And in two instances, it looks like that security was breached, whether a criminal law was broken or not. And how did that happen?

My second concern is the way we have chosen chaplains in the Army as well as in the prisons, although that's a separate issue. There is one group, the Wahabi group, that's an extreme, violent, professing form of Islam, not like the rest of Islam, which is a peaceful religion. And they seem to have a stranglehold on who becomes a chaplain in the Army.

BLITZER: Are -- are you referring, Senator, to the group called the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council? Is that what you're referring to?

SCHUMER: I am.

BLITZER: And -- but they just certify these chaplain. They don't necessarily train them.

SCHUMER: Well, there's training that goes on by a few of the other groups as well. And there is training. They have trained some of these chaplains.

They don't train them in terms of the Army procedures and stuff, but they do give them some kinds of training and indoctrination, et cetera. But they shouldn't be choosing them.

BLITZER: But is there any difference between Muslim chaplains are chosen by the U.S. military as opposed to Christian chaplains or Jewish chaplains?

SCHUMER: Well, the bottom line is, if you had one only group of Christians -- say, it was a very, very dogmatic group of Christians or a dogmatic group of Jews and the rest, the 99 percent of Christians and Jews who are part of mainstream did not get their chaplains.

That's the problem here. One is pluralism -- that there are many, many Muslim men and women in the Army who are Sunni or Shia and they don't want a Wahabi chaplain.

But the second, the Wahabi group, has tended to profess violence. Many of the chaplains who were chosen, not only in the Army but in the prisons, state and local, have professed admiration for the hijackers. This is -- this shouldn't be. And you don't have a right -- you have a right to say what you think in America. You don't have a right to be chosen a chaplain.

BLITZER: We -- we're going to be speaking later this hour with a representative of an American Muslim group. But some have already complained about an anti-Muslim hysteria that's developing that people are jumping to conclusions before anyone -- any of the evidence really has been seen by anyone.

SCHUMER: The two groups that choose chaplains in the Army are both under investigation for terrorism. They have met a probable cause standard. That -- to say that that defames Muslim to defame Muslims and Islam itself, because the vast majority, overwhelming majority of Muslims in America are peaceful and pro-American. And these small groups have sort of been hijacked to an extreme position. They do not represent Muslims in America. But they do represent a danger to America, as we have seen.

BLITZER: So are you satisfied now, Senator, that the Pentagon is doing everything they should be doing, the FBI,...

SCHUMER: No.

BLITZER: ..the Justice Department, to make sure if there is a problem, it's being resolved?

SCHUMER: I do not.

You know, I wrote them six months ago, before any of this came about, about these groups. As of two days ago, they said they did nothing. Now, they say they're looking into it with these recent revelations.

But I think, over all, when it comes to security, the Army has been far too lax. How is it that the kind of background checks that we should be doing for anyone to set foot in Guantanamo hasn't done. How is it that even if the criminal standard isn't met -- because, at this point, there are allegations -- did we find such security breaches? I think the Army has a long way to go in terms of tightening up security at Guantanamo, and probably, although I don't know this for a fact, but it's logical at other sensitive bases at well.

BLITZER: Senator Charles Schumer, thanks very much for joining us.