CNN Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics - Transcript

CNN

SHOW: JUDY WOODRUFF'S INSIDE POLITICS 15:30

HEADLINE: Antonio Taguba Testifies Before Senate Armed Services Committee; Interview With Senator John Cornyn, Senator Mark Pryor; Campaign Themes: Kerry's Challenge

GUESTS: John Cornyn, Mark Pryor, Jennifer Senior

BYLINE: Judy Woodruff, Ed Henry, William Schneider, Chris Lawrence, Jeff Greenfield, Dana Bash, Ron Brownstein, Bruce Morton, Carlos Watson

HIGHLIGHT:
Antonio Taguba testified about his findings on Capitol Hill today, even as the investigation and the political fallout intensify.; Interview with Senator John Cornyn, Senator Mark Pryor.; Critics say the Kerry campaign needs a defining theme.; John Ramsey, the father of the slain child beauty queen, JonBenet Ramsey, is expected to announce later today that he is running for the Michigan State legislature.; Interview with Jennifer Senior.

BODY:
WOODRUFF: Well, during a break in the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings today, I spoke with two panel members, Republican John Cornyn of Texas and Democrat Mark Pryor of Arkansas. I began by asking Senator Cornyn if he's any closer of having a clear understanding about who is responsible for the prisoner abuse.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. JOHN CORNYN ®, TEXAS: Well, General Taguba, who did an outstanding job of investigating this matter from the beginning of the allegations last January, said that there is no policy, there is no procedure, no orders were given to treat these prisoners in this way. And it seem to be, at least what we know now, confined to a relatively small group of people who acted badly.

WOODRUFF: So, Senator Prior, is that pretty much the end of it, just confined to these MPs?

SEN. MARK PRYOR (D), ARKANSAS: I don't think that's the end of it. I think that Taguba did a very good job in committee today. I think he laid out about his investigation a lot of the facts, a lot of the details that, you know, most people did not fully understand until today. But I think that, you know, we will continue to look at this, as we should.

Chain of command issue here. I think one thing he said is there's very little training, very little or no supervision with some of these MPs. And, you know, you just have to look at the system that we have in place, whether it's working, whether folks in and around the facility knew better and knew what was going on, and should have stopped it if they could have.

WOODRUFF: And what about, Senator Cornyn, the role of military intelligence? There seemed to be some difference of opinion between General Taguba and the Secretary Cambone of the Pentagon over whether military intelligence was running this prison and had some authority or whether it was just the chain of command of the military police.

CORNYN: Well, you put your finger on one of the real problems, and that was that the head of military intelligence and the head of the military police apparently were in disagreement about what the chain of command should be, thus leading to a leadership void which went all of the way down to the troops who were actually guarding the prisoners. And that was one of the problems that has led to the disciplinary action that's now been taken against seven of the supervising officers, in addition to the criminal charges that have now been brought against seven of the soldiers.

WOODRUFF: Senator Pryor, we heard one of your colleagues on the committee, Senator Inhofe, say today that he's more outraged by the outrage over all this than he is by the abuse of these prisoners. How did you react to that?

PRYOR: Well, you know, I have a lot of respect for Jim Inhofe. He's a fighter, he's a true conservative senator from Oklahoma. We all know him and respect him quite a bit.

But I think there is justifiably a lot of American outrage about this. And this is something that reflects poorly on America, whether it was an isolated incident with a few MPs or whether it was more systemic.

You know, the American Red Cross had repeatedly contacted the Pentagon and others about the problems in that prison, and apparently those fell on deaf ears. So, nonetheless, the American public is outraged. I think the outrage is justifiable, and I think they expect the president and the Congress to act swiftly and act decisively on this issue.

WOODRUFF: Well, in that connection, Senator Cornyn, the Red Cross at one point has said that they think most of the prisoners or many of the prisoners who were arrested were there for mistaken charges, that they had not committed grievous-or egregious offenses. But then you had your colleague, Senator Inhofe, today saying most of them were murderers or rapists. Which is it?

CORNYN: Well, this is a war zone. Obviously, we know that there was a mixed bag in terms of the people who were there. Some of them were criminals who were arrested for committing crimes against other Iraqis. Some were security detainees. And others were people who were enemy combatants.

But regardless of the category, General Taguba made clear that there is no policy, no procedure, no order in place to treat these people in a less than humane way. That's not the American way, and that's why we're taking this so seriously. And we must follow it wherever it leads.

WOODRUFF: So you don't agree with Senator Inhofe that the outrage that's here-he's more outraged over the outrage than...

CORNYN: Well, I think the context-we have to put this in context. I understand what I think he is saying, and that is, look, these are people who were trying to kill our soldiers. And let's stop, perhaps, terrorists who will commit another 9/11. And in that sense, I want to make sure we do everything consistent with humane treatment of prisoners to get information out of them to make America safer.

WOODRUFF: Senator Pryor, is, in effect-I'm sorry-Secretary Rumsfeld now off the hook?

PRYOR: Well, I don't know. I mean, you know, that's really a decision for the president. You know, everybody loves to talk about that and loves to speculate about that, but ultimately that's President George W. Bush's call.

He's the commander in chief. He's the one that appointed the secretary of defense. And the secretary of defense serves at his will and his pleasure. So that's really up to him.

But one thing I would like to say about what Senator Cornyn just said is that it is true that some of these inmates were combatants and all this, but it's very possible, according to some other reports, that many inmates in this prison were there mistakenly or they were there being held without charge. And it really is, as he said, a mixed bag. We're not exactly-as we stand here today, we're not exactly 100 percent sure who all was in the prison and why they were there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Senator Mark Pryor, Senator John Cornyn talking with me just a short time ago about the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings. We're going to have more on the prisoner abuse scandal later, including a report on they way the White House response has evolved.