Fox News Hannity and Colmes-Transcript

Fox News May 12, 2004
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SHOW: FOX HANNITY & COLMES (21:30)

May 12, 2004 Wednesday

SECTION: News; International

HEADLINE: Congressman Discusses Abuse Scandal

GUESTS: Adam Schiff

BYLINE: Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes

BODY:

COLMES: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I'm Alan Colmes.

Coming up, in his new book, Bill Sammon says that President Bush is going to make John Kerry regret something he about Iraq. We'll find out what the Senator said that got under the president's skin.

And then, at the outspoken Teresa Heinz Kerry de first, members of Congress saw hundreds of photos from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. And reaction was strong from both parties.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL NELSON (D), FLORIDA: What I have seen is disgusting, and it is disappointing.

SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), MAJORITY LEADER: We left the observation period with is a sick feeling, appalling in what we saw, a range of photographs that reinforced abuse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLMES: Joining us now is California Democratic Congressman Alan Schiff, who also viewed the pictures today.

Congressman, good to see you again. Thanks for being with us...

REP. ALAN SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Good to see you too.

COLMES: I saw them and I couldn't decide if I wanted to see them. It was so gruesome, and it changes you when you see it.

SCHIFF: Well, it does. The images are extremely disturbing. The photographs contain much of the same that's already been made public and then much which is worse than what the public has seen.

Enormously troubling. It does show, I think, a lack-a demonstration of some sophistication about what would be most humiliating to the detainees, which leads me to believe that it wasn't the sole acts of some of the M.P.'s that are pictured in the photographs, but very disturbing and obviously going to create even more reaction around the world, something that we need to investigate completely and look at how high in the chain of command responsibility lies for these acts.

But a very kind of dark and disturbing day at the capitol.

COLMES: Do you believe in full disclosure and should everything that you have seen be made public?

SCHIFF: You know, I'm not advocating the wholesale disclosure of all of the images and the footage. My thoughts, first and foremost right now are with the troops that are still over there in harm's way, and I don't want to add to their peril.

We've already, I think, endangered them by the acts that were committed at Abu Ghraib. We've made our mission that much more difficult and given a broader base to the insurgency than it had before the publication of these images.

I think we should be free to discuss more of the contents of what's in the images, but I also have a concern that the publication of these images is a further humiliation of these detainees and may arguably be a Geneva Convention violation of itself, to expose three detainees to further humiliation.

But we do need a full public airing of what is exhibited in the photographs, and there should be no concealment or even suspicion of concealment as far as getting all the facts out about what they display.

COLMES: Are you satisfied with the Cooperation of the administration in terms of participation in the hearings and the candor that they've expressed in these hearings?

SCHIFF: Well, I'm satisfied so for that we're beginning the process, as Congress has to do a thorough job. We can't simply delegate to the military to investigate themselves.

But we're getting conflicting information about how the prisoners were treated and, indeed, what level of treatment is permissible.

And I think one of the senators had pointed out very graphically when there was this division of opinion in the testimony in the Senate, that if the leadership itself can't decide how these detainees are to be treated, how are the guardsmen and reservists and others able to make that determination.

HANNITY: You saw these photos today, Congressman. Are they in any way comparable to the decapitation video of Mr. Berg? Are they in any way comparable to the dragging and the hanging from the bridge of these other people or is there a real difference between mistreatment and atrocity?

SCHIFF: There's no comparability whatsoever to the-I think you used the term medieval, to describe the beheading and it was medieval and, no, it's a wholly different level of ballgame but it didn't negate to need for a full investigation.

HANNITY: I'm on record saying I'm appalled. But I think what has been missing here is the context, and that is, we're talking at least now about a dozen people maybe and we're talking now-and once the army-once the armed services found out about it, immediately they dealt with it-immediately. No hiding. No covering up. Seems like from day one, they launched an investigation and got people off their posts and I think they did the right thing.

What bothers me is there's no context. A hundred and fifty thousand guys do a great job, a dozen do not and we want-you know, we want to blame or besmirch the good work of others and then we have people like John Kerry who is using it for a fundraiser and saying that the abuse stemmed from the arrogance of the president.

HANNITY: Isn't that wrong? Isn't that wrong to do that?

SCHIFF: Getting back to the context, Sean, I agree, many of the nations in the Arab world that are condemning the conduct exhibited in the photographs and it should be condemned, have treatment of detainees their own countries far worse than anything we have seen in these photographs, so the context is important. But nonetheless, these actions endanger our troops.

HANNITY: Is it wrong for John Kerry to use it in a fundraiser and say that this stems from the arrogance of the president? Is that wrong?

SCHIFF: You know, I've seen the image of the web site that has been attacked in terms of the Kerry campaign. I don't think that can be characterized as using this for solicitation.

HANNITY: Oh, I do.

SCHIFF: Any more or any less than you would make the same characterization of the president's web site and the use of for donor information click here, when describing the events of September 11.

And it's hard for me to see how you can defend the one and attack the other.

COLMES: Or using images of 9/11 in commercials. Thank you very much, Congressman, for being with us.

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