Fox News Hannity and Colmes -Transcript

Fox News Network

SHOW: FOX HANNITY & COLMES (21:39)

April 12, 2004 Monday

HEADLINE: Did White House Know about 9/11?

GUESTS: Jerrold Nadler

BYLINE: Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes

BODY:

HANNITY: Coming up tonight, are we calling U.S. troops in Iraq heroes just to keep them fighting for us? We'll tell you about Andy Rooney's latest rant.

First, President Bush says there's no specific warnings of an imminent attack in the August 6 memo. Do the Democrats agree?

Joining us is Jerrold Nadler.

Five weeks, I really resent how people on your side have politicized this war. And here is a document, five weeks before the attack. What do they want: to close down the airports? Do they want to profile, you know, different men from different countries? What could the president have done differently, in your view?

JERROLD NADLER, NEW YORK: What the president could have done exactly what President Clinton did many 1999, when they had similar warnings. And this is what Richard Clarke pointed out.

HANNITY: Richard Clarke, by the way, frankly, has contradicted himself. He's a known liar, as far as I'm concerned.

NADLER: No, I disagree with that.

HANNITY: Yes.

NADLER: But that's a different discussion. I think everything he's said has been borne out so far. But forgetting that...

HANNITY: He's contradicted himself but go ahead.

NADLER: Forgetting what he is or not, he pointed out something that is undeniable. What President Clinton did, what President Bush didn't do and there's no question that President Clinton did it and President Bush didn't do it.

What President Clinton did, after they got similar warnings was, in 1999, was he directed the national security advisor to conduct a daily meeting of all the principals. The FBI, attorney general, et cetera, et cetera, as Clarke put it, shake the tree and when you have those daily meetings, you know you'll be meeting with the national security adviser at 8 tomorrow morning, you say to your people down below, what do we know? What can we find out? And maybe we would have prevented this. Maybe he would-We'll never know.

HANNITY: Here's a problem I have when you quote Richard Clarke. Richard Clarke is now saying George W. Bush did virtually nothing, quote, "He ignored the threats." but Richard Clarke himself, as we have pointed out here, we have a tape of him saying how the president added to the Clinton strategy, increased CIA resources, fivefold, for culvert operations to go after al Qaeda.

And he said he changed the situation of roll back with al Qaeda over the course of five years under Clinton which had been to a new strategy calling for the rapid elimination.

Here's my point. You cannot quote a man that says it one way one day and another way another day. The man has no credibility. None.

NADLER: This discussion is not about the credibility.

HANNITY: You just quoted him.

NADLER: Yes. But what I quoted him is not disputed. I didn't quote him on things that are disputed. No one denies what President Clinton did what he said he did and no one denies...

HANNITY: I do.

NADLER: You deny that he didn't call those daily meetings?

HANNITY: I'm saying that...

NADLER: All I'm quoting him is to one effect. I shouldn't have quoted him because you're going off on a red herring. The only thing is, there are facts.

HANNITY: The...

NADLER: The fact is. Wait a minute. President Clinton insisted in response to certain threats that those actions be taken. President Bush didn't.

COLMES: Here's-they make this personal. They want to attack the messenger if they hear a message they don't like. And here's what happens here.

The president said, and I just played what he said at the briefing yesterday, there's no information about a time and place. They mention federal buildings in New York. They mention-you're not-it won't even time, place, date and tell you how to get there and give you a subway token.

But the idea that, in that memo, it was mentioned federal buildings in New York, it was mentioned sites of Washington, and I think...

NADLER: I think the fairest thing to say if that the Bush administration, in the months leading up to 9/11 was much more interesting-and you can see this from what they were talking about, and the fact that there were 33 meetings of the security council and what they were talking about.

They're much more interested in missile defense and Iraq and state- sponsored terrorism, and much less in al Qaeda and in the possibility of non-state sponsored terrorism in the United States. They just didn't take it seriously.

COLMES: I have a hunch that if Bill Clinton were president and this kind of memo were released, and it had this kind of information about it, the people who are now defending this president and blasting Clinton for what he didn't do would accuse and really go after Bill Clinton if he were president, and the polarities were reversed here.

NADLER: I don't doubt it. I would also point out that when Bill Clinton did what many of his critics now say was ineffective, was when he launched Cruise missiles at bin Laden in Sudan, what did most of the public-I shouldn't say most-many or most of the Republicans say? This is wag the dog. This is just to take attention away...

COLMES: ... by the way, there was a report...

NADLER: There was no evidence-it happened at about the same time.

COLMES: By the way, there was a report in "Newsday"...

NADLER: It was reported then. It happened at about the same time.

COLMES: Reported in "Newsday" on Friday, disputing the 70 separate investigations of al Qaeda cells, saying only-the FBI is saying only some...

HANNITY: We're out of time. Real quick. Ten seconds.

NADLER: But the fact is, they clearly didn't take a lot of things that could have been taken, should have been taken. They might have.

HANNITY: But the Sudan offered Clinton Osama four times, and he past. Four, four, four. That's all we have to say.

NADLER: But we're talking about Bush, not Clinton at this point.

HANNITY: Well, we should be talk about missing that, if we care about what happened and what led up to it.

That's all the time we have with the congressman. Thank you for being with us.

And coming up next, Andy Rooney says that we shouldn't idolize our troops in Iraq and also suggests that our troops are not heroes. Really? We'll continue straight ahead.