CNN Late Edition - Transcript

CNN "Late Edition" Transcript: Senators Mitch McConnell And Joe Lieberman Discuss The War On Terror And The Presidential Race

from the Office of Senator Mitch McConnell

Sunday, August 1, 2004
WOLF BLITZER: Welcome back to "LATE EDITION."

Joining us now to talk about the race for the White House and more, two leading members of the United States Senate: In his home state of Kentucky, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, Mitch McConnell. Here in Washington, Connecticut Senator and former Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman.

Senators, welcome back to "LATE EDITION."

Senator McConnell, I'll begin with what Senator Kerry just said on this program. He promised that if he doesn't reduce significantly the number of U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of his first term, if elected of course, he would consider it to be a failure.

Do you think he's got the wherewithal to get that mission accomplished?

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL ®, KENTUCKY: I think President Bush certainly would reduce the number of troops in the next term.

The key to additional troops in Iraq, of course, is Iraqi troops. And that's why the administration sent General Petraeus over there, one of our very best generals, to help train the Iraqi military to bring them up to speed, because, after all, in the end, it's their country.

They have a new government now. They're going to have elections in January. And that's where the new troops need to come from, from Iraq, not from the U.S.

BLITZER: Well, what Senator Kerry says though is he, starting fresh, can bring international support, the traditional allies, Germany, France, other NATO allies, on board in a way that this president, who supposedly has so alienated those allies, would never be able to do.

MCCONNELL: Wolf, the problem is, Kerry wants to out source our foreign policy to Paris and Berlin. The president had significant international support. He had a majority of the NATO countries supporting him. There are a lot of NATO countries in Iraq now. There was always widespread support for what we were doing.

We did not have support for that in Paris and in Berlin. I, frankly, don't think that the people in France and Germany ought to be entrusted with our national security. And that's the fundamental difference here between Senator Kerry and President Bush.

BLITZER: Is that the fundamental difference, Senator Lieberman?

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I thought one of the strong lines in John Kerry's speech on Thursday night was where he said that he's not going to give any other country or institution-I assumed he meant the United Nations-a veto over decisions that he would make to protect our security.

Wolf, I was in Iraq about, oh, three or four weeks ago. I met with General Petraeus. Mitch McConnell is right. This is a great American general who has one of the most critical assignments right now, and that is to train the Iraqi army and security forces.

He's making great progress at that. And I'm not one who wants to make any predictions, but if the work that General Petraeus is doing and the Iraqi military comes along as well as it appears to be now, I think we may be in a position to cut back on the number of American troops there next year.

BLITZER: But why do you think that John Kerry would be able to get the job done in Iraq better than President Bush?

LIEBERMAN: Look, for me, I mean-I'm supporting John Kerry for a lot of reasons. I think he'd conduct a more effective foreign policy overall, and, of course, I strongly support Senator Kerry's positions on health-care reform for Americans, job protection, retirement security and environmental protection.

BLITZER: So Iraq is not necessarily one of the issues?

LIEBERMAN: I think that-and, for me, this is encouraging news. I know that Kerry and Edwards have disagreed at different times with President Bush on how he's carried out the war, but I think now everybody's in pretty much the same position.

And, to me, that's encouraging. Let's finish the job. We've got to finish the job. We cannot precipitously withdraw.

BLITZER: Well, Senator McConnell, you've heard Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards say they want to get the job done. They don't want to cut and run.

What is the major difference, as far as you can tell, in the strategy right now between the Democratic ticket and the Republican ticket, as far as Iraq is concerned?

MCCONNELL: Well, look, Kerry and Edwards are trying to narrow the differences, but what they should have been doing is following Joe Lieberman's lead. Joe Lieberman voted for the war resolution. He voted for the money to support the troops while they're in Iraq, has consistently supported the president on the war. And I wish Kerry and Edwards had done that when it counted earlier.

Now they're trying to narrow the differences because they understand-they won't say this, but they understand the president has been on the right track here all along, that what's happened in the war on terror is that we've liberated 50 million people over the last two-and-a-half years, we have new constitutions in both Afghanistan and Iraq on the way, new elections in both Afghanistan and Iraq on the way, little girls back in school in Afghanistan after six years of having to stay home.

BLITZER: All right.

MCCONNELL: And most importantly, Wolf, who would have predicted on September 12, 2001, that we wouldn't be attacked again here at home by now? That's a success story.

BLITZER: All right. I want, Senator Lieberman, your reaction, the Republicans making a big deal out of the fact that Edwards and Kerry voted against the $87 billion funding, including support for the troops, body armor and medical equipment and all sorts of other equipment needed by the troops. They're making a big deal out of this.

You voted in favor of that $87 billion. Did your two Democratic colleagues make a mistake?

LIEBERMAN: Wolf, I voted in favor of it. I thought it was the right vote. They've explained, just a few moments ago on your show, why they cast that vote.

Again, I want to come back to this, and I've been appealing to people to focus on today and tomorrow. What's your policy in Iraq today and tomorrow? And I don't see much difference between President Bush's policies and Senator Kerry's policies or intentions to carry out policies in Iraq. They both understand we've got to finish the job. They both understand it's critically important to stability in the Middle East. And, look, we got rid of murderous tyrannies in Afghanistan and in Iraq, that people have a real chance in both of those countries to governor themselves.

BLITZER: All right. Senators, I want both of you to stand by for a moment. We're getting some breaking news information.

CNN has now learned that the secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, is about to announce that the nation will go to a higher level of security, actually that Washington, D.C., will go to a higher level, not the nation as a whole, will move from the yellow or elevated level to high, the orange level.

Washington, D.C. will go to a higher level of security, the nation's capital, not the entire country. New York City has always been, since 9/11, at that orange or high level of security. New York City will remain at orange or high.

Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, will go to a higher level, from yellow to orange, presumably because of some specific intelligence information generating that kind of information.

Senator McConnell, I want your immediate reaction. New York City remaining at this high level of orange, but the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., going from yellow to orange, from elevated to high.

MCCONNELL: Not surprising. We know the terrorists want to hit us again. Everyone is aware that Washington and New York seem to be the most desirable targets, from their point of view. There's nothing they would like to do more than to strike in the United States again, particularly before the election.

BLITZER: What do you make of this decision?

And we're going to be hearing directly, by the way, from Secretary Ridge at 2 p.m. eastern, a little bit more than an hour from now. He'll be holding a news conference over at the Department of Homeland Security here in Washington.

LIEBERMAN: The change in the color and the security status is just a formal recognition of what our intelligence has been telling us for a while, and it's been announced to the public within the last couple of weeks. This is not chatter, in the sense of just idle conversation. This is some real intelligence. It's not specific as to the target, but it's been clear.

And it reminds us that we're in a war. And thank God that we have not been hit since September 11th, but let's never forget that al Qaeda went after the World Trade Center with a truck bomb in 1993 and eight years later came back and hit it with the planes. And I'm very mindful that one of the other targets that they did not hit on September 11th was either the Capitol or the White House.

And we've got to raise our guard. And it's why, even in this political season, we ought to be pulling together in destroying al Qaeda and reaching out to the Islamic world and in finishing the war in Iraq against terrorists as quickly as we can.

BLITZER: We know, Senator McConnell, that New York City has been on this heightened level, this orange level, since 9/11. But this, I believe, is the first time that the federal government is asking another city, namely Washington, D.C., a regional higher state of alert, as opposed to a nationwide increase in the terror threat level.

Is this a good idea, to pinpoint where people should be on a heightened state of alert?

MCCONNELL: Of course it is.

And Joe is absolutely right. I couldn't agree more with what he just said. They have a tendency to want to come back and finish the job. And we all know that plane, that was courageously taken over and ended up crashing in Pennsylvania, was on the way either to the Capitol or the White House.

I think we have every reason to expect that they will try to finish the job, and they would particularly like to try to finish the job before this year's election.

BLITZER: All right. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to have much more breaking news here. We're going to follow up on this subject. The nation's capital, Washington, D.C., about to go on a higher state of alert, that according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Tom Ridge will be holding a news conference, 2 p.m. eastern. CNN, of course, will have live coverage.

Now, two U.S. cities, Washington, D.C. and New York City go from yellow to orange, from elevated to high. New York City has been on that higher state of alert since 9/11.

We'll take a break. More with these two senators when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to "LATE EDITION."
Senator Lieberman, just to recap the news, the Department of Homeland Security set to announce that Washington, D.C., will go on a higher state of alert, as New York City has been since 9/11.

I've interviewed Secretary Ridge in the past, and he said the problem with having these regional alerts is that you sort of tip off terrorists where the country is not on a higher state of alert and you say, "You know what, it might be better to go someplace else."

You sense that could be a downside to this kind of regional alert?

LIEBERMAN: Look, we've got to keep our guard up in as many places as we can, but I presume that Secretary Ridge is going to raise the alert level for Washington because we have good reason to do so from the intel.

And what that does is to say to the terrorists, "You're not going to surprise us the way you did on September 11th. Our guard is up." And, of course, the hope is that they'll pull back on the plan.

BLITZER: You know there will be those critics, skeptics, Senator McConnell, who will say politics behind this, this is an issue that's good for the president and his re-election team so they're taking advantage of this.

And I want you to respond, because you know that there will be people who will be saying that.

MCCONNELL: Well, you don't hear people like Joe Lieberman saying that. I think that's the most cynical view. The president, after all, is the president, even if he's running for re-election. And I don't think the American people that George W. Bush, the man who's led us so effectively on the war on terror, would politicize something like this.

LIEBERMAN: I just want to jump in and say that Mitch is absolutely right. And I don't think anybody who has any fairness or is in their right mind would think the president or the secretary of homeland security would raise an alert level and scare people for political reasons. That's outrageous.

And it's exactly that kind of thinking that we got to put aside so we can get together, unite and defeat these terrorists and protect ourselves from another terrorist attack.

BLITZER: On that bipartisan note, we unfortunately have to leave it. Senators, thanks to both of you very much for joining us, Senator Lieberman, Senator McConnell. Always good to have you on "LATE EDITION."

Still ahead, Howard Dean, once the Democratic presidential front- runner, now on the sidelines. I'll speak with him live. What's he doing about giving some advice to his former rival, John Kerry?

And President Bush is back on the campaign trail as well. We'll talk about the Bush-Cheney campaign with the chairman of that campaign, Marc Racicot.

"LATE EDITION" will be right back.