MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. President Obama decided not to release those photos of Osama bin Laden"s death to the public, but we now know the members of the Senate and House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees will be given permission to go over to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and look at them themselves. No one seriously doubts that bin Laden is dead, but there are a lot of questions al Qaeda"s status, who"s leading it and what exactly Pakistan knew about it all along.
Illinois congresswoman Jan Schakowsky"s a member of the House Intelligence Committee and Michael Sheehan is an NBC News terrorism analyst.
Congresswoman, thank you for joining us. Are you going to go over and look at those photos of the dead bin Laden?
REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D-IL), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: I am. I"m going to look at the photos. I feel, as a member of the committee, I"ve been invited to do so. I think it will help me, actually, in upholding the president"s decision that it was--that these are not the kind of photos that ought to be publicly released to the world.
MATTHEWS: So you agree not to release them, as a policy?
SCHAKOWSKY: I think that it would be a mistake. You know, we all remember what happened just with that cartoon of Mohammed or the burning of the Koran, the kind of hostility that it aroused. I can just picture these photos on posters and being sent around the Internet to incite people who are incitable right now.
MATTHEWS: Speaking of incitable, why are the right-wing people in our country determined--randy--to get that picture out to the world? Why do people like Palin want that picture out there? Are they bear-baiting? Do they like to incite more trouble? Do they want this war to go on? Are they enjoying it? Why do they want--why would anybody want to do something that you"ve just described as incendiary?
SCHAKOWSKY: You"re asking me? I can"t imagine why the--what service would it to be the public to provide those kinds of--
MATTHEWS: To stick it to them.
SCHAKOWSKY: -- of photos.
MATTHEWS: They want to stick it to the other side because they think that"s going to help our country out in the long--I don"t know what they think. This is fun?
SCHAKOWSKY: That kind of chest-thumping, and you know, being--bragging about this kind of murder--no, I think the president has handled it just right. And most people absolutely believe that he"s dead. And certainly, those who don"t are not going to be convinced. They"re going to say, Oh, it"s Photoshopped or whatever. And for anyone to say that this is a good idea to send those around--don"t they understand the kind of incendiary effect that it would have?
MATTHEWS: I think they do. That"s my problem with them. Michael Sheehan, let me bring you in here because we"ve seen this tragedy where--some crazy situation down in Florida, where a minister down there--I guess he"s a minister, says he is--goes out and destroys a Koran in a big ritual of death, and then 13 people are killed in Afghanistan. It"s not just the people making films about Mohammed over in the north of Europe, it"s people who purposely want to instigate trouble.
MICHAEL SHEEHAN, NBC TERRORISM ANALYST: That"s right, Chris. Releasing the photos would have no value for our purposes. And as the congresswoman said, it"s not going to convince any of the conspiracy theories at all. And it will probably just make them have more conspiracies as they look at the photo and challenge it. So it serves no value. I think the president"s made the right decision, has virtually the full support of serious foreign policy experts.
MATTHEWS: OK, let"s go to the expertise you have at your command.
I"m trying to figure out about whether we are going to shift from a counterinsurgency policy--I will get to the congresswoman with the same question--about--to a terrorism campaign, basically to wind up or roll up al Qaeda in those two countries of Afghanistan, so we can come home, and Pakistan, for the same reason.
Do we have any idea, any guesstimate of the extent of al Qaeda, its operations, its membership in those two countries?
SHEEHAN: Well, we know, in Pakistan, that"s where al Qaeda central, as we call it, has been really since December of 2001. The major leadership is there and is still there.
Even that we have knocked off bin Laden, there"s still remnants of the al Qaeda central leadership in Pakistan. In Afghanistan, there"s really no what I call strategic al Qaeda. The word is, there"s maybe 100 or 200 fighters of al Qaeda, but I consider them more insurgents, and not strategic terrorists.
MATTHEWS: Right.
SHEEHAN: Those people reside still in Pakistan, to a second degree in Yemen.
MATTHEWS: Is there any reason to keep our 100,000 troops in Afghanistan to fight 100 people?
SHEEHAN: This is a long debate, Chris. I have long been on the side of advocacy that we really need to reduce our--our footprint in Afghanistan, because it does create some problems.
But there"s been some--also some great progress in Afghanistan in the next six months. So, the president is going to have--
(CROSSTALK)
SHEEHAN: -- a vigorous debate within his team on how fast we go down. But, clearly, already, we are going to start a slope downwards between now and 2014.
The argument is going to be over the slope of that curve.
MATTHEWS: Not to be in the business of moral equivalence, which I"m certainly not in, but if we had 100,000 foreign troops in our country, do you think it might stir up the opposition of say 100 or 200 people?
SHEEHAN: Well, I think it--
(CROSSTALK)
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, from my point--
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Congresswoman, you take that on.
Just common sense, do you think 100,000 troops in the country pacifies the situation or irritates it? I don"t know.
SCHAKOWSKY: Yes. No, no, I think the president--the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan is no longer useful for the United States.
I think we--and besides that, Chris, I think the American people are done with this war. You read the polling before, earlier.
MATTHEWS: Right.
SCHAKOWSKY: I think they are finished with the billions of dollars that we are spending, the troops that we keep putting into--into harm"s way. They are sick of the--the government of--the Karzai government and its corruption.
And I think people were surprised that we--we--we struck a bigger blow than even thought with Osama bin Laden, that he had operational command--
MATTHEWS: Yes.
SCHAKOWSKY: -- over a lot of the work. And getting him out of the way, I think, has--has really reduced--it"s demoralized them for sure, but has also reduced their capacity to hurt us.
MATTHEWS: Aren"t you impressed by the reaction of younger people to this in America, your people in--in Chicago? I mean, young people in their 20s, my kids, are absolutely overwhelmed by the success last week.
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, you know, I did see younger people out, Chris.
Could it be that it was midnight and the rest of us were in bed?
(LAUGHTER)
SCHAKOWSKY: But beside that, I--
MATTHEWS: Well, I think there"s more to it than that. But--
SCHAKOWSKY: Yes. I agree with you.
I think that that was seminal event in their lives. You know, this is the big deal for them growing up. And so I think that there is just a feeling now, not just with young people, but getting over sort of this feeling that maybe America"s kind of a loser --
MATTHEWS: You got it.
SCHAKOWSKY: -- that--now that we are a winner. I think it is very important.
MATTHEWS: I think that"s what it"s about. It is about ability to do what you have to do in life. There"s things you have to do in life.
SCHAKOWSKY: Right.
MATTHEWS: You have got to lock your cars in night. You got to get your kids to school. If you can"t do the basics--we are showing we can do it again. I"m thrilled. I"m thrilled we can.
Thank you.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source