MSNBC Hardball - Transcript

MSNBC  
SHOW: HARDBALL

HEADLINE: HARDBALL For September 3, 2003

BYLINE: Chris Matthews; David Shuster

GUESTS: Saxby Chambliss; Frank Lautenberg; Richard Miniter; Arnold Schwarzenegger; Dianne Feinstein

HIGHLIGHT:
HARDBALL for September 3, 2003, MSNBC

MATTHEWS: Thank you very much. David Gregory at the White House.

Senator Saxby Chambliss is a Republican and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And Senator Frank Lautenberg is a Democrat from New Jersey.

Senator Chambliss, first off, have you changed your mind about bringing the U.N.?

SEN. SAXY CHAMBLISS (R), GEORGIA: Well, Chris, this is not really a change in direction. What this is is the next step.

You know, the president was out in June talking to Putin. He visited with Chirac. He visited Berlusconi from Italy about bringing other nations in to help rebuild Iraq.

But I don't think it's anything other than the next step in the process.

MATTHEWS: Well, here's what you said about the United Nations on HARDBALL back in February. Let's take a look, Senator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHAMBLISS: The weak leadership link in this whole process has been the United Nations. Saddam Hussein has been thumbing his nose at them for 10 years. If the United Nations will go along with us, that's great. But if they don't, then that should not be the determining factor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHAMBLISS: I think I was right then and I think I'm right now, Chris. The United Nations did not provide any leadership leading up to the conflict with Iraq. Now they've got the opportunity to do so, and it's time we engaged them.

MATTHEWS: Can they do the job? Can they help us build a country that the world will accept as a real country, not just a puppet country that we created?

CHAMBLISS: Sure they can. But the fact of the matter is, if the United States and Britain are the countries that have made the sacrifices to this point in the form of human life, we need to be the—in dominant control over what does take place in rebuilding Iraq. But it is time for the United Nations to come forward and to provide leadership that they have capability to provide. But they have not done so to this point in time at any point during this Iraqi conflict.

MATTHEWS: Senator Lautenberg, thank you for joining us. What are you willing to support we give U.N.? How much power would you give them as a payment for coming in?

SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG: It's going to be power sharing, Chris. We're going there on bended knee. What an incredible turnaround this is, from dismissing the U.N. as a worthless organization to now practically begging them.

The secretary of state is sitting on the telephone, calling ambassadors locally to see if we can get some help. What a change from the time that the president stood there, May 1, on the aircraft carrier talking about our victory. And we've lost more people since then than we did during that period.

And as far as the comment that the president made about, bring them on. Bring them on for what? Bring them on to fight with our people? It's awful.

MATTHEWS: Senator, let me show you an earlier comment by the president. This is the president's very important speech in Cincinnati last fall, where he said the United Nations is becoming irrelevant if it didn't support going to war with Iraq.

Let's take a look at the president's prewar comment about the U.N.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Failure to act would embolden other tyrants, allow terrorists access to new weapon and new resources, and make blackmail a permanent feature of world events. The United Nations would betray the purpose of its founding and prove irrelevant to the problems of our time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Senator Chambliss, a lot of people, skeptical like yourself, and everybody about the U.N.'s ability to help here. But why would they want to come in now on the landing, or the crash landing that this occupation has become, having opposed the whole launch in the beginning of this war?

CHAMBLISS: Well, U.N. Resolution 1481, which was adopted by the United Nations, really requires them to come in and to help us rebuild that country. And my guess is that any resolution that we come forward with now will be kind of a reaffirmation of what they've already permitted to do.

Things such as helping us win elections over there, certainly helping with restructuring government, refinancing. And I think there's every reason in the world why every country would want to see Iraq stabilize.

LAUTENBERG: They're not rushing. They're not rushing to get over there. That I can tell you.

CHAMBLISS: Well, they're not rushing to get over there; they're not willing to provide leadership. The United States and Britain have been willing to do that. The United Nations is not, and they have an opportunity to...

LAUTENBERG: We have to pray that they'll come in with us and relieve us of this terrible burden.

MATTHEWS: Senators, an unnamed diplomat was quoted by Reuters by saying it may be too late to convince these leaders to commit troops to Iraq after the bombings of the U.N. headquarters. "He said how many prime ministers want to stand there and welcome home coffins?"

Senator Lautenberg, isn't that a worry? We've been taking casualties. U.S. people, Americans are being killed every couple days. Why do the French want to take casualties? Why do the Indians want to take them?

CHAMBLISS: Because hopefully, if we build a big enough force, which we desperately need, John McCain said so. He's a credible observer. Joe Biden said so. General Shinsheki said a long time ago that we needed more troops.

What are we kidding ourselves about? We need the U.N., and it's about time that we understood that they can share a very big part of the responsibility. And we need them for not only moral and efficiency reasons but for financial reasons, as well.

MATTHEWS: What about the legacy of Somalia, where we had a large Pakistani U.N. base right outside? It was in the movie "Black Hawk Down." Maybe one of you senators saw it. And there were U.S. forces chasing after the warlord. We get pinned down. Our guy gets dragged through the streets dead. They leave the U.N. alone.

Suppose they just keeping picking off Americans and ignore the U.N. forces, General—Senator Saxby?

CHAMBLISS: Well, then, that's another reason to get a multinational force in there. Certainly, it needs to be under American command.

But you know, we're willing to make concessions. I think the president has been very vocal about that fact. As to exactly how far is another issue. But in order to get the United Nations in there, certainly we would have to. Nobody's saying that we wouldn't.

There are certain conditions that must be met. And one of those conditions is that it's in everybody's interests to stabilize Iraq. And one way we can do that is with a multinational force.

LAUTENBERG: Yes, we want to—But that's a come to meeting thing of very recent nature.

And Thomas White, who was a deputy secretary of defense and wrote a book just recently in which he challenged Secretary Rumsfeld to come up with a coherent policy in Iraq. We don't have one. The president won't come to the Congress to ask for the financial assistance, won't project how long we're going to be there. Won't estimate how much money it's going to take.

We're just now gathering our wits about us and saying, "Hey, you know what? We need the rest of the world."

MATTHEWS: What happens, senators, if the U.N. gets in there, we give them control over the civilian operation, and they say, "Let's have a quick national election, pick a leader, a prime minister and a parliament, a representative of the whole country. Let's get the hell out of here."

What will stop anyone from doing that?

LAUTENBERG: They'll have to play a role. There is no doubt about it. The United States will be a dominant factor here. But you can't pretend that we're going to just call all the shots and that they're just going to come marching along to our tune. It's not going to happen.

CHAMBLISS: Chris, under your scenario, that's a dictate to the people of Iraq. And I don't think anybody wants to do that. They need to be intimately involved in whatever government is established over there.

MATTHEWS: Are you both confident—Are you senators both confident that the United States can preside over a successful transformation of that country to a moderate Arab state?

You first, Senator Lautenberg. Are you optimistic that we can do the job?

LAUTENBERG: Well, I'm not optimistic but I am hopeful. I think once the people see that they can provide their own resources, once they understand that they have power back again, when they have clean water, when they have a few of the basic things, I think they'll come around to a different point of view.

Right now they see us as conquerors and they're without all kinds of things to sustain life.

MATTHEWS: Senator Chambliss?

CHAMBLISS: It not be easy, but I am optimistic. And one thing about it that we know for certain is that if the United Nations does not provide any leadership whatsoever here, that the potential for a breeding ground for terrorists is certainly alive and well in Iraq today.

We need that multinational force. Very similar to what we've done with Poland. Look what we did. The Polish have stepped in and are providing leadership. And for the United Nations to stay back and say only under our terms will we come, you know, that's providing no leadership at all.

MATTHEWS: Senator Chambliss, is it vital that the United States find Saddam Hussein and kill him or take him alive? Is it vital that we find this guy?

CHAMBLISS: At some point it is, I think, without question. And we will.

MATTHEWS: Senator Lautenberg, do we have to find this guy?

LAUTENBERG: Yes. We have to come, to use the expression, to some kind of a closure. Because the mystery of his being wherever he is really a worrisome thing. We don't know whether these messages are really his, where he might be.

When the terrorists continue to attack our courses, bomb the U.N. building, it tells you something about the instability there. We have to try and clear that up, and capturing or killing Saddam Hussein would help solve that problem.

MATTHEWS: Thank you, gentlemen. Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.