CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer - Transcript

CNN

SHOW: CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER 12:00

HEADLINE: Interview With Seymour Hersh

GUESTS: Amre Moussa, Seymour Hersh, Saxby Chambliss, Joseph Lieberman, Tim Russert, Adnan Pachachi, Ralph Nader, David Petraeus

BYLINE: Wolf Blitzer

HIGHLIGHT:
Interviews with Amre Moussa, Seymour Hersh.

BODY:
BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The actions of a few do not reflect on the fantastic character of the over 200,000 men and women who have served our nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: President Bush standing solidly behind U.S. troops serving in Iraq. Welcome back to "LATE EDITION."

Joining us now from Tallahassee, Florida, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. He's a member of the Senate Intelligence as well as the Armed Services committees. And here in Washington, Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. He, too, serves on the Armed Services Committee.

Senators, welcome, both of you, back to "LATE EDITION."

Senator Chambliss, I'll begin with you and get your response to these explosive new charges. You just heard Sy Hersh, Seymour Hersh, of The New Yorker magazine, say that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created this clandestine, black operation that effectively set the stage for the prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison.

First of all, as a member of the Intelligence Committee and the Armed Services Committee, are you familiar with any of this?

SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS ®, GEORGIA: Well, obviously, Wolf, we can't talk about classified operations, but let's just think about this thing for a minute. First of all, Mr. Hersh is a very well- respected journalist. I enjoy reading his articles.

But when you look at this, first of all, it came from anonymous sources. That's always reason to wonder, really, what kind of information it was. And secondly, it flies in the face of everything that the one individual who was involved in these incidents has come forward and said about what happened. Namely, Specialist Sivits has said that if the higher-ups had known about this, they would have been slammed.

Now, assuming that there was this special, elite commando group, we had 43,000 prisoners at one point in Iraq. Only a handful of those are what we refer to as "high-value targets."

Now, I understand that common sense isn't used very often in Washington, but common sense would tell you that we're going to concentrate on the high-value targets from an interrogation standpoint and not on these foot soldiers who were rank-and-file folks that apparently are the ones that were the real victims here.

BLITZER: Well, Senator Chambliss...

CHAMBLISS: Doesn't excuse anything that happened, but...

BLITZER: I was going to say, without violating national security secrets, classified information, can you confirm, though, that there was this special access program, this secret unit that the defense secretary expanded to interrogate certain high-value terror suspects in Iraq?

CHAMBLISS: I don't know whether there was of the makeup that Mr. Hersh has referred to in his article, but, you know, it only makes sense that we have special operations forces operating in Afghanistan, in Iraq, as well as in other surrounding areas to do any number of missions, some of which may involve interrogation.

But I don't know that there was any expansion of any particular special forces group or any design plan to use those folks in interrogation matters.

BLITZER: And, presumably the Intelligence Committee, of which you're a member, would have been alerted, supposedly would have been notified, at least the chairman, the vice chairman, if there were such a decision, is that right?

CHAMBLISS: Without question.

BLITZER: All right.

Senator Lieberman, you're not a member of the Intelligence Committee...

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: That's right.

BLITZER: ... but you are a member of the Armed Services Committee, and you're well-briefed. You've been around for a long time.

Does it have the smell-does it pass the smell test, the allegation that Sy Hersh, Seymour Hersh made in The New Yorker magazine?

LIEBERMAN: It's hard to tell. This is a very serious allegation that Sy Hersh is making. It must, like everything else about the prison abuse scandal, be investigated, and the search of truth should take us wherever it leads. That's the only way we're going to restore the honor of the United States and the honor of the 99.9 percent of American military who live by the law.

But I've got to say two things here, Wolf. The first is, was there such a special interrogation anti-terrorist unit? The second is, can you link that to what we see in the pictures happened in cell block 1-A at Abu Ghraib? And that's not clear.

And I want to go back to the first part. Let us acknowledge that we're in a war on terrorism. It's a different kind of war. If there was a special interrogation unit that really was focused on suspected terrorists, and, for instance, we had such a unit before September 11th, and it could have gotten information out of those terrorists or others working with them that would have allowed us to stop September 11th, I don't think there are many Americans who would say we shouldn't use whatever means are necessary to extract that information.

That's one question. There's a long way from that to Abu Ghraib and the prisoners we've seen.

BLITZER: All right, listen to what Major General Antonio Taguba, who testified before your committee, who wrote the original report, a very damning report, an indictment of the way the situation unfolded at the Abu Ghraib prison, among other things he said this. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAGUBA: Failure in leadership, sir, from the brigade commander on down, lack of discipline, no training whatsoever and no supervision.

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BLITZER: That's a shocking indictment of the U.S. military, the leadership. There was no leadership. There was no discipline. There was no training. You send in a bunch of MPs who are reservists and you say, "Do whatever"-"Do basically whatever you want." Someone has to be punished for that, I assume.

LIEBERMAN: Yes, absolutely. I mean, it was a shocking conclusion from a respected Army official himself. Note that he said (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Armed Services Committee and the special Schlesinger- Brown investigative committee appointed by the Pentagon should look way beyond that.

You know, I saw those pictures this week. They are horrifying. And it is a people gone wild. It's shocking to see Americans...

BLITZER: The ones that the public have not yet seen?

LIEBERMAN: Yes, exactly.

So you ask yourself, naturally, was this just a group of soldiers who cracked under the stress of war, taking advantage of the power that they had as guards over their prisoners? Or was it in some way encouraged or tolerated or at worst directed by higher-ups?

BLITZER: All right.

LIEBERMAN: And those questions have not yet been answered. We're going to answer them.

BLITZER: Senator Chambliss, we're going to take a quick break, but why don't you weigh in briefly on that specific point? Is it possible that these young MPs, who were reservists, just did this on their own, or that someone said, you know what, it's a good idea to humiliate these prisoners, abuse them sexually or in other ways, to get them to talk?

CHAMBLISS: Well, certainly it's possible that could have happened, but we do know, as Joe has indicated, in looking at these pictures, as we did this week, that there were some military intelligence officers who-military intelligence personnel who were present. Did they influence, and how much did they influence them? I don't know. We don't have the answer to that question. We're going to continue until we find it.

But the fact of the matter is that we've got a long ways to go, from the standpoint of investigating and determining just how far up it goes. Where was the sergeant? Where was the first lieutenant? If those folks didn't know what was going on, then there's a total failure in the system, exactly as General Taguba says, and we've simply got to find out how far up it went.

BLITZER: All right. Senators, stand by. We're going to take a quick break.

Just ahead, we'll get a quick check of the hour's top stories, including an update tensions in the Iraqi city of Karbala.

Then, more of our conversation with Senators Lieberman and Chambliss about the ongoing insurgency in Iraq and whether that country is ready for a transfer of power.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYNNDIE ENGLAND, PRIVATE FIRST CLASS, U.S. MILITARY: I was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there, hold this leash, and look at the camera. And they took the picture for PSYOP, and that's all I know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Private Lynndie England speaking about psychological operations, saying she was ordered to go ahead, stand there with the picture of the naked Iraqi prisoners.

Welcome back to "LATE EDITION." We're continuing our discussion with Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

Senator Chambliss, based on what you know, did any of this result in really good information coming out of prisoner interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison?

CHAMBLISS: Well, that's the interesting thing about it, Wolf. We have no indication that any positive information came out of these folks as a result of this treatment that they received. And I don't know that we'll ever know that as many prisoners as they interrogated.

BLITZER: Let me move on and talk about another sensitive issue. What happens June 30th, Senator Lieberman, when the U.S. and the coalition hand over sovereignty, or at least limited sovereignty, to some sort of interim Iraqi government?

The secretary of state caused some, I guess, commotion this week when he suggested that if they tell the U.S. and the coalition to pull out after July 1st, the U.S. and the coalition may have no choice. Listen to this.

LIEBERMAN: Right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Were this interim government to say to us, "We really think we can handle this on your own, it would be better if you were to leave," we would leave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Were you surprised when you heard that?

LIEBERMAN: I was surprised, but I'm sure Colin Powell was saying in the extreme, if they ever did that, that's part of being sovereign. That's part of the Iraqi people governing themselves. It's not going to happen. Any form of Iraqi government that takes over will know that it cannot itself yet maintain security.

We're looking forward to the day when we can exit Iraq, because the Iraqis are in sufficient control and their security forces are able to maintain the basic stability necessary for a government to go forward. So I don't expect it to be happen. I think too much is probably being made of Colin Powell's statement.

BLITZER: Senator Chambliss, what about this other scenario that's not necessarily farfetched? They do have free and fair elections next January as scheduled, and elect a theocracy, a Shiite- led theocracy to create another Iran, for example, in Iraq. What happens then?

CHAMBLISS: Well, security is number one, and I think Joe is right, as long as they need security, measures put in place, then Americans are going to be there.

But if they have an independent government elected and that independent government, whoever it's made up of, comes to us and says, "We can handle this and it's time for you guys to go," then, you know, I'm not sure we have any choice. But hopefully that won't be the case, but that's a part of a democracy that we all appreciate. And it's going to be up to the Iraqi people.

BLITZER: Senator Lieberman, you have an important article that you've co-written with Senator McCain in The Washington Post today, in which among other things, you say the U.S. military is still understaffed, doesn't have enough troops in Iraq, need to send a lot more over. What's the problem here?

LIEBERMAN: Yes, John McCain and I feel very strongly that all along we've needed more troops than have been there, including in the prisons. When you look at what some of the causes of the abuse that we've seen might have been, a system without leadership and discipline, maybe it's because so few real interrogators were there to interrogate, so few guards were there to guard so many prisoners.

Today, I think the most important thing we have to do is to get that country secure enough so that the Iraqi people can rise up against the terrorists and the jihadists, and the Saddam loyalists, and take over their own government. And that requires security.

I think the best way to do it is a short-term surge in American forces there will create the security that will actually lead the Iraqis to take control of their own sovereignty and allow us to leave sooner than later.

BLITZER: Senator Chambliss, you want to weigh in on the whole troop level issue? Because, as you know, Rumsfeld keeps saying, "If the commanders want more troops they'll get more troops. They haven't asked for more troops."

CHAMBLISS: Well, I think indirectly we're seeing that they are asking for more troops, and I think, perhaps, that Senator McCain and Joe are correct, that maybe we do need more troops and we need to put a final push on to make sure that we bring some stability to all parts of Iraq.

In spite of all the publicity that's been surrounding Abu Ghraib and the other issues of the prisoners, it looks like, for the past couple of weeks, we've made some real gains in putting down the insurgents. And it may be that with a significant number of additional troops, we could make that final push to truly bring stability there before June 30th.

BLITZER: All right, Senators, we're going to leave it right there. Thanks to both of you for joining us. Senator Chambliss, Senator Lieberman, always good to have both of you on "LATE EDITION."

CHAMBLISS: Thank you, Wolf.

LIEBERMAN: Thank you, Wolf.