MSNBC Meet the Press - Transcript

MSNBC Meet the Press - Transcript

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MR. RUSSERT: Martin Fletcher in Haifa, Israel. Thank you for that report, and be safe.

And now, joining us in Washington, Democratic senator Joe Biden, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Welcome, both.

Mr. Speaker, what are we witnessing in the Middle East?

MR. NEWT GINGRICH: Well, let me, let me offer three observations. First, this is not the fifth day of the war. This is the 58th year of the effort by those who want to destroy Israel. As Ahmadinejad, the head of Iran, says, he wants to defeat the Americans and eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. So we should not see this event in isolation. There is an Iran/Iraq/Syria—I mean, an Iran/Syria—was an Iraq before Saddam was replaced—Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas alliance trying to destroy Israel.

Second, the Israelis withdrew from Gaza to create the circumstance of peace. The Israelis withdrew from south Lebanon to create the circumstance of peace. They now have a thousand missiles fired from Gaza, they've had hundreds of missiles fired from south Lebanon. You clearly have Iranian involvement, there are at least 400 Iranian guards in south Lebanon. Apparently it was an Iranian missile fired by Iranians which hit an Israeli warship yesterday. The United States should be saying to Syria and Iran, "South Lebanon is going to be cleared out. We are for Israel and the Lebanese government breaking the back of Hezbollah, getting rid of all 10,000 to 13,000 missiles, and we will decisively stop any effort by Syria and Iran to intervene."

I mean, this is absolutely a question of the survival of Israel, but it's also a question of what is really a world war. Look what you've been covering: North Korea firing missiles. We say there'll be consequences, there are none. The North Koreans fire seven missiles on our Fourth of July; bombs going off in Mumbai, India; a war in Afghanistan with sanctuaries in Pakistan. As I said a minute ago, the, the Iran/Syria/Hamas/Hezbollah alliance. A war in Iraq funded largely from Saudi Arabia and supplied largely from Syria and Iran. The British home secretary saying that there are 20 terrorist groups with 1200 terrorists in Britain. Seven people in Miami videotaped pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda, and 18 people in Canada being picked up with twice the explosives that were used in Oklahoma City, with an explicit threat to bomb the Canadian parliament, and saying they'd like to behead the Canadian prime minister. And finally, in New York City, reports that in three different countries people were plotting to destroy the tunnels of New York.

I mean, we, we are in the early stages of what I would describe as the third world war, and frankly, our bureaucracies aren't responding fast enough, we don't have the right attitude about this, and this is the 58th year of the war to destroy Israel. And frankly, the Israelis have every right to insist that every single missile leave south Lebanon and that the United States ought to be helping the Lebanese government have the strength to eliminate Hezbollah as a military force, not as a political force in the parliament, but as a military force in south Lebanon.

MR. RUSSERT: This is World War III?

MR. GINGRICH: I, I believe if you take all the countries I just listed, that you've been covering, put them on a map, look at all the different connectivity, you'd have to say to yourself this is, in fact, World War III.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Biden, is it our war?

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE): Indirectly, it's our war. It seems to me it's partially our responsibility. I don't, I don't agree with the World War III analogy, but I do believe that here we had Israel get out of southern Lebanon. I was there for that election, I was "an official observer." All the talk from everyone in the parties in Lebanon, that they had to get rid of Hezbollah. The, the U.N. Resolution 1559 said that the—that as, as Israel got out, the, the army of the Lebanese people were going to move and take over that responsibility, they didn't.

But I might add that we didn't do anything to help them. We didn't do anything at the time to help train them. We didn't do anything at the time to give any attention to it. And now we are, because of our lack of a prevention strategy, we're left with no option here, in my view, but to support Israel in what is a totally legitimate self-defense effort. How can they, in fact, sit still when they have all these rockets that are very sophisticated sitting on their border, knowing they're being—going to be fired at them and expect to stand there and the rest of the world sitting around?

And the last point I'll make, Tim, is I find it fascinating people talk about has Israel gone too far. No one talks about whether Israel's justified in the first place. Let's assume Israel's overreacting. I want to see the world stand up and say, "By the way, this in fact, is an unprovoked effort on the part of a terrorist organization supported by two countries to undermine the democratic state." Until they say that, I think it's awful—I think it's a secondary question whether Israel's gone too far.

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MR. RUSSERT: Senator Biden, I want to show you the front page of The Wall Street Journal from Friday and here's the article as written. "The growing conflict [in the Middle East] could become a significant setback for the Bush administration's vision for the region. Mr. Bush and many of his neoconservative strategists said in the months leading up to the Iraq invasion that toppling Saddam would make Israel and secular Arab states safer ... [by allowing] democratic governments to flourish, while depriving Palestinian terrorists of one of their major sponsors in Baghdad.

"Today, many Middle East analysts say the Iraq war has made Israel significantly less safe. Iran has used the conflict to project its influence across Iraq. ... Al-Qaeda ... has developed a safe haven in western Iraq." Do you agree with that?

SEN. BIDEN: I agree with it completely, and I said that at the time, Tim, I said at the time that the road- -remember, the, the phrase was "the road to peace in the Middle East is through Baghdad." My argument is the road is through Jerusalem, it wasn't through Baghdad, number one.

Number two, look where we are right now. We're in a situation where we have dug such a deep hole we have 10 of our 12 divisions coming or going in Iraq. Everyone knows the ability of us to mount a significant land war anywhere as a potential threat is not a real threat.

And thirdly, I would point out that we have an opportunity to intervene in a different way. There's an opportunity now, if we had any credibility in that part of the world, to be able to bring together the Sunni powers that, in fact, with all the money—who are scared to death of Hezbollah and the increased influence of Iran. We should be uniting that part of the world to put incredible pressure and consequences on Syria without us having to go to war with Syria. Syria is essentially an isolated state. Syria can have its water cut off, figuratively speaking, tomorrow. But what are we doing? Are we sitting down with the Sunni powers and saying, "Look, let's get smart here, Jack, we have a common interest here"? But people doubt our judgment. They doubt our judgment and, as a consequence of that, we have very great difficulty getting anyone to think we have a strategy and, therefore, great difficulty getting them to join us.

MR. RUSSERT: You just made your seventh visit to Iraq. Are we winning the war?

SEN. BIDEN: No, we're not winning the war because we do not have a political solution to offer. There's three things that have to happen, and they have to happen quickly. Number one, you have to get a Sunni buy-in. That is, you've got to have a reason for the Sunnis to say it makes sense to be part of this united government, and that remeans—means you've got to give them a piece of the oil, you got to give them a piece of the revenues. They've got nothing else.

Number two, you've got to disarm that militia. You've—and by the—particularly the Shia militia, particularly Sadr's militia. I don't see the will on the part of this new Shia-dominated government to go ahead and do that, and we've not offered any plan.

And thirdly, you've got to figure out a way, Tim, to deal with the civilian agencies that are moribund. They're—I, I sat with one of the best generals I'm aware of that I've dealt with in my 33 years, Chiarelli, the former commander of the 1st Cavalry, and he says to me, he said, "Don't ever let me criticize a bureaucrat again. They need a bureaucracy here. They can't even deliver the paychecks to their soldiers that we've trained." They—we were sitting there with General Dempsey, the guy training the Iraqi forces, and he says, "Well, there's this brigade out here," and he described where it was, and he said, "It's Friday afternoon, I find out there—that the Saudi contra"—I mean, excuse me—"the Iraqi contractor delivering food and water and etc. goes home. These troops have nothing to eat." He said, "I'm on the phone at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and the whole—and the, the whole"—the—say—they call the MOD, the, the Ministry of Defense has gone home. They, they don't know how to stand up a government. And we have no plan. We have gone in there without a plan. And so unless those three things happen pretty quickly, Tim, I, I, I, I don't see how we succeed there. Still possible, but I want to tell you, this administration's failure to have a, a, a political strategy for Iraq has, has raised the bar higher and higher for our ability to, to call it a success.

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MR. RUSSERT: Senator Biden, the number of nuclear weapons or potential nuclear weapons the North Koreans has has doubled since George Bush has been president. Should we dismantle a missile that they're about to test?

SEN. BIDEN: The first thing we should do is put this in perspective. We don't even have the intelligence community saying they're certain they have a nuclear weapon. They have nuclear capability in that they have fissile material, number one. Number two, the North Korean government's like an eighth-grader with a small bomb looking for attention.

My worry about them is not that they're going to be able to hit Seattle; they're not even close, not even remotely close to being able to do that. What I'm worried about is that this totally isolated regime with a guy who doesn't seem to understand anything, is going to do something very, very stupid that ends up in a shooting war in the Korean peninsula where they have 30,000 pieces of artillery—or, 10,000 pieces of artillery that can take out a significant chunk of South Korea.

It'd be nice if we went in there knowing that we had South Korea with us and Japan with us. They're not—they don't support this policy of Richard Perle, or this administration—talk, the tough talk about it.

The second point I'd like to make is, let's put this in—again in perspective. What is the nature of the threat? This reminds me of the, of the—several years ago on your program, Vice President Cheney sitting here saying the Iranians have reconstituted their nuclear capability. That was malarkey then. I said it then. It's malarkey now that they have the capacity to hit us.

Now, there is a value judg—a, a, a, a, excuse me, a judgment made whether or not to take out that missile on its pad based on whether or not it had any real—posed any real threat. A lot of us thought it did not pose a real threat, and it turned out it wasn't much of anything at all. It'd be nice to know ahead of time that we had a president who is able to have a relationship with the prime minister of Japan and the prime minister of South Korea, so that if we did have to use force, which is a possibility, they're on the same team as we were.

MR. RUSSERT: What would the North Koreans do if we, in fact, took out, pre-emptively, a missile in their...

SEN. BIDEN: If that—if we had reason to believe that missile was a nuclear-tipped missile—which no one thought it was—then I would not hesitate to take it out and not worry about—I'd worry about the consequences, but I would be prepared for the consequences. The possibility is that North Korea would use its artillery shells on South Korea and start a Korean war. The greater concern, though, is that what's going to happen here is South Korea—understanding we have no real policy—is going to decide three years from now along with Japan, it need be a nuclear power. And you end up having a Korean peninsula that's nuclearized, you have Japan a nuclear power, you have China going from 18 to 888 ICBMs, India following suit, etc. That's my worry.

But let's put this in perspective here. The idea that Iran and/or, and/or South Korea—or North Korea, presents a strategic threat to us from nuclear weapons now is not real, is not real. We have alternatives and plans—we should have plans to be able to deal with the isolation of them and, if need be, there can come a time when we will have to use all the force available to us. But it would be nice to straighten some things out in the meantime.

MR. RUSSERT: But if we do nothing and in five, six years they have 15--the capacity to build 15 nuclear bombs, they only need 14 for protection. Couldn't they give one to somebody?
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SEN. BIDEN: They could. They could, just like Saddam could have. But it'd make no sense for them. They are more paranoid about themselves and what would happen to them and how it would be turned on them than even Saddam was.

Look, I think we ought to look at a little bit of history here. What, what evidence is there of that? There is evidence that they transferred missile technology. There is evidence that they may transfer some of that material. But, in the meantime, it seems to me we've got to put ourselves in the position, Tim, that if and when we do act, we act with the world, if not with us, with their acquiescence. Not be in the position like we are now where we become the isolated party, where our judgment is viewed as having no capability of producing results.

And the concluding point I'll make to you is this: Does anybody think we're stronger now because we, in fact, have essentially going it alone around the world? Does anybody think we can wage a war now in—against Syria, against Iran, against Korea, and while we're still bogged down in Iraq? We've got to get real here.

MR. RUSSERT: Speaker Gingrich, a lot of people have suggested it's easy to talk tough, "Take out this missile." But, in fact, if the North Koreans then decided to shell South Korea and send their million-man army into South Korea, you would lose a million people within a week. We would have a huge war on our hands. And the lesson from Iraq may be we know how to start a war, but—and it's a lot easier to start a war than it is to finish one.

MR. GINGRICH: Well, you know, Tim, after 9/11, we had a big commission, you know, they had lots of congressional hearings. They all concluded there was a failure of intelligence, and they all concluded there was a failure of imagination. Now, I'm just sitting here saying, this is a dictatorship we don't understand. Fewer than 10 percent of our intelligence analysts in Korea actually speak Korean because our intelligence community is so broken. And we're in a situation where the ability to rely on our intelligence community to explain Kim Jong Il's next step is virtually zero. If one morning there is a ship sitting in New York Harbor or Seattle Harbor or San Francisco Harbor, and that ship is of Panamanian registry, and it happens to have a nuclear device—because I concede right now, we don't know whether or not they can build a missile-capable nuclear weapon. But they have more than enough fissile material to build a very simple nuclear device that would fit on a ship.

SEN. BIDEN: Agreed.

MR. GINGRICH: And at that point, we look around and somebody's going to say, "Oh, my God, we could lose a city." And they say, "You know, we're totally insane, and if you don't agree to withdraw from the peninsula and you don't agree to turn over South Korea, we're going to set off this weapon and eliminate Seattle." My point is—and this is a core difference in how, in how I think we think about foreign policy. When in doubt, I want the United States to be very strong and I want us to be very clear with dictatorships. We're sending signals today that no matter how much you provoke us, no matter how viciously you describe things in public, no matter how many things you're doing with missiles and nuclear weapons, the most you'll get out of us is talk.

MR. RUSSERT: You're talking about the Bush administration.

MR. GINGRICH: I'm talking about the policies of the United States today.

MR. RUSSERT: But that is such a condemnation of George W. Bush.

MR. GINGRICH: Well, it's not a condemnation of George W. Bush. It's a statement that—look what we've done in the last six weeks. I mean, I think we are in a very serious crisis in this country.

MR. RUSSERT: But what would you do? What would you do?

MR. GINGRICH: Well, first of all, you would say for North Korea, we are currently broadcasting I think it's 90 minutes a week into North Korea. We're currently broadcasting a trivial amount into Iran. You had riots in Iran—at Tehran University for weeks. You've had trade union movements that are upset, 49 percent of the country is non-Persian. And the amount of effort we've made to help those who would like to be free and would like to replace the current dictatorship is trivial. You have in North Korea a dictatorship with 300,000 people in concentration camps, a dictator so evil that he has literally shrunk the height of the average North Korean by three inches over the last generation through malnutrition. And we do nothing to say, you know, over the next five or eight years our goal is to have two countries we can have good relationships with because they become democracies.

And by the way, the Japanese were far more hard-line about the missiles than we were, and the Japanese were very disappointed that we turned to the Chinese, who failed.

MR. RUSSERT: Has the war in Iraq limited our options on Iran, North Korea?

MR. GINGRICH: Only in, only in our own minds.

MR. RUSSERT: Same question.

SEN. BIDEN: I, I think it has. But let me tell you, let me—a slightly different prescription. That, that bomb in the rusty hull of a Panamanian tanker, that is something that I talked about on your show three and a half years ago. What have we done? We've done nothing in terms of homeland security. We have $43 billion that the homeland security—that the 9/11 commission said in December we should be spending on areas we're getting D's and C's. We haven't spent it at all. Instead—we'll disagree here—instead we decide to give a $53 billion tax cut to people making over a million bucks a year. Our priorities are backwards, Tim.

Number two, real simple message sent to the Koreans. This is—I worry about this eighth-grade mentality they have up there. "You do something like that, we will annihilate you." We have the complete capacity to annihilate them, number two.

Number three, we should be talking about how we're going to proceed here. John Kennedy—quoting a muscular Democrat—John Kennedy said we should never negotiate out of fear, we should never fear negotiation. We're so big and so strong, the idea that we're not sitting down having a come to the—an altar call with the leader of North Korea in a private meeting and saying, "Jack, let's tell you what the deal is here."

MR. RUSSERT: One-on-one?

SEN. BIDEN: One-on-one. I called for that three years ago. That's not born out of weakness.

MR. RUSSERT: Should the, should the president invite Kim Jong Il to Washington?

SEN. BIDEN: No, that's, that's, you're, you're giving him a status he doesn't warrant. But we should have a high-level negotiator sitting down, saying, "Here's the deal." This is what's in it for you if you behave, this is when it's not." You know why these guys wouldn't do that three years ago? They're afraid the answer may come back, "OK, we'll give you verifiable agreement on missiles and on nuclear, but you got to promise not to try to take us down." That, for a neocon, is like me as a Catholic denying the existence of a trinity. We did that with the Soviet Union...

MR. RUSSERT: Would you give such an assurance?

SEN. BIDEN: Sure, I'd give such an assurance, and agree to—in fact, continue to take them on in every other activity, just like we did Russia, just send them in there. (Unintelligible).

MR. RUSSERT: Would you promise North Korea and Iran that the regimes could stay in place...

SEN. BIDEN: Wait, wait a second.

MR. RUSSERT: Simple question. Would you promise North Korea and Iran the regimes could stay in place if they stopped a nuclear program?

MR. GINGRICH: Let, let me speak for my good friend here, because I don't think he quite meant to say that. They want an agreement that we will not militarily take them down.

SEN. BIDEN: Yeah.

MR. GINGRICH: They're not asking—I mean we would never give them...

SEN. BIDEN: Yeah.

MR. GINGRICH: ...an agreement that we wouldn't try through—exactly as we did in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary, in Ukraine, to encourage people to live, live in a free country. We're not going to give up the right to say that—to North Korea, "You are a terrible dictatorship destroying your own people, and they deserve the right to self government."

MR. RUSSERT: But you would pledge, you would pledge no military intervention?

MR. GINGRICH: We're not going to intervene. There's no prospect of the United States cheerfully, out of the blue, starting a war with North Korea. But let me point out what Senator Biden implied here. If they believed us, and if we looked them in the eye and said, "You put up a missile we'll take it down, and by the way, you fire one round into South Korea, this regime's over," if they believed that, they wouldn't fire into South Korea. And by the way, if they believed it, they wouldn't put a missile on the launching pad.
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MR. RUSSERT: To be continued. Newt Gingrich, Joe Biden.

SEN. BIDEN: We should tell them that.

MR. RUSSERT: Thank you for an interesting discussion.

Coming next, columnist Robert Novak answers questions about his role in the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation. He's coming up next, right here, only on MEET THE PRESS.

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