CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer - Transcript

CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER - Transcript

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BLITZER: Thanks very much, Fred. A huge issue in Washington this week has been how the United States detains and questions suspects in the war on terror. It's turning into a tug of war between President Bush and key members of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Democrats and Republicans.

Joining us now, two key members of that panel. From Austin, Texas, Senator John Cornyn. He's a Republican from the state of Texas. And in Washington, D.C., Senator Evan Bayh. He's a Democrat from the state of Indiana. Senators, thanks very much to both of you for joining us.

And Senator Bayh, I'll start with you. We heard in the first hour of "Late Edition" the president's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, say that one article of this U.N. -- excuse me, of this Geneva Convention, what's called Common Article 3, needs clarification. And it needs it right now if civilian personnel are going to be able to interrogate effectively suspected terror suspects.

The element of "outrages of personal dignity, humiliating or degrading treatment," that needs clarification and definition. Is he right?

SEN. EVAN BAYH (D), INDIANA: He is right, Wolf, but we can accomplish that without gutting the Geneva Convention. And let me be clear about a couple of things first. Our principal concern is not about the detainees. Our concern is about U.S. military personnel and intelligence operatives who themselves might be subjected to torture and inhumane treatment someday.

We don't want to do anything to make that more likely, and don't want to do anything that undermines the moral standing of our country across the world in this fight against terror, because that is a great asset and strength of ours. We are morally superior to those we're fighting, and we don't want to confuse that issue. So, we can get the intelligence we need, Wolf.

BLITZER: But why are you suggesting, Senator...

BAYH: We can be true to the Geneva Convention, but we can do it by amending the War Crimes Act to give clarity to our agents so they can conduct these intelligence interrogations, get the information we need to protect our country but protect our own people and be true to our own values in the process.

BLITZER: All right. Well, let me let Senator Cornyn, himself a former judge, respond. What about that proposal from Senator Bayh?

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: Well, I'm glad to hear Senator Bayh talk about the importance of this program. We've gotten information from high-value detainees which have literally detected, disrupted and deterred terrorist attacks against our troops abroad and Americans here at home. And the issue really is, do we provide clear rules for our civilian interrogators so they know what is permitted and what is not permitted?

We thought we'd actually done that last year, and Senator McCain championed the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act, which by its name you can tell defined what American law said with regard to how detainees shut be treated. And then the United States Supreme Court came in in June and said Common Article 3 with this hopelessly ambiguous standard of outrages against personal dignity applied.

All we want to do is tie that standard to the Detainee Treatment Act, and I think we're done.

BLITZER: What he's suggesting -- Senator Bayh, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but explain what you meant, and then I'll let Senator Cornyn react, when you say what the president wants to do is effectively gut the Geneva Conventions.

BAYH: Well, that's what John McCain, Colin Powell, Lindsey Graham, John Warner, who is the chairman, as you know, Wolf, of the Armed Services Committee, former head of the Navy, they're all concerned that if we basically back away from the explicit requirements of the Geneva Convention, that will create confusion around the world about what standard that we adhered to. Then there's a separate question that John is speaking to, and I do think there needs to be some clarification here to give our operatives -- we don't want them sued. We don't want them prosecuted and brought into court and that kind of thing, so we do need to lay out very explicitly what they can and cannot do.

But we need to do that while still sending a clear message to the rest of the world that we adhere to the Geneva Convention because that is the accepted international norm. And if we back away from that, as I said, we endanger our own people, and we undermine our own moral standing, which is a great sense of strength for us.

BLITZER: All right. Senator Cornyn, I want you to listen to what your Republican colleague John McCain said earlier in the week on this very sensitive point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: Suppose that we amend the Geneva Conventions to our interpretation of it. Then another country that is not quite as democratic as ours decides they will amend their version. A Special Forces person is captured by them, and their attorney general tells their secret police, OK, here's our interpretation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, have at him. That's what people are worried about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, Senator Cornyn, what do you say?

CORNYN: Well, first of all, the United States complies with the Geneva Conventions in their entirety, and we expect that chain of command will be honored and that the laws of war will be observed. But actually what Senator McCain is suggesting is something that I think the president is suggesting, and that is not to abrogate, not to amend the Geneva Convention Common Article 3, but rather to give it definition.

This is something that Congress does every time an international convention like the one banning torture that was ratified in 1994, that the Congress does as a matter of definition to make clear that the U.S. as a matter of sovereignty determines what's lawful and unlawful with regard to its activities, while adhering to these international conventions like Common Article 3.

BLITZER: Well, what do you think, Senator Cornyn, of Senator Bayh's proposal? He's got a different idea, a different method for clarifying that article as opposed to what the president would like. What do you think of his proposal to get around this impasse?

CORNYN: Well, I welcome it. I'm glad to hear what he said, and I think we need to get more people into this discussion so we can explore all the range of ideas. But I do think it's going to take more than amending the War Crimes Act because when the Department of Justice passes judgment on whether an interrogation technique is lawful or unlawful, they're going to look at the whole range of laws, not just the War Crimes Act, to determine that. That's why we need the clarity that would be provided by the Detainee Treatment Act.

BLITZER: Senator Bayh, the president had a bottom line, a short bottom line. He said that will force him to conclude whether any compromise with you and the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives is possible. Here's how he put it the other day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I asked General Casey today if you got what you need. He said, yeah, I got what I need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: I apologize. That's not the right clip from the president. I'll read to you what the president basically said. He said, "The point is that the program is not going to go forward if our professionals do not have clarity in the law." That's his bottom line.

BAYH: By the way, Wolf, I suspect General Casey doesn't have what he needs either, but to get to your question, look, we need to keep this program. We do get valuable information from it, but we can do it in a way that uses methods that don't approach torture. And that's important for the reasons John and I and all of us appreciate: protecting our people, maintaining our moral standing.

And we need to do that while providing the clarity our people need. So, look, the president's threat, I think, frankly, is hollow because the program should stay in place. It can stay in place. And we can do it while protecting our country and our values and our people at the same time.

So let's look at the War Crimes Act. Let's look at the Detainee Act that John mentioned. Let's find that common ground. But look, the president shouldn't try and push something through that even members of his own party with deep national security experience like John McCain and Colin Powell think would undermine our standing, our security in the world.

BLITZER: General Powell, Senator Cornyn, wrote to Senator McCain this past week, and there was one very strong line in there. He said, "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." A powerful assertion by a retired four-star general.

CORNYN: Well, General Powell is a great patriot. I actually think, when you read the first paragraph of that letter, he said he didn't want to water down the Detainee Treatment Act which we passed last year.

I actually think there's more basis for common ground and agreement between General Powell, the administration and Senator McCain than first meets the eye.

But clearly, we treat our detainees well. The fact is we would be happy if Al Qaida would treat any prisoners of war they take of ours -- but he don't take prisoners of war; they behead them. And they don't respect any international conventions, including the Geneva Conventions.

BLITZER: We're going to take a quick break, but a quick question, Senator Cornyn and a quick question to Senator Bayh: Can you reach a compromise deal between the president and the U.S. Congress in the next two weeks or so before the Congress goes into recess?

CORNYN: I certainly hope so. It's very important that we begin to try these detainees who have been kept for a long time and interrogated because they need to be held accountable for the war crimes they've committed.

BLITZER: Senator Bayh?

BAYH: I think we can, Wolf, and I hope we can. But, look, it's better that we get it right than we get it quick. There are no detainees in the CIA program anymore. They've all been shifted over to the military side. These people aren't going anywhere. They'll ultimately be tried.

We need to make sure we do it the right way.

BLITZER: Senators, stand by. We're going to continue this conversation. I'll also be asking them about the situation in Iraq and, potentially, the need for more U.S. troops to be dispatched there.

Also ahead: a capital in chaos. Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie in Baghdad on why we saw another deadly week in the battle for the Iraqi capital. That conversation coming up.

And later, my conversation about money, politics and opposition to the war in Iraq with the billionaire George Soros. I'll ask him why he continues to make comparisons between President Bush's policies and Nazis.

Stay with us.

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BLITZER: Welcome back to "Late edition." I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting today from Chicago.

We're continuing our conversation, now, with Senators John Cornyn and Evan Bayh, both members of the Armed Services Committee.

Senator Bayh, I want to button up the whole issue of terror detainees. In the first hour, we spoke with President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley.

He said, now, what the administration is ready to do, as far as making classified information, classified evidence available to terror detainees, is to make that classified information available to their lawyers and to try to clean it up to make a declassified version available to the actual terror detainees themselves. What do you make of this proposal?

BAYH: Well, I think that's a reasonable proposal to start from, Wolf.

Look, you can't try people and have any kind of process that is consistent with any notion of judgment without at least letting people know, who are accused of a crime, what the evidence is that supports the accusation.

But at the same time, we can't undermine our country's security by revealing national security information to accused terrorists. So an unclassified summary of the evidence, redacted documents that take out anything related to sources and methods -- that may give us some common ground we can work to get a reasonable compromise that, again, is true to our values but also protects this country.

BLITZER: Are you comfortable with this proposed compromise, Senator Cornyn?

CORNYN: Well, I think, if it were up to Senator Bayh and myself, we could work this out.

Unfortunately, other people are going to get to weigh in. But this is a very important issue because we know that, in past prosecutions, that classified evidence has made its way into Al Qaida's hands after the fact.

And we simply have to protect our sources and methods, as Senator Bayh says. And, obviously most of these detainees are not going to be particularly apologetic about their role in trying to take down the West and kill Americans and kill civilians. That's what they do. That's their ideology that is so problematic.

BLITZER: But Senator Cornyn, if a man, or a woman, for that matter, is potentially going to be sentenced to death based on evidence -- maybe that evidence comes from hearsay, comes from torture victims who have been tortured or whatever -- shouldn't that person have a right to see the evidence before being judged?

CORNYN: Well, let me be clear, Wolf. We don't torture our detainees. What we do is we can use aggressive interrogation techniques which might be different from our use criminal law standards...

BLITZER: Let me just point out, though, Senator Cornyn, other countries provide information to the United States that do use torture.

CORNYN: Well, it's certainly our policy not to do that. But the point is that I do believe these detainees can be treated -- excuse me -- tried using evidence that can be provided, if it's classified, to their lawyers and unclassified summaries provided to the detainees. I believe they can get a fair trial. If not, they can appeal that case and then have the judge determine based upon the ruling of the trial judge, the tribunal and whether or not fair standards were applied. BLITZER: And Senator Bayh, are you comfortable that the individual could be convicted of a crime based on evidence that that person doesn't know what it really is?

BAYH: Well, of course, you have to get to the question -- the word the lawyers use is probative value. You know, how reliable is the information? What does it mean?

And you've got to know some things about it, Wolf. But the question is, what can you learn about it without divulging national security secrets? You can't do that.

And so it's just going to have to be handled on a case-by-case basis. And perhaps -- you know, if you just can't reveal some things, then maybe you don't seek the death penalty; you seek life in prison.

It's just something you've got to handle on a case-by-case basis. But we've got to protect the nation's security. We've got to protect our values and not having people being tried when we don't tell them what the facts are.

BLITZER: Senator Cornyn, it's only about -- you want to add one point, Senator Cornyn?

CORNYN: Well, I agree with Senator Bayh. At this point, we're doing all this, prospectively, on the front end. I think what we're going to have to do is pass some reasonable rules; let trials go forward; and then have them reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the appellate courts, including the Supreme Court. And I think that would be the appropriate way to go.

BLITZER: A recent Gallup poll, Senator Cornyn, shows that the Republicans are in trouble going into the midterm elections: 53 percent of registered voters say they prefer Democrats; 41 percent say they prefer Republicans.

How worried are you, Senator Cornyn, right now, that the Democrats could become the majority party in the House and maybe even in the Senate?

CORNYN: Well, I do believe the Republicans will retain the majority in the United States Senate. I appreciate those polls, but I think most people focus on the candidates, the choices they've been given.

And they'll make their individualized judgment based on how well the incumbent, if there is an incumbent, has performed, or the choice given to them based on these key issues, some of which we've been talking about today. So I think Republicans will do well.

BLITZER: The Republicans were encouraged somewhat, Senator Bayh, by this ABC News poll which asks which party is better able to handle Iraq. Forty-four percent said Republicans; 43 percent said Democrats. And on the question, which party would better handle terrorism, 48 percent said Republicans, 41 percent said Democrats. You see this election, the midterm election, from the Democratic perspective perhaps slipping away?

BAYH: No, I don't, Wolf. I think most people know that we can do better. We can do a better job of securing our nation's physical security. I mean, look, Iraq is not going as well as it should.

And when you have the vice president, who I take it spoke for the administration a week ago today, coming out and saying it they had to do it all over again they'd do the same thing, the same way, that's not only alarming, that's dangerous. We can do better than that.

Afghanistan is not heading in the right direction. That's the place from which we were attacked on 9/11. Iran, which is everything we thought Iraq was but wasn't, is not going well under this administration. Homeland security, we need to do more in ports and rail facilities. So the list goes on and on, Wolf.

We have to offer a program that is both tough and smart to show that we can do a better job of securing this country, and I think we can. I think most Americans will realize that and vote for a change.

BLITZER: We're going to be out of time in a second, Senator Bayh, but when are you going to announce your run for the presidency?

BAYH: Well, it's kind of you to ask, Wolf, but I hope I don't disappoint you by saying not today. Maybe a scoop on another Sunday.

BLITZER: All right, we'll be waiting. Senator Bayh, always good to have you on the program. Senator Cornyn, if you want to run for the presidency, we'd be anxious to hear that, as well. Thanks to both of you for joining us.

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