News from CNN - Transcript

Interview

CNN

SHOW: NEWS FROM CNN 12:00

September 30, 2004 Thursday

Transcript # 093000CN.V95

HEADLINE: Dozens Dead in Baghdad Bombings; Presidential Debate Preview

GUESTS: Liz Marlantes, Saxby Chambliss, Carl Levin, Raymond Gilmartin

BYLINE: Wolf Blitzer, Brent Sadler, Dana Bash, Carlos Watson, Robert Novak, Paul Begala

You're taking a live look right now at the campus of the University of Miami, some of the students who have gathered here in anticipation of this first presidential debate. There's a band that's playing here as well at the student center. Not surprisingly, a lovely day, sunny day, a hot day here in Miami.

Students are excited. We're excited. This is a major event that will unfold tonight. History in the making.

The students want to watch. I assume a lot of viewers want to watch as well.

Welcome back to our continuing coverage, the lead-up to the first presidential debate tonight. It will be seen, of course, live here on CNN.

What can we expect to hear from these two candidates? Let's bring in two guests, two United States senators joining us from Capitol Hill.

Carl Levin is a Democrat from Michigan, Saxby Chambliss is a Republican from Georgia. They're both on the Intelligence Committee and they're both on the Armed Services Committee as well.

And I'll begin with Senator Levin, since you've been in the Senate a lot longer than Senator Chambliss has been in the Senate. You have a little bit seniority. What do you make of the biggest-the biggest opportunity that your candidate, John Kerry, has tonight?

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: To lay out a third course. The president wants people to believe that in Iraq, for instance, there's just two courses, stay the course or cut and run.

There's a third alternative, which is to change the course, to look for different options, to-that the president is unable to look for because the president is locked into the current course. The president does not even see a problem there, unlike his own secretary of state, who says we've got real problems. Unlike Senator Hagel, for instance, who says we're in deep trouble. Unlike Musharraf, who says that Iraq has made the world less safe.

The president is unable to see these problems, and therefore, is unwilling to look at alternatives. And what Senator Kerry does is hold out hope that there will be alternatives to just simply more of the same four more years both in Iraq and here at home.

BLITZER: Senator Chambliss, you have a chance to respond to that.

SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS ®, GEORGIA: Well, I think the president's got to be himself tonight, and I think he will do that. He will continue to talk about the ongoing conflict in Iraq and what we can hope for, and what we're seeing now.

As Prime Minister Allawi said last week, we're winning this war. The Iraqis are becoming more involved. And the more they become involved, particularly on the security side, the quicker our troops come home.

And I think the president will allude to a lot of things that Allawi had to say last week, directly or indirectly. And I think the president's going to do fine. He's going to be President Bush, and that what's people like and trust.

BLITZER: What about, Senator Chambliss, the horrible series of attacks, the insurgents taking the offensive today? Dozens of people killed. A lot of children killed on this the day of the first presidential debate here in the United States. That can't be good news for anyone, certainly can't be good news for the president, can it?

CHAMBLISS: Well, it highlights two things, Wolf. It highlights the importance of why it's necessary that we continue to win this war and fight hard to make sure that happens.

We are having innocent civilians, Iraqis, as well as other contract workers, who are innocent victims of this war. And the terrorists have no conscience about them. They don't care who they kill. They just want to disrupt the country over there.

And it also means that we are winning. If we weren't winning, they wouldn't be carrying out attacks like this. They're horrible. They're horrendous acts of violence on the part of the terrorists, but I think the president will-will allude to the fact that we are winning the war and we've got to continue the course.

We've got to move towards the elections. And we're going to continue to see that that happens because we're winning.

BLITZER: You know, Senator Levin, a lot of people don't believe the United States and its coalition partners are winning that war in Iraq. What do you believe?

LEVIN: We're not winning this war. We're in a real morass because of the policy failures of this administration, the failure to plan for a violent aftermath, the decision to disband the Iraqi army after the war.

These are major mistakes that this administration has made. The going-it-alone policy without any Islamic support whatsoever, we're paying a heavy price now for that.

And so what the president will portray is this optimism that we're winning the war. But as a matter of fact, his own secretary of state just said a few days ago, it's getting worse. And it is getting worse.

And the inability of this president to see the reality on the ground makes it just impossible, I guess, for him to seek alternatives to simply more and more of the same. And that's what we need to find, is that third course. Not cutting and running, but not just more of the same. And that is where Senator Kerry holds out some real hope, is because, number one...

BLITZER: Well, specifically-specifically, Senator Levin, what specifically-forget about the past-what would he do differently if he were elected? Give me one or two examples.

LEVIN: I think everybody knows that the-an exit strategy here is difficult to implement. But it must involve attracting Islamic countries.

This president has no capability of doing that. He is the president who burned the bridges with the world community.

We need someone to rebuild those bridges. Senator Kerry holds out the possibility that because he's not the guy who tore down the bridges, that he will have greater chance of success in attracting other countries to take the risks of joining us. And he also sees the reality...

BLITZER: All right. Let me let-let me let Senator Chambliss respond to that specific point.

Do you believe, Senator Chambliss, because he would be fresh, he would have a better chance of bringing in coalition partners, Islamic countries, specifically?

CHAMBLISS: Well, the real problem with Senator Kerry's position on Iraq is that it changes day by day. I think yesterday he took his 11th position on the war in Iraq since he started expounding his position.

So, you know, it's kind of difficult to say that we want people to join us. Well, join us in what? What are you going to do?

And he simply has not laid out any vision for that. And the fact of the matter is that we have a number of allies...

BLITZER: Well, he has, Senator Chambliss-Senator Chambliss, let me interrupt, respectfully. He did deliver two major speech speeches on Iraq in the last couple of weeks, one at NYU, one at Temple University, in which he laid out a specific vision, if you will, a specific set of steps he would take if he were elected.

CHAMBLISS: Yes, and the four steps that he laid out, Wolf, were exactly the steps that the current administration's been following for months in Iraq. When you talk about bringing in additional forces, talk about providing additional Iraqi security, and so forth, that's a direction that we've been heading in.

So he brought nothing new to the table by elaborating as to what he would do and where his vision is. But the fact is that getting Islamic countries involved on the ground in Iraq simply is not going to happen.

We've got a number of allies over there who are providing support in the right kind of way, both diplomatically and otherwise. And there continues to be dialogue between our allies from the Islamic world relative to Iraq. And we're going to continue to see that happen.

BLITZER: All right.

CHAMBLISS: And the more security we have over there, the more likely they're to be involved.

BLITZER: I'm going to pick up with Senator Levin. But we're going to take a quick break and continue this conversation with these two senators right when we come back.

Stay with us.

Also, we're standing by to hear from Merck. The pharmaceutical company has decided to pull the arthritis drug Vioxx from the shelves. I'll speak with the Merck CEO, Raymond Gilmartin. He'll explain his decision that affects literally, literally millions of people around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALD FORD, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You will recall, at least many of you will recall, that memorable moment in the 1976 debate between President Ford and his then-challenger Jimmy Carter. Of course, the Soviets did dominate Eastern Europe at that time. And the president's blunder, that became a serious issue in the debate.

We're here at the University of Miami, talking about tonight's first presidential face-off, continuing our conversation with Michigan Senator Carl Levin-he's a Democrat-Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss. He's a Republican.

There will be other issues, Senator Levin, that will come up in this debate. Let's talk about some of those issues and see if there's a real significant difference between these two candidates.

North Korea, for example, the fact that it's already built two, maybe six atomic nuclear bombs, does Kerry have a better plan than what the president is doing right now to deal with that nuclear nightmare?

LEVIN: I think what's happened here is that the president has been so totally distracted by Iraq that he's been unable to address the North Korean problem in a serious way. And it's just on hold.

And he had this-first he talked about an axis of evil, including North Korea, with very threatening talk, suggesting that he might be using military force against North Korea. And so North Korea's response was, well, we know how to deter that. We're going to announce we have nuclear weapons.

So that is what has been precipitated here and it seems to me it is a very dangerous situation to let that fester. But because of the Iraq problem that we're into now, that is what is happening in North Korea.

And if I could just comment-could I go back to Iraq for a minute or do you want to stay on North Korea?

BLITZER: I want to stay on North Korea for a minute, then we'll get back to Iraq. Let me let Senator Chambliss explain what the president is doing and how successful he might be in dealing with the North Korean nuclear bomb.

CHAMBLISS: Well, first of all, Carl and I would agree that North Korea is a very, very serious situation and one that whoever is the next president is going to have to have front and center, in addition to Iraq, and I think this president has done that.

We have got the International Atomic Energy Agency very much involved with the situation in North Korea. You've got a very dysfunctional head of state there that we're having to deal with which makes it very tough. We don't have an open dialogue between our country and theirs.

And again, whoever is president is not going to have that dialogue. I think President Bush is facing this in a proper way right now and letting North Korea know that, you know, we're not going to tolerate weapons of mass destruction in the hands of somebody like Kim Jong-il.

BLITZER: Well, you know, Kim Jong-il, Senator Chambliss, wants a direct dialogue, a bilateral dialogue with the United States. It's the Bush administration that's refusing that, at least for now, saying the six-power, the six-country talks are the best way to deal with North Korea, not in a bilateral U.S.-North Korean fashion.

CHAMBLISS: Yes, well, he wants it on his terms. And we just think that there are ways to deal with this. And I think the Bush administration has got to remain firm in dealing with them.

BLITZER: All right, Let's move on and talk about another sensitive issue before we get back to Iraq. Senator Levin, I'll pick it up with you, Iran. The Bush administration says the United States is not going to tolerate a nuclear Iran. Unclear what, if anything, they can do about that. What do you say?

LEVIN: I think it's best not to bluster and on the other hand be firm. There has just been too much rhetoric from this administration about axis of evil, too many threats, too much stereotyping and painting of things and not enough real strong, cautious, but strong thought about how to deal with a problem like Iran.

Iran is going to be an issue if they proceed to nuclear weapons. And as far as I'm concerned we should keep them guessing as to what we're going to do, but at the same time work with allies to try to deal with the problem, contain the problem, to persuade them that that course of action, moving towards nuclear weapons, is going to lead to a real tragedy for their country, either economically or perhaps physically, leaving open what the possibilities are if they finally do get a nuclear weapon but not engage in a lot of threatening blustering rhetoric.

BLITZER: All right. Senator Chambliss, you have a chance to respond.

CHAMBLISS: Yes, well, I don't disagree with what Carl has said. And I don't think there has been any threatening going on in a way-other than a positive way about the fact that if you do, we're going to have to deal with you. If you continue to produce weapons of mass destruction, then you're going to have to be dealt with by the international community and that's exactly what's going to happen.

Iran is a country that sees what's happening in Iraq, it's to their benefit to each the violence in Iraq going because it does take the focus off of them, but the focus will be on them in due course.

BLITZER: All right. We're out of time. But I want to let Senator Levin have the last word on Iraq. I promised I would. Go ahead, Senator Levin.

LEVIN: It's just that, first of all, intriguing that Kerry is first being charged with changing his mind 11 times and then saying he's being charged with just being a copycat of the president's four- point plan. They can't have it both ways on that.

But what's most interesting to me is that President Bush has been consistent relative to Iraq, consistently wrong. He was wrong going in, because of the lack of strong Muslim support or any Muslim support. He was wrong in disbanding the army, he was consistently wrong in not having a aftermath plan.

So yes, on the consistency word, you give that to President Bush, but you've got to add "consistently wrong" after the word "consistent."

BLITZER: All right. And I'm sure that Senator Chambliss is consistent in disagreeing completely with that last word from Senator Levin.

CHAMBLISS: Right.

BLITZER: But we'll pick it up on another occasion. Senator Chambliss, thanks very much to you. Senator Levin, thanks to you as well.

LEVIN: Thank you, Wolf.

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