Transcript for Aug. 13

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. KEAN: ...12 airlines using, again, liquids combined. This is al-Qaeda trying to do something that they’ve done once before, and this time trying to do it successfully.

MR. GREGORY: And Congressman Hamilton, let me ask you about al-Qaeda’s existence and where it may exist, particularly in Pakistan. A lot of investigative focus there, as I mentioned, with Secretary Chertoff. Is this becoming an area that is allowing al-Qaeda to flourish?

MR. HAMILTON: Well, of course. I think it’s quite likely that Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan. We have a very different kind of relationship with Pakistan. They are doing some things to help us and probably not enough to help us. I, I think al-Qaeda is much more decentralized than perhaps many people think, and I think what’s really happening here is the radicalization of the Muslim world. And it’s not Osama bin Laden and his cohorts pulling the strings with regard to subway bombings in Madrid and London and now this plot on the airlines, but rather it’s a highly decentralized operation. They prey upon these Muslims who are without jobs, who are angry at the West for all kinds of reasons, who don’t like our way of life. And we have to understand, I believe, that if you’re really going to make the American people safe, it’s not just a question of taking different procedures on airplanes, it is dealing with the fundamental problem of the radicalization of Muslims in the world today.

MR. GREGORY: Governor Kean, has that radicalization gotten worse since the 9/11 attacks, and why?

MR. KEAN: I think it has, because I think there are a whole bunch of things happening in the world which has tended to make Muslims dislike the United States more than they even did before. After 9/11, there was world sympathy that came to us. Since then, the war in Iraq, our support for, for Israel, which is constant, a number of things that have happened have sort of—and, and plus, which, as, as Lee said, these people are not getting any better off. I mean, these people still don’t have jobs, they’re still poor, they still don’t have any future, they don’t have any hope. And if you have no hope then the culture of death, which is really what bin Laden is talking about, and the culture of life, which we’re talking about, death is sometimes the way.

MR. GREGORY: Governor Kean, you bring up the subject of Iraq, which has been a major foreign policy thrust since the 9/11 attacks. You were on the program a couple of years ago speaking with Tim Russert on this very subject, and he asked you whether and how the war in Iraq played into this global war on terror. This is what you had to say about it at the time.

(Videotape, July 25, 2004):

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Do you see the war in Iraq as a distraction from the war on terrorism or as a legitimate front of the war on terrorism?

MR. KEAN: My personal view is if—you know, and it’s a gamble in Iraq. If Iraq works out the way the Bush administration and others hopes it will it could transform the Middle East. If it doesn’t, it could be a source of continuing problems and irritation and a home for future terrorists.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Governor Kean, let me start with you. What are your thoughts now?

MR. KEAN: They’re not much different. I mean, we still—we still are trying very, very hard in Iraq to create a democracy in the center of the Middle East and a democracy that, if it works, will transform the Middle East. But increasingly, as people have said, it looks more and more like a civil war and more and more dangerous, and if it develops in that direction we could have a much more serious situation.

MR. GREGORY: Is it a gamble that’s not paying off?

MR. HAMILTON: I think there isn’t any doubt that it’s a breeding ground for terrorism today. However, I also think the conflict in Iraq is changing, and that it is becoming more and more now a conflict among the various sects there, the insurgents.

So Iraq continues to evolve. But does it feed terrorism, does American policy towards Iraq motivate a lot of these radicalized Muslims? I think there’s not much doubt about that, it does. But it’s only one thing. What Tom said with regard to the disaffection that so many people have with American foreign policy is true. That doesn’t make American foreign policy wrong, it just means that it has a lot of consequences to it that keep flowing. If you kill hundreds and hundreds of people in Lebanon, that has consequences. And the consequences are that you radicalize further a lot of people. You have to deal with that and your policy as best you can by doing the kind of things that Tom suggested, reaching out to the Muslim world.

MR. GREGORY: Let me talk about security policy here at home in areas of vulnerability. I, I raised this point with Secretary Chertoff about the report card that the commission issued with a lot of C’s, D’s and F’s. And you spoke about that in 2005, that these failures, in your view, were shocking, that the government was distracted.

Governor Kean, what are the major blind spots now and have new ones been exposed by the plot unearthed this week?

MR. KEAN: Well, for instance, when you and I go to the airport there still is not a unified watch list. There should be. We should know everybody who’s getting on that plane, and/or if any agency has any problems with them, they shouldn’t be allowed to get on the plane. We still don’t have enough of what’s called puffer machines in the airports that detect traces of explosives. We still haven’t got the proper technology for screening baggage. Now some of that is simply dollars. I mean, Congress simply has not given the agency the dollars to put those tings into effect. But those are major steps that should be taken at the airports, and until they’re done we’re not as safe as we should be.

MR. HAMILTON: It’s an amazing thing, five years after this event that we’re still struggling with the whole question of developing detection devices for all kinds of explosives. Five years after this event. And the president—or not the president, the secretary a moment ago spoke about pilot programs. Pilot programs, five years after the event. I’m not sure that’s anybody’s fault particularly, but the urgency of developing these detection machines for all kinds of ways they can do harm to passengers has been very slow.

MR. GREGORY: And isn’t it a fact that had this plot actually gone off, there would have been a lot of questions about why authorities hadn’t anticipated liquid explosives being used, given the 1994 plot, given Richard Reid. Why haven’t liquids been banned before?

MR. HAMILTON: Yeah. Well, we tend to fight the last war, don’t we? I mean, we’ve been very much focused, for example, on land transportation because of London and Madrid. Now, all of a sudden, we switch back to air transportation as the target. The fact of the matter is, this is one of the great problems in counterterrorism efforts, and that is you have to judge—make judgments about priorities, you have to make hard choices about what kind of devices are most likely to be used, what devices have to be—you have to develop detection for, and what kind of targets are likely to be hit. All of this demands tough, hard choices by policymakers. Clearly, they’re reluctant to make those choices. I think they’re now beginning to make them. But it’s been a process that has been terribly slow.

MR. GREGORY: Governor Kean, what has to be done for policymakers, counterterror specialists, to get ahead—both technologically and imaginatively—of the terrorists?

MR. KEAN: This has to be a priority. It’s not right now. It’s a priority, but not a top priority. They’re talking about other things because we’re fighting two wars. We’re doing a number of other things. But you’ve got to make that a priority.

MR. GREGORY: Can you do both? Can you fight two wars, or do you have to be focused singularly on, on the war on terror?

MR. KEAN: If you don’t make the defense of the American people your top priority, you’re not doing your job.

MR. GREGORY: Is Iraq a distraction in this, in this sense?

MR. HAMILTON: It’s, it’s, it’s part of the total picture. It’s not just two wars we’re fighting, we’re fighting three wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the war on terror.

MR. GREGORY: But are the resources—the priority of Iraq—is that a distraction from some of these other measures that we’re focused on?

MR. HAMILTON: If you, if you pour billions and billions of dollars into Iraq, as we’re now doing, and if you put most of your military effort there, it is clearly a priority for the administration and for the country at this point in time. When you do that, it means you do less things in other areas. We cannot do it all. We don’t have the resources, we don’t have the manpower.

So the priorities that you establish automatically reject other options.

MR. GREGORY: But Governor Kean, in your view, then, is the war in Iraq part of the war on terror or is it a distraction from the priorities you’re outlining?

MR. KEAN: Well, it’s part of the war on terror in the sense that, if we fail, Iraq will become another sanctuary for terrorists. There’s not much question about that. If Iraq goes into chaos, that’s the kind of situation that bin Laden and al-Qaeda like. So we’ve got to stop that from happening. So in that sense, it’s a part of a worldwide view where we’ve got to get a hold of these areas that are ungoverned where terrorists work.

MR. GREGORY: But you’re sensitive on this point. The direction question is, do you think it’s a distraction from meeting the priorities that you’ve outlined?

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