We’re not doing enough, I don’t believe, to help them, to communicate with them, to give them the means of communication to rhetorically say the things that I think we need to say, to give them moral support. You know, we’ve seen other great nations much stronger than this one fall because of support that was given to people on the inside. Very few, very few regime changes take place like that in a large country without some support from the, from the outside. A lot of things we can do in terms of just helping them communicate better and us getting information in there better to, to, to help them. I think the, the sanctions are having some effect. I don’t think you’ll ever get the Russians or the Chinese to really turn the screws on them because their, their economic relationships mean too much to them.

But we’re, we’re having a—some change in France, some change in Germany now, I think, in terms of their attitude. Some of our other European allies, and some of those economic changes, I think, have hurt the higher up Iranians. And so I think a combination of those things, effective policies and a realization that these—the nature of these people, the mullahs are religiously-driven extremists, and they’re not like other nation states. It’s very difficult to sit, sit across the table from them and, and, and have negotiations that make intellectual sense to us, but does not to them because they’re—they have a different drive. They consider us the, the great Satan. Israel’s the little Satan, and we know what their plans are for them. But they consider us the great Satan, so negotiations in the traditional sense are, are going to be extremely difficult and probably fruitless. So we need to get about these other things—the sanctions, assistance with regard to people on the inside there—before we ever get to the point—it may backfire on us if we attack them, even if we had to attack them. I don’t see how we can afford to let these people go nuclear, frankly.

MR. RUSSERT: Will you, will you—would you make...

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MR. THOMPSON: But it may, it may—there may be a backlash. It’s risky. We need to take these other options to the fullest extent.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you make a pledge that Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb while you were president?

MR. THOMPSON: That would be my intent. If—I, I would make a pledge to do everything that I could to keep it from happening.

MR. RUSSERT: How far are they away from having one?

MR. THOMPSON: Nobody knows. They claim that they have a few thousands centrifuges in, in order to make—enrich uranium, which would go into a weapon like that. You’ve got to have quite a few more centrifuges than that. You’ve got to make them work together. It’s not an easy job. But it—they’re not easy to find, either, in a place like Iran.

MR. RUSSERT: You said an attack may backfire. What, in fact, would be the fallout from a U.S. attack on Iran? What if the Iranians said, “All right, we’re going to send several hundred thousand troops into Iraq to engage your 165,000 on the ground.” What happens to the region, what happens to Saudi Arabia, what happens to a, a jihad among Shiites all around the world?

MR. THOMPSON: What happens to all coming out of the Gulf?

MR. RUSSERT: What happens?

MR. THOMPSON: Yeah. Well, sometimes you’re faced with two very bad decisions, and those are two very bad decisions. But what happens if, if a country like this, who talks in terms of the 12^th imam coming back and maybe millions of people dying and so forth, including their own people. It would be, you know, on balance, it would be apparently OK with them as long as, as they would do the right thing, you know, from their own warped religious standpoint. And what would happen if they, if they sent a, a, a, a missile with a nuclear warhead and, and hit Israel? What would happen if they did the same to our people in the field with some kind of attacks by a nuclear weapon? What would happen then? What would happen if they held that whole region hostage in terms of oil? And, and, and, and oil, you know, which now, you know, $90 to $100 a barrel, much, much higher than that. Those are bad, bad circumstances and situations. I mean, that’s why most people with good judgment don’t run for president, I suppose.

MR. RUSSERT: Where do you, where do you come down?

MR. THOMPSON: Because those are, because those are tough situations.

MR. RUSSERT: Which side...

MR. THOMPSON: You can’t, you can’t answer that in advance. I mean, we’re, we’re talking about a little ways down the road. They clearly, as best we can tell, don’t have that capability today and are not real close to it, but it might be a matter of two or three years. Experts disagree on that.

But let’s get back to, to something else again. The major effort we need to be making now is to improve our intelligence and improve our human intelligence and make sure that we do better next time than, than we have done in the past. You can’t do anything in terms of making the decision as to what to do or how to carry it out in terms of where these facilities are. What about if we attacked them and found out that we only did half the job because our intelligence was faulty as to where the facilities were? We’d have the worst of both worlds. So these are tough, tough decisions. All these considerations have to be on the table, and the situation next year at this time will be different than it is today.

MR. RUSSERT: And if you go to the world and the country and say, “We’re going to do this to Iran,” the response from some would be “Is that the same intelligence that gave us Iraq?”

MR. THOMPSON: Exactly. That’s the price you pay when you operate on the basis of faulty intelligence. But you have to operate on the basis of the intelligence that you have. And, in our case, you know, as far as Iraq was concerned it was almost unanimous. I mean, I thought they had weapons of mass destruction there on the day that, that we went in. You know, the, the leading Democrats on the Intelligence Committee thought the same thing. Just about every country that’s our, our ally, their intelligence thought the same thing, too. So it’s always going to be murky, but we’ve, we’ve got to make it as clear as we possibly can because these decision are the most vital decisions that a country can possibly make, and it’s got to be maked—made on the best intelligence that we can get, and it’s got to be better than what it’s been in the past.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, we’re going to take a quick break and come back and talk about some domestic issues. More of our discussion with Senator Fred Thompson right after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: More of our conversation with Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson after this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: And we are back. Senator Fred Thompson is our guest.

Virginia Tech, last April 32 killed, terrible tragedy. You had a radio report back at that time, and I’d like to share it with you and our viewers. “Virginia Tech,” the “administrators overrode Virginia state law and threatened to expel or fire anybody who brings a weapon,” on the “campus. Many other universities have been swayed by an anti-gun, anti-self defense ideology. Whenever I’ve seen one of those ‘Gun-free zone’ signs, especially outside of a school filled with our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, I’ve always wondered exactly who these signs are directed at.”

My sense in reading that is that you would be in favor of licensed citizens of Virginia, students, including students, to carry concealed weapons on a college campus.

MR. THOMPSON: It would have to be consistent with campus rules. I don’t think that all students need to be carrying weapons on the school campus. What I would, I would feel more comfortable with, if a child of mine was on campus, when I read about these people, 30 people or so being lined up and systematically killed without anybody apparently around to do anything about it, I think some, some thought really needs to be given as to who should be properly qualified and permitted and, and armed on campuses and other places where large people gather. But...

MR. RUSSERT: But you would, you would allow a campus to bar their students from carrying concealed weapons?

MR. THOMPSON: Yeah, it, it would have to be consistent with state law and, and, and school rules. And different schools would have, you know, the, the freedom to, to have their own rules as, as, as they see fit.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about an issue very important in your party’s primary process, and that’s abortion.

MR. THOMPSON: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: This is the 2004 Republican Party platform, and here it is: “We say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution,” “we endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions.” Could you run as a candidate on that platform, promising a human life amendment banning all abortions?

MR. THOMPSON: No.

MR. RUSSERT: You would not?

CONTINUED

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