‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Dec. 9, 2007

MR. RUSSERT:  Iraq.  The Iraq Study Group, headed by Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton, appointed you as a member.  And then you quit.  This is what Newsday wrote about that:  “Giuliani’s membership on an elite,” excuse me. “Giuliani’s membership on a elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end in the spring of” ‘06 “after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel’s top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit.  Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group in May of” ‘06 “after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the” ‘08 “race, the Iraq war.  He cited ‘previous time commitments’ in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why—the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani’s lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.” Showed “up for a pair of two-day sessions that occurred during his tenure” “both times, they conflicted with paid public appearances” “on his recent financial disclosure” form.  He “quit the group during” the “busiest stretch in” ‘06, “when he gave 20 speeches in a single month that brought in $1.7 million.”

Why would you quit a panel looking and examining the Iraq Study Group, in order to make money from speeches?

MR. GIULIANI:  Well, that isn’t, that isn’t exactly why I did it.  The reality is, it was a mistake for me to be on the panel.  I was a possible and more than possible presidential candidate.  As I started to get involved the first month or so, I realized that this would be a, a terrible conflict; that this report—the report, after all, was going to get written six months to eight months to nine months later, right about the time that I might be announcing running for president.  Wasn’t sure I was going to run, but I was thinking very seriously about it at the time.  And it seemed to me that it would be a terrible mistake for me to be part of that panel.  It would become very political; it would be very politicized.  It was true, I was also trying to clean up a lot of commitments so that I might possibly be able to run.  I was trying to get rid of commitments that I had already made.  But if it hadn’t been for that conflict, I probably would have put aside those commitments and done it.

But just think about it.  If I had stayed with the commission, and they had put out a report, and here I was, you know, that day, the day after or three weeks later going to announce for, for president, the entire proceedings would get infected by “This person is running.  This is partisan.  It may be partisan.” His own opinion is colored by that, their opinion is colored by it. As I looked at the commission, I realized that the people that were on the commission were exclusively people who had already had a political career, and none of them, at least foreseeably, was going to be running for office.  So it seemed to me there was a mistake.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you never mentioned presidential politics as a reason for leaving.

MR. GIULIANI:  Well, actually, I did.  I mean, in the discussions that I had internally, I mentioned the fact that I, I might be running for president and this would not be a good idea.

MR. RUSSERT:  None of the...

MR. GIULIANI:  I didn’t, I didn’t mention it...

MR. RUSSERT:  None of the commissioners remember that.

MR. GIULIANI:  I didn’t—I did have that discussion.

MR. RUSSERT:  With whom?

MR. GIULIANI:  I had that discussion with Jim Baker.  I mention, I mentioned that to Jim.  But also I mentioned the conflict and that I didn’t have enough time and that I really have to clean things up.  Look, at the time I wasn’t sure I was running.  At the time I didn’t want to make an announcement that I was running for president.  If I had publicly announced I’m leaving because I’m running for president, I’d be running for president a lot earlier than I actually decided it.  At the time, I had a pretty clear idea that I might be doing it, but I wasn’t absolutely sure.  So I didn’t mention it as the primary reason, but I did mention it.  And it was the thing that was very, very much on my mind.

MR. RUSSERT:  The one thing that you did continue to participate in was your business.  And I want to ask you some questions about that because it’s received a lot of discussion over the last few weeks, particularly.  Your involvement with the country of Qatar.

MR. GIULIANI:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  And here’s an article that was written by The Wall Street Journal.  “Giuliani could face questions about his business ties if he wins his party’s nomination.  The Qatar contract offers a window into the” political “potential complications.  While Qatar is a U.S. ally, it has drawn scrutiny for its involvement in the U.S. effort to combat terrorism.  In” ‘96, “the FBI went to Qatar to arrest al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, then under indictment in New York for a plot to blow up U.S.-bound jetliners.  But Mr. Mohammad slipped away, apparently tipped off by an al-Qaeda sympathizer in the Qatari government, U.S. officials told the bipartisan” September 11^th “commission.  Mr. Mohammad went on to mastermind the September 11^th, 2001 attacks.”

Salon.com asked you this question:  “Are you aware that the interior minister appointed in 2001 and reappointed this year by the emir of Qatar is Abdullah al-Thani, the former minister of Islamic affairs and a strict Wahhabi Muslim who has been identified in U.S. press and government reports as a protector of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?”

Are you?

MR. GIULIANI:  Am I aware of it?

MR. RUSSERT:  Yes.

MR. GIULIANI:  I—I’m, I’m aware of it now.

MR. RUSSERT:  Why would you do business with people who helped Khalid Sheikh Mohammad?

MR. GIULIANI:  The reality is that Qatar is an ally of the United States. There are a significant number of American troops that are stationed in Qatar. What we did for them and do for them is security for their facilities.  And this is a country that is an ally of ours in the, in the, in the Middle East to the extent that it has a very significant number of American troops stationed there.

MR. RUSSERT:  But the emir of Qatar praised Hezbollah for their victory over Israel in Lebanon.

MR. GIULIANI:  The, the emir of Qatar also supports the United States, supported the United States, is one of our, one of our friends in the Middle East, is taking the grave risk—the country of Qatar is taking the grave risk of having American soldiers there.  When you go to Qatar, when you go to Doha—and I have for security work—you see a significant number of young Americans there.  If you walk the streets of Doha, you can meet them, you can talk to them.  They need security; the government there needs security.  We’re dealing with the same Islamic terrorist threat there as we do all over the world.  It gave my company a great deal of expertise in Islamic terrorism, which is really necessary all over the world.  So the reality is that we need to develop friends.  We need to develop friends in the Middle East.  We need...

MR. RUSSERT:  Robert...

MR. GIULIANI:  ...to, we need to develop friendships with the Emirates.  We need to develop friendships with Qatar, with Kuwait.  These are countries that we have to get closer to.  We should trade more with them, we should be involved more with them as we stand up to Islamic terrorism.  And if they—if they’re asking an American company to help them deal with the Islamic terrorist threat in a more secure way—and the people involved in this are people that are some of the biggest experts on Islamic terrorism who had been with the FBI.  These are the people who are involved in this effort.  This is a good thing to do.  This is a thing that helps us kind of work on the other side of how do you remain on offense against Islamic terrorists?

MR. RUSSERT:  Robert Baer, a CIA officer who had tracked Mohammad Khalid said that you are taking money from the same accounts that protected Khalid Sheikh Mohammad,

MR. GIULIANI:  That’s...

MR. RUSSERT:  ...who then went on to mastermind September 11^th.

MR. GIULIANI:  That’s, that’s just totally wrong, and, and it’s completely, it’s completely distorted.  The relationship is not with any of those people. The relationship is with a, a ministry that does training...

MR. RUSSERT:  Of the, of the interior.

MR. GIULIANI:  No, it isn’t.

MR. RUSSERT:  Which, which, which al-Thani is the head of.

MR. GIULIANI:  It is not.  The relationship is not like that.

MR. RUSSERT:  No involvement with him at all?

MR. GIULIANI:  We’ve never had any involvement with him at all of any kind. None of the people that work with me have, no involvement with him.  We have had significant involvement—they have—with people in that government.  And the purpose of it again, Tim, here’s the purpose of it, generally speaking, it’s to secure that country against attack by Islamic terrorists.  This is a kind of relationship—I don’t just mean for, for my company now.  I’m out, I’m out of the day-to-day operations of it.  But this is the kind of relationship Americans want to have with Middle Eastern countries, working with them to protect them against possible Islamic threats.  This is a country that’s modernizing.  It’s a country that’s moving in a direction we want it to move in.  Every single step like that in the Middle East is a dangerous step.  You could look at the same kinds of things happening in the Emirates.  And I’m somewhat familiar with that, also.  This is the microcosm of what we need to happen in the rest of the Middle East, countries like the Emirates and Qatar have loosened a lot of the, lot of the things that we’re uncomfortable about. You and I can have dinner there.  We can have dinner there, and we can dress normally.  There’s no interference with the way in which we want to practice our religion or our customs or whatever.  They’re moving in a direction that is a modernizing direction.

MR. RUSSERT:  But...

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