CNN Late Edition - Transcript

CNN Late Edition - Transcript

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BLITZER: Welcome back to our special "Late Edition." I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting today from CNN election headquarters in New York.

Joining us, now, to talk about the situation in Iraq, the upcoming elections, and a lot more, two key members of the United States Senate: in his home state of South Carolina, Republican senator Lindsey Graham. He serves on the Armed Services Committee; and in Los Angeles, Democratic senator Barbara Boxer of California, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Senators, thanks very much for coming in.

Senator Boxer, I'll start with you. What's your reaction to the guilty verdict for Saddam Hussein?

He's now scheduled to be executed.

SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: Saddam is getting what he deserves for crimes against humanity.

The tragedy is those crimes against Sunni, against Shia are happening every day in Iraq. Our military are right in the middle of it, ethnic violence, ethnic killings, tortures and the rest. And 60 percent of the Iraqi people, in a recent poll, said it was OK to shoot an American soldier.

So yes, he got what he deserved, but we have a long way to go. It's a mess over there in Iraq.

BLITZER: Well, let me let you pick up on that, Senator Graham, because you were recently quoted, in an Associated Press interview, as saying, "We're on the verge of chaos (in Iraq) and the current plan is not working."

You want to respond?

Tell us what you mean by that, also in the context of this guilty verdict for Saddam Hussein.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, we don't have enough troops security to get democracy moving forward. It's hard to have democracy, Wolf, when you've got armed groups roaming around the country assassinating people.

It's hard to have a legal system where the lawyers and the judges get kidnapped and assassinated. So I don't want us to leave Iraq by artificial deadlines or set timetables. I want us to win.

And winning to me is having institutions of government that deliver justice, not vengeance.

Saddam Hussein's trial is a step forward because it was a result of a legal system in operation, not a dictator in operation, so that's the good news.

But when you look at the institutions of government in Iraq, they're all under siege. We're asking a lot of the Iraqi people to overcome religious disputes that are longstanding. And you can't do that if people are getting kidnapped and shot and executed.

So we need better security. I'm optimistic because the Iraqi people are dying for their own freedom. We just need a strategy to provide better security to get this right. BLITZER: Senator Graham, are you saying the United States should deploy more troops to Iraq right now?

GRAHAM: Yes, I think we -- one thing I have learned, over the last two years, when I go to Iraq for the fourth time -- the political process is moving forward.

Saddam Hussein's trial, now, is coming to an end. That shows that the institutions are beginning to work. They had an election. I was there in December. They had 11 million people voting.

But the violence is worse. And I don't think we've ever had enough troops on the ground. The goal is to have more troops...

BLITZER: How many more troops are needed?

GRAHAM: That's a good question. I think we need a bigger Army and a Marine Corps. I'm not a battlefield commander, but I do have common sense.

You'll never convince me that the security apparatus that we have in place now is working. We need more Iraqi troops. We need more American troops, coalition troops, in the short-term.

To have a democracy, you can't have this level of violence.

BLITZER: What about that, Senator Boxer?

BOXER: Well, I just totally disagree with my friend on his solution. I agree with him that we're seeing chaos, but I think what he is doing is taking American ownership of this sovereign nation, 60 percent of whom say it's OK shoot an American.

And he wants to send more Americans there?

Seventy percent of the Iraqi people say the fact that we're there is causing terrorism. Our own intelligence estimate said the same thing. We are fueling terrorism by our presence there.

So while I agree with Lindsey that the place is in chaos, the last thing I would do is send more Americans to a place where they're in the middle of civil strife.

BLITZER: All right. Senator Graham?

GRAHAM: What happens if we lose in Iraq? What happens if we withdraw and Iraq fails?

The big winner is Iran. Iran is run by a crazy guy. I think, if he had a nuclear weapon, the president of Iran would use it against Israel.

The biggest loser in a failed state in Iraq would be Turkey, because you'd have an independent Kurdish state in the North.

So it is important to me that we win. It is the central battlefront in the war on terror.

And in World War II, we threw everything we had to win the war. We need to throw everything we have to stabilize Iraq so we can get this right.

BLITZER: Here's what the president, Senator Boxer, said to Democrats this week. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: There's still time for the Democrats to tell the American people their plan to prevail in this war on terror. So if you happen to bump into a Democratic candidate, you might want to ask this simple question: What's your plan?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: I know you're not a candidate this time around, but I'll ask you the question that the president wants Democrats to answer. What's your plan, Senator Boxer, because Senator Graham does paint a picture, as bad as the situation in Iraq is right now, if the U.S. were simply to pull out, potentially it could be a whole lot worse.

BOXER: Wolf, the president said, what is our plan for the war on terror. He didn't say the war in Iraq. They're two different things. My plan and the Democratic plan is to listen to the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. Congresswoman Pelosi has said in the first 100 hours, if they take back the House, they would adopt those to truly protect the American people and stop scaring them.

My plan would be to focus on getting Osama bin Laden and al Qaida. And my plan -- and the Democrats have said this, and we voted for it in the Senate -- is to begin redeploying the troops out of Iraq, where they are fueling the terrorists, fueling al Qaida, and return to fighting the war on terror.

BLITZER: Senator Graham, here's what Richard Perle, a so-called neoconservative and a former adviser to the Pentagon, served during the Reagan administration, is quoted as saying in the new issue of Vanity Fair in criticizing the decisions that were made: "President bush did not make decisions, in part because the machinery of government that he nominally ran was actually running him."

Is that a fair criticism?

GRAHAM: Well, I think the president's been very aware of what's going on in Iraq. We're trying to adjust, but so does the enemy. You know, the big difference between us and the Democrats is, I do believe Iraq is part of the war on terror. They don't.

Bin Laden says it's the central front on the war on terror. The terrorists believe it's a key to their victory in the Mideast is to have this democracy fail. So that's the big difference between us and them. I think it is a big part of the war on terror, and if we leave, set timetables or withdraw, then it will be a big victory for the terrorists, and it will create regional chaos, so that's the big difference in this election, really.

BLITZER: All right, senators...

BOXER: Well, I think Lindsey Graham...

BLITZER: Senator Boxer, hold on for a second, because I want to continue this conversation. We have to take a quick commercial break.

BOXER: OK.

BLITZER: I'm going to have Senator Boxer, Senator Graham, please stand by. Lots more to discuss. We'll get back to both senators. We'll talk about the midterm election, which party is poised to take over control of the Senate.

And don't forget, for our North American viewers, right after "Late Edition" 1 p.m. Eastern, our own John Roberts hosts a special "This Week at War." He's in Baghdad. Up next, we'll also have a quick check of what's in the news right now, including today's public admission by a prominent evangelical leader, Ted Haggard. He's now changing his tune and saying he did engage in sexual promiscuity. From the CNN election headquarters in New York, we'll be right back.

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BLITZER: Welcome back to our special "Late Edition: America Votes 2006." I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting today from the CNN election headquarters in New York. We're continuing our conversation with Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

The president this week, Senator Graham, gave the vice president and the defense secretary a strong vote of confidence: "Both those men are doing fantastic jobs, and I strongly support them." What do you think, Senator Graham?

GRAHAM: Well, I think the president is defending people in his cabinet and his vice president against political attacks. My criticism has been very simple. I do believe Iraq's outcome determines the fate of the war on terror in many ways.

We haven't made the commitment that we need to make. The idea of Secretary Rumsfeld being the scapegoat for everything bad in Iraq is not fair. He should accept responsibility, in my opinion, for the mistakes we've made in the past. But replacing him is not going to win the war or lose the war.

What will win the war, in my opinion, is to have the security apparatus in place to allow democracy to emerge out of a dictatorship. We're beginning to adjust in the right way, so standing by his people, the president standing by his people, I think, is an appropriate thing for him to do.

BLITZER: What do you think, Senator Boxer?

BOXER: Well, I don't see how we're adjusting in the right way when we have a horrible, horrific death toll in October, the worst in a couple of years, where every day in November we've had one, two, three dead American soldiers. We're not adjusting in the right way, and my colleague, Senator Graham, agrees we're in chaos.

His answer is more troops. He doesn't know how many. He doesn't even know how to get them. There's an army recruiting scandal that ABC broke this week where the recruiters are telling kids, join the military, the war in Iraq is over.

This thing is a mess: $400 billion and counting. Seventy percent of the Iraqi people say, please leave. We'll be better off without you. Sixty percent say it's OK to shoot a soldier. Why don't we listen instead of to Osama bin Laden, as my colleague suggests, why don't we listen to a leader like Joe Biden, who has said, why don't we figure out a political solution to this?

Get the Sunnis, the Shia, the Kurds together, semi-autonomous regions, one area dividing the oil. There are other solutions than digging deeper with a bigger shovel. When you're in a hole, stop digging.

BLITZER: Senator Graham, I want to move on, talk a little bit about politics. Tuesday, a big election, as everyone knows. The president's job approval numbers in several recent polls, Newsweek has them down at 35 percent, CBS/New York Times at 34 percent, NBC/Wall Street Journal at 39 percent. Our own CNN poll has him at 37 percent.

Is this election that will take place on Tuesday a referendum in effect on President Bush?

GRAHAM: They're trying to make it that. What I have seen in the last two weeks is a surge by Republicans. And I'm trying to figure out why. I think a lot of it is that Republicans who have been disenchanted with the way we've run Congress are beginning to come home. Independents are beginning to look at the different choices on taxes and national security between Democrats and Republicans. And when you look at the polling recently, Republicans have closed the gap in Senate races. There are about three dozen House races that are very much in play.

But traditionally, the second term, the last two years of a second term are not good for the incumbent party. Part of it's about the president, and part of it's about individual candidates and what they believe. We're going to do better than I thought two weeks ago. I think we're going to hold the Senate, and the House is very much in play again.

BLITZER: You know, in California, Senator Boxer, a lot of people thought that the Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, didn't have much of a future. But now it looks like he is going to almost coast to re-election. What happened in a predominantly blue state, a Democratic state like California? you got a Republican governor who is going to be re-elected, presumably.

BOXER: Well, remember, my state is not only the state of Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, but Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and Pete Wilson and on and on. We are very independent state. Once Arnold Schwarzenegger started acting like a Democrat and he stopped attacking the nurses and the firefighters and the teachers, he's trying to make people forget that.

But after spending $40 or $50 million, he's way ahead in the polls, but he's not over 49 in any poll. So it's not over until it's over. But in terms of the national election, I think the people finally realize that this whole country is being run by Republicans. They run the House. They run the Senate. They run the White House.

They're not happy with Iraq. They're not happy with the culture of corruption. They're not happy with the deficits. They're not happy with the debt. They're very worried about the cost of health care.

Student loans cost more than anything else. They're worried about homeland security. They see that with all the talk, the 9-11 Commission recommendations have still not been followed. So there's lots of issues, but it's a government run by the Republicans. So, if you want change, you got to vote for the Democrats.

BLITZER: We've got to leave it right there, senators. Good discussion. Thanks to both of you for coming in.

GRAHAM: Thank you.

BOXER: Thanks.

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