CNN Late Edition-Transcript

Interview

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BLITZER: Welcome back to "Late Edition." I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, says the war in Iraq is lost. His comments setting off a firestorm of criticism, mostly from Republicans.

Joining us now to discuss the war and more, two U.S. senators. Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas. He's a member of the Judiciary Committee. He's also a candidate for Republican presidential nomination. Senator Brownback is joining us from Topeka.

And with us here in Washington, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. He's a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence. Senators, thanks to both of you for coming in.

And I'll start with you, Senator Brownback. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, he blamed the president's policies for the failures, in his words, of Iraq, adding, "This war is lost, and the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq."

It was a horrible week in the Baghdad area. Hundreds of Iraqis were killed in several major attacks. Is Senator Reid right?

REP. SAM BROWNBACK (R), KANSAS: No, he's not right, and this is poor of him to say this. And I think it's harmful, actually, of him to say this. When we have troops involved in this situation, and we certainly have some policy disputes about a time deadline for pulling people out, but to almost declare defeat by your majority leader in the United States Senate is a very bad thing for the country for him to say such a thing as that.

BLITZER: What do you think, Senator Wyden?

SEN. RON WYDEN (D), OREGON: Wolf, for many months, Henry Kissinger, perhaps the premier senior Republican foreign policy specialist, has indicated that the problems in Iraq cannot be solved with a military solution. We've got to come up with a political settlement here. We've got to find a way to bring the Sunnis, Shias and Kurds together. That's essentially what Harry Reid was talking about.

BLITZER: Is that your understanding, Senator Brownback?

BROWNBACK: That's not my understanding, but I do agree with Ron that we need a political solution. And I've had my own problems with the surge.

But what I think you have to do is mix both the military and the political with this, and that's why I've been joining with people like Joe Biden, and I would presume probably Ron, too, to push a three- state, one-country solution in Iraq, where you have a Kurdish state which basically already exists, a Sunni state and a Shia state with Baghdad as the federal capital and a loose, fairly weak, federated system.

But you're going to need a long-term military presence to ensure that, the same as we do in Bosnia right now. BLITZER: Well, let me ask Senator Wyden. Senator Biden has been speaking about -- he doesn't call it partition, but effectively three separate areas along the lines of what Senator Brownback is saying. Is that something you think makes sense?

WYDEN: I'm still skeptical of that approach. We've got to find a way to reduce the sectarian strife. That's what the National Intelligence Estimate, the most recent one, says is the central problem.

Some have said, oh, the big problem is al Qaida. The big problem is Sunni-Shia violence, and right now, we're even seeing walls being built up between these various areas. I don't think that's the way to go.

I don't think gated communities are going to do this. We've got to find a way to build bonds between the Sunnis and Shias, not create more opportunities with walls for sectarian strife.

BLITZER: Here is what the president said this week, speaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: So far, the operation is meeting expectations. There are still horrific attacks in Iraq, such as the bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday. But the direction of the fight is beginning to shift.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Senator Wyden, do you agree with the president that things slowly but surely are moving in the right direction?

WYDEN: I don't see it, and we don't get that. Again, I can't talk in a classified way, but we don't get that on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Our policies, what we do know, are creating more jihadists rather than fewer. What we're seeing is that our troops are being asked to stay on longer tours.

Every objective measure indicates that this surge is not working. We ought to look at approaches like the Iraqi Study Group and start redeploying our troops and focusing on helping the Iraqis with counterterrorism, but not primarily the combat role.

BLITZER: Senator Brownback, do you see progress on the ground in the Baghdad area?

BROWNBACK: I think you're seeing mixed results right now. Anbar, there's improvements taking place there. The number of attacks in Baghdad are decreasing, but you're seeing more attacks in other places. I think you're seeing a mixed set of results. The full scale of the deployment on the surge has not taken place yet. I don't think we can put a full judgment in.

But I just don't think we have enough of a political solution on the ground. And there I would agree with Senator Wyden about it. It's just I think the only way you're going to move forward is really provide some space and some separation between Sunni and Shia. We're not going to resolve the Sunni-Shia fight. The United States is not going to get that resolved.

BLITZER: There is a standoff, Senator Wyden, right now between the White House and the Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate over funding for the troops for the war right now. The president seeking another $100 billion in emergency funding. The Democratic majority in the house and the Senate say you can have that money, but there has to be a timeline of when U.S. troops should start pulling out, a target date of getting them out.

Right now, the president says if you send them that bill with those kinds of restrictions, he'll veto it. So what happens?

WYDEN: Democrats are going to stay at this to make sure that we're on line with what the country called for last November. The country said we've got to change course, and there ought to be timelines to ensure that there is a new policy. We're also absolutely committed to making sure that the troops have the armor and the equipment that they need.

I believe that not only is the country moving in our direction, but you're seeing Republicans every day move our direction. For example, Olympia Snowe just in the last couple of days has indicated that she's going to stake out a new approach to ensure some accountability. She's talking about benchmarks and timelines. That's what the country wants.

BLITZER: The latest CNN opinion research poll, Senator Brownback, would suggest that Senator Wyden is right. We asked the question, who are you more likely to side with in the Iraq dispute between Bush and Congress? 60 percent said Democrats in Congress, 37 percent said President Bush. It looks like that's a pretty lopsided majority for the Democrats.

BROWNBACK: Well, it may on that opinion there but, Wolf, the date we set a deadline to pull out is the day that al Qaida will declare victory over the United States. And much of the world will agree. And I don't think the United States public wants to see that taking place.

The problem here is, the solution involves both Republicans and Democrats. I think it evolves more of a political solution on the ground that we don't have in place in Iraq, and we're going to need to have a long-term military presence in Iraq or this will continue to have civil war-type features and devolve into a terrorist state. We cannot have that taking place.

BLITZER: I'm going to move on to some other subjects, but a quick point. You're a member of the Intelligence Committee. You don't have to reveal any classified information, but do you get the sense, Senator Wyden, that the U.S., the military, the civilian establishment, has a good understanding of the nature of this insurgency, of what's really going on in Iraq? WYDEN: If you read that National Intelligence Estimate, what you're seeing again is we're not headed in the right direction. They're making it clear, for example, with the Sunni and Shia violence, that, if anything, this is a more extensive than a conventional civil war. So we're going to have to take a different approach than simply putting the primary focus on the military side.

BLITZER: But in terms of an understanding, the nature of the threat that exists in Iraq right now, does the U.S. intelligence community have a good understanding of that?

WYDEN: I think they understand the key fundamentals. The Bush administration doesn't seem to share that view. They're not following the judgments of the intelligence specialists. They're not following the judgments of the Iraqi Study Group. It seems to me their approach is not putting a lot of pressure on the Maliki government. They have used our courageous soldiers as a crutch for too long. We ought to change course.

BLITZER; Let's talk about a domestic issue, Senator Brownback. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. You're a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. You were there during his testimony that day. Here is what your Republican colleague from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn, said, and it raised a lot of eyebrows. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM COBURN, R-OKLA.: It was handled incompetently. The communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It's generous to say that there were misstatements. That's a generous statement.

And I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered. And I believe the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. What do you think? Can the attorney general survive this uproar? Should he survive this uproar or should he step down?

BROWNBACK: Well, I think he can survive, and the opinion that matters here is the president of the United States, the attorney general himself. And I asked him specifically about the U.S. attorneys that were terminated and go down through the specifics of why each was terminated, because that's the factual set of issues we ought to be looking at.

And remember, Wolf, and you know this. These are U.S. attorneys that are appointed by the president. They serve at the will of the president. They can be terminated for cause or without cause or because they just have green eyes. They don't have to have any reason to terminate.

But what we're looking for to see if there was an untoward reason they were terminated, and it didn't come out during the hearing. I think he's got difficulties. I think he has problems, but if he has the confidence of the president, I really think it's probably time to move on.

BLITZER: Does he have your confidence?

BROWNBACK: Well, I have some real questions about how it was managed and how the department is being managed, but I don't think it serves us well to just continue to harp on that. I think it's time for us to move on, and we've got a whole bunch of issues that we can look at and we need to be looking at in this country.

BLITZER: Senator Wyden, this is how, in part, the attorney general defended himself. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GONZALES: I would never, ever, make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Do you believe him?

WYDEN: It was one of the few times he actually gave a direct answer. I will tell you he clearly didn't distinguish himself in this particular testimony. And my concern is, is whether or not he's essentially being a scapegoat for this administration almost like we saw with Brownie in the case of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. You have got a lot of people, in effect, saying he's a dead man walking. Not all the facts are in.

And I can tell you, Wolf, from having dealt with the White House on U.S. attorney appointments, they're pretty involved in this area, both with respect to the selection of an appointment, whether or not that person comes and goes.

And I, for one, am concerned that some of the people who are saying he's a dead man walking are essentially trying to have Mr. Gonzales walk the plank for the administration when we still ought to be digging into exactly what the role of the White House was.

BLITZER: Senator Brownback, two other issues I want to get to very quickly, if you'd give me a quick thought.

BROWNBACK: Good.

BLITZER: The Supreme Court decision, 5-4, saying that the restrictions passed by Congress on late-term abortion procedure that critics call partial birth abortion, was, in fact, constitutional. What happens next from your perspective? I know you oppose abortion rights for women.

BROWNBACK: I would rather put it, if I could, Wolf, that I am pro-life, that I believe all life, at all stages is unique, is beautiful, is sacred. It's a child of a loving God and that applies to a child in the womb and the child in Darfur, I might add, rather than you saying about abortion rights. I think we ought to start looking at this child.

And we're talking about a procedure where you're mostly delivering the child and then literally crushing its head to go ahead with the abortion, and that's why over 70 percent of the American public finds it gruesome and wrong and they think it ought to be limited. And I think that's why the Supreme Court ruled the way it did on this clearly very gruesome procedure and I think they're starting to find life in the Constitution and not death.

BLITZER: Senator Wyden, let me get your response.

WYDEN: Elections have consequences, Wolf, and there's no question the court now is moving to chip away at Roe v. Wade. Historically, there's been an exception for the life of the mother. This decision doesn't comport with that. I think in the days ahead, this court is going to threaten the basic proposition that women ought to be left alone on this point in order to make their own choice.

BLITZER: In the aftermath of Virginia Tech, Senator Brownback, is it time to tighten up gun laws so that an individual who is clearly mentally ill can't simply walk into a store and buy a pistol?

BROWNBACK: Well, we have the Second Amendment, Wolf, just as we have the First Amendment, and I believe in the Constitution. And I believe it says what it does, and you can have experts, I guess, looking at different points, but there are imitations on what we can do because people do have the right to bear arms.

What I would hope we could do as a Congress is step back and take a long view of violence in this country and what it is that we can and can't do within the constrictions of the Constitution, both the First and the Second Amendment. We need to do that on a bicameral, bipartisan basis and it really is called for after Virginia Tech.

BLITZER: All right. Let me let Senator Wyden weigh in.

WYDEN: Taking a long view does make sense, but certainly the Congress -- and there's a promising development recently with folks from the National Rifle Association working with some of the gun safety groups to make sure that when you're talking about a mentally imbalanced individual and somebody at the state level knows about it, that the databases that have that information are communicated to the federal databases so that somebody doesn't walk into a gun shop and people don't check to see if that person's mentally imbalanced. I think we can deal with that.

I'll tell you also...

BLITZER: Hold on. Just very quickly, do you agree, Senator Brownback, on that specific point?

BROWNBACK: I think that's a good point. And it looks like there was a weakness in the system on this one. We need to be able to get that information out to the states for them to be able to use. BLITZER: On that point of agreement, we have got to leave it, unfortunately. But a good discussion.

WYDEN: Thank you.

BLITZER: Senator Wyden, thanks for coming in.

Senator Brownback, always good to have you on "Late Edition" as well. Thank you.

BROWNBACK: Thank you, Wolf.

Thank you, Ron.

WYDEN: Thanks, Sam.

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