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Alan Keyes is Making Sense
Alan KeyesJune 4, 2002
ALAN KEYES, HOST: Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I am Alan Keyes coming live tonight from MSNBC headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey.
Up front tonight, President Bush's new tougher talk on terror. He's talking about how America will take an aggressive initiative in dealing with the facilitators and perpetrators and states that sponsor terrorism.
At West Point on Saturday, the president told future Army officers that the United States will no longer just deter attacks from other nations, but will strike first against looming enemies. “The Washington Post,” in a somewhat unaccustomed posture of praise, said in an editorial about Bush's new stance, quote, “given the threat the country faces, such presidential determination is essential and welcome. The challenge is preserving the clarity and focus Mr. Bush speaks of.
Well, is it just tough talk or will the administration turn this into effective national security policy? Joining me now to discuss this, Constantine Menges, who served as a national security assistant to President Ronald Reagan, and is author of the book “Inside the National Security Council.” Constantine, welcome back to MAKING SENSE.
CONSTANTINE MENGES, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Good to be with you, Alan.
KEYES: Now, actually, what we're talking about this evening is, I know very well, as it were right up your alley. I was just re-reading the other day passages out of your book “Inside the National Security Council” that deal precisely with this question of how we approach terrorism. And you give an account of how you presented to Bush, Sr. a plan that actually had this kind of an assertive approach and that now seems to be reflected in what the current President Bush is saying.
Take a listen, for example, to what the president said the other day, speaking to the West Point cadets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action, and this nation will act.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, it seems to me, Constantine, as I re-read that passage in your book where you were talking about presenting some ideas to Vice President Bush, that that sounds very much like what you were talking about. But you were writing about something that occurred quite a few years ago. It's taken quite awhile for us to get around to this point. Do you think this is a welcome change?
MENGES: Yes, Alan. I think it's a welcome change. In fact, I did have the chance to brief Vice President Bush, who was President Reagan's chairman of an anti-terrorism task force. And I suggested to him a proactive strategy which is, more or less along the lines of that, which President George W. Bush is talking about.
And I think it's very important that President George W. Bush, first of all, has been a man of his word in after September 11, he said we would move and act and we have in Afghanistan. I think he's been right about the axis of evil states. He's talked about doing some important things, helping the people of Iraq replace the terrible regime, which is a state sponsor of terrorism, with a moderate constitutional government.
The question is will this actually happen? I hope it does. I think it should. But there is an obstacle, and it's an obstacle, Alan, you and I have both faced. And that is that there are many people in the career foreign service who, while well meaning and having much to contribute in U.S. foreign policy, are now in all the top policy positions both at the National Security Council and the Department of State.
And the problem with that is that it doesn't give the president of the United States his own team at the sub-cabinet level from which come 80 percent of the ideas and proposals for action, as you and I both remember. And as long as he doesn't have his own team — he has, for example, career foreign service officers responsible at NSC for Russia, Eurasia, for China, for Latin America. And at the State Department, Secretary Powell has appointed almost all career foreign service officers to the regional assistant secretary positions. And that means essentially that there is no real Bush team in place.
KEYES: Let me ask you a question though, because as I was re-reading these passages from the chapter on counterterrorism in your book, a lot of people make the assumption that in order to look strategically at this question of terrorism, we really had to go through something like September 11. And yet, folks like yourself were taking the strategic view, this offensive, proactive view many years before. Why did it require this kind of national trauma to get us to see the need to take a more offensive approach against the terrorists who are threatening us?
MENGES: Well, Alan, because essentially, terrorism was nobody's business in the U.S. government. It's not something the State Department does diplomacy. It wants to control everything in foreign policy, but what it actually likes to do is diplomacy negotiate with governments.
The military services have a lot to do just in preparing to deter nuclear conventional warfare and to prevail if we have to go to war. And the CIA generally stayed away from much of this. And so, as a result, what would happen in the 1980s, in a number of terrible terrorist attacks on the United States, is we would have some weeks of hand-wringing and concern and everybody would go back to business as usual.
What I chronicle in my book, in this chapter which I re-read after September 11. I hadn't read it since I wrote it 15 years ago. What I saw is that what I tried to do for six years in the Reagan administration was to say this is a fundamental strategic challenge to us. It is costing American lives, the lives of our allies. We must approach it in a strategic way. And you and I, Alan, are both strategic thinkers.
I offered my suggestions. I offered my ideas. Regrettably, the decisions made were to only do defensive things. And I think hundreds of thousands more people have died who needn't have died.
KEYES: Well, I think that there has been a sea change. Listen again to what the president said at West Point the other day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Our security will require the best intelligence to reveal threats hidden in caves and growing in laboratories. Our security will require modernizing domestic agencies, such as the FBI, so they're prepared to act and act quickly against danger. Our security will require transforming the military you will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world.
And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: I have to tell you, Constantine, sounds an awful lot like a lot of the ideas and concepts that I heard coming from you over the course of the years of our acquaintance and association. What do you think are going to be the practical obstacles to implementing this vision of a forward-looking national security strategy that identifies and moves against targets of opportunity that threaten this country?
MENGES: Alan, I think the fundamental obstacle are people. What President Bush needs is a group of Republican foreign policy experts in these senior jobs. He needs people who are committed to the United States of America, who have an independent way of thinking, who have competence in the area, and who come in as part of his team and then work constructively and cooperatively with the people in the career services.
But he now almost has a government at the policy levels where Congress has given the president the authority to appoint his people. He has almost all career foreign service officers, as I just mentioned, at the National Security Council and the Department of State. And as long as he has those people, they will always, in my view, find ways not to do anything.
And I believe, by the way, that President Bush has the right ideas, the right concepts. He's made decisions he thinks in his mind. But I believe he will be undermined by a series of actions taken by the Department of State and others to essentially make it impossible for the things that he hopes to happen to happen. And he won't know it until it's too late.
KEYES: So you're essentially saying, I mean, and it's kind of a truism in government, and yet it is often ignored, that personnel is policy, that you can articulate these ideas but you have really got to bring together the people who understand and can apply them with understanding, especially in a critical area like national security. I think the president...
MENGES: Exactly. Right.
KEYES: I think the president does have this on his mind though. Let's listen again to what he said at West Point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: The work ahead is difficult. The choices we will face are complex. We must uncover terror cells in 60 or more countries using every tool of finance, intelligence and law enforcement. Along with our friends and allies, we must oppose proliferation and confront regimes that sponsor terror as each case requires.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, see, I hear in that, Constantine, a comprehensive approach to the terror problem, one that draws together all the elements of the government that might have an effect on the terrorist threat. Yet, the one thing I don't see yet is anything that corresponds in the thinking and talking within the administration about organizing for this work that pulls together and can coordinate this kind of assault on terrorism in the way that's described here.
Isn't some such organization of personnel also needed?
MENGES: Well, Alan, of course, the National Security Council staff are the people who are supposed to do that for the president. Their job is to look ahead. Their job is to be the integrators of knowledge and intelligence information. And their jobs is to look ahead.
And, as I say, if you have career foreign service officers in virtually all of those jobs, they have been accustomed over their entire careers to a certain way of thinking. There's a certain mindset that they bring to that. They also tend to be reactive. They come — they wait for the inbox to produce the new events. They react to the events. This is the standard way of behaving.
And, as I say, we need a cooperation between independent Republican foreign policy experts who are, for President Bush, a part of his team who are brought in with the career people. And if you don't have that, in my view, you'll never get the kind of effective strategic action that alone will defend our nation and help this president succeed.
KEYES: Well, it sounds to me, Constantine, as if you're talking about a certain leadership element in the implementation of this policy that I don't think has been getting much attention lately. We are, in fact, going to be talking about that more in the next segment.
I want to thank you for joining us and sharing with us the insights that have come from your extensive experience in these matters and also the foresight. A lot of people talk from the wisdom of hindsight. I know you foresaw these matters and have been promoting this kind of an assertive policy for a long time. I thank God that we're finally getting there. I just wish it hadn't taken the terrible events that we've been through to do that. Thank you, Constantine. Really appreciate you joining me tonight.
Next, in the heart of the matter, we're going to debate this question of the tough new terror talk, about how far President Bush will go and what is going to be required to really turn it into effective action. We'll talk to Congressman Bob Barr and former assistant defense secretary Frank Gaffney, two men with different points of view, here on America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: The White House takes a stand on global warming, saying it's caused by people, which is something the president has refused to accept in the past. Is Bush turning green? We'll debate that in our next half-hour.
A reminder, the chatroom is humming tonight. And you can join in right now at CHAT.MSNBC.COM.
Now, back to the president's speech at West Point. Joining us to get to the heart of the matter, Congressman Bob Barr, a Republican from Georgia. He serves on three important committees: judiciary, financial services, government reform. Also with us, Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy. He's also a former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
FRANK GAFFNEY, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: Thank you.
REP. BOB BARR (R), GEORGIA: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: Now, I have to tell you, I was very encouraged by the note of strategic vision that the president sounded in his speech at West Point. Though I have to say, Frank, quite frankly, looking at the past and the sort of history of a lot of our approach to this over the course of the last 20, 25 years, it does strike me that this is a significant departure from the mindset that we were gripped by in the government prior to 9/11. Isn't that true?
GAFFNEY: I think so. And I thought the previous conversation you had with Constantine was very illuminating on some of the reasons why we have been, in fact, disabled from thinking strategically and acting this way.
I am, however, concerned that even with the president's basically very good directions, unless some of these implementory, if you will, steps are taken, we are not going to see this strategy adopted and faithfully executed.
A case in point, Alan, is Iraq. We're — even as we speak, you have people actively subverting the president's apparent decision that we have to end the regime, the terror, the repression, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and so on that's going on under Saddam Hussein's sponsorship by people at State and, for that matter, by the way, at the CIA who don't want this policy to succeed and who are using a sort of campaign of subversion against the one group that I think has any chance of bringing about the sort of Northern Alliance equivalent in Iraq, namely the Iraqi National Congress from being able to get on the ground and start operating again inside Iraq with help as directed by Congress years ago.
KEYES: So, if what you're saying is correct, we now have a president who, through I think the bitter experience of events, has been brought to a strategic vision that requires a proactive approach, where we're moving to preempt the threats against us rather than waiting for them to ripen in ways that destroy American lives.
But you're expecting that he's going to get a lot of resistance and perhaps a lot of confusion from the bureaucracy that's supposed to serve him, though?
GAFFNEY: Well, this isn't speculation. It's happening. It's been happening for months, I think. And what's really troubling is the key, I believe, to a successful, probably relatively expeditious and relatively low-cost effort to liberate the people of Iraq is working with the people on the ground there.
And to the extent that the bureaucratic impediments and inertia and subversion is allowed to continue, in the immediate sense, blocking the INC from doing from what it needs to and wants to do, and in the larger sense, blocking the president's policy, you have got him foreclosed. You have these reports out of the military that they don't want any part of this. It's too expensive. It's too costly. Well, these are calculated results of a policy that, I think Constantine is right, is not being faithfully implemented by people who are committed to the president's objectives and willing to faithfully implement it.
KEYES: Bob Barr, a tough question for you, and I think one that must be on everybody's mind as we watch the events, the blame gone from CIA to FBI, the talk of who did this and who did what. What I'm hearing from both Constantine and Frank is that, yes, this is a good vision, but if you don't have the right people in place, if you're not having people put in the key positions that are going to provide the kind of pressure and leadership that will turn the bureaucrats around, you're not going to get what this country needs.
I have to be frank with you, Congressman, I'm not impressed at the moment with the will to implement this policy in terms of changes in personnel that correspond to the president's new vision. Are we going to see it?
BARR: I'm a little bit worried also, Alan. I think what the president himself has laid out and what I think he believes in is absolutely enlightened and is on the right track. But whether or not it will actually be implemented, whether or not the president will expend the considerable political capital that he has that will be necessary to truly implement it, I don't know yet. I'm not real optimistic at this point. I could be proved wrong.
Let me give you one example. Several weeks ago, we proposed in the Congress, through the judiciary committee, a complete restructuring of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. We believe, those of us like myself, Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, that before we instituted any substantive changes to immigration laws, we needed first to change the entire framework within which immigration laws are implemented. We believe that if we made substantive changes and then sort of stuck those into a failed bureaucracy, that the effort would be doomed to failure.
Well, what happened was the administration, preferring to keep the mechanism intact and tinker with it, fought us. Then when it was apparent that we would succeed overwhelmingly, we had the votes in the Congress, they endorsed it. But now it seems that they're sort of fighting us over in the Senate to derail this. If that sort of mentality prevails in the national security area generally, then your pessimism is going to prove to be well founded.
KEYES: But we're not only going to see, I think, challenges in that sense of the bureaucratic administration. One element that is sort of included here, I think, especially when he talks about cells in 60 different countries and so forth, is the need to take direct action against terrorists who threaten the United States wherever they may be, up to and including, I would assume, actually making war on them, eliminating them, killing them, to be quite frank about it.
Do you think that there is going to be the necessary will to carry forward with that and the necessary understanding from the American people. I know that this is a subject you've been involved with in terms of trying to make sure that we have the freedom of action to pursue this war in this way. Are we going to see it?
BARR: Well, it is going to take a very concerted effort. I don't know yet, Alan. I hope so.
As you know, I introduced legislation two years ago and a year ago to loosen the artificial constraints on assassinating foreign leaders such as terrorist leaders. Did not get support from the administration or from most members of Congress. We're getting it now, of course.
But whether or not the president will be able to force his team to do this, and it will require some new personnel at some of these key agencies, they cannot be people whetted to the status quo. And unfortunately, in many of these positions, that's what we now have. He is going to have to remove these people and put people in there that think like him, and that is outside the box. Right now, we don't see it.
KEYES: Now, it seems to me that the president in his speech recognized that there was going to be the need to break some china, to put it mildly. Listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Other nations oppose terror but tolerate the hatred that leads to terror, and that must change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, Frank Gaffney, it seems to me that in saying that, if you really think it through, he is obviously pointing at some of the folks who are talking out of both sides of their mouth on the terror question, including, I would have to say, the folks in Saudi Arabia.
Are we given the kinds of things that Constantine Menges pointed out, with the State Department and so forth, are we going to see the kind of tough-minded mentality that can actually follow through on the president's words?
GAFFNEY: Alan, I hate to sound blood-chillingly calculating about this, but I think we will after some further disaster has confirmed the validity of this approach. I'm afraid — it looks as though the effects of September 11, which were so powerful, have proven short-lived. And we're seeing this sort of return to business as usual among — Congressman Barr is an exception — but among many on the Hill, some among their constituencies, many in the media and, unfortunately, I think clearly at least those who really don't subscribe to the president's policies and directions within his own administration. And this is really hitting the road, as you say, with respect to some these countries that are putatively our friends.
You know, you're going to have Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, here in the next couple of days, spending several of them with the president at Camp David. I would hope the president would say, Hosni, old boy, one thing that has got to stop now and remain stopped is your government-controlled media propounding this vitriolic, anti-American — to say nothing of anti-Israeli — inflammatory, incendiary propaganda all the time.
KEYES: And we've seen the same thing, the — what is it — the chief imam, I guess you would call it, in Saudi Arabia, gave a very inflammatory speech the other day against the United States. And this is somebody who is not going to speak a word without clear sanction and approval from his government.
But this raises a tough point again, Congressman Barr, and I know it's tough because I get responses when I raise questions like this from folks in my audience who wonder why I'm criticizing the president. I like what he had to say on Saturday. I think it makes sense. It corresponds to something I felt has been needed for a long time.
But if he doesn't have the guts and if he doesn't have the necessary temperament to insist that this be carried out and to get rid of those people who won't carry it out, aren't we just listening to a bunch of rhetoric here?
BARR: Well, we're going to make things worse if he's not serious about it. You don't lay down a gauntlet, as the president very properly did at West Point, a very, very well-thought out, well-structured, visionary speech, very powerfully delivered, and then not back it up. If you do that, if you lay that out and then you don't back it up, you're worse off than before because then our adversaries will not take us seriously when we speak.
GAFFNEY: Well, Alan, in addition, if I may, the other thing that happens is people who we're asking to put their lives on the line, putting their necks out, notably people in places like Iraq, to help us liberate them, are going to say — and they've had reason to say this before — are going to say they're not serious this time either. You know, we better stick with Saddam. So will some of the others in the neighborhood, and our friends elsewhere around the world. You know, the United States is not to be backed up. This is a very dangerous policy if he is not serious about seeing it faithfully implemented.
KEYES: Well, one of the things that you just said that disturbs me greatly, and yet I think in a way, may be reflected in some of the other rhetoric that has come from the administration recently is this notion that we have got to suffer through another disaster before we galvanize the will to follow through on this clear, strategic vision.
It deeply irritates me, Frank, that several thousand people had to die before Constantine Menges' understanding of what we needed to do could finally be implemented. Surely, we don't have to wait for further such losses before we can see this carried through with conviction. I think that would be a travesty.
GAFFNEY: Yes, look, I do too, Alan, as I think you may be aware. Like you and like Constantine, I've been among those, and Congressman Barr, who has been warning about some of these things for a long time and urging precisely these kinds of steps.
I hope it won't come to that. All I'm saying is I think the president unfortunately will be vindicated and the policies will be implemented. The question is will the 3,000 or so people who died on September 11 be all that we have to sacrifice to get this course correction not only enunciated, but implemented, or will there be some further terrible toll required before the public is galvanized, the Congress is fully onboard, and even the president's own subordinates will faithfully execute his direction?
KEYES: One last thought. And I direct this first to Congressman Barr because I'm watching these hearings that are taking place now and that have just started, and people talk about finger-pointing and blame, which seems to me to be to be a real fear of accountability going around Washington.
But isn't the truth that we suffered from a certain lack of strategic vision in our counterterrorism approach, and that if we don't admit this, we're not going to appreciate and follow through on the importance of the strategic vision the president has just articulated?
BARR: I think you're absolutely right, Alan. The problems are two-fold, and they're very, very fundamental. One is we have now for a generation moved away from a nation that understands strategic threats, that understands national security and places value on them. It is going to take a long time to rebuild that, and we have to do it based on really educating our citizens, our businesses, our schools, our children, everybody in our society. If we simply now become reactive, then while we may institute good programs or policies temporarily, we're not laying the groundwork for a strategic change in policy.
KEYES: Frank, one pointed question very quickly. Who has to go? Be frank about it. Which of the folks we're looking at in this administration actually constitute an obstacle to the realization of this vision? Will you frankly say?
GAFFNEY: Yes. Well, I think as you and Constantine talked about earlier, personnel is policy. I think George Tenet has got to go. He is still in, as Dick Shelby says, Senator Shelby, in denial that there really was an intelligence failure to begin with. And I think he and the approach that he brought to the problem, particularly the prejudicial view he had towards human intelligence contributed to the failure and is going to continue to cause us problems in the future if it's not rectified.
KEYES: If Constantine is right, though, don't we also have to see an overhaul at the National Security Council? We can't rely simply on the people who take this kind of straight-laced, professional view, but have to have some independent-minded folks brought in at the White House level?
GAFFNEY: Yes, look, I think the secret to the success of the Reagan presidency, certainly in those first three, four, five years, was the very formidable team that he assembled under Judge Bill Clark (ph) on the National Security Council staff that really were committed to the president's program and were very skillful in bringing it about.
This is a very important insight. It may sound like “Inside Baseball” to a lot of your listeners, Alan, but you've really done a public service and Constantine has by pointing a spotlight at what has happened in the National Security Council. And it should be said, it ought to be fixed at state as well.
KEYES: Yes, I think you're right. Thank you both. I really appreciate your coming on...
GAFFNEY: Thank you.
KEYES: ... and talking so frankly tonight about this...
BARR: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: ... challenge. I think we need to follow up on the good words the president spoke and translate them into good, sound policy. A lot of lives depend on it. Thank you.
Next, when it comes to Bush and the environment, who would have thought that he would turn green with envy, hankering after former Vice President Al Gore's stand on global warming. But after a report on global warming from his own EPA, I'm not the only one who's not sure where he stands. We'll explain after the break.
You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
In a surprising turnaround, the Bush administration quietly released a report this week concluding that global warming is caused primarily by human activities. Here is MSNBC's Robert Hager.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERT HAGER, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Boston, where summers are short, Margaret Percorni (ph) and her garden has mixed feelings about global warming and the rise in sea level that could go with it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been a glorious spring. We didn't have to shovel snow. But it — in the long-term, I'm not looking forward to this being waterfront property.
HAGER: In Washington, President Bush used to say it's too early to tell if the globe is really warming.
(on camera): But now, in a new report, a dramatic shift, the Bush administration concedes it is mostly a manmade problem from pollution, and also admits for the first time the changes it causes could be huge. But the report does not recommend cracking down on pollution, instead saying we can learn to live with warming.
(voice-over): It's the admission of consequences surprised many, that higher temperatures could cause sweltering heat waves, dry up water supplies in some areas, cause flooding in others, and the loss of goods and services impossible to replace.
EILEEN CLAUSSEN, PEW CENTER ON CLIMATE CHANGE: He's never gone so far as to say, and it is going to affect the life of Americans, and it's going to affect American cities and American coasts, American ecosystems. And he's never said that before.
HAGER: Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh called it “doom and gloom,” chided the president.
RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: George W. Al Gore anyone?
HAGER: But the report also suggests an upside. Growing seasons in northern areas could last longer. Crops and timber become more plentiful, therefore cheaper. Fuel bills could be lowered. There could be more warm weather for construction or recreation.
So for now, the administration still backs away from forcing the auto industry or power plants to make drastic reductions in pollution. Harvard's Michael McElroy.
MICHAEL MCELROY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: I sort of think of it as it's like being an alcoholic. So now you have finally have found out that you have a drinking problem, but you're not prepared to give up the booze. You simply would like other people do it for you.
HAGER: What the administration suggests is that we adapt to warming, like Margaret Percorni in her garden, make the best of it.
Robert Hager, NBC News, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Now, before we jump to applaud the Al Bush jokes and the G.W. Gore references — my apologies to Rush Limbaugh whom I like a lot — today the president dismissed this report from his own EPA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: I read the report put out by the bureaucracy. I do not support the Kyoto Treaty. The Kyoto Treaty would severely damage the United States economy. And I don't accept that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: And just to add a little further note to the confusion, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted that there is still, quote, “considerable uncertainty on the causes of global warming.” Well, a considerable uncertainty on that, maybe, but there certainly are considerable uncertainty as to just what is the position of the Bush administration on the issue of global warming.
Here to help us try to sort this out, we have John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA; and Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Welcome to MAKING SENSE, gentlemen.
Now, Chris, I want to start with you because you had a column today that I saw in the “Washington Times” that seemed to already anticipate and reflect that a deeper kind policy level what appears to be the confused schizophrenia that we saw develop in the course of the day with respect to this EPA report. What is your sense of what the administration is up to on this?
CHRISTOPHER HORNER, COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Well, what my column did was it pointed out something that we've anticipated for some time. Several weeks ago, the administration showed the world what it does when it means it about not partaking in a treaty, the International (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Accord, the Rome Treaty. We withdrew, a one paragraph submission to the U.N. It's very simple. I'll pay the postage. I'll write the letter.
But we refused to do it. In fact, we, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, petitioned the State Department and said, you know what, this begs other questions, specifically regarding Kyoto. Will you please withdraw from that? And they rejected our petition.
That's a conscious act. It's a deliberate act. It says to us: Every day you do this you're begging for a better offer from the Europeans. And frankly there is no version of this energy suppression, economy killing, humanity suffering increasing treaty acceptable to the bulk of Americans if they learn about it.
Yes, the climate...
KEYES: Well...
HORNER: Real quickly. There used to be 300 feet of ice where we're sitting. There's glacial scoring in Nebraska, the lush tropics of Canada have dinosaur bones, OK.
The climate's always changed. Man has always adapted. The wealthiest societies have always adapted best.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Before we get going, though. One thing to be clear, though. What you're saying seems to suggest, then, that the EPA report is not an accident and that, in fact, the ground is being laid for acceptance of both the ideas and something the proposals in something like Kyoto. Yes or no?
HORNER: Well, I'd say yes. That's what it looks like...
JOHN PASSACANTANDO, GREENPEACE USA: Alan, can I jump in on this?
HORNER: ... but the president just, you know, passed it off on possibly being EPA freelancing today. But the “New York Times” reported, and we all know it's been at the White House Council on Environmental Quality for six months. So it's not freelancing.
PASSACANTANDO: The White House has — Alan, the White House has finally admitted the science. It's like finally saying smoking causes cancer. The White House has finally acknowledged the science, although and then they say...
HORNER: They said weather happens. Always has, always will.
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: Hang on Chris.
That climate change, severe climate change is underway. In the next few decades we will see severe changes within the United States that will be very costly. And the world is looking for leadership from the U.S. And, in fact, if the U.S. doesn't lead, our industry is going to fall behind. Our auto industry, our home-building industry.
The U.S. is falling behind right now. The unfortunate thing that we saw today is when President Bush reversed himself against his own White House, against his own Environmental Protection Agency, against his own State Department, he basically said, I'm not president, I'm not leader of the free world, I'm still an independent oil man, and I'm on the campaign trail; and I'm going to throw out this right-ring rhetoric because I don't care about the science.
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... agencies, which is what he said. When he reigns in freelancing agencies he's saying...
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: It looks like I am president of the United States. I can't leave town without leaving adult supervision in charge of some...
PASSACANTANDO: He was on the campaign trail. He was on the campaign trail, and he was making a political football.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Now hold on. Gentlemen...
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... after four years no European country has submitted ratification documents?
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Gentlemen — wait, wait, wait. Now, before you continue, I want to get a word in edgewise here, because I have to tell you, John, I anticipated that you would be altogether happy with what came out of the EPA, and I'm sure that Christie Whitman is following...
PASSACANTANDO: In addition to the...
KEYES: Let me finish now — following blithely down the path of whatever pseudo-science she wishes to place into her documents. But the notion that we are dealing here with some settled science is absurd. And, in fact, a lot of the claims of the alarmists with respect to global warming have been seriously debunked precisely by those who, as Chris was trying to point out, have looked at the history of the earth and found that we have gone through these cycles at times when human beings couldn't possibly have been the cause of the impact.
We seem to be blaming ourselves for something that has happened even when we weren't around.
PASSACANTANDO: That's completely out of context. What we've got is the greatest body of scientific evidence, from industry scientists, from academic scientists and from government scientists...
HORNER: There's two models...
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: Hang on one second. We know more...
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: Hang on now. The American public knows more about what's going on with human-induced climate change than we ever have before. It is now — the burden now falls on President Bush to lead on this or to cowardly run from this. And if he runs from this, the American public will leave him.
HORNER: He's showing positive leadership. If he does do what he said — and that is withdraw from this treaty — he ran against it. For some reason Al Gore didn't want this to be an issue in the campaign. He ran against it...
PASSACANTANDO: Chris? Chris? You know yourself...
HORNER: But regarding the science,
PASSACANTANDO: He's only leading the oil industry.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Wait a minute. Gentlemen? Gentlemen? We're going to have to impose here, upon ourselves, a little discipline so that the audience out there can hear what you've got to say.
But we're going to have to do it after we take our break.
We're going to be back with more from our guests after these words.
And later, you'll hear my “Outrage of the Day.” What's worse than a lawyer who is awake at your trial? You'll find out. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, October 11, 2000)
AL GORE, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now, it's true that we disagree on this. The governor said that he doesn't think that this problem is necessarily caused by people. He's for letting the oil companies into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Houston has just become the smoggiest city in the country, and Texas is number one in industrial pollution.
We have a very different outlook.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, that was Al Gore talking about then-candidate George W. Bush on the issue of global warming.
In light of the EPA's recent report, maybe Al would revise his view. He could be as confused as the rest of us as to where the Bush administration now stands.
And Christopher Horner, there was, in his statement, I think, also the further implication we'd have to consider. This is not the only place where pseudo-science, junk science, disputed science has a big political following that may not be supported, in fact, by the weight of the scientific evidence.
Can we expect to see the Bush administration, with Christie Whitman in the lead, moving us further down the road of accepting the substitution of politics for science as the basis for our policies?
HORNER: We've refused to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol. John talks about leadership. Let's remember that for three years the Clinton-Gore administration refused to send Kyoto to the Senate.
So there's leadership too, OK. They know it's junk.
Yes, we should expect...
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: ... facts, Chris.
HORNER: I am — that is the facts, John.
PASSACANTANDO: They finally admitted the science yesterday. The science is clear, and the American public...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: One at a time, please. One at a time.
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: OK, then I'll answer the question. The Gore team is, for the most part still in place. And, you know, this slipped by the White House. I happen to think they were complicit in this. But the Gore team is in place. You will see this elsewhere. There is a desire among people to believe in UFOs, astrology...
PASSACANTANDO: Chris? Chris...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Chris, let John respond.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let John respond, Chris.
PASSACANTANDO: Chris, the American public doesn't want you to play political football with this. There is now a threat. Just when the president faced the threat...
HORNER: There's now a threat?
PASSACANTANDO: Excuse me. When the president faced the threat of terrorism, he didn't turn around to the American public and say you're going to have to get used to it.
Now he has admitted — it doesn't matter what he said in the past. He's now admitted global warning is a threat, it's here and now, and humans are causing it.
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: Please let me finish this. Please let me finish.
The American public wants leadership. The American public wants Yankee ingenuity. They want the jobs of the future to solve this problem. We don't want to cower and run away from global warming, we want to solve it, Chris.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Now go ahead Chris.
HORNER: September 11 showed us that there are real threats in the world and that we should stop spending so much capital, wealth and manpower on these hypothetical, illusory threats that people want to score political points with.
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... people's fears.
KEYES: I want to take a minute here. Gentlemen — gentlemen, let me intervene for a second here, because I want to introduce a different element and tell you what I think about this whole business.
Now, on the issue of global warming, John, I have to say that I agree with Chris, and the whole world knows this. I think that President Bush was right during the campaign, and we ought to resist all of this.
PASSACANTANDO: Well...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: I know. I know.
But let's look, though, at the other side of this because, Chris, I think the administration is actually quite consciously trying to have it both ways.
HORNER: Absolutely.
KEYES: They're throwing some stuff out there that will make John happy. Then we have some rhetoric from the president that's supposed to keep you...
HORNER: You're not going to make John happy. And that's what they need to realize...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Aren't we just looking...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... percentage of Kyoto...
KEYES: Hold on just a second. Aren't we looking — and here talking about what both of you are looking at — at the very same problem that we may have been just been talking about on the national security front?
The president says one thing and he puts people in place who are not committed to what he has said and who are implementing another policy. Isn't that what we're actually looking at?
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... EPA. And yes, we're looking at that. He's not being well served by a lot of career folks. But some political appointees fell asleep on this one, too.
PASSACANTANDO: Chris, you're trying to make this into a political football again. What has happened is six agencies of the American government, represent the American people, have come out and said global warming is a problem here and now, with the latest, best science. The American public believes this. They want...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Gentlemen, we've run out of time. Hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: We have come to the end of our time. I would have to say, since I have the right to say the last word, I don't know if global warming is a problem. I know that globalogna (ph) is a problem. And we're certainly seeing the Bush administration accepting more of it than the president said he would. I don't think we can live economically on a steady diet of this stuff. It's very unhealthy for you.
Thank you for being with me tonight. I appreciate it.
Next: my “Outrage of the Day.” When is a bad lawyer who is awake in a worse condition? Think about it. You got a lawyer, you want a good lawyer, right? But if you have a bad lawyer, what's even worse than that?
If you want to make even more sense, sign up for our free daily newsletter at our Web site keyes.msnbc.com. You'll receive in your mailbox show topics, my weekly column, lists to my favorite articles of the day.
I'll be right back with the “Outrage of the Day,” so you stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now time for my “Outrage of the Day.”
The Supreme Court yesterday let stand an appellate ruling that a Texas death row inmate is entitled to a new trial because his lawyer fell asleep repeatedly during his original trial. It's not clear how much of the proceedings the court-appointed lawyer missed. The appeals court called the portion “not-insubstantial.”
Texas Attorney General John Cornyn argued that the appeals court decision had created an arbitrary breach in the law governing the effective assistance of council. The state's brief said the ruling, if allowed to stand, would invite myriad appeals by imaginative convicts trying to convert a lawyer's impaired trial performance into a new trial.
Well, I've got to tell you, the lawyer who was the subject of this has since died. I hope that doesn't mean that the Texas fellow is now going to recommended him as a candidate for the public defender's office in Texas.
That's my sense of it. Thanks. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. See you tomorrow.
Up front tonight, President Bush's new tougher talk on terror. He's talking about how America will take an aggressive initiative in dealing with the facilitators and perpetrators and states that sponsor terrorism.
At West Point on Saturday, the president told future Army officers that the United States will no longer just deter attacks from other nations, but will strike first against looming enemies. “The Washington Post,” in a somewhat unaccustomed posture of praise, said in an editorial about Bush's new stance, quote, “given the threat the country faces, such presidential determination is essential and welcome. The challenge is preserving the clarity and focus Mr. Bush speaks of.
Well, is it just tough talk or will the administration turn this into effective national security policy? Joining me now to discuss this, Constantine Menges, who served as a national security assistant to President Ronald Reagan, and is author of the book “Inside the National Security Council.” Constantine, welcome back to MAKING SENSE.
CONSTANTINE MENGES, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Good to be with you, Alan.
KEYES: Now, actually, what we're talking about this evening is, I know very well, as it were right up your alley. I was just re-reading the other day passages out of your book “Inside the National Security Council” that deal precisely with this question of how we approach terrorism. And you give an account of how you presented to Bush, Sr. a plan that actually had this kind of an assertive approach and that now seems to be reflected in what the current President Bush is saying.
Take a listen, for example, to what the president said the other day, speaking to the West Point cadets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action, and this nation will act.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, it seems to me, Constantine, as I re-read that passage in your book where you were talking about presenting some ideas to Vice President Bush, that that sounds very much like what you were talking about. But you were writing about something that occurred quite a few years ago. It's taken quite awhile for us to get around to this point. Do you think this is a welcome change?
MENGES: Yes, Alan. I think it's a welcome change. In fact, I did have the chance to brief Vice President Bush, who was President Reagan's chairman of an anti-terrorism task force. And I suggested to him a proactive strategy which is, more or less along the lines of that, which President George W. Bush is talking about.
And I think it's very important that President George W. Bush, first of all, has been a man of his word in after September 11, he said we would move and act and we have in Afghanistan. I think he's been right about the axis of evil states. He's talked about doing some important things, helping the people of Iraq replace the terrible regime, which is a state sponsor of terrorism, with a moderate constitutional government.
The question is will this actually happen? I hope it does. I think it should. But there is an obstacle, and it's an obstacle, Alan, you and I have both faced. And that is that there are many people in the career foreign service who, while well meaning and having much to contribute in U.S. foreign policy, are now in all the top policy positions both at the National Security Council and the Department of State.
And the problem with that is that it doesn't give the president of the United States his own team at the sub-cabinet level from which come 80 percent of the ideas and proposals for action, as you and I both remember. And as long as he doesn't have his own team — he has, for example, career foreign service officers responsible at NSC for Russia, Eurasia, for China, for Latin America. And at the State Department, Secretary Powell has appointed almost all career foreign service officers to the regional assistant secretary positions. And that means essentially that there is no real Bush team in place.
KEYES: Let me ask you a question though, because as I was re-reading these passages from the chapter on counterterrorism in your book, a lot of people make the assumption that in order to look strategically at this question of terrorism, we really had to go through something like September 11. And yet, folks like yourself were taking the strategic view, this offensive, proactive view many years before. Why did it require this kind of national trauma to get us to see the need to take a more offensive approach against the terrorists who are threatening us?
MENGES: Well, Alan, because essentially, terrorism was nobody's business in the U.S. government. It's not something the State Department does diplomacy. It wants to control everything in foreign policy, but what it actually likes to do is diplomacy negotiate with governments.
The military services have a lot to do just in preparing to deter nuclear conventional warfare and to prevail if we have to go to war. And the CIA generally stayed away from much of this. And so, as a result, what would happen in the 1980s, in a number of terrible terrorist attacks on the United States, is we would have some weeks of hand-wringing and concern and everybody would go back to business as usual.
What I chronicle in my book, in this chapter which I re-read after September 11. I hadn't read it since I wrote it 15 years ago. What I saw is that what I tried to do for six years in the Reagan administration was to say this is a fundamental strategic challenge to us. It is costing American lives, the lives of our allies. We must approach it in a strategic way. And you and I, Alan, are both strategic thinkers.
I offered my suggestions. I offered my ideas. Regrettably, the decisions made were to only do defensive things. And I think hundreds of thousands more people have died who needn't have died.
KEYES: Well, I think that there has been a sea change. Listen again to what the president said at West Point the other day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Our security will require the best intelligence to reveal threats hidden in caves and growing in laboratories. Our security will require modernizing domestic agencies, such as the FBI, so they're prepared to act and act quickly against danger. Our security will require transforming the military you will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world.
And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: I have to tell you, Constantine, sounds an awful lot like a lot of the ideas and concepts that I heard coming from you over the course of the years of our acquaintance and association. What do you think are going to be the practical obstacles to implementing this vision of a forward-looking national security strategy that identifies and moves against targets of opportunity that threaten this country?
MENGES: Alan, I think the fundamental obstacle are people. What President Bush needs is a group of Republican foreign policy experts in these senior jobs. He needs people who are committed to the United States of America, who have an independent way of thinking, who have competence in the area, and who come in as part of his team and then work constructively and cooperatively with the people in the career services.
But he now almost has a government at the policy levels where Congress has given the president the authority to appoint his people. He has almost all career foreign service officers, as I just mentioned, at the National Security Council and the Department of State. And as long as he has those people, they will always, in my view, find ways not to do anything.
And I believe, by the way, that President Bush has the right ideas, the right concepts. He's made decisions he thinks in his mind. But I believe he will be undermined by a series of actions taken by the Department of State and others to essentially make it impossible for the things that he hopes to happen to happen. And he won't know it until it's too late.
KEYES: So you're essentially saying, I mean, and it's kind of a truism in government, and yet it is often ignored, that personnel is policy, that you can articulate these ideas but you have really got to bring together the people who understand and can apply them with understanding, especially in a critical area like national security. I think the president...
MENGES: Exactly. Right.
KEYES: I think the president does have this on his mind though. Let's listen again to what he said at West Point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: The work ahead is difficult. The choices we will face are complex. We must uncover terror cells in 60 or more countries using every tool of finance, intelligence and law enforcement. Along with our friends and allies, we must oppose proliferation and confront regimes that sponsor terror as each case requires.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, see, I hear in that, Constantine, a comprehensive approach to the terror problem, one that draws together all the elements of the government that might have an effect on the terrorist threat. Yet, the one thing I don't see yet is anything that corresponds in the thinking and talking within the administration about organizing for this work that pulls together and can coordinate this kind of assault on terrorism in the way that's described here.
Isn't some such organization of personnel also needed?
MENGES: Well, Alan, of course, the National Security Council staff are the people who are supposed to do that for the president. Their job is to look ahead. Their job is to be the integrators of knowledge and intelligence information. And their jobs is to look ahead.
And, as I say, if you have career foreign service officers in virtually all of those jobs, they have been accustomed over their entire careers to a certain way of thinking. There's a certain mindset that they bring to that. They also tend to be reactive. They come — they wait for the inbox to produce the new events. They react to the events. This is the standard way of behaving.
And, as I say, we need a cooperation between independent Republican foreign policy experts who are, for President Bush, a part of his team who are brought in with the career people. And if you don't have that, in my view, you'll never get the kind of effective strategic action that alone will defend our nation and help this president succeed.
KEYES: Well, it sounds to me, Constantine, as if you're talking about a certain leadership element in the implementation of this policy that I don't think has been getting much attention lately. We are, in fact, going to be talking about that more in the next segment.
I want to thank you for joining us and sharing with us the insights that have come from your extensive experience in these matters and also the foresight. A lot of people talk from the wisdom of hindsight. I know you foresaw these matters and have been promoting this kind of an assertive policy for a long time. I thank God that we're finally getting there. I just wish it hadn't taken the terrible events that we've been through to do that. Thank you, Constantine. Really appreciate you joining me tonight.
Next, in the heart of the matter, we're going to debate this question of the tough new terror talk, about how far President Bush will go and what is going to be required to really turn it into effective action. We'll talk to Congressman Bob Barr and former assistant defense secretary Frank Gaffney, two men with different points of view, here on America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: The White House takes a stand on global warming, saying it's caused by people, which is something the president has refused to accept in the past. Is Bush turning green? We'll debate that in our next half-hour.
A reminder, the chatroom is humming tonight. And you can join in right now at CHAT.MSNBC.COM.
Now, back to the president's speech at West Point. Joining us to get to the heart of the matter, Congressman Bob Barr, a Republican from Georgia. He serves on three important committees: judiciary, financial services, government reform. Also with us, Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy. He's also a former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
FRANK GAFFNEY, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: Thank you.
REP. BOB BARR (R), GEORGIA: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: Now, I have to tell you, I was very encouraged by the note of strategic vision that the president sounded in his speech at West Point. Though I have to say, Frank, quite frankly, looking at the past and the sort of history of a lot of our approach to this over the course of the last 20, 25 years, it does strike me that this is a significant departure from the mindset that we were gripped by in the government prior to 9/11. Isn't that true?
GAFFNEY: I think so. And I thought the previous conversation you had with Constantine was very illuminating on some of the reasons why we have been, in fact, disabled from thinking strategically and acting this way.
I am, however, concerned that even with the president's basically very good directions, unless some of these implementory, if you will, steps are taken, we are not going to see this strategy adopted and faithfully executed.
A case in point, Alan, is Iraq. We're — even as we speak, you have people actively subverting the president's apparent decision that we have to end the regime, the terror, the repression, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and so on that's going on under Saddam Hussein's sponsorship by people at State and, for that matter, by the way, at the CIA who don't want this policy to succeed and who are using a sort of campaign of subversion against the one group that I think has any chance of bringing about the sort of Northern Alliance equivalent in Iraq, namely the Iraqi National Congress from being able to get on the ground and start operating again inside Iraq with help as directed by Congress years ago.
KEYES: So, if what you're saying is correct, we now have a president who, through I think the bitter experience of events, has been brought to a strategic vision that requires a proactive approach, where we're moving to preempt the threats against us rather than waiting for them to ripen in ways that destroy American lives.
But you're expecting that he's going to get a lot of resistance and perhaps a lot of confusion from the bureaucracy that's supposed to serve him, though?
GAFFNEY: Well, this isn't speculation. It's happening. It's been happening for months, I think. And what's really troubling is the key, I believe, to a successful, probably relatively expeditious and relatively low-cost effort to liberate the people of Iraq is working with the people on the ground there.
And to the extent that the bureaucratic impediments and inertia and subversion is allowed to continue, in the immediate sense, blocking the INC from doing from what it needs to and wants to do, and in the larger sense, blocking the president's policy, you have got him foreclosed. You have these reports out of the military that they don't want any part of this. It's too expensive. It's too costly. Well, these are calculated results of a policy that, I think Constantine is right, is not being faithfully implemented by people who are committed to the president's objectives and willing to faithfully implement it.
KEYES: Bob Barr, a tough question for you, and I think one that must be on everybody's mind as we watch the events, the blame gone from CIA to FBI, the talk of who did this and who did what. What I'm hearing from both Constantine and Frank is that, yes, this is a good vision, but if you don't have the right people in place, if you're not having people put in the key positions that are going to provide the kind of pressure and leadership that will turn the bureaucrats around, you're not going to get what this country needs.
I have to be frank with you, Congressman, I'm not impressed at the moment with the will to implement this policy in terms of changes in personnel that correspond to the president's new vision. Are we going to see it?
BARR: I'm a little bit worried also, Alan. I think what the president himself has laid out and what I think he believes in is absolutely enlightened and is on the right track. But whether or not it will actually be implemented, whether or not the president will expend the considerable political capital that he has that will be necessary to truly implement it, I don't know yet. I'm not real optimistic at this point. I could be proved wrong.
Let me give you one example. Several weeks ago, we proposed in the Congress, through the judiciary committee, a complete restructuring of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. We believe, those of us like myself, Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, that before we instituted any substantive changes to immigration laws, we needed first to change the entire framework within which immigration laws are implemented. We believe that if we made substantive changes and then sort of stuck those into a failed bureaucracy, that the effort would be doomed to failure.
Well, what happened was the administration, preferring to keep the mechanism intact and tinker with it, fought us. Then when it was apparent that we would succeed overwhelmingly, we had the votes in the Congress, they endorsed it. But now it seems that they're sort of fighting us over in the Senate to derail this. If that sort of mentality prevails in the national security area generally, then your pessimism is going to prove to be well founded.
KEYES: But we're not only going to see, I think, challenges in that sense of the bureaucratic administration. One element that is sort of included here, I think, especially when he talks about cells in 60 different countries and so forth, is the need to take direct action against terrorists who threaten the United States wherever they may be, up to and including, I would assume, actually making war on them, eliminating them, killing them, to be quite frank about it.
Do you think that there is going to be the necessary will to carry forward with that and the necessary understanding from the American people. I know that this is a subject you've been involved with in terms of trying to make sure that we have the freedom of action to pursue this war in this way. Are we going to see it?
BARR: Well, it is going to take a very concerted effort. I don't know yet, Alan. I hope so.
As you know, I introduced legislation two years ago and a year ago to loosen the artificial constraints on assassinating foreign leaders such as terrorist leaders. Did not get support from the administration or from most members of Congress. We're getting it now, of course.
But whether or not the president will be able to force his team to do this, and it will require some new personnel at some of these key agencies, they cannot be people whetted to the status quo. And unfortunately, in many of these positions, that's what we now have. He is going to have to remove these people and put people in there that think like him, and that is outside the box. Right now, we don't see it.
KEYES: Now, it seems to me that the president in his speech recognized that there was going to be the need to break some china, to put it mildly. Listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Other nations oppose terror but tolerate the hatred that leads to terror, and that must change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, Frank Gaffney, it seems to me that in saying that, if you really think it through, he is obviously pointing at some of the folks who are talking out of both sides of their mouth on the terror question, including, I would have to say, the folks in Saudi Arabia.
Are we given the kinds of things that Constantine Menges pointed out, with the State Department and so forth, are we going to see the kind of tough-minded mentality that can actually follow through on the president's words?
GAFFNEY: Alan, I hate to sound blood-chillingly calculating about this, but I think we will after some further disaster has confirmed the validity of this approach. I'm afraid — it looks as though the effects of September 11, which were so powerful, have proven short-lived. And we're seeing this sort of return to business as usual among — Congressman Barr is an exception — but among many on the Hill, some among their constituencies, many in the media and, unfortunately, I think clearly at least those who really don't subscribe to the president's policies and directions within his own administration. And this is really hitting the road, as you say, with respect to some these countries that are putatively our friends.
You know, you're going to have Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, here in the next couple of days, spending several of them with the president at Camp David. I would hope the president would say, Hosni, old boy, one thing that has got to stop now and remain stopped is your government-controlled media propounding this vitriolic, anti-American — to say nothing of anti-Israeli — inflammatory, incendiary propaganda all the time.
KEYES: And we've seen the same thing, the — what is it — the chief imam, I guess you would call it, in Saudi Arabia, gave a very inflammatory speech the other day against the United States. And this is somebody who is not going to speak a word without clear sanction and approval from his government.
But this raises a tough point again, Congressman Barr, and I know it's tough because I get responses when I raise questions like this from folks in my audience who wonder why I'm criticizing the president. I like what he had to say on Saturday. I think it makes sense. It corresponds to something I felt has been needed for a long time.
But if he doesn't have the guts and if he doesn't have the necessary temperament to insist that this be carried out and to get rid of those people who won't carry it out, aren't we just listening to a bunch of rhetoric here?
BARR: Well, we're going to make things worse if he's not serious about it. You don't lay down a gauntlet, as the president very properly did at West Point, a very, very well-thought out, well-structured, visionary speech, very powerfully delivered, and then not back it up. If you do that, if you lay that out and then you don't back it up, you're worse off than before because then our adversaries will not take us seriously when we speak.
GAFFNEY: Well, Alan, in addition, if I may, the other thing that happens is people who we're asking to put their lives on the line, putting their necks out, notably people in places like Iraq, to help us liberate them, are going to say — and they've had reason to say this before — are going to say they're not serious this time either. You know, we better stick with Saddam. So will some of the others in the neighborhood, and our friends elsewhere around the world. You know, the United States is not to be backed up. This is a very dangerous policy if he is not serious about seeing it faithfully implemented.
KEYES: Well, one of the things that you just said that disturbs me greatly, and yet I think in a way, may be reflected in some of the other rhetoric that has come from the administration recently is this notion that we have got to suffer through another disaster before we galvanize the will to follow through on this clear, strategic vision.
It deeply irritates me, Frank, that several thousand people had to die before Constantine Menges' understanding of what we needed to do could finally be implemented. Surely, we don't have to wait for further such losses before we can see this carried through with conviction. I think that would be a travesty.
GAFFNEY: Yes, look, I do too, Alan, as I think you may be aware. Like you and like Constantine, I've been among those, and Congressman Barr, who has been warning about some of these things for a long time and urging precisely these kinds of steps.
I hope it won't come to that. All I'm saying is I think the president unfortunately will be vindicated and the policies will be implemented. The question is will the 3,000 or so people who died on September 11 be all that we have to sacrifice to get this course correction not only enunciated, but implemented, or will there be some further terrible toll required before the public is galvanized, the Congress is fully onboard, and even the president's own subordinates will faithfully execute his direction?
KEYES: One last thought. And I direct this first to Congressman Barr because I'm watching these hearings that are taking place now and that have just started, and people talk about finger-pointing and blame, which seems to me to be to be a real fear of accountability going around Washington.
But isn't the truth that we suffered from a certain lack of strategic vision in our counterterrorism approach, and that if we don't admit this, we're not going to appreciate and follow through on the importance of the strategic vision the president has just articulated?
BARR: I think you're absolutely right, Alan. The problems are two-fold, and they're very, very fundamental. One is we have now for a generation moved away from a nation that understands strategic threats, that understands national security and places value on them. It is going to take a long time to rebuild that, and we have to do it based on really educating our citizens, our businesses, our schools, our children, everybody in our society. If we simply now become reactive, then while we may institute good programs or policies temporarily, we're not laying the groundwork for a strategic change in policy.
KEYES: Frank, one pointed question very quickly. Who has to go? Be frank about it. Which of the folks we're looking at in this administration actually constitute an obstacle to the realization of this vision? Will you frankly say?
GAFFNEY: Yes. Well, I think as you and Constantine talked about earlier, personnel is policy. I think George Tenet has got to go. He is still in, as Dick Shelby says, Senator Shelby, in denial that there really was an intelligence failure to begin with. And I think he and the approach that he brought to the problem, particularly the prejudicial view he had towards human intelligence contributed to the failure and is going to continue to cause us problems in the future if it's not rectified.
KEYES: If Constantine is right, though, don't we also have to see an overhaul at the National Security Council? We can't rely simply on the people who take this kind of straight-laced, professional view, but have to have some independent-minded folks brought in at the White House level?
GAFFNEY: Yes, look, I think the secret to the success of the Reagan presidency, certainly in those first three, four, five years, was the very formidable team that he assembled under Judge Bill Clark (ph) on the National Security Council staff that really were committed to the president's program and were very skillful in bringing it about.
This is a very important insight. It may sound like “Inside Baseball” to a lot of your listeners, Alan, but you've really done a public service and Constantine has by pointing a spotlight at what has happened in the National Security Council. And it should be said, it ought to be fixed at state as well.
KEYES: Yes, I think you're right. Thank you both. I really appreciate your coming on...
GAFFNEY: Thank you.
KEYES: ... and talking so frankly tonight about this...
BARR: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: ... challenge. I think we need to follow up on the good words the president spoke and translate them into good, sound policy. A lot of lives depend on it. Thank you.
Next, when it comes to Bush and the environment, who would have thought that he would turn green with envy, hankering after former Vice President Al Gore's stand on global warming. But after a report on global warming from his own EPA, I'm not the only one who's not sure where he stands. We'll explain after the break.
You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
In a surprising turnaround, the Bush administration quietly released a report this week concluding that global warming is caused primarily by human activities. Here is MSNBC's Robert Hager.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERT HAGER, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Boston, where summers are short, Margaret Percorni (ph) and her garden has mixed feelings about global warming and the rise in sea level that could go with it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been a glorious spring. We didn't have to shovel snow. But it — in the long-term, I'm not looking forward to this being waterfront property.
HAGER: In Washington, President Bush used to say it's too early to tell if the globe is really warming.
(on camera): But now, in a new report, a dramatic shift, the Bush administration concedes it is mostly a manmade problem from pollution, and also admits for the first time the changes it causes could be huge. But the report does not recommend cracking down on pollution, instead saying we can learn to live with warming.
(voice-over): It's the admission of consequences surprised many, that higher temperatures could cause sweltering heat waves, dry up water supplies in some areas, cause flooding in others, and the loss of goods and services impossible to replace.
EILEEN CLAUSSEN, PEW CENTER ON CLIMATE CHANGE: He's never gone so far as to say, and it is going to affect the life of Americans, and it's going to affect American cities and American coasts, American ecosystems. And he's never said that before.
HAGER: Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh called it “doom and gloom,” chided the president.
RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: George W. Al Gore anyone?
HAGER: But the report also suggests an upside. Growing seasons in northern areas could last longer. Crops and timber become more plentiful, therefore cheaper. Fuel bills could be lowered. There could be more warm weather for construction or recreation.
So for now, the administration still backs away from forcing the auto industry or power plants to make drastic reductions in pollution. Harvard's Michael McElroy.
MICHAEL MCELROY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: I sort of think of it as it's like being an alcoholic. So now you have finally have found out that you have a drinking problem, but you're not prepared to give up the booze. You simply would like other people do it for you.
HAGER: What the administration suggests is that we adapt to warming, like Margaret Percorni in her garden, make the best of it.
Robert Hager, NBC News, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Now, before we jump to applaud the Al Bush jokes and the G.W. Gore references — my apologies to Rush Limbaugh whom I like a lot — today the president dismissed this report from his own EPA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: I read the report put out by the bureaucracy. I do not support the Kyoto Treaty. The Kyoto Treaty would severely damage the United States economy. And I don't accept that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: And just to add a little further note to the confusion, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted that there is still, quote, “considerable uncertainty on the causes of global warming.” Well, a considerable uncertainty on that, maybe, but there certainly are considerable uncertainty as to just what is the position of the Bush administration on the issue of global warming.
Here to help us try to sort this out, we have John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA; and Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Welcome to MAKING SENSE, gentlemen.
Now, Chris, I want to start with you because you had a column today that I saw in the “Washington Times” that seemed to already anticipate and reflect that a deeper kind policy level what appears to be the confused schizophrenia that we saw develop in the course of the day with respect to this EPA report. What is your sense of what the administration is up to on this?
CHRISTOPHER HORNER, COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Well, what my column did was it pointed out something that we've anticipated for some time. Several weeks ago, the administration showed the world what it does when it means it about not partaking in a treaty, the International (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Accord, the Rome Treaty. We withdrew, a one paragraph submission to the U.N. It's very simple. I'll pay the postage. I'll write the letter.
But we refused to do it. In fact, we, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, petitioned the State Department and said, you know what, this begs other questions, specifically regarding Kyoto. Will you please withdraw from that? And they rejected our petition.
That's a conscious act. It's a deliberate act. It says to us: Every day you do this you're begging for a better offer from the Europeans. And frankly there is no version of this energy suppression, economy killing, humanity suffering increasing treaty acceptable to the bulk of Americans if they learn about it.
Yes, the climate...
KEYES: Well...
HORNER: Real quickly. There used to be 300 feet of ice where we're sitting. There's glacial scoring in Nebraska, the lush tropics of Canada have dinosaur bones, OK.
The climate's always changed. Man has always adapted. The wealthiest societies have always adapted best.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Before we get going, though. One thing to be clear, though. What you're saying seems to suggest, then, that the EPA report is not an accident and that, in fact, the ground is being laid for acceptance of both the ideas and something the proposals in something like Kyoto. Yes or no?
HORNER: Well, I'd say yes. That's what it looks like...
JOHN PASSACANTANDO, GREENPEACE USA: Alan, can I jump in on this?
HORNER: ... but the president just, you know, passed it off on possibly being EPA freelancing today. But the “New York Times” reported, and we all know it's been at the White House Council on Environmental Quality for six months. So it's not freelancing.
PASSACANTANDO: The White House has — Alan, the White House has finally admitted the science. It's like finally saying smoking causes cancer. The White House has finally acknowledged the science, although and then they say...
HORNER: They said weather happens. Always has, always will.
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: Hang on Chris.
That climate change, severe climate change is underway. In the next few decades we will see severe changes within the United States that will be very costly. And the world is looking for leadership from the U.S. And, in fact, if the U.S. doesn't lead, our industry is going to fall behind. Our auto industry, our home-building industry.
The U.S. is falling behind right now. The unfortunate thing that we saw today is when President Bush reversed himself against his own White House, against his own Environmental Protection Agency, against his own State Department, he basically said, I'm not president, I'm not leader of the free world, I'm still an independent oil man, and I'm on the campaign trail; and I'm going to throw out this right-ring rhetoric because I don't care about the science.
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... agencies, which is what he said. When he reigns in freelancing agencies he's saying...
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: It looks like I am president of the United States. I can't leave town without leaving adult supervision in charge of some...
PASSACANTANDO: He was on the campaign trail. He was on the campaign trail, and he was making a political football.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Now hold on. Gentlemen...
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... after four years no European country has submitted ratification documents?
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Gentlemen — wait, wait, wait. Now, before you continue, I want to get a word in edgewise here, because I have to tell you, John, I anticipated that you would be altogether happy with what came out of the EPA, and I'm sure that Christie Whitman is following...
PASSACANTANDO: In addition to the...
KEYES: Let me finish now — following blithely down the path of whatever pseudo-science she wishes to place into her documents. But the notion that we are dealing here with some settled science is absurd. And, in fact, a lot of the claims of the alarmists with respect to global warming have been seriously debunked precisely by those who, as Chris was trying to point out, have looked at the history of the earth and found that we have gone through these cycles at times when human beings couldn't possibly have been the cause of the impact.
We seem to be blaming ourselves for something that has happened even when we weren't around.
PASSACANTANDO: That's completely out of context. What we've got is the greatest body of scientific evidence, from industry scientists, from academic scientists and from government scientists...
HORNER: There's two models...
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: Hang on one second. We know more...
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: Hang on now. The American public knows more about what's going on with human-induced climate change than we ever have before. It is now — the burden now falls on President Bush to lead on this or to cowardly run from this. And if he runs from this, the American public will leave him.
HORNER: He's showing positive leadership. If he does do what he said — and that is withdraw from this treaty — he ran against it. For some reason Al Gore didn't want this to be an issue in the campaign. He ran against it...
PASSACANTANDO: Chris? Chris? You know yourself...
HORNER: But regarding the science,
PASSACANTANDO: He's only leading the oil industry.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Wait a minute. Gentlemen? Gentlemen? We're going to have to impose here, upon ourselves, a little discipline so that the audience out there can hear what you've got to say.
But we're going to have to do it after we take our break.
We're going to be back with more from our guests after these words.
And later, you'll hear my “Outrage of the Day.” What's worse than a lawyer who is awake at your trial? You'll find out. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, October 11, 2000)
AL GORE, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now, it's true that we disagree on this. The governor said that he doesn't think that this problem is necessarily caused by people. He's for letting the oil companies into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Houston has just become the smoggiest city in the country, and Texas is number one in industrial pollution.
We have a very different outlook.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, that was Al Gore talking about then-candidate George W. Bush on the issue of global warming.
In light of the EPA's recent report, maybe Al would revise his view. He could be as confused as the rest of us as to where the Bush administration now stands.
And Christopher Horner, there was, in his statement, I think, also the further implication we'd have to consider. This is not the only place where pseudo-science, junk science, disputed science has a big political following that may not be supported, in fact, by the weight of the scientific evidence.
Can we expect to see the Bush administration, with Christie Whitman in the lead, moving us further down the road of accepting the substitution of politics for science as the basis for our policies?
HORNER: We've refused to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol. John talks about leadership. Let's remember that for three years the Clinton-Gore administration refused to send Kyoto to the Senate.
So there's leadership too, OK. They know it's junk.
Yes, we should expect...
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: ... facts, Chris.
HORNER: I am — that is the facts, John.
PASSACANTANDO: They finally admitted the science yesterday. The science is clear, and the American public...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: One at a time, please. One at a time.
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: OK, then I'll answer the question. The Gore team is, for the most part still in place. And, you know, this slipped by the White House. I happen to think they were complicit in this. But the Gore team is in place. You will see this elsewhere. There is a desire among people to believe in UFOs, astrology...
PASSACANTANDO: Chris? Chris...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Chris, let John respond.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let John respond, Chris.
PASSACANTANDO: Chris, the American public doesn't want you to play political football with this. There is now a threat. Just when the president faced the threat...
HORNER: There's now a threat?
PASSACANTANDO: Excuse me. When the president faced the threat of terrorism, he didn't turn around to the American public and say you're going to have to get used to it.
Now he has admitted — it doesn't matter what he said in the past. He's now admitted global warning is a threat, it's here and now, and humans are causing it.
(CROSSTALK)
PASSACANTANDO: Please let me finish this. Please let me finish.
The American public wants leadership. The American public wants Yankee ingenuity. They want the jobs of the future to solve this problem. We don't want to cower and run away from global warming, we want to solve it, Chris.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Now go ahead Chris.
HORNER: September 11 showed us that there are real threats in the world and that we should stop spending so much capital, wealth and manpower on these hypothetical, illusory threats that people want to score political points with.
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... people's fears.
KEYES: I want to take a minute here. Gentlemen — gentlemen, let me intervene for a second here, because I want to introduce a different element and tell you what I think about this whole business.
Now, on the issue of global warming, John, I have to say that I agree with Chris, and the whole world knows this. I think that President Bush was right during the campaign, and we ought to resist all of this.
PASSACANTANDO: Well...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: I know. I know.
But let's look, though, at the other side of this because, Chris, I think the administration is actually quite consciously trying to have it both ways.
HORNER: Absolutely.
KEYES: They're throwing some stuff out there that will make John happy. Then we have some rhetoric from the president that's supposed to keep you...
HORNER: You're not going to make John happy. And that's what they need to realize...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Aren't we just looking...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... percentage of Kyoto...
KEYES: Hold on just a second. Aren't we looking — and here talking about what both of you are looking at — at the very same problem that we may have been just been talking about on the national security front?
The president says one thing and he puts people in place who are not committed to what he has said and who are implementing another policy. Isn't that what we're actually looking at?
(CROSSTALK)
HORNER: ... EPA. And yes, we're looking at that. He's not being well served by a lot of career folks. But some political appointees fell asleep on this one, too.
PASSACANTANDO: Chris, you're trying to make this into a political football again. What has happened is six agencies of the American government, represent the American people, have come out and said global warming is a problem here and now, with the latest, best science. The American public believes this. They want...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Gentlemen, we've run out of time. Hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: We have come to the end of our time. I would have to say, since I have the right to say the last word, I don't know if global warming is a problem. I know that globalogna (ph) is a problem. And we're certainly seeing the Bush administration accepting more of it than the president said he would. I don't think we can live economically on a steady diet of this stuff. It's very unhealthy for you.
Thank you for being with me tonight. I appreciate it.
Next: my “Outrage of the Day.” When is a bad lawyer who is awake in a worse condition? Think about it. You got a lawyer, you want a good lawyer, right? But if you have a bad lawyer, what's even worse than that?
If you want to make even more sense, sign up for our free daily newsletter at our Web site keyes.msnbc.com. You'll receive in your mailbox show topics, my weekly column, lists to my favorite articles of the day.
I'll be right back with the “Outrage of the Day,” so you stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now time for my “Outrage of the Day.”
The Supreme Court yesterday let stand an appellate ruling that a Texas death row inmate is entitled to a new trial because his lawyer fell asleep repeatedly during his original trial. It's not clear how much of the proceedings the court-appointed lawyer missed. The appeals court called the portion “not-insubstantial.”
Texas Attorney General John Cornyn argued that the appeals court decision had created an arbitrary breach in the law governing the effective assistance of council. The state's brief said the ruling, if allowed to stand, would invite myriad appeals by imaginative convicts trying to convert a lawyer's impaired trial performance into a new trial.
Well, I've got to tell you, the lawyer who was the subject of this has since died. I hope that doesn't mean that the Texas fellow is now going to recommended him as a candidate for the public defender's office in Texas.
That's my sense of it. Thanks. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. See you tomorrow.