O'REILLY: Let's go over them one by one. I heard that he said disarmament is the goal and regime change, because that's the only way to achieve disarmament. And then the Iraqi people decide for themselves. That's what I heard. That seems to be pretty straightforward.
HART: Well, at one time it's disarmament. Throughout the press conference he talked about disarmament as he has done at various times in this debate. Other times it's regime change. And then last week, he surfaced the notion of a more or less permanent presence in Iraq as a base to revolutionize the Arab world. If that is our real objective, then that needs to be told to the American people.
O'REILLY: All right. Well I think it's the prerogative of the combatant on both sides to, you know, basically let the war or the battle play out and then, you know, react to what happens. I don't think anybody can predict what is going to happen afterwards. And I would say the model of Afghanistan might be something that we could fall back on, what we did there.
HART: Well he is not talking about falling back on something. He talked last week, and others in the administration have talked for some time, about working a revolution, a democratic revolution in the Arab world, using a democratic base in Iraq to carry that out. Now, if that is, in fact, our policy, the American people deserve to be told that.
O'REILLY: I got you. You want the big global look after Saddam is removed.
HART: That's a valid point. But that's our policy.
O'REILLY: You were on the Security committee that looked into America's preparations. And don't you think it's inevitable that no matter, if we go after Saddam or not, that these fanatics, some of them are going to attack us. So when you say, is America ready for what is going to come, I mean I think we're ready after 9/11 for just about anything.
HART: No. No we're not. I co-chaired a commission taskforce last fall for the Council on Foreign Relations with Warren Rudman and 15 distinguished Americans that said America was not much better prepared today in that case lass fall than it was when the attack occurred. This country is woefully unprepared for the next round of terrorist attacks, and the director of the CIA and director of the FBI have both said when we attack Iraq the threat level will go up.
O'REILLY: Oh it has to go up. But I mean it's not going to go up any further than what could happen without the attack.
HART: Yes it is. That's what the experts say and that's what I believe.
O'REILLY: In the short term perhaps.
HART: No, in the long term. Short term and long term. If you kick open a hornets' nest in the most volatile region in the world, you can expect to be stung. We will be attacked as a result of invading Iraq.
O'REILLY: And you don't believe we would be attacked if we didn't?
HART: Well eventually we will. No. Eventually we will. We will be attacked again.
O'REILLY: Right. So it's either -- we will be attacked no matter what we do. So his point is...
HART: As the director of the CIA has said, it will increase as a result of attacking Iraq.
O'REILLY: All right. But his point is that if you allow a man to -- like Saddam Hussein -- to sit on these kinds of weapons, all right, that the odds they're going to be used in the future grow, all right? So he is sitting on the hornets' nest now. We want to eliminate the hornets' nest so that we can go forward.
You want -- I think I'm hearing you say, senator, and correct me if I'm wrong -- to allow him to stay there and then let them take the play to us.
HART: No, not at all. And that is not the option. The option is coercive, intrusive permanent U.N. large-scale presence in Iraq to prevent the weapons of mass destruction from ever being used or delivered against anyone. There is another option.
Now when he comes to North Korea, he makes that distinction. Here we have a dictator with weapons of mass destruction and we are not preempting that dictator.
O'REILLY: No. He feels he can contain that man through the use of China. I don't know if that is right or not. But I want to get back to Iraq, though.
HART: Well, that's an important point, though.
O'REILLY: It is, but let's deal with Iraq tonight, because that's what he talked about mostly.
HART: OK.
O'REILLY: Do you believe that a large U.N. force can inhibit the movement of anthrax?
HART: Well, of course, if they are permitted and they insist on being permitted and the world community uniformly supports that commitment to go and find the weapons of mass destruction.
O'REILLY: You really think that? I don't think that a two-million man force could inhibit the movement of anthrax if that's the way Saddam Hussein wanted to play his hand. I don't believe you could put -- look, it's the size of California, where you are now, Senator. You think we could stop anthrax from moving? I don't think so.
HART: In 20 years -- in five years, 20 countries are going to have biological weapons. They can be made in a laboratory the size of an office I'm in right now or your own studio. This is a problem for the world community, it's not just Saddam Hussein. We can eliminate him tomorrow and weapons of mass destruction are going to be all over the place.
What we're trying to do now is set a precedent for dealing with that world of the future. And if it is in fact preemption and occupation, we've got a very busy century ahead of us.
O'REILLY: All right. But if you want to set a precedent for others who may follow the road Saddam has followed, and you remove Saddam, doesn't that give them pause then?
HART: Well, maybe it will, maybe it won't. I don't think it's going to give them pause in production of anthrax or botulism...
O'REILLY: Sure it will. If we find out they have it, we will remove them as well in theory.
HART: Oh, we have a big military budget coming, don't we?
O'REILLY: Well, it's a dangerous world.
HART: No, I mean -- this is about America's -- right, and if America takes it upon itself to eliminate every threat by this means, we're going to be very, very busy. And we had better have a very large and active Army.
O'REILLY: All right. How about just the biggest threats?
HART: The biggest threat is Korea in my judgment. And I think other people agree with that. Korea now represents a greater threat to this country than Iraq does.
O'REILLY: All right. Senator, very provocative. Thanks for coming on and batting around with us. We appreciate it.
HART: A pleasure.
O'REILLY: Directly ahead: Linda Chavez and Charles Rangel warming up in the bullpen. And then more disturbing charges over a Muslim FBI agent. We will be right back.
Transcript available at Lexis.com
