CQ Transcriptswire

SPEAKERS: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NYC MAYOR

[*] STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to “This Week.” Eight years later, New York City is still recovering. Confronting 9/11 again.

As President Obama considers more troops for Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The United States cannot be engaged in an open-ended commitment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: His attorney general prosecutes the plot’s mastermind in Manhattan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: In a courthouse just blocks away from where the twin towers once stood.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY.: This is a big step in the wrong direction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Topics this morning for our headliners. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Hillary and Rudy only on “This Week.”

Then...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN, FORMER GOVERNOR OF ALASKA: We don’t have to keep going down this road of controversy and drama.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: She’s back. The “Going Rogue” book tour. That and the rest of the week’s politics on our powerhouse roundtable, with George Will; Bob Woodward from the Washington Post; Gwen Ifill of PBS; David Brooks of the New York Times, and David Corn from Mother Jones.

And as always, the Sunday Funnies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONAN O’BRIEN, TALK SHOW HOST: Before John McCain chose her as his running mate, his campaign spent $50,000 on a background check. And when he heard this, John McCain said, we should have spent $75,000.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: And we being today with the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Thanks for spending time with us this morning.

CLINTON: Oh, it’s a pleasure to talk with you from Singapore, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And as you’re in Singapore, you and the president are facing really his toughest decision yet on Afghanistan. And on his way over when you stopped in Elmendorf Air Force Base, President Obama made this commitment to the troops and the country.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We’ll give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve. We’ll give you the equipment and support that you need to get the job done. And that includes public support back home. That is a promise that I make to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now that is a tough promise to keep. History shows that the public won’t support a war for very long if they’re not convinced that the goal is worthy. But also, and probably more important, that the war can be won.

How can you convince the country that this war can be won?

CLINTON: Well, I think the president said it very well in talking to some of the brave young men and women in uniform when he stopped in Elmendorf.

What he’s been doing in the last weeks is testing every single assumption, asking for evidence, asking for dissenting opinions. I mean, he has conducted an extraordinary effort to make sure the decision he makes is rooted in his best judgment as to what is in the national security interest of the United States. And I believe that’s a case that can be made to the American people. I have no doubt about that.

Now, look, I understand that there will be people who are maybe critical or unconvinced or not persuaded. But I think the majority of Americans will know that this president has gone the extra mile, in fact, more than that, to make sure that whatever decision he makes is in the best interest of our country, that it is aimed at making our country more secure and supporting our men and women in uniform as they fulfill the mission.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, one of those dissenting voices right now is reportedly our ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. He’s also the former commanding general of U.S. forces there. And he has some cables to Washington warning that President Karzai is not a worthy partner and that sending more troops to Afghanistan now could actually make it more difficult for the Afghan government, President Karzai, the Afghan army, to do what they need to defend their country on their own.

And I know you can’t comment on any classified cables, but what do you think of this sentiment that President Karzai has not shown that he’s a credible partner yet, and that sending more troops now will actually make the Afghan army too dependent on U.S. forces?

CLINTON: Well, George, you’re right. I can’t and wouldn’t comment on the confidential advice that anyone has provided to the president during his deliberations. But the argument that you’ve just described is one that a number of people have made in the press and in arguments that have certainly been made known to me, to the president and others.

We agree that our goal here is to defeat Al Qaida. That has been a clear goal and a mission from the president ever since he made his commitment of additional troops back in the spring. And we understand that the Afghans themselves need help in order to defend themselves against the Taliban. Those are mutually reinforcing missions, but our highest obligation is to the American people. It is to do everything we can to make sure that America is secure, that our allies, our interests around the world are protected. And that is what we’re focused on.

Now, we believe that President Karzai and his government can do better. We’ve delivered that message. Now that the election is finally over, we’re looking to see tangible evidence that the government, led by the president but going all the way down to the local level, will be more responsive to the needs of the people, will deliver the services the people of Afghanistan want, who do not want to return to the Taliban, but they want a government that actually can function on their behalf. And that together, we and our allies in the international community will help them to build a security force that can take care of their security going forward.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But President Karzai does seem to be ignoring some of our concerns. He’s surrounded by a Vice President Qasim Fahim, who’s been accused of corruption. He’s allied with General Dostum, the warlord who’s been accused of massacres in the past.

What kind of concrete steps must President Karzai take to prove sending more troops is not a waste of American lives and American money?

CLINTON: I have made it clear that we’re not going to be providing any civilian aid to Afghanistan unless we have the certification that if it goes into the Afghan government in any form, that we’re going to have ministries that we can hold accountable. We are expecting there to be a major crimes tribunal, an anti-corruption commission established and functioning, because there does have to be actions by the government of Afghanistan against those who have taken advantage of the money that has poured into Afghanistan in the last eight years, so that we can better track it and we can have actions taken that demonstrate there’s no impunity for those who are corrupt.

So we’re going to be doing what we can to create an atmosphere in which the blood and treasure that the United States has committed to Afghanistan can be justified and can produce the kind of results that we’re looking for.

But we have no illusions. This is not the prior days when people would come on your show and talk about how we were going to help the Afghans build a modern democracy and build a more functioning state and do all of these wonderful things. That could happen, but our primary focus is on the security of the United States of America. How do we protect and defend against future attacks. We do not want to see Afghanistan return to being a safe haven and a staging platform for terrorism as it was before. That is what is driving the president to make the best decision he can make.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The word of the week in Washington seems to be off-ramps. That’s what the president’s pushing for, off-ramps out of Afghanistan.

What is the off-ramp out of Afghanistan?

CLINTON: Well, I think, you know, we want to get Al Qaida, George, and we’re very clear about that, and we see it as part of our integrated strategy looking at Afghanistan and Pakistan as a theater in which we have to operate. We have made it clear to the Pakistanis, as well as to the Afghans and others, that we want to do everything we can to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaida.

And when we talk about on-ramps, off-ramps, whatever the terminology of the day might be, that’s a kind of shorthand. What we’re trying to figure out is, what is the best decision the president can make to achieve our primary core objectives?

You know, we’re not interested in staying in Afghanistan. We have no long-term stake there. We want that to be made very clear.

We came to do a mission. Unfortunately, it was not achieved in the last eight years. In fact, the mission was changed because it could not be achieved, or it no longer was the primary goal that was expressed in the prior administration.

Well, our goal is very clear. We want to get the people who attacked us, and we want to prevent them and their syndicate of terrorism from posing a threat to us, our allies and our interests.

STEPHANOPOULOS: While you were there, the attorney general announced that he was going to be prosecuting Al Qaida members in U.S. criminal courts in Manhattan, in New York City, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four of his of his alleged accomplices. And that had come under some fire, including from the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, who’s our next guest. Here’s what the mayor had to say about that decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GIULIANI: This was an act of war and an act of terror. They should be prosecuted -- they should be prosecuted in a military tribunal. We would not have tried the people who attacked Pearl Harbor in a civilian court in Hawaii for what they did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now, it is true that during World War II, we tried Nazis who crossed our borders in military courts, in military tribunals.

Why is it so important to have these trials in federal criminal courts?

CLINTON: Well, of course, George, this is a decision that the attorney general, the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense have made after extensive, exhaustive review.

Look, I was a senator for eight years. I was a senator on 9/11. My goal is to make sure that the mastermind and the other implementers and designers of this horrific attack on us pay the ultimate penalty for what they did to the United States and to a lot of people whom, you know, I know and who I had the honor of representing.

The attorney general determined, after consulting with veteran prosecutors, that this was a case that appropriately can be brought in our federal courts. Other cases will be brought in the military commissions. I’m not going to second-guess the attorney general.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The State Department has the job of trying to find homes for the 90 or so prisoners at Guantanamo who’ve been cleared for release but there’s no country that will take them.

How long will it take to find places for those 90 detainees? And that delay -- how much further will that delay the closing of Guantanamo?

CLINTON: Well, actually, George, we’ve been making progress. I think when we started, there were way more than 100 -- I don’t remember the exact number. We have a dedicated group led by Ambassador Dan Fried, who has literally traveled the world making arrangements for detainees to be transferred to countries willing to accept them. And we are making progress. There’s a large group of detainees from Yemen that posed some specific security issues that have to be addressed, but we are making progress.

STEPHANOPOULOS: While you’ve been gone, Sarah Palin is making quite a splash back here in the United States. Her book, “Going Rogue,” is about to be released, but there are already excerpts out. And she has some kind words for you in the book. She says she was wrong to criticize you last year for whining, and now she says that she realized the media was biased when they were talking about your candidacy.

And she goes on to say this, to write this. “Should Secretary Clinton and I ever sit down over a cup of coffee, I know that we will fundamentally disagree on many issues. But my hat is off to her hard work on the 2008 campaign trail. A lot of her supporters think she proved what Margaret Thatcher proclaimed: If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.”

It sounds like she’s fishing for a coffee date. Is it going to happen?

CLINTON: Well, you know, I’ve never met her. And look, I’d look forward to sit down and talk with her. Obviously, we’re going to hear a lot more from her in the upcoming weeks with her book coming out, and I would look forward to having a chance to actually get to meet her.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Was the media fair to her?

CLINTON: Well, George, I’ll leave that for my book if I ever write another one.

(LAUGHTER)

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. Well, I only have one final question. As you know, Mayor Giuliani is following you in just a minute. And he’s been talking to a lot of people in New York about running for governor next year, and a lot of governors think you’re doing exactly the same thing.

Are they right?

CLINTON: What -- that I am talking...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Talking to people about running for governor?

(CROSSTALK)

CLINTON: ... for governor?

STEPHANOPOULOS: No, talking about running for governor yourself next year.

CLINTON: No, no, no. That’s another one of those stories that never will die, and I hope maybe we can put it to rest today. No, I am committed to the job that I have. It is an extraordinarily important time to be the secretary of state of my country and to work with President Obama in trying to pursue our interests and advance our values around the world, and that’s what I am going to continue doing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So that rumor is dead. You’re not running?

CLINTON: That rumor is dead. And if you can please, you know, put it in a little box and send it off somewhere, I’d appreciate it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: All right. It is done. Madame Secretary, thanks very much for your time today.

CLINTON: Thanks, George. Good to talk to you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And with that, let me bring in the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, from New York City right now. Welcome back, Mr. Mayor.

GIULIANI: Nice to be back, George. How are you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m doing great, thank you. So let’s start with the politics. Hillary is out from running in 2010. Is Rudy in?

GIULIANI: Well, I don’t know about that. It was interesting to see her be so definitive about it, but I kind of thought that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What about you? You said a couple of months ago that you would make a decision in November. Polls show you actually as the leading Republican candidate, the leading Republican hopeful, and it’s also shaping up potentially to be quite a Republican year in 2010. How hard are you looking at it and will you run?

GIULIANI: Well, I’ll take it all under consideration and decide it pretty soon, but I haven’t -- haven’t really focused on it yet. But I will very soon.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you lean for or against?

GIULIANI: Am I leaning for or against? I’m not leaning at all. I’m straight ahead.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. Well, then, let’s go to the news of the week on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. You saw Secretary Clinton right there.

What I’d like to ask you about, though, are comments you made back in 2006. That’s when the 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, was convicted in federal criminal court. You were disappointed that he didn’t get the death penalty, but you did praise the overall trial. Here’s what you said -- you said, “I was in awe of our system. It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law.” You called it a symbol of justice then. If criminal court was good enough for Moussaoui, why isn’t it good enough for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

GIULIANI: Well, it was, and it would be good enough for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but the reality is, there’s another alternative, and the administration for some strange reason is creating the other alternative, military tribunals. They’re going to try five other people at least in those military tribunals. I don’t understand why they can’t try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the military tribunal. That also would demonstrate we’re a nation of laws. That is the way in which we have tried enemy combatants in the past, whether it was the second world war or the Civil War. So, we’re basically, in this particular case, we’re reaching out to give terrorists a benefit that’s unnecessary. In fact, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, when he was first arrested, asked to be brought to New York. I didn’t think we were in the business of granting the requests of terrorists.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet it does show the world that we have nothing to fear. That is the argument that the attorney general makes. And also, if you look at the history here, you got more than 200 international terrorists in federal prisons right now. Not only Zacarias Moussaoui in the supermax, you’ve got Ramzi Yousef, Richard Reed, the blind sheikh Abdul Rahman. We have demonstrated that our federal system can handle this, and we can put these people away if necessary.

GIULIANI: But we also demonstrated that our federal system has an enormously protracted process that’s going to go on forever. That it grants more benefits than a military tribunal will grant. There’s always the possibility of acquittal, change of venue.

And the reality is, George, it also creates an extra risk that isn’t necessary. It creates an extra risk for New York. Now, New York can handle it, there is no question about it, but why add an additional risk when you don’t have to do that?

And then I’m troubled by the symbolism of it, also. It seems to me that the Obama administration is getting away from the fact that we’re at war with these terrorists. They no longer use the term war on terror. They have been very slow to react to the whole situation with Major Hasan, which was clearly a terrorist act in the name of Islamic terrorism. Gosh, he announced it as such when he did it. He was carrying around business cards saying “soldier of Allah.”

So, it would seem to me that this is the worst symbol to send, that this is a civilian matter. It was the mistake we made in ‘93. In ‘93, we treated the attack on the World Trade Center as a civilian matter. Understandable back then. We didn’t have the example of September 11th. Many people think that was a mistake.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me press you on that. Do you believe that Major Hasan should be tried in a military tribunal?

GIULIANI: I don’t know about that. I mean, I would want to see the facts develop. I think the administration has been very slow to come to the conclusion that Major Hasan was an Islamic extremist terrorist. I mean, the reality is, he announced “Allah akbar” when he shot and killed those people. He was communicating with a cleric who was encouraging terrorism. And now it turns out he has -- he even has business cards saying “solder of Allah.”

And I suspect that -- I suspect that Major Hasan, although I don’t know if a decision has been made, will be tried in a court- martial. I suspect, but he could be tried either way. But these are acts of war. STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. Let me change subjects now, because we are dealing with this “Going Rogue” book tour of Sarah Palin . She made the cover of Newsweek today. I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet, but we’re going to put it up for our viewers right there. It says, “how do you solve a problem like Sarah?” She’s there in I think it’s a running outfit. She’s bad news for the GOP and for everybody else too.

What is your answer to that question?

GIULIANI: Well, I think first of all, being on the cover of Newsweek is good for the GOP. It shows that there is an awful lot of attention being paid to our party. She’s an exciting figure in the Republican Party. She’s someone who draws an enormous amount of attention.

I saw it for myself, George, this summer when I took her to Yankee stadium. Democratic territory, 7:1 Democrats in the Bronx, probably. She got a great reception. So there’s something -- there is something extra special that Sarah Palin has in terms of reaching out to people, and my party needs that kind of excitement.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don’t believe that...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... as some others have suggested, that she’s going to push moderates out of the party?

GIULIANI: Moderates just shouldn’t get pushed out of the party. She -- Sarah can push for the positions that she has. Other people can push for the positions that they have. That’s the kind of competition we want. And we want attention on the Republican Party. After all, it’s good for a two-party system. And she creates attention. She raises money. She helps candidates. I don’t agree with everything that she says, but she doesn’t agree with everything I say.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Almost two-thirds of the public doesn’t think she’s qualified to be president. Do you?

GIULIANI: Well, I think that’s going to be develop. I mean, she has got two, three years to develop a case, if she wants to make a case for running for president.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Mayor Giuliani, thanks very much for your time this morning.

GIULIANI: Great to see you, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: When we come back, the roundtable weighs in. Terror trials, off-ramps from Afghanistan, and the “Going Rogue” book tour. What will be the fallout for Palin and the GOP? We’ll have that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS: Towards the end of the campaign, the press reports quoted unnamed McCain aides calling you a diva, you know, a whack job, a narcissist. Why do you think these people were trying to destroy your reputation?

PALIN: For some people, this is a business. And if failure in this business was going to reflect poorly on them, they had to kind of pack their own parachutes and protect themselves and their reputations, so they wouldn’t be blamed.

I’ll take the blame, though, because I know at the end of the day, what the truth is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Barbara Walters and Sarah Palin . It begins Tuesday on “Good Morning America.” We’re going to talk about it here in just a bit. Let me bring in our roundtable. I am joined, as always by George Will; David Brooks of the New York Times; Bob Woodward of the Washington Post; David Corn of Mother Jones and Gwen Ifill from PBS. Also, the paperback edition of “The Breakthrough” has just come out. “Politics and race in the age of Obama.”

As I said, we’ll get to Palin in a little bit, George, but let’s begin with this debate we just saw with Secretary Clinton and Mayor Giuliani. Mayor Giuliani said the administration had a choice, they made the wrong choice. They should have tried Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military tribunal.

WILL: They actually have three choices. They could put them in civilian courts, could go to the military tribunals, or they could just do nothing and have indefinite detention. Most people are uncomfortable with the third.

Only six of the 241 people who were in Guantanamo when Barack Obama became president have been sent into federal courts and enveloped with American rights. This is what bothers a lot of people, because, they think, this is turning this into a law enforcement, not a war problem.

Well, it is both, actually, and the FBI has been busy this year, and we have all been reading about it, breaking up, using law enforcement techniques, nascent terrorism in this country. So, it seems to me, that I don’t think they made a bad choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And there had been convictions.

CORN: There had been lots of convictions. There are close to 200 terrorists who are already in supermaximum prisons here in the United States. You know, George W. Bush said we will capture these people, we will bring them to justice. Bringing someone to justice actually is something of an obligation, and that is not always easy to do. And as the attorney general, Eric Holder, said the other day, he is going to be asking for the death penalty for KSM. So if that’s the case, it seems to me we have a tremendous obligation just to show the rest of the world that we’ll do this in an open, accountable way, if we’re going to give them the maximum penalty.

And you already have Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly in New York supporting this, too.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, David, the death penalty could give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed exactly what he wants, martyrdom. He’ll also have the ability, probably limited to some degree, but to get up there and make his case to the world.

BROOKS: (inaudible), I think, you know, what is terrorism? Terrorism is an act of propaganda. So now he gets to commit the original act of propaganda, which was the attack, and now he’s going to have a long trial, an international reality show, which will be followed here, but more importantly, followed around the world. So he’s getting a second bite at the apple at spreading his propaganda message.

And I think the second mistake is identifying this as a crime and not as an act of war. To me, 9/11 was a national security issue. And it has now been redefined within the administration as a crime. And as a result, Eric Holder did not consult Barack Obama , did not consult the people who are responsible for the national security of the country. He separated this out from the national security concerns, and to me, is conducting -- is about to conduct a long, circus-like trial, which will have national security ramifications.

WOODWARD: Not necessarily. First of all, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has made it clear he wants to plea guilty. And if he pleas guilty, there’s no trial. There are other complications in all of this. First of all, you could five trials, not just one. They would separate out the defendants. In the case of KSM, as they call him, he’s implicated himself in the murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter. So, if they tried, you know, do you include that in a trial, do you not? These people, the questions of competency involving a couple of these people. Are they going to be their own lawyer?

STEPHANOPOULOS: They will be appointed some lawyers. You are exactly right. But there are other complications as well. Never read his Miranda rights. Could be a problem in a criminal court. He was waterboarded 183 times. Now the attorney general says he has got evidence that’s untainted, but you could argue that all the evidence is tainted after that. IFILL: Well, there are a lot of good question marks. What’s the evidence that he has that he says that is untainted? Do we know that this is really going to go to a trial? And not just because he has already confessed, by the way, at Guantanamo, many times, he has already said I -- this hand killed Danny Pearl, for instance. He’s already confessed to a lot of this. So we don’t know whether there’s going to be a trial at all, let alone a show trial.

And we also have to keep in mind, if this does go to the New York district, they tried terrorism cases before, and in 94 percent of the cases, has found them guilty. This could go on for years and years, it’s true, but it’s also a real possibility to consider that it won’t go on at all, and that the administration would not and the federal -- and the Justice Department would not be taking it this far unless they have something that we haven’t seen. I don’t know.

BROOKS: We do know something about his character. There have been front-page stories in the Washington Post and the New York Times the last two days, describing a narcissistic personality, who likes to make a big show of himself and who wants a big show. Who’s written long memos expressing himself and the message he wants to...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... that photo of him where he looks slovenly...

(CROSSTALK)

BROOKS: Why would he pass up the chance?

CORN: But Moussaoui did the same thing at his trial. It was a circus-like atmosphere. He gave speeches. He was his own attorney, then he wasn’t his own attorney. I don’t see why their considerations should come into our considerations. We should make decisions based on what we think is right and best. And if they want to try and exploit that, well, give them a shot. But at the end of the day, it’s about our values, not about his values.

(CROSSTALK)

BROOKS: This is much bigger...

WILL: Much is going to depend on the caliber of the judge in this case. We saw in the case of the Chicago whatever they were in 1968...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Judge Hoffman.

WILL: ... Judge Hoffman, it got out of control. We’ve seen in the Rosenberg case that much depends on the caliber of the judge and maintaining order. And judges are Caesars in their courtroom.

(CROSSTALK)

IFILL: ... maintained order in the Moussaoui court. WILL: That is correct. Bob, this guy wasn’t just implicated in the execution of Danny Pearl. He said I cut his head off with my blessed hand. So he’s given rather a lot of information that is pre- waterboarding, or post-waterboarding but not brought out by waterboarding.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODWARD: It could be very important by saying, look, we let narcissistic personalities get justice in this country. And I think there’s a good chance he’ll really get justice. And let’s not be concerned that he’s going to exploit it for his purposes. People on trial are entitled to do that. That’s...

BROOKS: Well, it’s not like the option is no trial. We have another set of procedures, which we are assigning (ph) to a series of other people who are in Guantanamo Bay. These procedures tend to be reserved for people captured in acts of war on foreign soil. And -- which seems to me to fit this case.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And I think the administration is hoping that this is going to send a message to the world that we’re not afraid of this, that we can try them in our criminal courts. It could, though, lead to the worst possible outcome. He gets off on a technicality, but he can’t be released. You lose on all fronts.

CORN: But there are also -- there are some other charges pending on him, too. If he happens to get off on the 9/11 charge, there’s the Danny Pearl charge, there are other acts of terror that he’s been involved with going back to the early ‘90s. They have a string of cases lined up for him.

IFILL: (inaudible) meets him at the door and says, oh, don’t go quite yet...

(CROSSTALK)

CORN: So you don’t have to worry about him being released.

WILL: But also there is a question of what the charges are. There is an Alice in Wonderland aspect to this, because Attorney General Holder has said, indicated, he will seek the death penalty when we don’t know the charges yet.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Meanwhile, President Obama still deliberating over Afghanistan. It looks like it’s going to take a couple of more weeks. He sent back all the options for revision, although he hasn’t (ph) completely rejected them. Colin Powell said this week that’s just fine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: So Mr. President, don’t get pushed by the left to do nothing, don’t get pushed by the right to do everything. You take your time and you figure it out. You’re the commander in chief, and this is what you were elected for. (END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Bob, let me bring this to you, because it was striking, after that last meeting on Wednesday, the administration officials coming out, we get word about General Eikenberry, Ambassador Eikenberry memo. He’s raising questions. We hear that the president pushed back hard on the need for an exit strategy and off-ramps. And I’m wondering to what extent do you think this is some kabuki theater, and to what extent is this a truly tortured decisionmaking process?

WOODWARD: Well, actually, I think there’s a third alternative. It may actually be a smart decisionmaking process. I’m doing a full disclosure, a book on this, on how Obama decides and governs. And I’m looking at this and other decisions, but you look at this decision and I just, last night, listed 32 issues that he and others in those deliberations have said, let’s get on the table, let’s figure out what we’re going to do here, where it’s going, what are the facts.

Just to take two -- Pakistan. Everyone agrees Pakistan is the real problem, that’s where Al Qaida is. General McChrystal, who’s the Afghan general, has no authority in Pakistan. So, we’re conducting, as is well known, a massive covert operation in Pakistan, attacking Al Qaida camps and leaders with drones.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And the first trip that General Jones, the national security adviser, made right after the meeting was to go to Pakistan.

WILL: We are spending, the United States, in Afghanistan, a sum of money larger than the Afghanistan’s GDP, so we’re already making a big effort there. Congressman Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, says this will swallow the president’s priorities and budgets if he escalates there.

STEPHANOPOULOS: $1 million per soldier.

WILL: Per year. Congressman Murtha says, who is the chairman of a defense subcommittee, says, he now thinks a majority of House Democrats would vote against funding an escalation. Now, can the president go to war with a majority of his party against him?

STEPHANOPOULOS: And what the president might be doing, by emphasizing these off-ramps, is sending a signal to those Democrats, he’s taking their concerns seriously.

CORN: Well, I think the leak that came out this week of the Eikenberry cables was a really good leak, because up until now, the debate had been how...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

CORN: But it was good for the public in terms of the discourse.

(UNKNOWN): It was in the Washington Post, too. CORN: Because, up until now, the debate had been how many tens of thousands of troops Obama was going to send, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000? But what Eikenberry said, he put basically the 800-pound gorilla in the room, in the middle of the table. Can we do anything in this country if we have a government there that’s corrupt and hapless? Is it just good money after bad? Is it a waste of our resources? And I think it broadened the debate and it gave Obama a lot more political and policy coverage for not getting stuck in that box.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And (inaudible) Secretary Clinton come down pretty hard on President Karzai today.

IFILL: And let’s not overlook what we just heard Secretary Clinton say. She said, we want to keep in mind our primary core objectives. And what she was saying was what President Karzai told my colleague Margaret Warner (ph) in Kabul this week, which is, this isn’t really about you. We would like for you not to get in our way. We would like for your government not to be so corrupt that we can’t get what we need done, but this is about protecting us. And when Margaret talked to Hamid Karzai, he basically said you’re not here because of us, you’re here because of your own problems at home.

STEPHANOPOULOS: He wasn’t wrong, though.

IFILL: But he wasn’t sounding like your best colleague and partner.

WILL: But General McChrystal has said that our mission is, and I quote, “to provide for the needs of the population of Afghanistan, by, with and through the Afghan government.” And we have an Afghan government presides over a country so poor that the majority of the residents of the capital, Kabul, have neither electricity nor running water. Those are big needs. Are soldiers going to supply...

BROOKS: Listen, I think it is worth doing. And I think it would be a moral atrocity if we left and the Taliban took over parts of the country. I think it would fundamentally destabilize Pakistan if that happened. Nonetheless, when I look at the White House, I think what I see and what you hear in the president’s voice when you hear about the meetings are a couple of things. Tremendous ambivalence about this. You also hear, maybe we can’t afford it. As if, you know, this is something I’m competing with. I don’t think you should go to war if this is one of your priorities that maybe you don’t think you can afford. I don’t think you should go to war with a minimalist mentality. I don’t think you should go to war if you are just looking to get out.

We went through the Donald Rumsfeld regime. That was trying to do war on the cheap. I think if you go to war, if the president believes there’s no reason to do it...

(CROSSTALK)

BROOKS: And if he doesn’t believe that -- if he doesn’t believe that, I think probably we shouldn’t do it. CORN: But Obama is not going to war. He has this war, that’s the problem. For six, seven, eight years, the Bush/Cheney administration addressed none of these issues, including the Karzai government’s ineptitude. And so now he’s stuck with no good choices. And you can’t start it over again. He’s inherited this.

WOODWARD: But, here’s the question. Asking for the facts and analysis is not necessarily ambivalence. It’s just -- that’s what you do when you’re trying to sort a very complicated series of issues out.

Look, I mean, just look at what we’re picking at issues here. Take another one, the police in Afghanistan. Now, when you drill down on the police in Afghanistan -- you talk about corruption at the high level in Afghanistan -- at the police level, it’s automatic. And when you look at the numbers about the police in Afghanistan, instead of going up, as General McChrystal has projected and everyone hopes, it’s going down because of the attrition.

BROOKS: I have no problem with the process. I think deliberations are absolutely fine. This is about signals. What does Joe Villager in Afghanistan think? What do the Pakistanis think? They know the Taliban will be there forever. They don’t know...

IFILL: And President Karzai has put out an olive branch to the Taliban and said he wants to work with them.

BROOKS: Well, working with parts of the Taliban is actually appropriate, but they don’t know that about us. And they are not going to commit to us. I think the McChrystal memo was very clear on this. We have to change the momentum with a massive display of determination. And that determination simply doesn’t exist in Washington.

CORN: 40,000 troops isn’t even going to be that massive for a country that size.

WOODWARD: You know what McChrystal said also, and this is so important. He said, look, the insurgency in Afghanistan, which he’s in charge of trying to defeat or control, is directed not from Afghanistan, but Pakistan, and he has no control in Pakistan. So, there’s a problem what do you do in Pakistan? And in these discussions, that is a big focus, and rightly so.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And they need the Pakistani leadership to go after the Taliban as fiercely as U.S. troops are going after the Taliban in Afghanistan. But you talk about signals, David. There also have to be signals back to the American public. And going back to George’s point, it’s just painfully clear right now that this public is not going to get behind a $200 billion, ten-year effort that doesn’t have a high probability of success.

(CROSSTALK)

IFILL: Which is why, George, we’re hearing more and more this administration saying, by the way, any deal we’re going to cut, there’s going to be an exit involved in this. STEPHANOPOULOS: A bridge out of Afghanistan.

CORN: No open-ended commitment.

IFILL: Yes, they keep using that phrase.

CORN: But that’s a problem, because it’s such a big job, what they set out to do. But then to say there’s no open-ended commitment, it’s conflicting messages. And they are caught with a lot of different contradictions going on now. It’s hard to sort through.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Quickly, where does this end up?

WILL: I think it ends up splitting the difference. A dusty answer that will satisfy no one. We will send 20,000 troops at the most, and that will increase the combat strength of the American force there not at all.

BROOKS: We’ll send the 20,000 or 30,000, but we’ll radically scale back our aims there.

WOODWARD: I actually don’t think the president knows. And I think that’s what he’s trying to sort out. And it’s going to be -- I say, it’s great he’s asking all these questions. I wonder, can he get good answers? Like, he’ll ask, what’s the intelligence on Kandahar, big city in Afghanistan? And it turns out the answers are very unclear. And so if you get unclear answers, you may get an unclear decision.

CORN: You got two generals on the side of this. McChrystal on one side and Eikenberry, the former general, who both know the issue and the area very well, with diametrically opposed positions. I think the political tendency would be to what George said, sort of cut down the middle, come up with some muddle of an answer and keep muddling through and hope that external circumstances pushes it one way or the other in your advantage. Again, I have no idea what the president’s going to do.

IFILL: There was a great cartoon in the paper yesterday. It had the president seated at a conference table with four easels in front of him. Choices in Afghanistan -- bad, worse, horrible, disaster. That’s where he is. He’s got a lot of bad choices.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I think that’s right. I think he hasn’t made up his mind yet either, but I do think he’s trying to do what George is -- try to knit together a solution that can at least bring together the people around the table, if not the public side of this...

(CROSSTALK)

WILL: And by the way, I think this is tangled up with health care. That is, I think he’s trying to kick this down the road until he gets this fundamental domestic achievement because in part his party is so heavily involved.

STEPHANOPOULOS: He can’t kick this down the road until next year, though, and that’s when health care is going to be finished.

WILL: I agree with that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s talk about Sarah Palin right now. We shared a little bit of Barbara Walters. Here was Sarah Palin on “Oprah.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: That was seminal defining moment for you, that interview.

PALIN: The campaign said, right on, good, you’re showing your independence. This is what America needs to see. And it was a good interview. And of course, I’m thinking, if you thought that was a good interview, I don’t know what a bad interview was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: A little bit of bluntness there from Sarah Palin . The book is out, 415 pages. David Brooks, it looks like it’s a fair amount of score settling and the combat with the McCain campaign aides has continued straight through the weekend.

BROOKS: Yes, she’s a joke. I mean, I just can’t take her seriously. We’ve got serious problems in the country. Barack Obama is trying to handle a war. We just had a guy elected Virginia governor who’s probably the model for the future of the Republican Party, Bob McDonnell. Pretty serious guy, pragmatic, calm, kind of boring. The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it will never happen. Voters, Republican primary voters are just not going to elect a talk show host.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Rudy Giuliani is taking her seriously this morning.

IFILL: Well, Rudy...

(LAUGHTER)

IFILL: Where do we go with this? I think he has no choice but to take her seriously. Everyone at this stage in the process is trying to appeal to everyone else. Lamar Alexander was quoted in the paper this morning as saying, well, she’s interesting. And that’s what Bob McDonnell does not have. She’s interesting. She’s the current -- politics’ current example of the shining, flashing thing. You know, the balloon boy. It’s something that we’re into at this moment.

And you know what, she’s interesting. And she does represent a lot of people who normally are not interested in politics, and therefore, she can’t be ignored.

CORN: She may represent a threat to the Republican Party. If she’s... IFILL: In your dreams.

CORN: No, no, I’m listening to David Brooks here.

(LAUGHTER)

CORN: If she’s a joke, if the Republican Party is serious about a joke, that will reflect not so well upon itself.

There’s a Palin gap. 76 percent of Republicans say they’d like to see her be a national figure. Only 45 percent of all Americans believe that. There’s a 31-point gap there. Up to 71 percent of people polled don’t believe she’s qualified to be president. So the more seriously she’s taken by Lamar Alexander , Rudy Giuliani, and anybody who’s out there that’s a Republican, it’s not going to reflect well on the party itself.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The question, though, is can she use this book tour, George Will, to bring that number down, the number of people who say she just can’t be taken seriously as a presidential candidate?

WILL: How big is the undecided element about Sarah Palin at this point? I mean, what are you working with here? If conservatives of a sort are looking for a populist, they have got Mike Huckabee, who’s mounting a big campaign and is far ahead of Sarah Palin among those, at this early stage, expressing a preference. Some conservatives think they have found in Sarah Palin a Republican William Jennings Bryan. Now, why they would want someone who lost the presidency three times, I do not know.

(LAUGHTER)

WOODWARD: You know, I think that she should have her say. I don’t think anyone ever got elected president because of a book. And I agree with David on this. You talk to Republicans, and they say they voted for Obama because Sarah Palin was John McCain ’s pick. That was John McCain ’s justification. And I have heard it and I think you have heard it from Republicans time and time again, so I don’t think she will work in the Republican Party. But, you know -- she’s going to give it a try. I think she -- I think the book sales are going to be astronomical.

IFILL: Of course, but let’s just point out, as the girl at the table, I feel like I can just say you cannot underestimate the degree to which women will be drawn to her story. And that’s who she’s speaking to. These are people who are ignored, who nobody counts into their thinking. That’s why she’s appealing to Hillary Clinton. It’s why -- when she made her own announcement, remember, she talked -- she used the term glass ceiling back in the summer? Don’t underestimate that factor.

WOODWARD: Sure, but you can be drawn to somebody’s story and buy their book and read their book. That doesn’t mean you want them to be president.

(CROSSTALK) WOODWARD: ... to lead. I think those are two different realms for people.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But David, why don’t you take on David Corn’s question about whether this is taking away from her the personality, this whole Palinism that we have seen. What impact does that have on the party going forward?

BROOKS: Well, there’s a populism in both the Democratic and the Republican parties, which is against Wall Street, against intellectuals, against Washington, against New York, against the coasts. But if you look at the sort of populism that has won in this country, it’s not William Jennings populism, which is hostile and negative, which Sarah Palin sometimes is. It is the populism that is Ronald Reaganesque, which is simply we’re for small towns, but we’re not angry at the big cities. The anger turns people off. Representing small towns is fine. But what she does, which is turning into a hostility towards intellectuals in general, that just doesn’t work.

CORN: The question is whether, you know, Americans want a rogue president. Mitt Romney has a book coming out -- it probably won’t sell as much -- in the spring. It’s called “The Case for American Greatness.” Do we want to elect...

STEPHANOPOULOS: He’s going to try to pick up on David Brooks’ themes there.

CORN: Obviously. Maybe you helped him, I don’t know...

(LAUGHTER)

CORN: ... but maybe you can reveal that when you want to. But you know, Sarah Palin is indeed promoting herself. And this idea that she’s not just even a maverick, she’s beyond maverickness. She’s going for rogueness. And I think that’s not a very settling sentiment for a lot of people in this country. It may be good for talk shows and to debate, but she doesn’t really have I think the steady hand that people are going to want to see in a president anytime in the near future.

WILL: Two years from now, we’ll be up to our eyeballs in the Iowa caucuses. And I don’t think that, at that point, when we have a real, rich array of Republican candidates, that she’s going to loom large. This is what happens in a vacuum of a third year out.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And that’s the last word for now. You guys continue this in the green room.