BLITZER: Welcome back to our special LATE EDITION, "America Votes 2006".
I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting today from New York.
Joining us now from Boston, one of the top Democrats in the U.S. House of
Representatives, Barney Frank of Massachusetts.
Congressman, thanks very much for coming in.
REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), NEW YORK: Glad to be here.
BLITZER: Are you happy Saddam Hussein is going to be executed?
FRANK: Yes, he was a terrible tyrant. There are, of course, other
terrible tyrants in the world. And, you know, it can't be America's mission
to get rid of all of them if they're not causing us external damage. But
obviously no one can have any sympathy for him.
The issue, of course, is the enormous price the American people have had
to pay for that, it seems to me, for less than we could have gotten in
return. That is, I think if you look now as to this great disaster that Iraq
has been for the American people in terms of lives lost, destabilization
politically in the Middle East, the opposite of what administration
predicted, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, that it has simply not
been worth what it has cost us.
And by the way, one of the things it has cost us -- and I hear Mr. Snow
say, well, what's the Democrats' plan for the war on terror? I voted to go
to war in Afghanistan. This Republican argument that the Democrats don't
want to fight terror is, of course, just a lie.
We almost -- we voted to go to war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the
place from which we were attacked on September 11th. And at first, the world
was wholly with us and we were making progress, and were getting a genuine
democracy there under Karzai.
And because this administration has so botched Iraq, it has had so much
to transfer, money and manpower and attention and everything else to Iraq,
that we are now finding things in Afghanistan deteriorating.
BLITZER: All right. Here's what the vice president, Dick Cheney, said
earlier today on ABC, going after the Democrats, once again arguing that you
don't have a plan, only a plan for defeat in Iraq, as opposed to a strategy
for victory.
Here is Dick Cheney.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I come back to the
basic proposition. I think we've got the basic strategy right. That is, the
Iraqis have to ultimately take responsibility for their own fate both
militarily, as well as from a political standpoint. That's the strategy. Our
objective is victory, and that's the road we are walking down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: All right. Is there an alternative, a Democratic plan for
victory, as opposed to simply retreat in Iraq?
FRANK: I don't see that we are going to be able to achieve victory, but
that's because this administration unwisely invaded Iraq on false premises.
There were no weapons of mass destruction, they were not the place from
which we had been attacked. They have since then done it incompetently.
And I was struck by so many of the cheerleaders for the invasion that you
were talking about with Tony Snow, deadly and dysfunctional. Mr. Snow said,
oh, that was taken out of context. I want to see the context in which deadly
dysfunctional is a nice thing to be.
You know, I learned in politics when some one says something was taken
out of context, they really mean, "I wish I hadn't said it." Or probably in
Mr. Perle's case, "I wish nobody knew I said it until after the election."
The fact is, this administration has made a terrible botch of Iraq. And
part of the plan is, in my judgement, to put more resources in Afghanistan.
I mention Afghanistan for a very serious purpose. That was the major
frontier in the war on terror. We are in danger not only of not being very
successful in Iraq, but of losing the success in which we were reaching in
Afghanistan.
BLITZER: But even if -- even if Iraq was not before 9/11, under Saddam
Hussein, a haven for terrorism, is it today? Could it become the new
Afghanistan given the current circumstances, the al Qaeda figures streaming
into Iraq right now, and want to use that, in effect, as the new
Afghanistan? FRANK: No. The major problem in Iraq today is not al Qaeda or
outsiders. It is internal Iraqi fighting. It is Shia versus Sunni, with the
Kurds playing I'm not sure what role.
The fact is that I believe it is the case, the national intelligence
estimates suggests it. I think the longer we are in Iraq the harder it's
going to be to defeat terrorism.
When we invaded Afghanistan, we were the recipients of support worldwide.
And the Bush administration has dissipated that support. The sad fact is
today that when Iran and North Korea threaten to go nuclear and when North
Korea has an explosion -- and those are both terrible things, in my judgment
-- this administration is helpless to do anything about it because they have
so alienated so much of the rest of the world, that sadly America's
influence is at an all-time low.
And the longer we are in Iraq and the longer things continue in this
chaotic sense -- and there is no sign that they're getting any better -- the
weaker we are, not the stronger.
BLITZER: All right. Listen to this exchange I had with the House majority
leader, John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives,
earlier in the week in "THE SITUATION ROOM".
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), MAJORITY LEADER: Let's not blame what's happening
in Iraq on Rumsfeld.
BLITZER: But he's in charge of the military.
BOEHNER: But the fact is the generals on the ground are in charge. And he
works closely with them and the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: He strongly supports Rumsfeld. The president says Rumsfeld is
doing a fantastic job. But in this specific exchange, Boehner says it's the
generals who are in charge.
And the president keeps saying, "I listen to the generals. They want more
troops, I'll give them more troops. If they want fewer troops, I'll give
them fewer troops."
Is it the responsibility -- do you blame the generals for the current
predicament in Iraq?
FRANK: Of course not. I am disappointed in John Boehner. He should know
better than that, to victimize the generals.
Remember, by the way, it was the chief of staff of the Army, General
Shinseki, who at the outset of this said we're going to need a large number
of troops. And when his term was about to expire, they let him go almost in
disgrace.
For John Boehner, the political leader of the Republicans, to blame the
generals for the mistakes of the Bush administration and of Rumsfeld -- you
know, my colleague John Kerry got in trouble because he told a stupid joke
and he told it badly. But what Boehner said is far more demeaning to the
people in uniform, because he is blaming them.
These are very brave people who have put into an impossible situation by
the unwisdom (ph) and incompetence of this administration. And have them
blamed for what Rumsfeld and Bush have been doing is really just beyond the
pale.
BLITZER: In these final days, the president and other administration
officials and Republicans are going after you and Democrats with this
warning to the American voter.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it is interesting
to note that the person who wants to be the head of the Ways and Means
Committee for the Democrats said that he can't think of one tax cut that he
would extend. See, that's code word for get ready. If the Democrats take the
House your taxes are going up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: All right. You're going to be -- if the Democrats are the
majority in the House, you're going to be chairman of the powerful
committee. Are you going to go raise taxes on the American people?
FRANK: No, the president makes things up. As a matter of fact, Charlie
Rangel has said that we need to address the alternative minimum tax. That's
the tax that's going up under the Bush administration with no real
opposition for them on middle-income people.
Yes, I am going to vote against extending the tax that says that when
Bill Gates dies -- and I hope it's a long time since -- he does great work
-- that his children will not be able to inherit tens of billions of dollars
and pay no inheritance tax on it. To say that the inheritance tax, which
affects about one percent of America and could mean hundreds of billions of
dollars, that that should be abolished, I think it's a mistake.
But in terms of taxes that citizens making $75,000, $100,000 a year are
going to make, no they're not going to go up. And, in fact, the big
difference between us and them is they have been promoting growth in an
economy in which we have had an extraordinary degree of concentration of
wealth. It is really unprecedented.
For the average citizen -- I'm talking 90 percent of the American people
-- to get so little benefit, we're going to change that.
BLITZER: Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Thanks very much, Congressman, for coming in.
FRANK: Thank you, Wolf.