TSR: "I don't think
America should be so gunshy from taking some of these
prisoners onto U.S. soil."
Friday, June 05, 2009
Length: 8:19
LARGE (96.3 MB)
-----
SMALL (10.3 MB)
Another look at the Cairo speech, this time
focusing on the implications of closing Guantanamo
Bay and whether any of our allies will be willing
to take the prisoners. Candy Crowley looks at the
political implications. Michael asks why we are so
afraid to take the prisoners onto American soil yet
expect our friends to take that risk for us. Also,
should America weigh in on the Iranian
elections?
WOLF
BLITZER: When he addressed the Muslim world,
President Obama said he'll make good on his pledge to
close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The sticking point, what to do with the prisoners
held there. The U.S. wants its allies to take some of
them to help out. The president spoke about that at a
news conference earlier today with the German
Chancellor Angela Merkel. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: In terms of the issue of Guantanamo, look,
this is a very difficult issue. It's difficult in my
country, it's difficult internationally. We have a
facility that contains some people who are very
difficult to deal with. Some of them probably should
not have been detained in those facilities in the
first place. They should have been processed and
tried and convicted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Alright, you get the point of what the
president's saying. Let's talk about this and more
with CNN's Michael Ware and our senior political
correspondent Candy Crowley.
Michael, why is it so hard for the allies to come in
and help out the U.S. and take some of these guys?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's
actually a good question. And one wonders. Now
clearly it's in everyone's shared interest to take on
the issue of these international terrorists. Because
we have seen all throughout Europe, there have been a
variety of al Qaeda or Islamic militant cells that
have been disrupted, that have been intercepted and
that have been jailed from Britain to Spain to France
to Italy. Now, each country has been dealing with
those cases as their own and rightly so. Now it's
about perhaps sharing the burden of the spillover of
Gitmo. One would think that there's some way, some
accord that could be found given the commonality of
the interests of the west in battling these terrorist
cells and these organizations.
However, I would say another thing, too: I don't
think America should be so gunshy from taking some of
these prisoners onto U.S. soil. I mean for these
prisoners, that would mean taking them into the belly
of their beast, into the heart of their enemy,
they're American prisoners, hold them on American
soil, maximum security, put the living fear into them
of knowing that there is no escape and that they're
not going anywhere. I don't think America, its public
or its security infrastructure has anything to fear
from holding these men on true American soil, Wolf?
BLITZER: You know Candy, as we were listening to the
president at that news conference in Germany today, I
don't know if it's fair to say that he was squirming,
but this is a really, really complicated issue for
him. It's one thing to make a commitment, close
Guantanamo as a candidate, even to make that
commitment early in his presidency on January 21, but
it's another thing to actually deliver.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT:
Well, you know, it's in the details. And the fact is
he also set his own kind of deadline, 2010. Doesn't
sound, the way he's talking right now, that he's
going to be able to do it.
BLITZER: And the deadline he set is January 21 or
January 22, 2010, although yesterday he said early
2010.
CROWLEY: Right, so it begins to march on. But the
fact is if he wants allies to take some of these
terrorists, he's going to have to come home and do
some diplomacy. Already on Capitol Hill, they're
working on something that would limit where the
president could put some of the most dangerous
prisoners. So the diplomacy has to start here,
because the allies are saying, well wait a second,
you won't take them on your soil and you want us to
take them? So I think the diplomacy for him has to
start back here and I think it will take him longer
than January of 2010.
BLITZER: Establishing a dialogue, Michael, with Iran
is also a very, very sensitive issue. I want you to
listen to this exchange that President Obama had
today with Tom Brokaw on the "Today Show." Listen to
this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM BROKAW, TODAY SHOW: What do you think Iranian
President Ahmadinejad could learn from your visit to
Buchenwald?
OBAMA: He should make his own visit. I was very
explicit yesterday. I have no patience for people who
would deny history. And, you know, the history of the
holocaust is not something speculative.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: As you know Michael, there are elections in
Iran next week and the Iranian President Ahmadinejad
running for re-election, facing a stiff challenge
right now. Anything the U.S., for example, does could
affect that election outcome. So this is really
sensitive ground for the president of the United
States.
WARE: Absolutely. And the best advice for the United
States in terms of the Iranian election of course,
Wolf, would be to be hands off, as it is. Let the
natural events take their course in Iran. And I think
that we're going to see that happen next week.
Obviously America is not playing a hand.
But we saw as President Obama chastised President
Ahmadinejad on the issue of holocaust denial, we saw
that in Iran just this week, from one of his most
fierce candidates in this presidential election,
President Ahmadinejad caught the same kind of flak.
And let's be honest, arguing this ridiculous point
with the Iranian president over holocaust denial is
truly a side show. A side show to the real interests
at stake in the Iranian election and truly a side
show to America's real interest. America needs to get
Iran talking, but it needs to be from a position of
strength.
America needs to be able to provide some leverage and
with Iran's interests vested so deeply inside Iraq,
with their interest vested so deeply inside Lebanon,
where we're also seeing an election, and with their
interest so deeply invested in Hamas and the
Palestinian issue, President Obama really does need
to find some traction with which he can bind the
Iranians and force them to come to the table. Because
at this point, the Iranians can sit there and go,
well, what's the point? Go ahead and make me. And
short of sanctions which we don't yet have
international community approval for, there's not
much of a stick with which President Obama can beat
the Iranians to either come to the table or once
they're there. Wolf.
BLITZER: Candy, what if anything should we make of
the fact that in his carefully crafted address,
nearly a one-hour speech yesterday, the president
avoided using the word terrorist, said extremists
throughout that speech. Yet today in his news
conference in Germany, all of a sudden he's speaking
about extremists and terrorists. What do we make of
it?
CROWLEY: I think it's tough to visit a concentration
camp and sort of couch your language about anything.
I think this is as simple a parent's advice which is,
I always said to my kids, look, there is the language
you might speak in the football locker room and then
there is the language you speak to your grandmother
with. And I think this is the art of diplomacy here
and he is here, he has now moved on, he's going to go
to the 65th anniversary of D-day. It is a different
situation and a different place, and I have not seen
him shy away from that word, but certainly in the
audience yesterday, it was better -- extremist was a
better word. If you put flash words in that
immediately turn people off, they're not listening to
you and I suspect that's why they put that in the
speech.
BLITZER: Michael is that how you read it as well?
WARE: Yeah, indeed I did. I thought it was a sage
move on the president's part and his speechmakers to
defer from using the word terrorist because it is so
inflammatory and given that there's so many other
terms to use which are equally accurate, be they
militants, be they insurgents, these semantics can be
very, very important. Even if the Arab street's
middle of the road, you know, constituency does not
favor these militants, by using a word such as
terrorist, you're still risking showing a red rag to
a bull. It's unnecessary provocation that does not
gain you anything. So I really do believe that it was
a wise move on the part of the president to steer
away from that world, Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, Michael, thanks very much, Candy,
thanks very much to you as well.