Posted on 07/30/2007 1:39:24 PM PDT by WalterSkinner
Duncan Hunter interview with New Hampshire Public Radio on July 5, 2007
Ping for DH in NH
THANK YOU!
ping to me for later
2nd Ping
B4DH!
DH4P08
Thanks for archiving this Walter! Good job.
..Amen!
LOL! His cell phone just went off and he has the same ringtone I have on mine!
OMG, Tape two is going to be heart wrenching to transcribe...
::sniffs::
Ok, excerpts are not going to do it. I’m off to make a pot of coffee.
..and I even snipped a couple of minutes off of the beginning and end...
They did say “call in” didn’t they? Some lucky duck has the DIRECT line!
Here is the transcript of Part 1 and 2
New Hampshire Public Radio 7-5-2007
Congressman and Republican Presidential Candidate Duncan Hunter
Laura Knoy
Laura Knoy: Congressman Hunter, good to see you. Thanks for coming in.
Duncan Hunter: Laura, great to be with you.
Laura Knoy: And as I said there is almost a dozen republicans running I think 10 officially and when you add Fred Thompson maybe that is 11 it is almost a dozen in my book. What makes you stand out?
Duncan Hunter: First, in the area of immigration, I’ve actually done something with respect to border enforcement which is rare. I’ve built that border fence in San Diego. And when I built that double fence, you know, we had the number 1 smugglers corridor in America through which most of the drugs and most of the people were smuggled into America traveled. And we built a double border fence with a road in between. In those days we had border gangs that roamed the hills with automatic weapons. They robbed the illegal aliens as they came in. They murdered an average of 10 a year. It was so bad that Joseph Wambaugh, the best selling author that wrote the Onion Field, wrote the novel Lines and Shadows about the no mans land between San Diego, CA and Mexico. We even had to have a plain clothes police force dressed like illegal aliens that would go to the border and wait to be attacked by the border gangs. So when I built that border fence we put the border gangs out of business. We reduced the smuggling of people and narcotics by 90%. I wrote the bill this last year, in October, that past the house and the Senate. President Bush signed it on October 26. It mandates the San Diego border fence be extended 854 miles across the smugglers routes of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Now the other candidates have the right rhetoric with respect to the border. But I’ve done something about it. I understand the border. I understand border enforcement. So that is an area where I have a record of accomplishment.
Now with respect to national security which is a key role for the President. Obviously the Commander In Chief role is a major dimension to the Presidency. I have been the Chairman of the Arms Services Committee in the House of Representatives for the past 4 years. I have served in Vietnam and served in uniform. I didn’t do anything special. My son served 2 tours in Iraq and is now in Afghanistan as a Marine. That means I can turn to the American people in a time of crises and say we are all in this together. I have the credentials to be the Commander In Chief. That is an important dimension to the Presidency.
And finally, I’m one guy, the only guy, who is not a purist free trader. I believe we need to bring back high paying manufacturing jobs to the United States. And we need to do that by holding China accountable for the cheating on trade which they are now undertaking. It has taken over a million high paying jobs, many of them from New Hampshire, over to China. So we need to have a new policy in respect to manufacturing. Bring back manufacturing jobs, those 3 million jobs we lost over the past 5 years. And with that research and development, science and engineering base, that attends the manufacturing base. So, jobs for America. Bringing back the manufacturing base, A New Policy on Trade differentiates me from the rest of the field.
Laura Knoy: Congressman Hunter, so you are saying on these key issues, National Security, Trade and Immigration, you have your experience from your long years in Congress that you would bring to the White House.
Duncan Hunter: Well experience but also a different tact. For example, on trade, I’m the only guy that would hold China accountable for the cheating they are undertaking right now that is killing American jobs and American businesses around this country.
The 40% devaluation of their currency that basically means that all their products are 40% cheaper than they should be. They are underwritten by the Central Bank of China undercutting American products and sweeping our products off the shelf around the world.
Laura Knoy: I want to invite our listeners to join us, call in. I want to ask you before we go to our callers about the big news item this week. That is the commutation of the top aid Scootter Libby. What is your opinion? Mr. Libby was convicted by a jury of his peers for lying and obstructing justice. Yet he will not spend an hour in jail.
Duncan Hunter: First I would not pardon or commune the sentenced without reading the transcript. Having said that, I think there are a couple of things the American people have to know and reflect on. Most of the citizens think that Mr. Libby was sentenced for the disclosing the identity of a CIA agent. That is not true. Ultimately the prosecutor understood that Libby was not the person that disclosed the identity of the CIA agent’s identity. He did not prosecute him for that. You may notice that. That is not what the conviction is for. The conviction was for inconsistent statements and lying to the prosecutor.
Now I think there is something that folks have to look at here and that is this. When prosecutors get into a high profile class, in which he was going to persue people for disclosing the identity of a CIA agent under the Foreign Agents Identity Disclosure Act. That is a law we put into place to keep people from being disclosed. This is a very serious thing so he starts off on this prosecution where he is going to, by gosh, bring people to justice for that. He ends up not doing that because he didn’t find a case where a person had their identity illegally disclosed, so he takes the consolation prize. The consolation prize is always perjury. It is lying to the grand jury. The point that I made the last time I was interviewed on this is this point. Tell me what you did 30 days ago. Tell me all the meetings you had 30 days ago. You probably can’t tell me. So if I ask you questions for 3 or 4 hours as a cross examining attorney, I could probably bring up places where you have not given all the information about things in fact happened on particular days because you can’t remember. Now Libby claims he couldn’t remember these things and after they asked him many questions, they got him for inconsistent statements or lying.
I think you always have to be careful about that. But I think in terms of Obstruction Justice, which is the other consolation prize that a prosecutor goes for when he doesn’t get someone for the big one. Which is what he pursued in the first place. They left Mr. Libby with $250,000 in fines and on probation. His law career is ruined he will be disbarred. He will never be able to practice law again. I think that is probably reasonable. But now my recommendation is this. I would not pardon Mr. Libby without reviewing the transcript. And I haven’t reviewed the transcript.
But I would say this, I did review the transcript of Agents Compean and Ramos the two border patrol agents who were given 11 and 12 years in prison. It is a greater prison sentenced than the average convicted murder in this country for the fact that they wounded a drug dealer as he was bringing 750 pounds of drugs across the border from Mexico. I have reviewed their transcripts and I think they should be fully pardoned. And my recommendation to the White House, I called them up the day after they communed Scootter Libby sentence, was that it would be good for the President on the 4th of July to fully pardon Agents Compean and Ramos. I’ve met with their families; they have been rendered destitute by this prosecution. That is the most severe injustice I think I’ve ever seen in terms of uniform people being punished for being too aggressive in pursuing their duties on the border of Mexico.
Laura Knoy: So what did the President say? Did you get a response?
Duncan Hunter: Well I didn’t get a response from the President. I called the White House and spoke to one of his aides and told him that was my recommendation, to pardon Compean and Ramos. I think they should. I introduced a bill to pardon those two guys and 100 members of congress have cosponsored my bill to give a congressional pardon to Agents Compean and Ramos.
Laura Knoy: That is interesting that you said that because our emailer, Diane ended her email with exactly that where do you stand on Scootter Libby particularly in relation to the border agents Ramos and Compean. So it is on some peoples minds.
Duncan Hunter: And if elected President, I would pardon Compean and Ramos. I have read those transcripts. I think those sentences were extremely unjust. And Ramos has already been beaten up in prison by drug people that recognized him as a border patrol agent.
Laura Knoy: Lots to talk about Congressman. And lots of callers. Your chance to chime in this morning. Go ahead Mike, you’re on the air.
Mike: Hi Congressman welcome to New Hampshire.
Duncan Hunter: Hi Mike good to talk to you.
Mike: As I listen to you speak, I most concerned about American Foreign Policy and our situation in Iraq. I know we spend as much on military as the rest of the world combined. We have 100s of bases over seas. It doesn’t seem like we have learned anything from this quagmire of imposing democracy from the barrel of a gun. What would your Presidency do to move us towards diplomacy towards peaceful resolution of conflict and away from the mess we have gotten into in the Middle East.
Laura Knoy: Mike that is a great question.
Duncan Hunter: Hey thanks Mike. First with the respect to imposing democracy from the barrel of a gun, the only guns we held on the days when they had Free Election in Iraq was the Americans along with the Iraqi Police who were protecting the voting places and that included the suicide bomber that rushed in to try to blow up a bunch of voters and one of the Iraqi Policeman bear hugged him and pulled him out of the voting area and was killed with him when that guy tried to kill voters. So those people that voted in the Iraqi Elections voted in a Free and Fair Election. All the international observers agree with that.
And I would say this Mike, over the last 60 years, we have brought freedom to large parts of the world. For example in WW2, after the war with Japan, we gave them a constitution while we were occupying Japan. We taught them to have free and fair elections. Today they have a democracy in Japan. In South Korea, we did the same thing. In El Salvador, and you know I was in Congress during the Contra Wars in South America. El Salvador which was once run by a military dictatorship was protected by Ronald Reagan while they stood up a free democracy, a free voting system. In which a person both liberals and conservtives both agree was a great leader, Jose Duarte was elected in a free and fair election while Ronald Reagan held that shield of military protection around that fragile government. I saw left wingers protesting in the streets. That was going to be our next Vietnam according to them. You know I think we have liberals that die of old age waiting for our next Vietnam. And yet, the President persisted, and we have a free El Salvador today. And people vote for their leadership. And we brought down the Berlin wall and now you have all those former captive nations that were under the Tierney of the Soviet Union.
This country have freed 100s of millions of people since WW2. And sometimes you have to be strong to free them. It wasn’t peace marches that brought down the Soviet Union. It was Ronald Reagan’s military strength of the Soviet Union. And when they tried to match us military equipment for military equipment they realized they couldn’t. They picked up the phone and said let’s talk. And when we talked, it brought down that massive empire that oppressed 100s of millions of people and you have free nations today. You ask people in Poland, who brought them freedom. It is the United States. Now let’s go to Iraq.
Laura Knoy: The question people are asking, how long? Matter of fact Ron Paul who also is running for the Presidential nomination, when he said, this war was ill advised, how do we preemptive war poor strategy, there was a fair amount of cheering in the audience. So, Congressman Hunter, even Republicans are saying how long can we stay in there and do this?
Duncan Hunter: Well, actually I was in those debates and I didn’t see any cheering in the audience, maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see any cheering when Ron Paul implied that it was our fault when we were struck on 9/11. Let me say this, I have a picture in my desk drawer. It is a picture of a bunch of Kurdish mothers laying dead on a hillside in Northern Iraq, holding their babies killed in mid stride by poison gas that was dropped by Saddam Hussein’s leader of the Poison Gas Campaign, Chemical Ali. It killed thousands of people mid stride. I’ve seen the pictures of people being excavated from those mass graves where they were bulldozed into graves. Again mothers with 45 slugs in the backs of their heads and slugs in the back of their little babies heads also who were executed along with their mothers. That is a regime that we displaced. Now my son has served two tours in Iraq as a Marine. I understand how tough it is for folks to wait on the tarmac for their kids to come home. That is tough. War is always tough. And I’ve not been one of the people saying this is going to be easy. Occupation is tough on two parties, the occupied nation and the occupying nation. And what America sees today is wall to wall car wrecks on television. If it bleeds, it leads. So a burning HumVee is much more news worthy than an American GIs giving inoculations to kids or building schools. So that is what is shown the American people.
But I would say this. We are standing up Iraqi military. So the question is how long. The Iraqi Army consists of 129 battalions. We need to make sure that every one of those battalions of the Iraqi Army gets a 3 or 4 month combat tour in Anbar Province, Baghdad or Sunni Triangle. A top area where they have to exercise their change of command, their discipline, their leadership and prove themselves. When they are battle hardened, we need to rotate them into the battlefield and then rotate out American heavy combat forces. That is the right way to hand off the security burden to the Iraqi Army. And here is my difference with a lot of folks that have called in. I think the Iraqi government which was freely elected will hold. I think if you have an election tomorrow, you will have the same incumbents. And I think the Iraqi Army will hold. So I think we will ultimately be successful in Iraq. That will mean having a country in that strategic location which will not be a state sponsor of terrorism for the next 5 to 10 to 20 years and will be a friend to the United States will be a good thing for American Foreign Policty.
Laura Knoy: Congressman, you said the Iraqi battalions have to prove themselves, they have to be ready. Yet you hear form the public we have been hearing that for a long time. How long do we wait for these Iraqi units will be ready? Some democrats say as long as we are there, we are holding their hands.
Duncan Hunter: Well here is the deal. It is kinda like teaching someone to ride a bicycle. The question is when do you let go of the bicycle. The Iraqi battalions that are in Baghdad right now which is a major operation we have got 10 Iraqi brigades there we have roughly 30 to 40 battalions that are rotating in and out the additional 3 brigades were sent in there. A lot of the Iraqi battalions now have seen a lot of combat. Some have become very proficient. Some from the quieter areas, haven’t seen much. And my urging is to get them all a battlefield tour of at least 3 to 4 months. And when they have that and we rotate them into the battlefield and the American heavy units can come out and can be moved to other places in central command or come back to the United States.
The point is this shouldn’t not be a function of a political decision that everybody leave now. And I know it is tough. I know a lot of people say we should have keep Saddam Hussein’s Army in place. Saddam Hussein’s Army had 1100 Sunni Generals. It would have been a big mess right now. We had to build this army from scratch. Building an army from scratch aint easy.
Parts 3, 4 and 5 tomorrow.
That was a joke that was made during the interview. I did omit it so not to confuse readers. I am so glad we share the same taste in ringtones :)
GREAT WORK!
..great work, as usual...
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