Will Bush Give Hezbollah a Chance?
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Tonight, Bush's radical challenge. President Bush offers a radical Islamist group linked to one of the most deadly terrorist assaults against Americans a chance to enter the political mainstream. Terrorist plot. Federal agents smash an alleged plot to smuggle weapons into the United States and sell them to terrorists. And yes, most of the accused plotters are illegal aliens. And America the vulnerable: shocking weaknesses in our border security and enforcement of our immigration laws. A leading terrorism expert joins us tonight. I'll also be talking with the congressman who is trying to make it much more difficult for terrorists to ever obtain a U.S. driver's license.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is Lou Dobbs for news, debate and opinion, tonight.</s>DOBBS: Good evening tonight from Washington. Also ahead here, guilty as charged. Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers is convicted for his role in the biggest corporate fraud in U.S. history. And no sweat, a rising number of communities across this country are now fighting to protect Americans from sweatshop conditions and the flood of cheap imports from overseas market. And securing your future, Senator Chuck Hagel wants to enlighten me tonight about his plan to reform Social Security. Tonight, Senator Hagel has his opportunity. He's our guest. And an extraordinary challenge tonight from President Bush to one of the Middle East's most violent and feared radical Islamist terrorist groups. President Bush called upon Hezbollah to prove it is not a terrorist organization by joining the political mainstream in Lebanon. The United States has classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. For many years, that has been the view of U.S. policy. Hezbollah is blamed for a bomb attack on a U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut 22 years ago. Two-hundred-forty troops were killed. Senior White House correspondent John King reports.</s>JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the Oval Office, trying to balance Hezbollah's bloody history with the reality of its political clout in Lebanon.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. And I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they're not by laying down arms and not threatening peace.</s>KING: Meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah, the president was upbeat about change in the Middle East. Hezbollah's role in Lebanon is part of a defining challenge for a president who, on the one hand, is encouraging democracy, but on the other prefers a black and white, us versus them, approach to terrorists.</s>SHIBLEY TELHAMI, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: The magnitude of the problem is greater now, because of the focus on the democracy, and the U.S. simply cannot backtrack on that. And what's happening is that a lot of the Islamist groups in a way are exploiting that opening to empower themselves and then the U.S. is going to be faced with a very major choice to make very soon.</s>KING: Hezbollah is blamed for the 1983 Marine barracks and embassy bombing in Beirut that killed 241 Americans, and Israel says it runs terror cells in the Palestinian territories responsible for suicide bombings against Israelis.</s>BUSH: One of our concerns the Majesty and I discussed is that Hezbollah may try to derail the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.</s>KING: But this massive pro-Syria, anti-U.S. rally in Beirut last week was also a vivid display of Hezbollah's political power. Though the administration clearly hopes other political groups are bigger players in Lebanon's May elections.</s>SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Experience shows that when people are given the opportunity to choose their leaders, they tend to choose people who are committed to improving their lives, not terrorists.</s>KING: But the softer language from the president and other senior officials in recent days reflects the reality that, like it or not, Hezbollah could be a significant force in Lebanon's next government.</s>KING: Now, the Bush administration obviously cringes at that prospect but will deal with it if it has to later. The overwhelming emphasis here now is on making sure Syria fully withdraws its troops and its intelligence personnel from Lebanon before the May elections. As officials here put it here, Lou, one difficult challenge at a time.</s>DOBBS: John, what has been the reaction, the early reaction from Capitol Hill toward the White House announcement?</s>KING: Well, you have people on Capitol Hill already trying to put more pressure on Hezbollah, including trying to convince the European Union to make Hezbollah -- to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization. So this is going to cause quite a bit of tension, most -- most importantly with the key defenders of Israel in the Congress. But most of the people we talked to, diplomats associated with Israel and members of Congress, understand the bind the president is in. They wish, though, Lou, that his language was tougher publicly.</s>DOBBS: And John, there's word tonight that Italy, a key member of the coalition, is planning to begin withdrawing its troops from Iraq beginning in September. Any reaction from the White House?</s>KING: Well, the White House is insisting that they do not think this has any direct connection at all to that shooting incident in Iraq, U.S. troops opening fire on that Italian journalist who had been released after being a hostage in Iraq. U.S. officials saying that publicly. Privately, though, officials concede Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi under tremendous political pressure in his country. The war in Iraq and his decision to send troops there already was unpopular. He has announced he will start drawing down the 3,000 Italian troops in September. What they worry about here, Lou, is that this will send a green light to other smaller members of the coalition in Iraq. U.S. officials say it simply raises the pressure yet again to speed up and accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces.</s>DOBBS: Thank you, John, our senior White House correspondent. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today declared she is concerned about China's military buildup. Secretary Rice is the latest of several top U.S. officials to express their concern about the rapid modernization and expansion of China's military. Speaking in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Rice said China's rising spending is disturbing because it coincides with escalating tensions over Taiwan. Secretary Rice is on a six-nation trip to Asia. She arrives in China on Sunday. We report here extensively about the danger posed by illegal aliens, the danger that illegal aliens might infiltrate this country as terrorists and commit acts of terrorism or help terrorists already here. Tonight there's stunning evidence that those fears are justified. Federal agents have charged 18 people, many of them illegal aliens, with allegedly trying to smuggle Russian-made military weapons into the United States. Kitty Pilgrim reports from New York.</s>KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eighteen men of different nationalities targeted in a roundup in New York, Los Angeles, and Fort Lauderdale, charged in a Manhattan courthouse today with weapons trafficking. They are predominantly Armenian, Russian, and Georgian. Many of them are illegal aliens. They peddled rocket-launchers, shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles and other lethal weapons, selling whatever they could, promising more. They displayed their wares on a web site.</s>ANDY ARENA, FBI: They were just doing business. If the buyers of the weapons had money, the defendants -- the defendants did not care how the buyers planned to use the weapons.</s>PILGRIM: Their buyer said he was a arms dealer for a terrorist group. He was not. He was an informant for the government. For a year, the FBI monitored 15,000 phone calls, observed and recovered deliveries of some arms from storage facilities.</s>COMMISSIONER RAY KELLY, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: This is the age-old story of people doing anything for money. They were interested in money. There was no ideology here.</s>PILGRIM: Ring leader Artur Solomonyan and his accomplices promised more, even at one point mentioning enriched uranium, which he said could be used in the New York subway system. The defendants promised rocket-propelled grenades and shoulder- fired air missiles. All, they said, could be obtained from Eastern European and Russian military sources. Then last night, in a Manhattan hotel, a sting operation. They were lured by the promise of green cards.</s>DAVID KELLEY, U.S. ATTORNEY: The defendants Spies and Solomonyan indicating to the C.I., look, "We have these -- we have these arms in these pictures. We're ready to make the deal. In order for us to close the deal, we have to go overseas. The problem is that we're illegal aliens. If we want to travel, we need some sort of papers. We need green cards."</s>PILGRIM: Many of the promised weapons never made it into the states. Federal officials emphasize there was never any uranium. But assault rifles, including an Uzi and AK-47 were delivered to storage facilities in New York, Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: A success in the fight against terrorism. Thank you very much, Kitty Pilgrim from New York. My guest tonight says terrorist organizations have a sophisticated understanding of our entire immigration system, and they know how to exploit our porous borders. Janice Kephart is the former counsel to the 9/11 Commission. She is an expert on terrorist travel. In testimony before the Senate yesterday Kephart declared, "We must upgrade our border system now. Our current system sets the bar far too low for terrorists trying to enter the United States." Janice Kephart joins us here now. Good to have us with us.</s>JANICE KEPHART, FORMER COUNSEL TO 9/11 COMMISSION: Thank you, Lou.</s>DOBBS: Let's start with another statement that you made yesterday. You said effective border security is perhaps our best hope of preventing another terrorist attack on American soil. How would you describe the state of border security in this country?</s>KEPHART: Well, I think we've made some strides. We do have biometrics. We take fingerprints and photographs at the ports of entry now. That's an improvement. But we have sufficient fragmentation within the Department of Homeland Security. We have not brought all of our immigration apparatus together. We don't have a cohesive policymaking, and so I think at our ports of entry we are seeing problems come up as a result of that.</s>DOBBS: Biometrics, various other improvements in border security, technologically...</s>KEPHART: Yes.</s>DOBBS: ... most of them are totally dependent upon those people entering this country being law-abiding as they cross the border.</s>KEPHART: That's correct.</s>DOBBS: We know that an estimated three million illegal aliens crossed our border last year, Janice. Is there any way in the world that the Department of Homeland Security, this administration, this Congress or anyone in the federal government can claim that we have border security in this country?</s>KEPHART: I think we have a really long way to go to get there. One of the things that I did not discuss yesterday in my testimony was something that dovetails very well with things that Deputy Secretary Loy and FBI Director Mueller have been saying about infiltration from the Southwest.</s>DOBBS: Right.</s>KEPHART: When I was on the commission, I became privy to an open source alert to the Border Patrol that's about a year-and-a-half old now that said the Colombian FARC was meeting with al Qaeda in Madrid, Spain, and their interest was in acquiring Mexican Islamic converts to come through the Southwest border.</s>DOBBS: Oh my gosh.</s>KEPHART: So that is a troublesome piece of information that dovetails very much with what we have been hearing lately on the Hill.</s>DOBBS: And that kind of -- obviously that's concerning to all of us. The fact that we have not -- and as you point out, border security is the first line of defense against -- and the best hope for preventing a terrorist attack. You are also sophisticated in the ways of this town, this government. Three-and-a-half years after 9/11, the commission that you counseled and served on, how could any public official, any public servant, any elected official in this country be sanguine about the vulnerability of this country right now?</s>KEPHART: Well, I think what we need to do is be educated on what terrorist travel is, be educated to the fact that terrorists have been thoughtful about our vulnerabilities and willing to exploit them. And willing to exploit whatever vulnerabilities we have, whether they be in our immigration benefits system. They have sought political asylum, they have sought naturalization, they get it time and again. We need to be cognizant of abroad. They're seeking visas or they're seeking bad documents to try to infiltrate the U.S. with -- on false identities. They will do anything that they can to get here.</s>DOBBS: And in that testimony, Janice Kephart cited two examples, one across the Canadian border, the other across the Mexican border of terrorists who were apprehended after having violated our borders. Janice Kephart, I hope you'll come back with us here. We'd like to hear far more of your views on this critically important subject to all of us and to the nation.</s>KEPHART: I would love to. Thank you, Lou.</s>DOBBS: Thank you, Janice Kephart. New concerns tonight about a possible anthrax attack right here in Washington, D.C. A second test at a Pentagon mail facility has come back positive for anthrax. Earlier results at that facility were negative. Scientists are carrying out more detailed tests tonight. Officials stress the positive anthrax results are still only preliminary. The Pentagon, however, closed the mail facility after sensors detected the deadly bacteria yesterday. In France, a court has sentenced a radical Islamist terrorist to 10 years in prison for plotting a suicide bomb attack against the U.S. embassy in Paris. The court jailed five accomplices for between one and nine years. Prosecutors said the plot to attack the U.S. embassy was planned with a top al Qaeda terrorist in Afghanistan. In the Philippines, please killed four radical Islamist leaders and 18 other prisoners when they revolted at a Manila jail. Police said the revolt was organized by the radical Islamist linked to the al Qaeda terrorist network. The Filipino president spokesman said, "The terrorists got what was coming to them." Still ahead here, a verdict in the trial of former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers for his role in what was the biggest corporate fraud in U.S. history. And no sweat. A rising numbers of communities and cities across this country are now fighting back against the flood of imports from cheap overseas labor markets, and they're working to stop sweatshop conditions in U.S. cities.