Interview With Rep. Mike Rogers
BLITZER: There's clearly a new urgency to the speculation that Israel might bomb Iran's nuclear sites. We're joined now by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for coming in. Let me be blunt and ask you the question so many millions of people around the Middle East, around the world are asking, do you agree with the Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that Israel likely will strike Iran's nuclear facilities as early as April, May, or June?</s>REP. MIKE ROGERS, (R) MICHIGAN: Wow, good to talk to you, Wolf. I will -- I'll say this, the very fact that we're having this level of discourse on it shows you clearly that that the pressure is building. Will they or won't they I think really depends on several things. One, will the sanctions that Congress passed just recently that are really having a bite on Iran's economy from the very bottom to the very top, will that be enough to slow down their nuclear program? Clearly, they have said it's not. They're going to move a lot of their enrichment facilities to Qom, and recently, they're doing that. It's because it's a very hard target. And I think that equation of can they get it there, can they get enrichment up to that 20 percent, as I heard you say earlier, can they do that in time outlast the sanctions? That's the question, and that's why all this pressure is building, and I think that's why you heard the defense secretary say, hey, this is getting really close, because Israel has to make the determination, and I think they have to do it by themselves, according to their calculation. This is their calculation, because they're just not sure what the United States would do. Do they slow down this program by striking before it all settled into Qom where it makes it much more difficult to them to do anything?</s>BLITZER: Is it your understanding, Mr. Chairman, that the Obama administration, is trying to discourage Israel from launching a strike?</s>ROGERS: Well, I hope so. I certainly think this is a unilateral strike by Israel in Iran is really not good for, certainly, the United States. I would argue for that whole region. Even our Middle East allies would have a hard time supporting that. That starts to break down some funny things. It just gets kind of ugly in a hurry. Many of us believe, I certainly believe, that Iran would have some form of retaliation to Israel, and we don't know if that includes the United States or not. But that whole equation, as I said, gets a little murky pretty quickly, and is really not the best course of action. The problem is, Israel is a little bit nervous about the administration. I mean, they had the 1967 border speech by the president. That interjected a little uncertainty as to the level of support of Israel by the administration and other things. So, the Mossad director, as you talked about, who was here in town, I think it was all about trying to gauge, you know, where are we in the world? What are our relationships? And who can you count on, who can't you count on? Any level of uncertainty between Israel and the United States, I argue, is not a good thing. I think they've crossed that threshold where they believe they'll have to do something by themselves. That's why I think you see this increased rhetoric here in town.</s>BLITZER: When he was in town, the head of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, is it appropriate? Did you meet with him?</s>ROGERS: You know, he meets a lot of people. This is not something unusual that the chairman of the intelligence committee would meet with the Mossad director?</s>BLITZER: So, I take that as a yes, you did meet with him.</s>ROGERS: It wouldn't be unusual if the chairman of intelligence committee --</s>BLITZER: All right. We leave it at that.</s>ROGERS: Yes.</s>BLITZER: Do you think the secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, is talking openly about this too much?</s>ROGERS: Well, I'm still trying to understand the calculus of ratcheting up the rhetoric right now given that we were trying to have a dialogue with Israel to try to, at least, come to a place to allow these sanctions to work. And, as a big supporter of these sanctions early on, I did think that they could work. At the same time, we do have to show some military strength in the region to let Iran know that we're absolutely serious that we will not let them get a nuclear weapon. So, I'm still trying to work my way through. Was this a calculated event or not? We haven't quite figured that out yet. At any rate, we're dealing with the rhetoric as it is. Certainly, it allows Iran to kind of rally up around itself about this saber rattling, if you will, right in the middle of sanctions. I think a better way maybe to do this is to have a bigger military presence, naval presence there just as a show, of course (ph), as we have done around the rest of the world. Sometimes, that carrier off your coast is a great motivator to cooperate. And I think maybe that would be a good way for the United States to show, hey, we're serious about. We don't want this. We're very serious about this. Please reconsider your nuclear ambitions and maybe we can work our way out of this without conflict.</s>BLITZER: Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for joining us. We'll continue this conversation.</s>ROGERS: Wolf, we're going to be talking about this a lot. I look forward to it.</s>BLITZER: I suspect we will. Appreciate it. 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