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July 3, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:07
July 3, 2006, Monday, Hour #2
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Thanks, Johnny Donovan.
Here we are at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, Midwestern Branch, where there is never a final exam, but we are tested every day.
I am fellow student Paul W. Smith, being guided here in the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building in the new center area of Detroit by Mike Abbotts.
And in New York, where our signal emanates from, Mr. Bo Snerdley is the producer.
He's up from the Southern Command post.
And Mike Maimone is our engineer, as always there in New York.
Pleasure to be with you.
Pleasure to spend some time like this with you.
Best of Rush tomorrow for the 4th of July.
And then Rush back in the chair on Wednesday.
A couple of notes.
I am broadcasting.
Sometimes I come into New York to do it.
One day I'd love to do it from the Florida office, Bo Snerdley, if you can arrange that.
That would be great fun, too.
Always looking for a good excuse to fly to Florida.
All Michiganians or Michiganders are.
But a couple of things going on.
We're in the news here in the heartland in the Midwest.
You've obviously seen it all over the place now, this whole thing that Kirk Kokorian has brought to bear, prodding General Motors to get involved in an alliance.
There's already an alliance between Renault and Nissan, and Kirk Kokorian, biggest stockholder, one of the biggest stockholders at GM, wants GM to get in that alliance.
Now you've got strong leaders like Rick Wagner heading up GM, who you heard on this show in the past when I was sitting in.
And another great guy of the business, Carlos Gowen.
So there are a lot of people who are wondering what that's going to mean and mean for American manufacturing.
There'd be one purely American manufacturer of automobiles left.
It'd be headed up by Bill Ford, the Ford Motor Company, if this would happen.
But it's harder and harder to tell what's an American car.
We have Japanese car makers like Toyota building cars in America.
We have American car makers like GM or Ford building cars in other countries.
So it's getting, the line isn't as clear.
Meanwhile, you're going to see Dr. Z out there, Dieter Zecha, the guy with the big mustache, and he's the head of Daimler Chrysler.
He's starring in all these commercials.
And he hooked up with a guy named Roger Pinsky, who you've certainly heard if you follow racing.
He is a racing and business maven, and they're going to bring in that little, little car that you've seen in pictures or if you've traveled seen in Europe called the SMART car.
And they were kind enough to put me in one of those cars to drive around for a couple of days.
I'm driving it, in fact, right now, and thanks to Tony Porton, Anthony Porton from United Auto Group.
And I have to tell you, that's the future.
These little, little cars, 50 horsepower, it gets like 40 or 50 miles to the gallon.
I put a diesel engine in it.
It'll get 60 miles to the gallon.
It'll go along with the cars we love, but it will make a lot of sense to have those little cars for running to the grocery store or maybe back and forth to work or whatever, in place of a motorcycle, I guess.
Lots going on, and we're trying to tell you about some of the people in the news making the news, behind the news, writing the news, and that includes our next guest.
By the way, phone lines always open here on the Rush Limbaugh show, 1-800-282-2882.
That's 1-800-282-2882, or go to rushlimbaugh.com.
New book out called Warlord.
No better friend, no worse enemy.
You know the story.
Now you're going to get to know the guy behind the story.
Lieutenant Ilario Pantano, Time magazine, when his trial was underway last year, said this is one of the most closely watched of any to come out of the Iraq war.
You got a soldier charged with murder.
Well, you know what?
I'm going to let him tell the story because that's the beauty of the Rush Limbaugh program.
You get a chance to hear right from the people making the news.
Lieutenant, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
My name is Paul W. Smith.
It is a pleasure and a privilege, an honor to meet you and have you on the program.
Well, Paul, thank you.
The honor is very much mine, and the opportunity to speak to the American people as we head into the celebration of our independence is genuinely an honor for me.
In fact, I was actually just talking to my father, who received his citizenship in 1976, and it was, of course, a big day.
He was talking to me with a lot of pride about the certificate, which, of course, was citing the bicentennial era.
His experiences as a young man growing up in World War II savaged Italy, in fact, informed so many of my views today.
But I'm so fortunate.
I think we all are in America to be celebrating our independence today.
So thank you for having me.
Well, Lieutenant, you put it so beautifully as we head into this 4th of July.
And there are polls out there that say, here's one, a Zogby poll that says just 48% cite U.S. independence as top reason for 4th of July holiday.
People have lost their way.
Paul, I think that not only do Americans, and again, it's not every American, certainly.
There are many that are listening that have not only served but sacrificed in war.
You've got the families of our soldiers that are listening.
You've got mothers and you've got wives whose husbands are overseas right now and sons and daughters, certainly.
But there seem to be so many Americans that have lost sight of the sacrifice that has been required continuously to make us free.
You know, reading the Declaration of Independence, this document that kind of gave birth to this beautiful country of ours, there's language about an enemy that doesn't heed laws that would slaughter women and children.
You know, our founding fathers were fighting the Indians and with a complete disregard for any rules of known warfare.
These issues, you know, haven't gone away.
But what has certainly gotten us through is perseverance, backbone, the American way.
And I'll tell you, I'm so proud as I reflect now on the sacrifices that our men and women are making overseas right now that to have been a part of not just one war for this country, but two, because I absolutely know in my heart and I see every day that this is a country worth fighting for.
Lieutenant, let's let people know just who they're hearing from here.
You are a product of, I guess it's been called, a rough environment.
You went to some good schools.
You graduated from some of these good schools and did something that a lot of the students who were graduating from the so-called good schools didn't do.
You decided to become a United States Marine.
Right.
All my peers were off to the Ivy League, and God bless them, because they're doing great things and contributing to the tax base of our economy.
But I had a different calling.
My mom's from Kansas.
My dad came from Italy when he was almost 30 years old.
And service was something that was very important to me from a young age.
I wanted to be a knight, and the Marine Corps was the extension of that for me and of the chivalric ideal.
So I had the opportunity to be in boot camp when the Berlin Wall came down.
That was kind of a seminal moment.
And, of course, we thought, you know, who's left to protect our country against?
And then, of course, I was in the desert a couple months after that.
Yeah, you served your four years in the desert storm.
But then September 11th, here you have a great job.
You're working on Wall Street.
You've got a terrific income.
You've got long hair again.
And you're about 30 years of age, but September 11th made you say, hey, my wife's favorite part of the story, Paul, is here I am, this kind of long-haired media guy.
And in fairness, I had been very fortunate.
I was given an opportunity at Goldman Sachs, a premier bank, to do some great things and try some new industries and traded electricity.
But in fact, I had moved into media production, and 9-11 happens.
And I think every American, and in fact, in so many ways, Paul, I think that my book, Warlord, is really an American story.
All of us felt that we had been assaulted and shocked to our core.
Mind you, many have now forgotten that and have already kind of moved on and are past it.
But I certainly was not and am not and felt that we had been attacked and I had fought and sacrificed at that point 10 years earlier to fight a war on foreign shores so that the war wouldn't come home to us and here it was.
And there was really one course of action for me.
I showed up, my wife opened the door and was shocked and began to cry as she saw that I had already had my hair cut off and I was ready to go back in.
It was basically the transition from kind of self-centered, inwardly focused New York business guy to, it's time to fight for my country again.
Well, and fight you did.
And you find yourself in Iraq.
To bring people up to date at the time, we've got contractors hanging from bridges.
We've got soldiers being dragged through the streets.
We got people being beheaded.
And there you are in the thick of things.
And why don't you pick up the story right there?
Paul, and listen, every man and woman that was on the ground at that stage, and this is in the beginning of April 2004, remembers this was really the explosion.
The insurgency introduced itself with a very violent knock at the door.
And we literally, the sentiment on the ground and anecdotal and true was that we were actually running out of ammunition.
We were caught so flat-footed at that moment in time.
We genuinely believed that we were in the reconstruction phase and that the mission had been accomplished.
And it will be accomplished, but we definitely had a setback at that moment.
So we're in the fight for our lives, candidly.
And some intelligence is coming in.
We're kind of running patrols continuously, just trying to hold the ground.
And you've got this internal strife.
You've got Al-Sadr is firing things up.
You've got the Sunni insurgents are certainly doing their share.
And as you mentioned, you've got contractors hanging from the bridge.
Well, in the heat of all of this, we get some intelligence that there's a possible hostage situation.
We even get a map, and a family is saying that some bad men have taken over their home and have been launching attacks on Americans from this area.
Our snipers have actually killed two bad guys that were firing some mortars.
We get some more information.
All of this stuff is starting to corroborate.
But the only problem is it actually smells like an ambush because we've never gotten this much detailed intel before.
And so it's almost, you know, when it's too good, you've got to be suspicious.
We go in very heavy, Paul.
We're concerned, of course, for a variety of different reasons.
And as we're conducting this raid, I've got a vehicle leaving the scene with two men in it.
We stop them.
And now the search is underway.
They're searching their vehicle.
We're searching the house.
And we find, of course, material related to Osama bin Laden.
We've got DVDs, Chechen Islamist DVDs.
We've got, it was almost like terrorism.
The intelligence turned out to be correct.
Yeah, which is, you know, and I'm never a believer in perfect intelligence.
I'm a realist, I'm afraid.
And here we were.
So, again, all things that couldn't only make us more suspicious.
And, Paul, just to segue for a moment, these guys, and in the case that followed, were continuously and have been continuously labeled as innocent civilians.
And this characterization has struck, even as I'm giving you this information, that these guys were fleeing an al-Qaeda arms cache that not only had machine guns and ammunition and vests and IDs and cash and mortar equipment, but had the material for IEDs and had Osama bin Laden material.
And they're leaving in a car with hidden compartments.
Lieutenant, Lieutenant, you know what?
I would have shot them as they ran from the house.
You're just so man and a good American.
And you did not shoot them as they ran from the house.
You didn't shoot them when they got in the truck and started to speed away, ignoring your yelling at them in their language to halt.
You still didn't shoot them.
But when we come back, we'll find out that when you did shoot them, they wanted to charge you with murder as we continue with a real hero.
And the book is called Warlord, No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy, written by our guest, Lieutenant Ilario Pantano, as we continue on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
As we continue on the Rush Limbaugh Show, Paul W. Smith here, 1-800-282-2882, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, Midwest location here.
And speaking with Marine Lieutenant Ilario Pentano, his new book is a must-read, No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy.
It's on Amazon.com and it's worth, believe me, picking up.
Warlord, No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy.
And that plays into this story that we're hearing right now, right from Marine Lieutenant Ilario Pentano.
So you get into what is in effect the triangle of death area there.
You have intelligence that says that this is a weapons and bomb-making equipment loaded house.
You go into the house, you get the radio call from the other Marines.
They secured the building.
There is that kind of equipment in the house, so the intelligence was right.
Two Iraqis bolt from the site to a nearby truck, a sport utility vehicle.
You guys shoot the tires out.
You order the pair out of the truck.
Go ahead, Lieutenant.
Pick up the story from there.
Well, Paul, you know, one of the issues that's come up, and there have been all kinds of questions about the details of that day as people have looked at my case.
And one of the things that I tried to do in the book is actually create a legal thriller instead of just giving you my own play-by-play.
I intercut with the courtroom testimony.
So you have all the different witnesses on the scenes and their perspectives.
And some are very different.
And that's kind of ultimately created.
And I have to tell you, depending on what you read, I started thinking along the way here in some of the accounts that you were guilty of murdering these men.
Well, that's, and in fact, thank you for saying that because I actually tried to set this up as a thriller that draws you in where you're reading this accounting and you're seeing the government's case and it's mounting and it's almost like this tidal wave and it seems very formidable.
And then ultimately you realize that it's really all pinned on the testimony of one guy.
And so now to kind of take us back into the situation, so I'm at this car.
My men are searching not just that house, but there are other houses as well at this site.
I've got other men kind of spread throughout in blocking positions.
Again, this is the time and the place that we expect attacks.
And to put it in perspective, where we lost these heroes that were brutalized and savage in this area of USOFIA.
This is up the road from Eusophia.
We're in this area, as you mentioned, the triangle of death.
So this is a bad neighborhood.
And we're fully expecting that we're going to be doing some work.
And, you know, and again, we've got these guys.
They were trying to flee.
I've got the vehicle.
It was searched once.
Now I find out that I've got this information in the house.
And again, people have said, you know, how come you felt this need to research?
And it's like this.
Paul, if you were sitting on an airplane after you went through the airport screening and the nice fellow in front of you had to take off his shoes and open up his laptop and do all that stuff, and now he's sitting next to you.
And the stewardess comes on board and says, you know, will Mohammed Atta please raise his hand?
And the guy sitting next to you, you're going to search him again.
You want to make sure that now that you know that these guys are in fact the bad guys you were looking for, you want to make sure that you get everything and that nothing is left a chance.
In the process of doing that, these guys attack me.
I kill them both.
And what happens is in this moment of time, there's confusion, of course, on the battlefield because that basically defines war, is this confusion.
And one of the men on the scene who's not even looking at that moment isn't sure what he's seen.
His confusion and ultimately his hate for me, and this is something that we explore again through the transcript, kind of takes a very interesting turn over months and months.
And this is, again, this was a moment in time.
This incident was one of five patrols that day.
It was one of literally hundreds of combat operations that my men and I were on where we were fighting in Fallujah, fighting afterwards, and then diffusing IEDs at schools, going on to do great relief efforts and working with communities.
And months later, a guy on the scene makes this allegation that I had planned up cold-blooded murder all along.
The flare goes up and the investigation begins.
Paul, one of the things I'm so honored and excited about being here today is I'm living proof that the Marine Corps, in this instance, certainly did the right thing when nobody's looking.
This allegation from this sergeant, and I'll explain to his motivations in a moment, was incendiary.
For them to not have investigated it more fully would have been a very bad and troubling thing for the Marines, especially in this age of kind of second-guessing and the armchair quarterbacking as a result of all this media scrutiny on the battlefield.
In fact, I'm going to derail you for a second because we're going to run out of time.
I've got to get your take then on Haditha.
Well, and I'm glad that we got there.
One of the characterizations that this sergeant on the scene, the guy who made this allegation, and again, with a personal vendetta against me, which is explored in the book, in his estimate, these guys were innocent civilians.
He didn't know anything about their motivation.
He didn't know anything about what was going on in the house.
He didn't have all the information.
And so, in so many ways, my story is the microcosm.
And in one man's story, it's America's story in this fight.
It's the story of our soldiers and our government being questioned for the decision-making in the heat of battle.
And the suppositions that arise and the finger-pointing that occurs come from the incomplete information.
And so, when we talk about cases like Haditha and Hamdaniya, Paul, the first piece of incomplete information is that in the totality of our three years of this liberation, with a million servicemen and women on the ground there, the number of criminal, you know, of criminal, and just forget guilt, but just the accusations of criminal behavior have been fewer than what we see in many neighborhoods in the United States in one weekend alone.
And when I say that, I mean the level of professionalism of the men and women that they are called upon and that do, in fact, give the benefit of the doubt.
Paul, you said it yourself.
You would have shot these guys hours, not ours, in fact, my moment happened relatively briefly, but much earlier on in the story, in fact, than I or my men did.
And the reason for that is at every interval, we're trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.
And ultimately, what happens is we get put in situations where we have to defend ourselves, and we don't get the benefit of that benefit of the doubt that we're expected not only to give to the potential terrorists trying to kill us in not wearing a uniform or hiding behind a child, but it's the same benefit we'd give to criminals in the United States, and we don't give that to our servicemen.
Lieutenant, I'm going to have to hold you over for at least a final comment here in a moment because I've got two other questions, quick ones, and then we'll also have Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson.
It's all right here on an action-packed Rush Limbaugh show.
I'm Paul W. Smith in for Rush.
Final moments with Marine Lieutenant Ilario Pantano, and the book is Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy.
From some of his fellow warriors, they've said his enthusiasm, charisma, and unswerving integrity became the backbone of his leadership style.
His hard work and dedication paid off as soon as he gained a solid reputation as an outstanding combat leader and gained the respect of his Marines, peers, and his superiors.
It was ridiculous that he was charged with murder.
And worse than that, people started threatening his life and his family's life.
Retired Marines had to provide security, a security watch at his family's home while he awaited his hearing.
He is free and clear of all charges.
He's written the book.
The two questions that keep dogging you are: why did you fire so many rounds into the men when they were obviously dead?
And why the sign which you put up on these guys or on their car?
And I know now that it's a Marine motto from a general, but no better friend, no worse enemy.
Just about those two issues.
Sure.
Well, the first, you know, you make the statement of an assumption after they're dead.
I mean, let's be clear.
First of all, we're dealing with a suicidal enemy, and it doesn't take a lot of energy or strength to pull a grenade pin.
Not only am I wearing grenades on my body, but I wasn't sure and could never be sure what weapons they may have been able to uncover in the course of their search, first of all.
Second of all, sadly, combat isn't like the television and the movies, and it takes some time for the body to die.
What we saw with Zarkowi, who would have expected two 500-pound bombs couldn't kill a man for an hour.
I think that that basically puts that point to bed.
Pretty amazing, right?
Right.
You know, the issue of the sign, that's, first of all, not only is that the expression from, you know, of the Marine Expression, but in so many ways, ultimately, that's America's place in the world.
To the extent that you want to be, you know, that you want to, that you seek liberty, that you seek freedom, that you seek an opportunity to join the world community.
We'll give you our blood and our treasure.
Our sons, our daughters, our taxes, we'll build you.
To the extent that you want to turn, that you want to use innocent women and children as human shields, the extent that you want to blow up your own mosques, you'll find no worse enemy.
And that basically is true to terrorists all over the world, beyond notice.
And ultimately, again, it's one of the details of the book.
It was for a moment in time.
The sign was put up on the vehicle.
It was not on the bodies, and then it was removed when I was told to take it down.
And ultimately, that did receive a lot more attention than it should have, but the message doesn't change.
And that is, we can be no worse enemy.
And it became a great title for the book.
Lieutenant, thank you for joining us.
You have acquitted yourself well.
An American hero heading into the 4th of July as we celebrate 230 years of freedom with people such as yourself over our history fighting for our freedom and maintaining it.
We appreciate it so very much.
Lieutenant, thanks for joining us.
Lieutenant Ilerio Pantano, the book is Warlord, No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy.
On the heels of this, just leading into July 4th, as we celebrate our split from Britain's rule in the beginning of the American Revolution, the actual series of events show that the process took far longer than a single day.
In fact, the original resolution was introduced by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia June 7th, 1776, called for the Continental Congress to declare the United States free from British rule.
Three days later, a committee headed by Thomas Jefferson was appointed to prepare an appropriate writing for the occasion, the document that we know as the Declaration of Independence, adopted by Congress July 4th, although the resolution that led to the writing of the Declaration was actually approved two days earlier.
And we note that only four American holidays are still celebrated on their proper calendar days: Halloween, Christmas, New Year's, and Independence Day.
And with Independence Day upon us, we think about all of those veterans that have paid the price in many different ways to keep us free.
And it's appropriate we would have the Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson on the line with us as well on what I can safely say was probably a pretty horrible period of time for you, but it all ends up okay when we can tell everybody, as they know by now, that laptop that touched off the firestorm among veterans and government officials with that missing information has been recovered, and apparently none of the information was compromised.
And I know that was a big sigh of relief for you, Secretary Nicholson.
Indeed, it was, Paul.
Thanks to very good law enforcement work and St. Anthony, we did recover.
St. Anthony is clear that it has not been compromised.
But the whole incident also has given us a real message, a wake-up call that we at the VA have to have to really change a lot of our procedures and training and accountability about the way we handle all this new digitized data.
I think management in America has just not kept up with technology, and that includes here at the VA.
But we're changing that, believe me.
We're going to make this place into the gold standard for personal information security.
Well, of course, that's what people want you to do, but it certainly angered a lot of people wondering how this kind of technology could even leave the building, so to speak.
And I'm still not clear on what exactly has happened here.
Apparently, did a guy actually take the laptop with the information home, or had he emailed it to himself, or whatever?
And whatever happened, was that man or woman fired?
This employee did take this data home.
He took a laptop and a hard drive.
A member of Congress asked me at my first hearing up there, how could you ever let somebody go out the door with so much data?
And I held up my wallet and said that that hard drive that this was on was smaller than my wallet.
But you mentioned a key point, and that is that today people don't even have to carry it out.
They can send it out.
They can email it to their own account and then go home and take it down.
So the real key here today in this age that we're in is the character of the people that we have working for us and to whom we entrust this information, their sense of responsibility and accountability and their training and their discipline.
And this individual who was not up to harm with this data, he took it home to work with it.
He's been working for the VA for 34 years and had not had a background investigation for 32 years.
So we need to change that as well.
We need to know something about these people and what's going on in their lives and how trustworthy they really are.
But he wasn't - did he have permission to do what he did?
Did he break rules or did he have permission?
We just got the draft of the Inspector General's report of his investigation, and they confirmed that he was violating policies of the VA.
All right.
Can you fire that person or should you fire that person?
Well, I attempted to fire him, but all I could do is put him on administrative leave.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, because he's a civil servant?
Correct.
They're entitled to due process, and he is getting his due process.
Everybody's entitled to their due process as long as they're a civil servant.
The rest of us just get fired.
But be that as it may, I am disappointed to see we have Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson with us trying to do a good job here, but that your efforts now to strengthen the security of the laptop computers after that data breach in May has run into a temporary roadblock.
Class action lawsuits have been actually filed against your agency, and that is now keeping you from doing more to secure this information?
Well, it is.
In fact, up until last Friday, we had a temporary restraining order that the plaintiff's attorneys had gotten against us from putting credit monitoring out for our veterans because they said it could limit the damages that they get, the monetary awards that they get.
Oh, you've got to be kidding me.
Well, I'm not.
Plus, there's another instruction from a court because we had a data call asking people to bring in all their laptops so we could see what data they had.
And we've been told not to do that because that would be tampering with evidence.
All right.
Final message, if you would, to veterans throughout these United States heading into Independence Day.
Well, this is one of those days that Americans focus on our freedom and how that freedom came about.
And it was because of veterans.
George Washington, interesting story.
You know, this southerner from the northern neck of Virginia went on up into New England to marry up with this Continental Army, and he wrote in his journal the first night, he said, my God, he said, I hope these guys scare the British because they scare the heck out of me.
And he went on from there until when he turned over the Continental Army to say to this new nation, this new country owes these men a debt of honor, indeed a debt of gratitude, and then said something I think even more profound, which has stayed with us and really applies today.
And he said that the willingness that young people have to serve in any war will be directly proportional to how they perceive the way veterans of previous wars are treated by their society.
And that's why I love my job, and I'm so proud of my country.
And I'm proud of the VA because we take wonderful care of our veterans here in America.
We provide them with the world's best health care.
We provide those that are deserving with benefits and, of course, with shrine-like burials.
So Americans can be very proud of their VA.
I see us as being the agents of a grateful people for those who've fought and died to procure and preserve and to defend our freedom.
And that's what tomorrow is all about: to pause and be grateful for all that we have as Americans and to those veterans that have made it possible.
Well put, Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for joining us, Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson.
Our debt of gratitude and honor will continue forever.
In a moment, the Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is back with us on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
We continue on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
Pleasure and privileged to be with you.
And to welcome back our Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.
Last time I guess it was last Monday.
Last Monday when I filled in, we had the Attorney General on.
And at the time, there were power outages, there was flooding.
He was running off to catch a plane to Egypt.
And we had to kind of rush through our conversation.
We've got to give him a little more time.
In fact, Mr. Attorney General, welcome back to the program.
Thanks, Paul.
I really appreciate having the opportunity to visit with you again on some really important issues.
Well, since, and unfortunately, since last we spoke, there have been more important issues that have come up.
Now, the Supreme Court decision that ruled against the administration's plan to try suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay prison.
What has that decision done for you?
How has it hampered you, I guess?
Well, you know, Paul, it's interesting.
One would have to question whether or not Mr. Hondan has been, I mean, what has he won here?
Initially, we were trying to provide a process where his claims where claims about his status were going to be adjudicated.
And now, because of this decision, he, in essence, conceivably could be sort of stuck in perpetuity at Guantanamo.
The Supreme Court decision had no effect on the president's ability to detain enemy combatants for the duration of the hostilities, had no effect on the president's determination to have detainees and enemy combatants there at Guantanamo Bay.
So you have to question what has Mr. Hamden won as a result of this decision.
What is clear is that the court said that the procedures set up by the administration to tab military commissions were not consistent with the UCMJ Uniform Code of Military Justice and not consistent with Common Article 3 of Geneva Conventions.
The court members of the court did invite the administration to pursue legislation if the administration continued to believe that military commissions were a necessary tool to use in our fight against terrorism.
And so we are engaged now in that process.
We are going to be working with the Congress to see if we can arrive at legislation that would allow the President, the Commander-in-Chief, to continue to have as one tool of many in the war against terrorism the use of military commissions to try these terrorists who are intent on harming America.
So though the court kind of paved the way for you to hold these guys forever, you don't want to.
Well, the President has been very clear.
I mean, he would like to close Guantanamo.
Guantanamo exists because it is necessary.
There are people that are captured on the battlefield.
We don't want to simply let them loose and fight against our men and women in uniform.
And so we'd like to either return them back to their home country if we can do that or have some kind of adjudication.
And so for that reason, we believe it's very important to go ahead and try to work with the Congress and see if there's a way that we can arrive at procedures that we believe would be consistent with what the Supreme Court indicated in the Hamdan decision.
United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez with us, and you have also defended the administration's plan for and carrying out the transfer of terror suspects for incarceration and interrogation in other countries.
Well, obviously there is nothing new about rendering someone to another country, particularly their home country, when the home country wants someone back so that they can adjudicate crimes there in that country.
Our legal obligation when we do that is to ensure that that country will not torture someone when we render them.
And so when we are asked to render someone, we seek assurances from the country to ensure that, in fact, they will not be mistreated or tortured.
But I mean, we believe very seriously in our legal obligations.
And the President expects that in everything that we do in the war on chair, we do it in a way that's consistent with our legal obligations.
Revisiting an issue that we touched on last we spoke, the New York Times and other newspapers revelation about the Administration's secret monitoring of the vast database of international financial transactions.
In the past, you have said, Mr. Attorney General, that journalists could be subject to criminal charges for revealing classified material.
Is that an investigation that is underway right now in terms of these latest disclosures?
Paul, not surprisingly, I'm not going to comment or confirm about a possible investigation in this matter.
What I think I've said in the past is that there does appear to be laws on the books.
They have been on the books for a long time, which would seem to allow for the prosecution of the publication of certain kinds of classified information.
And I emphasize certain kinds of classified information.
But the question as to whether or not that's the appropriate approach in a particular case is one that we would have to look at very, very seriously because we have a very strong First Amendment in our country.
I think it's important for the media to report to the American people about what its government is doing.
On the other hand, there is no question that when there is a publication of a highly classified program, that it can result.
And I believe there have been instances during this administration where it has resulted in damage to the national security of our country.
And I think that's a very serious issue that all of us should be very concerned about.
My priority in terms of these kinds of issues is to really focus on the leakers of classified information.
And I would hope that I could sit down and work with responsible members of the media and persuade them that if they have a story that they want to run about a highly classified program, that we can persuade them not to do so for the interest of the national security of our country.
In the interest of time, we are running out of time here.
Can we hold you over into this next hour or do you have to run?
I can probably do it for a few more minutes.
All right, let's see if we can do that.
As we continue here at the Rush Limbaugh Show, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, I'm Paul W. Smith.
Standby.
We are going to speak with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and then with you at 1-800-282-2882 because it's been a few minutes since we've taken calls.
1-800-282-2882 or rushlimbaugh.com as the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies is underway, where there is never a final exam, but we're tested every day, even here at the Midwest branch of the Institute.
You stick around as we continue the Rush Limbaugh Show.
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