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Sept. 29, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:22
September 29, 2006, Friday, Hour #2
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And we are back right here at a cutting edge of societal evolution.
Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchorman, the doctor of democracy, America's truth detector, all combined as one harmless, lovable little fuzzball on Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open live Friday.
And when we get to the phones, what that essentially means is that the program is yours.
On Friday, we throw the rules and the regulations out the window, and you can talk about whatever it is that interests you, even if it bores me.
I'll do my best to act like I care.
800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program, email address rush at EIBnet.com.
It's a pleasure to welcome back to the EIB network Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz's latest book is Enemies.
Bill, this book is chilling.
This book is frightening.
All the things that are going on with the terrorist detainee bill, the attempt to win the war on terror.
And we've got, if your book is accurate, if you're right about this, we've got people inside our own government sabotaging and revealing secrets.
Is it worse than it was during the Cold War?
It's pretty bad.
In fact, it's become much more politicized in recent years.
And the book really highlights both the damage caused by spies and the kind of self-inflicted damage that some of our security and intelligence agencies have caused by mishandling a lot of these cases.
All right.
With which country are most of our secrets being dispensed to these days?
Is it China?
Yeah, without doubt, the Chinese are at the top of the list.
From an intelligence standpoint, the Chinese are killing us.
They're stealing secrets to the point where we don't know what's going on inside the communist Politburo in Beijing.
They're also stealing our defense secrets, including submarine secrets, missile secrets, secrets about our Aegis battle management ships.
And also they're doing influence operations.
Now, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You say stealing.
I mean, somebody's giving them this stuff, correct?
Well, actually, in the one case I highlight, it was a spy in Los Angeles named Chi Mac, who is a defense contractor and got in on the ground floor of a lot of this developmental technology.
Because he was a contractor, a lot of this technology wasn't classified.
It should have been classified, and he was able to pass that information to China.
Not only did the Chinese get the information, but they were quickly able to incorporate it into their ships.
They've already deployed two of their own version of the Aegis guided missile destroyer.
Well, with the last five years, particularly, let's focus on the last three and a half to four.
Once it became clear that we were going to go into Iraq during all the negotiations at the Security Council and so forth, I recall reading leaks in the Washington Post, the New York Times that had to come from people in our government, State Department, CIA, Pentagon, wherever, about the war plans and the generals there and there said, it won't work.
We have no business going there.
Is it happening like that in this kind of spying?
Because you're talking about, do we have leakers in the government who are actually conversing with the Chikoms, both over there in their own country and agents here?
Or is it all literally just being stolen because we're not classifying enough stuff?
It's kind of a combination of the two.
One of the cases I highlight is a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst named Ron Montaperdo, who basically gave up top secret and secret intelligence to the Chinese military intelligence.
And, you know, he basically got off because he had friends in high places, but he gave information that really damaged.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
He got away with it because he had friends in high places.
Yeah, it's absolutely.
Like where?
It's an astounding story.
I went to the sentencing hearing for Monteperdo two weeks ago.
He got three months in prison.
And one of the reasons he did was because a senior U.S. intelligence official who was his friend, the guy's name is Lonnie Henley.
He's the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, the same body that makes the NIEs.
And he wrote a letter to the judge saying that poor Monteperdo was misguided.
He only made a mistake and he wasn't trained.
And the Chinese intelligence officers took advantage of us.
It's just an astounding display of official cover-up for a spy case.
Traitorous activity.
Is that how this is best to be described?
Well, Lonnie Henley right now is under investigation, but I'm not confident that they're not going to just cover that up as well.
That's the guy that wrote the letter to the judge.
Well, it sounds like nobody's concerned about this other than you.
Well, I've definitely blown the whistle in the book.
And I think, like I say, there's two parts of that story.
And my point is, if spies can get into the government so easily, what about terrorists?
And that's happening as well.
I have a number of cases where al-Qaeda people and Islamist extremists have gotten inside the government, gotten access to our secrets, and in a couple of cases have been able to use those secrets to help train and help al-Qaeda conduct terrorist attacks.
Now, what is your reaction, knowing this?
What's your reaction when you see the Democrats, the Democrat Party, attempting to shut down the foreign surveillance program, their actions on the military tribunal bill, trying to kill the Patriot Act?
In all of your career, when you've military and intel agency reporting, have you seen anything like this before?
Unbelievable.
You know, the Democrats have traditionally been anti-intelligence, and it's reflected in most of their policies.
If you go back to the Clinton era, you know, it was John Deutsch, the CIA director, that imposed the most damaging rules on our human intelligence gathering.
He basically told our CIA officers abroad, you're not allowed to talk or recruit anybody who has an unsavory background.
Well, if you do that, the chances of recruiting anybody near a terrorist group or even a foreign spy are going to be very difficult.
Bill, a lot of people, because of the, and I'm just average Americans busy going about their day, may catch a newscast here and there, tuning to the show now and then, are obviously focused on the war on terror and the Middle East.
Here comes your book with news about China.
I think most people understand that the Chinese are a communist country, but they think we have good economic relations with them and that those economic relations will eventually someday open up that system, much as it did in the Soviet Union and partly responsible for bringing about their demise.
I don't think people look at the Chinese as a cutthroat enemy of ours.
Yet those who study it know that they're in bed with Iran.
They're in bed with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
What is the Chinese objective here?
The Chinese have a very sophisticated strategy of undermining the United States.
They don't like the idea that the United States is the sole superpower.
They want to push the United States out of Asia, and they want to be the dominant power, not just in Asia, but in the whole world.
And this strategy is not well known.
But dominant power in what manner?
Do they want to convert as many nations to communism as possible, or what do they want?
Well, they want, yes, they do not want a democratic system.
They don't like the fact that we have a free and open society, and they understand that they want this monopoly of the Communist Party.
They want to extend that.
And a lot of nations are signing up to that because the Communists have figured out that the Marxist economic system in China didn't work, but they haven't abandoned the Marxist-Leninist political system.
So they've got a fundamental contradiction there, which is very dangerous because it could lead to some miscalculation, whether it's over Taiwan or some other issue.
Another question that people have when they hear stories such as those in your book, does the president, White House, the administration have any recourse here?
This kind of thing stuns people.
They don't understand why Americans would trade secrets, sabotage, and act traitorously toward their own country.
And how can it be gotten away with?
Does the president know?
Is he fully aware of all of this?
Your book contains information.
Yes, here's what happened.
The Bush administration, a couple of the heroes of my book are Michelle Van Cleve and Ken DeGraffenried, good conservatives, served in the Reagan administration.
And they headed something called the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.
They drew up a new strategy, and the strategy said, look, we can't just sit back and wait for spies to come after us and then uncover them and wring our hands when we realize how much damage they caused.
They said we need an offensive strategy.
We need to go on the offensive, go after the intelligence services, and stop them before they get in the government and do the same thing to terrorist groups.
Well, the strategy was approved by the president, but it was sidelined by bureaucrats opposed to counterintelligence.
And believe me, there is fierce resistance, not just in the FBI or the CIA, but in the office of the Director of National Intelligence itself.
Negroponte's office?
Negroponte's?
Now, is this an attempt to sabotage America or is this holdovers from previous administrations just wanting to sabotage the Bush presidency?
Well, I think, you know, I would highlight what Rumsfeld was talking about recently: that, you know, a lot of the liberal left Democrats ascribe to the Blame America First syndrome.
And that's really the dominant guiding ideology behind the Democratic Party.
And I think that carries over when it comes to intelligence and counterintelligence, also when it comes to the war on terrorism.
You get the sense that the Democrats want us to lose the war on terrorism.
Yeah, everybody does.
And when you call them out on that, they act mock, embarrassed, outraged, and angry.
The sum total of this is that the CHICOMs are upset that we are the world's lone superpower, and a lot of liberals in America are upset about the same thing.
Their view is that our superpower status, Madden Albert has said this, destabilizes the world and makes people hate us.
And, of course, liberals are a bunch of hand-wringers that want everybody to love us and think they have the ability to make that happen with the force and the power of their personality.
I think it's a hard reality for people to accept, Bill, which is why.
And we're talking to Bill Goertz here, folks, whose latest book is Enemies, that details shocking things about the leaks and the spying going on against us and our intelligence community and the cooperation our own intelligence community is giving these people.
It's why people need to read your book.
It came out of nowhere, Bill.
I mean, I sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, this is, like I say, it's an important exposé because, you know, everything right now is focused on the war on terrorism.
I'm telling people, look, you've got to be ready because down the road is China.
Russia's going south on us.
Kevin, are they going to attack us?
People will not believe it.
Are they going to have a military attack against us?
Will the Chinese actually do that?
Or do they just want to get in a position of being able to threaten to do so successfully?
No, the Chinese have their strategy to undermine us from within.
It's the old Sun Tzu strategy that the acme of skill is defeating your enemy without firing a shot.
The problem is that the elites in our country don't recognize that the Chinese are our enemy, and they view us as their main enemy.
And they're actually a big trading partner to a lot of people.
How can they be an enemy?
Yeah, that's the argument.
If we just trade with China, somehow it will become a benign power.
Unfortunately, it's not working.
It's becoming kind of a giant fascist state with a military-dominated nuclear-armed communist dictatorship.
What kind of reaction are you finding from people unlike me and others who are interested in your book?
What kind of reaction to it are you getting out there?
Interesting.
One Intel official told me that someone circulated an email inside one of the military intelligence agencies with a one-word comment.
Ouch.
Hey, I've got to take a break, and I want to ask you about this NIE business.
Have you got a couple more minutes?
Sure.
Bill Goertz for the Washington Times' latest book is Enemies.
Back in just a second.
Hey, welcome back.
We are back on Open Line Friday with Bill Goertz of the Washington Times.
We're talking to him about his latest book, Enemies, which is a chilling account of all of the Chinese spies that are stealing and securing secrets, sometimes with the assistance of Americans and the intelligence community.
Bill, what can you tell me about this story that ran in the Telegraph, UK Telegraph on the 26th three days ago?
China has secretly fired powerful laser weapons designed to disable American spy satellites by blinding the sensitive surveillance devices.
The hitherto unreported attacks have been kept secret by the Bush administration out of fear that it would damage attempts to co-opt China in diplomatic offensives against North Korea and Iran.
This hasn't even appeared in the U.S. drive-by media.
This is that I've seen.
It's in the U.K. Telegraph.
They're firing lasers at our satellites.
We're not doing anything about it because we need them with North Korea and Iran.
Where'd they get this kind of sophisticated equipment?
Well, there's no question that laser weapons are one of the key niche arms that the Chinese are developing.
They call them assassin's mace weapons.
They include laser-blinding satellite weapons.
And by the way, I reported on this last year.
Oh, sorry about that.
That's okay, but it didn't get a lot of attention at the time.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in China affairs in the other press.
But definitely, this is the kind of thing they're developing for use against the United States.
It includes lasers.
It includes computer network attack.
It also includes exotic electromagnetic pulse weapons that simulate the bursts caused by a nuclear attack that basically can disable all kinds of electronics.
It fries the whole system.
Yes.
Fries the whole grid.
All right.
National intelligence estimate.
Reading an Investor's Business Daily editorial from yesterday and have found this fascinating fact.
And they were writing this in response to Hillary Clinton saying that if her husband had been given this kind of information that Bush was given on his October 6th daily brief, why her administration would have done something about it, her husband's administration.
Listen to this.
According to the 9-11 Commission report, quote, there was no national intelligence estimate on terrorism between 1995 and 9-11-01.
There was no comprehensive review of what the intelligence community knew and what it did not know and what it meant.
So for six years, there was not even an NIE estimate on terrorism for all this talk about how Clinton was obsessed with bin Laden and how they were doing everything they could.
What is this NIE?
How long has it been around?
And why does anybody pay attention to it?
Is it government agencies?
Is it outside contractors?
Is it a combination of two?
Who are these people?
Yeah, the national intelligence estimates are produced by something called the National Intelligence Council.
And these are supposed to be the consensus view of all 15 intelligence agencies.
But in most cases, they basically state the obvious.
It's no secret that Iraq is the center of the international war on terrorism.
And the fact that jihadists are rallying to that is no big secret.
And in fact, a week before this NIE was disclosed selectively in the New York Times, the House Intelligence Committee produced a public report which said essentially the same thing.
This is clearly the Democrats playing politics with intelligence.
They did it right before the 2004 election when they disclosed that somehow the Bush administration had let high explosives escape from Iraq.
Yeah, yeah, that was the New York Times again.
Well, this thing's been out since April, and members of Congress saw it, and yet it's been held for release to the election to affect the election.
But I mean, you're absolutely right.
When you read this thing, it's on the one hand X, on the other hand, Y. On the one hand, if we leave Iraq, it's going to be bad.
If we stay in Iraq, it's going to be bad.
The Islamists are going to keep coming after us whether we're here or there or anything.
It sounds like it's a CYA document, Bill.
Exactly.
And the problem with these estimates is that we don't have good intelligence on terrorism.
And if we did, we'd have good estimates.
But if there's nothing to analyze, you're going to come out with two-handed assessments.
And as I say in my book, one CIA official summed up the CIA's problems in two words: no spies.
And if you don't have spies inside of these terrorist groups, you're not going to find out what they're doing.
You know, we know the first generation of al-Qaeda's leadership.
Do we know who the top leaders of Al-Qaeda are now?
No, we don't.
Only when they put their pictures on the internet for us.
Yes.
Bill, I have to run.
I'm down to precious few broadcast seconds, but thanks again for your time.
It's always a pleasure to have you here.
You're doing not only great work, you're doing the Lord's work, and all the best in getting the information in your book out there.
I appreciate your time here again.
The book is entitled Enemies.
You've got a lot of other interviews you're going to be doing.
You probably won't need any after this one, Bill.
Yeah, I'll be doing quite a few.
Good luck to you, and stay in touch on this.
Folks, this book is.
I'm afraid the impact it's going to have on you because it's so shocking and surprising, and nobody suspects this kind of stuff is going on.
We're a trading partner with China.
Enemies, Bill Goetz, back in just a second.
Yes, welcome back, folks.
It is Open Line Friday, a thrill and a delight to have you with us.
I'm going to get to your phone calls here in just a second.
I've got to reestablish a pace on this show.
And I want to go back to something I touched on just briefly right before we had to go to a spot break.
First story in this little stack: Washington Post, many rights in U.S. legal system absent in new bill.
Now, this bill, the military tribunal bill, a terrorist detainee bill, 65 to 35.
I mean, that is a skunk.
All they needed was 60 votes for clothing.
They got 65.
The Democrats get skunked on this.
And yet, many rights in U.S. legal system absent in new bill by writing into law for the first time the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant, which is what you people demanded.
The bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anybody it determines to have purposefully and materially supported anti-U.S. hostilities.
Only foreign nationals among those detainees can be tried by the military commissions and sentenced to decades in jail or put to death.
So what's wrong with that?
What's wrong with foreign nationalism?
You know, the headline here, many rights in U.S. legal system absent in new bill.
They're upset.
Listen, written largely, but not completely on the administration's terms.
I thought McCain won this.
Hasn't that been the spin that McCain won this?
Now all of a sudden the truth comes out, written largely on the administration's terms with passages that give executive branch officials discretion to set details or divert from its protections.
The bill is meant to provide what Bush said yesterday are the tools needed to handle terrorism suspects that U.S. officials hope to capture.
This is a problem, you understand.
The bill contains some protections unavailable to the eight Nazi saboteurs who came ashore in the U.S. in 1942 and were captured two weeks later.
Six were executed that year after a closed military treaty.
That's what we've been trying to tell you.
This stuff's been going on for years, and this bill's not as tough as what was going on then.
And yet, they're ringing their hands.
Oh, no, these people are being denied rights.
The U.S. legal system provides, these people are not citizens.
This notion that terrorist enemies, enemy combatants, have U.S. constitutional rights is patently absurd.
L.A. Times, legal battle over detainee bill likely.
Some lawmakers, Republicans as well as Democrats, call the move to suspend habeas corpus an historic mistake and one that could cause the entire bill to be struck down.
Give me a break.
Abraham Lincoln, who to this day is considered one of the greatest presidents ever, suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War for everybody.
And we got it back.
We are at war.
Senator Patrick Leakey Leahy of Vermont said, this is wrong.
It's unconstitutional.
It's un-American.
We're not talking about Americans, Senator Leahy.
We are talking about the enemy.
They are not citizens of the United States.
They are not protected by the Constitution.
We've already gone overboard in claiming and allowing them protection under the Geneva Conventions when they already don't qualify for that.
Now you people want to somehow grant them citizenship rights in your hollow, hollow hand-wringing here that makes everybody want to throw up.
Arlen Specter, Chairman, Judiciary Committee.
Well, surely as we're standing here, if this bill is passed and habeas corpus is stricken, we'll be back on this floor again, grappling with a future ruling against it by the Supreme Court.
Senator Graham, military lawyer who helped write the bill, said federal judges should not be permitted to interfere with the military's handling of prisoners.
Well, they already are, Lindsay.
And if we're not careful, the war on terror is going to be fought in courtroom after courtroom after courtroom.
And that's what this seeks to avoid.
Boston Globe, Senate's passage of detainee bill gives Bush a win.
Democrats say GOP capitulated.
What?
Huh?
Senate's passage of detainee bill gives Bush a win.
Democrats say GOP capitulated.
John Kerry in this story is quoted as saying, the bill gives an administration that lobbied for torture exactly what it wanted.
All the power remains in the president's hands, and all the while America's moral authority is in tatters.
American troops are in greater jeopardy, and the war on terror is set back.
He's not following the script that the GOP capitulated.
Back to the phones.
Jeremy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hey, Rush Megadittos.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you, sir.
My comment had to do with Survivor and how they decided to end their ethnic experiments.
Yeah, after two episodes, the segregation's over.
I know it.
Well, and after you led the show with it, I read the AP story that was linked on Drudge.
And when I got about four paragraphs in, I had to laugh because AP found a way to get political with the story, and they found a way to comment on, I guess, acceptable forms of torture.
Four paragraphs in, the story says, the two new tribes competed in a grueling challenge that seemed better designed to get prisoners of war to talk.
I saw that.
I've got it here.
Yeah, each person strapped on a 15-pound weight, trudged through knee-deep water and all this stuff.
And I just found it laughable that the liberal, you know, the bias was so pervasive that you can't even read a story about Survivor without letting them talk about torture.
Yeah, there's torture.
CBS engaging in torture on their show, Survivor.
Look at the real, people saying, what, this only lasted two weeks?
Two weeks, and they segregate everybody or end the segregation.
They put everybody in these.
I got to get, let me get the phrase for that, too.
I already put the story back in the stack, but it's just right here.
What did they say?
Because after only two episodes, producers merged the black, white, Asian, and Latino tribes into two mixed-race gangs.
Now, when you hear the word gang, what do you think of?
Well, it isn't good.
Well, you think of, yeah, it's not good.
It's a negative connotation, yeah.
It's a negative connotation to it.
Here's the thing.
After only two episodes.
Now, how long ago were the episodes, except for the finale of this season Survivor shot?
Oh, it had to be a long time ago.
Months ago.
Months ago.
So when CBS is on the air promoting their racial segregation, they knew that it was only going to survive for two weeks.
And they didn't say that.
They did say, just wait and see how it unfolds.
Everybody, they haven't seen this show and they're complaining.
They could have said, hey, it's only going to last two weeks.
And you know why did they have to break them up so soon, do you think, Jeremy?
You know, I'm not sure.
I think it was just to get the pressure on.
Come on, Jeremy.
Don't go gutless on me here.
Tell me why they broke up the groups, the ethnic groups by race, so soon.
I think it's because they were caving to their liberal base.
No, no, because there was no liberal complaining going on by then.
Nobody knew what was going on when this show was being shot.
This is months ago, after only two episodes.
Something had to happen to make them think this doesn't have a season's worth of competitive value in it.
It had to be that some of the teams were so bad and so pathetic that if they let it continue, they would have problems if they kept it segregated.
Which tells me the white tribe was winning big.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting point about the torture as well.
Yeah, my staff's rolling their eyes saying, you didn't say that?
Oh, no, do you realize that they're going to take you out of context?
Screw them if they can't take a joke.
This whole discussion, this whole show has been about parroting and satirizing all this liberal political correctness.
And I'm just taking it to its logical end conclusion.
Either that or the Asians were winning, but it's who was losing, folks.
You know it.
You know, these are liberals that do this.
Jeremy, I'm glad you called.
Thanks, El Mucho.
Brian in Yuba City, California.
I was there once.
Welcome to the program.
Mega Ditto's Rush, longtime listener.
I've listened to you since you started on KFBK in Sacramento.
There's a business.
That's 22 years ago.
Thank you, sir, very much.
I've always wanted to tell you it was because of you that I did not pass twice my accounting class at our local community college.
I just couldn't get out of the car and get into class.
I'd listened to you on the way.
That's all right.
I've become a wealthy Republican, and I have other people do that stuff for me now, anyway.
That's also some of the inspiration you got from the show while sitting in your car.
Absolutely.
Okay.
On to the question.
I actually need you to help me make some sense out of somebody in this cast of characters in the path to 9-11.
Yes.
Richard Clark came off looking pretty well in that program.
Yeah, that was one of our goals.
Oh, you were responsible for that.
Yes, yes.
Okay, so what do you make of that?
I know he's had the flip-flop on the Iraq-Al-Qaeda connection.
You know, he actually came out after the 9-11 Commission and said that there was no report passed on from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.
Right.
Is he a good guy or a bad guy?
Where's he at?
Well, I don't, in the process of writing the program, I never got to actually talk to.
We'll do this in the next movie.
We'll straighten this out in the next telepic.
Actually, I was surprised, too, when I saw that.
When I saw the movie, I was stunned to see that it wasn't just John O'Neill.
John O'Neill was the primary hero of the movie, but Clark also was portrayed as the one guy in both administrations trying to sound the warnings that nobody would listen to.
Well, next to John O'Neill, he came out smelling the most like a rose out of anybody else.
Yeah, and it sort of surprised me, too, because it's not what I was led to understand.
You know, of course, there's another conflicting thing, too.
Everybody was of the belief that Richard Clark was demoted by Condoleezza Rice.
The movie even portrayed this as demoting him to some new cyber unit on terrorism before 9-11 hit.
That didn't happen until after 9-11.
He was still on the National Security Council as terrorist czar when 9-11 hit.
Now, there's something suspicious about that to me.
Somebody wants themselves taken out of the loop, or somebody wanted to take him out of the loop prior to 9-11 so that he would be immune from any of the criticism.
In fact, by taking him out, I don't even know where those stories originated now.
I don't recall.
But the stories were out there that Rice demoted Clark before 9-11.
And had that not happened, who knows?
Clark might have been able to sound the Clarion warning bells.
But it also gave Clark some insurance and cover for not being blamable himself.
But where the actual portrayal of Clark for the movie came from, since I did not have a hand in writing it.
Oh, I hate admitting that now.
I don't know.
The 9-11 Commission report served as the foremost authority on this.
And there's some other things, too.
Buzz, the guy that carried Clinton's nuclear football wrote the book Dereliction of Duty.
Some of his stuff was used in preparing the screenplay as well.
So there were a lot of different sources here.
I don't know where the Clark character came from, specifically in terms of naming just one source.
Well, it was interesting to me, and I just really don't know where I come down on this guy.
You know, he's a Reagan appointee, and that kind of is a big plus in my book, but I just can't quite figure out where his loyalties are.
To himself.
And I don't say that in a critical sense.
Most people in Washington's loyalties are to themselves.
Buzz Patterson is the guy that wrote the book.
Most people in Washington are loyalties to themselves.
It's dog eat dog.
It's cutthroat.
It's what have you done for me tomorrow?
And I think that Clark is Colin Powell same way.
They're very skilled practitioners at working the networks inside media, socially, inside D.C., socially media and all that, to keep themselves on a plane that is non-ideological.
And I don't think it's unusual.
That's how you survive in that town.
That's why Ronald Reagan was such an exception.
Reagan is the guy who, among many other things, said, you can accomplish anything if you don't care who gets credit for it.
But the current crowd, as this debate over Clinton and his explosions indicate.
With Clinton, it's all about getting credit even when he doesn't deserve it for a host of psychopathic reasons.
Don't need to get into it now.
Look, Brian, I'm glad you called.
Have a great day in Yuba City.
We'll be back in just a second.
Stay with us.
Yeah, the audio soundbites of President Bush on fire coming up in the next hour of Open Line Friday.
Here is Renee in Warren, Arkansas.
Hi, Renee.
Thank you for waiting.
Hello, Mr. Limbaugh.
This is truly an honor or privilege.
I've listened to you for many, many years.
Thank you very much.
The comment I want to make is on this video clip I saw it on MSNBC, and I believe ABC is running it, about a mail convoy in Iraq that got ambushed in September of 2005.
First of all, when you say mail convoy, you mean M-A-I-L?
Yes, sir.
Because I didn't seen this.
Well, MSNBC, I saw their news report of a civilian convoy of big trucks, which was escorted by their military.
Yeah.
There was an instance where they came under enemy fire.
We lost two or three courageous, unarmed civilian truck drivers.
Unarmed?
They're unarmed?
Yes, sir.
My husband was a convoy commander for KBR in Iraq from 2004 to 2005.
He was there for 18 months.
By the way, I've got to tell you, I love those KBR people.
I ran into them all over Afghanistan.
They were running the Chow Hall of Mess Hall.
They were fabulous people.
Our truck drivers are very brave.
They're very courageous.
While they are undercover, they are under the protection of the greatest military in the world.
The 1544th Transportation Company, the 497th Transportation Company, whom my husband was with.
There's got to be a reason why they're not armed.
Yes, sir, there is.
I called KBR and asked them, I'm very proud of my husband's service, first of all.
We had to.
Well, so are we all.
I asked KBR why most of these men are former military or, in my husband's case, former law enforcement.
Why are they not armed?
What'd they say?
We're running out of time.
Due to the Geneva Convention, our truck drivers are considered non-combatants.
And non-combatants cannot be armed.
The Geneva Convention.
These men see combat every night.
The Geneva Convention.
Yes, sir.
Geneva Convention.
So this means that civilians in Iraq are also unarmed.
Right?
No, it doesn't.
That's my point.
We sit around and we obey the Geneva Conventions.
Well, if that's what they say, that's what they say.
But it is, then they're going to have to ramp up protection around them even more because I was just handed the story.
I'll read this during the break.
I have to run here.
Renee, thanks very much for the phone call.
Appreciate it.
We'll be back and mull right on right after this.
Try this headline, sensing weakness.
Senate Democrats see strength in bucking the president.
Note, Democrats don't attack.
They buck.
But this is a story about the 35 votes they got on that bill that they lost.
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