Senator Lieberman:  I guess I better get you out of the way. [laughter].

Questioner #1: Sorry, Joe.  President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev had the resolution to abolish all the military in both the United States and the USSR.  It was known as the McCloy- Zorin resolution.  It went to the United Nations and passed unanimously.  It set up a commission to implement the resolution.  Kennedy was assassinated and the commission soon after dissolved.  What do you think about the McCloy Zorin resolution to abolish all military in both countries and all over the world and stop the war in Iraq.

Senator Lieberman:  I probably should go back and read that because you mentioned something that I already know about.  I guess what I say is: I wish it could be so.  

And I have done a lot of work in congress to try to limit the spread of weapons and to make our diplomatic efforts at resolving conflicts more aggressive than they have been certainly in the last five years in the Bush administration.  

But it unfortunately remains a dangerous world.  I mean you saw on 9/11 that there are people out there who hate us just because we are Americans.  Tom Friedman of New York Times said a while ago that there are people out there who hate us Americans more than they love their own lives.  So they are willing to kill themselves to express their hatred of us.  And unfortunately, that means that we got stay armed. But I will tell you that the spirit involved in the resolution that you refer to is a noble spirit and I think [axe] much more effective than this administration has been at building bridges to other countries in the world.  

And let me say finally, that when Bill Clinton left office, not only was the surplus up here we were up here and now it is down there, but when Bill Clinton left office, we were up here in world opinion and we are now down here.  And that didn't have to happen.

Questioner #1: McCoy/Zorin is on the internet if you want to look it up.

Senator Lieberman:  Sean?
Sean:  I am on it.

Questioner #2: I am from Coventry and I appreciate the fact that you have come here.  I have a two-part question for you, Senator.

The first part is that you mention that Iraq, your view on us being in Iraq will make us safer.  And I would like you to explain that point of view.  And the second part of my question has to do with your position on Iran and the potential conflict.

Senator Lieberman: I will answer both and answer as briefly as I can.  And if you haven't been answered, let me know.  

The reason I favored the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, (incidentally [unintelligible] in congress did too, I wasn't alone on that), is because I thought he offended our values and threatened our security in a way that was unique in the world and particularly post 9-11 was something that --  I was worried that he was ticking time bomb that would go off in America's face and [unintelligible]  We know the record that he murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people.  We know that he had weapons of mass destruction earlier, chemical and biological, and uniquely among world leaders, used them actually against people.  We know that he was supporting terrorism and that he invaded two neighboring countries.  And we know that hated the United States of America.  So here was a guy, so he would cause us trouble.  So I think the world and we are a lot safer without him there.  

The work after he was overthrown has been very difficult, made more difficult by the failures of the Pentagon, even so, have to make the Commander in Chief accountable, President Bush.  [unintelligible]  our troops over there immediately after Saddam was overthrown so we lost control of the situation.  No effective work early on in the economic and political reconstruction of the country.  

Now we are there and my focus is on helping us complete our mission as successfully and quickly as possible.  Only lately we have some good news, it took too long, but they have finally chosen a new prime minister who appears to be broadly acceptable to the third coalition government [unintelligible]  

Second most important thing, after a lot of stumbling unfortunately, finally figured out how to better train the Iraqi military to take on their own defense.  And you know we had a 160,000 Americans there in December, we are now down to around 130,000 troops now and if the trend lines continue, I believe we will be down at or under 100,000 by end of this year.  So I think, not withstanding the brutality the minority people are visiting on the Iraqi people mostly, that we are moving toward the right direction.  

If we leave before it is over, before the Iraqis can protect themselves, which is really what I mean ,and their security forces are better, I think that there will be civil war, chaos, maybe regional war and our credibility in the world will be way down, and the terrorists will be emboldened.

So that's why I think if we do not finish it right, it will really hurt our security.

On Iran  --  Incidentally, I want to pay tribute here to Sean McNally, a familiar name to some of you here, a couple of times when I have been over in Iraq, I would arrive at the American headquarters there, and I thought that I was hallucinating actually when Sean comes walking out of the (unintelligible), working on the technology reconstruction of Iraq based on his experience at Eastern Connecticut [unintelligible]  [laughter].

Let's have a round of applause for Sean McNally.

Real quick now, Iran, unfortunately, a real danger.  These people the State Department calls it and, in this case almost everyone agrees, the most significant state sponsor of terrorism in the world.  They have the blood of Americans on their hands.  And now you have got this fanatical person who's come to power, who says he's going to kill some, to a crowd of thousands in Teheran [unintelligible]  open up to the United States of America.  I think we have to take this seriously.  You can't assume he's just making idle comments and therefore someone like this having nuclear weapons is a real danger to us.

What do we do about it?  I think so far, we are doing the right thing which is to work with the United Nations to try to impose economic sanctions on Iraq (sic) to get their attention.

We are working through the International Atomic Energy Agency to do that.

If that doesn't work, I like to think that we might be able to [unintelligible]  some countries outside the UN, like our European allies to try some diplomatic and economic sanctions on the Iranians.  

I have said that I wouldn't take the military option off the table; I don't think we should;  I have no, myself,  [unintelligible]  , I don't know how to put  this, I hope we don't get to that point. [unintelligible]

But I think for a lot of reasons, one of which is for the Iranians, we must take this seriously and we can't take that option off the table.

Questioner #3:  Why don't we, as a country, negotiate directly?  If you want to work diplomatically, you have to talk.

Senator Lieberman:  Yeah.  I think, also sit on a group in Washington, the committee on [unintelligible]  recommended, read a report a while back, which talked about how to approach Iran. One of the things. [unintelligible]. I think this guy's a madman, but there's nothing to be lost in talking to even a madman, so long as your eyes are open, and we are strong enough to do that.  This administration, the Bush Administration, refused to talk with North Koreans for too many years. I think we lost from that.  You know, you don't lose anything if you are the United States of America, the strongest country in the world. [unintelligible]

Questioner #4: The Iranian President has no power.  He cannot declare war against anyone, he cannot even move anything.  He has no Iranian Parliament.  The ex-president [unintelligible]   he had no power,

Senator Lieberman:  Here's my theory... I hear you. The position of the president of Iran has power, but it is not a very powerful position.  Here is the concern I have and of a lot of people who follow this pretty closely which is that this unique person does speak more or less the mind and intentions of the Mullahs who are the real power.  I mean, this is a sad story because the Iranians, even after the revolution of '79 had a pretty open political system, but in the last five years, maybe a little more, the Mullahs at the top have blocked the reformers from running for the Parliament, so it is a one-sided Parliament, not really anything approaching a democracy any more.

And to me, this is to go back and answer the question, the greatest hope of resolving this, and it's not going to happen overnight, is for the Iranian people who really, from everything we know, don't like their government, to rise up and change the leadership.

And I think one of the best things we can do is similar, frankly, to what we did in the Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. We supported reformers.  We supported the anti government people who were more democratic.  And I hope we can do that.

Questioner #5:  With all due respect, Senator, this isn't about Iran.  It's not about Iraq.  It's about us. It's about our miserable butchering of foreign policy.  We can't change who the President of Iran is, but the worst thing we can do, the absolute worst thing we can do, was rattle our sabers, after we botched [unintelligible] and tell them you can't do this, right after he walks out of India, the President of the United States walks out of India, where he cuts a sweetheart deal with a neighbor of theirs, to work out the supply of nuclear technology.  

This is insanity.  If the Iranians have a lunatic for president, so do we.

[Applause].

Senator Lieberman:  I agree with you on this.  This is the danger where we are at this point.  This president [unintelligible] of the world.  [Unintelligible] here at home.  That's a bad ... First it is not about Iran or Iraq ultimately.  It's about what Iran might do to threaten us and incidentally the best things we can do to reduce the ways that they can threaten us is to do exactly what I talked about in my opening remarks which is to achieve energy independence.

Did you see the cartoon in one of the papers over the weekend, there's a guy at the pump, he looks a little like Bush, and he is saying "Stop your nuclear weapons program or we will take action.  My car is at the number 4 pump, fill up my tank."  [That is the crux of the dilemma.]

This president early on squandered a lot of international credibility for the US by doing two things.  One, was he pulled us out of Kyoto agreement on global warming. Tremendous source of anger around the world, Europe, etc..  I was actually a strong supporter of the agreement.  Second, he pulled us out the International Court of Criminal Justice.  We are the country that is supposed ...we say that other countries must work with the rule of law.  

Those two actions, taken in the early months of the Bush administration immediately put us on the other side of world opinion.  [unintelligible]

In the case of Iran, so far, appears Europe seems to agree, and the International Atomic Energy Commission agrees, too. So this is potentially a threat to us and the world.

Questioner #5 - continuing:  But think about it, Iran Iraq and North Korea, the axis of evil.  [unintelligible]  what does he do about it? He invades Iraq.

Because Saddam Hussein is a despot  -- If that's our reason for invasion, Why didn't he invade Korea, Rhodesia or Cuba?

Senator Lieberman:   He is a bigger despot, more power and more influence than  [unintelligible]  Second thing is that and to be quite honest about it, there are two things.  One is that the Middle East is a cauldron from which terrorism is formed.  And what is going on in many ways is that there is a civil war and [unintelligible] , and we have to figure out how to side, to present an alternative to the hatred and suicidal note that Al Qaeda offers.

Second, he is, and this is a point of weakness for the United States, we are too dependent on oil from there.  So to me the best thing we can do, I repeat, this is a priority or maybe the priority, if I am fortunate enough to be re-elected, is to make our country energy independent.  Let me go to someone else, yes, M'am.

Questioner #6:   I would like to make a couple of comments and incorporate some of my concerns.  [unintelligible]  First of all, thank you for coming.   One of the comments I would make is that I know that neither your brochure nor your mailer has the environmental indication that they use recycled paper and that slick brochures, slick paper brochures do not recycle nearly as well as paper.

Senator Lieberman:   Point well taken and probably the recycable papers are cheaper than the other    Sean?

Questioner #6 - continuing:  I would like to continue on.   I am so glad you support Jimmy Carter's CAFE guidelines [unintelligible] .  The car we have in the parking lot the current mileage reading on it is it gets 54.8 miles to the gallon.

Senator Lieberman:   Good for you, what do you have?

Questioner #6 -continuing:  A Honda Civic Hybrid.  

Senator Lieberman:   Good.

Questioner #6 -continuing:  What I haven't seen happening since Carter left office is any great effort on the part of the United States Senate to pursue that policy, even when Democrats still controlled the Senate.

Senator Lieberman:   Let me say real briefly that we have repeatedly tried to raise the CAFE standards but unfortunately it gets defeated.  We ought to be able to get 40 miles a gallon on average now.  We have the technologically.  I have supported it over and over the years but it is a strange alliance of the oil companies and it is some democrats who are close to the oil industry and oil workers [unintelligible] concerned about their jobs.  

Questioner #6 -continuing:  Here's my question.  I know that you know Senator Robert Byrd.  Who has written book Bush's America stated that he has served 7 presidents and their administrations.  And he makes the point repeatedly in that book and I agree with about the horror of preemption and he repeatedly outlines the efforts that he has made to try to introduce some restraints on what this president [unintelligible]  and capital abroad [unitelligble] and he raises repeatedly the constitutional questions of the Senate's overarching authorization for pre-emptive strikes.  Basically, as he [Byrd] notes it in that book, would allow him [Bush] now to go into Iran, or go into North Korea, go into a number of places that he might chose to go into without even getting another authorization because of the breadth of the war resolution.  

I find that not only terrifying, I find that [ ] - if you talk about blood of Americans on the hands of a variety of people.  I think the blood of other people's are on our hands.

Beyond that I think [unintelligible]  Senate and the House. Because I want to see some investigations, I don't think this president should just be impeached, I think he should be tried for crimes against humanity.

I am wondering how you feel about [that].

Senator Lieberman:   I have said that Bush first announced the preemption doctrine, that a president always reserves the rights to in a real eminent threat but it is a dangerous thing to do in our country, we should always ask, if at all possible, for the authorization of the Congress of the United States.  I also think it was not a smart thing to announce frankly because what I mean is, when there they make their policy.  Preemptive action should be taken very very [unintelligible].

Questioner #6 -continuing:  Have we ever acted preemptively, Senator?

Senator Lieberman:   Well, I will have to think about that.

Audience member:  We attacked German subs before Pearl Harbor. And supplied arms to belligerent powers.

Senator Lieberman:   That's true.  I don't believe... I haven't read the book....I don't believe he [Byrd] is referring to the authorization for the use of military force after 9-11
[unintelligible]

Questioner #6 -continuing:  It's on tape, you can listen to it when you are driving.

Questioner #7:  Sir, could you tell us how in the future you plan to vote on funding for permanent bases in Iraq?

Senator Lieberman:   There is no request for permanent bases in Iraq.  I don't believe it is in our national interest to establish such bases.  I haven't heard anybody making a request for [  ].  We have bases throughout the region, but um, I don't think anyone has come out, to establish permanent bases in Iraq.
Audience member:  But we are building the world's largest embassy in Iraq, right?  We are not going to defend that world's largest embassy?

Senator Lieberman:   That's not a base.

[crosstalk]

Audience member:  And we are going just leave it alone.

Senator Lieberman: Do you think we should have bases there?

Audience member:  No.

Senator Lieberman:   We are building the largest embassy.

[crosstalk]

Audience member: I asked how you would vote ...

Senator Lieberman:  I said I haven't heard a proposal. I am against it.

Audience member:  You would vote against it?

Senator Lieberman:  No.

Questioner #7:  Thankyou.

Senator Lieberman:  Listen, I don't want to deceive you.  We need our bases in the region.  We have another [unintelligible] .  I think it would be a mistake to put them in Iraq.  Part of me thinks that we justify people's claims that we want to permanently occupy the country.  That's not why I supported it. [unintelligible]

Questioner #8:  Senator Lieberman, I am looking forward to voting for you as a Democrat in November, though [unintelligible] would like to see you

Senator Lieberman:  I am looking forward to having you vote for me.

Questioner #8:  Although I disagree with your viewpoints on Iraq, I respect your right to them, I just would like to see some of the things you are saying today, you be more aggressive and talk about the mistakes and the incompetencies of this president's administration because that way I think you can help support you.

Senator Lieberman:  I hear you.  Let me just say this.  I hear this repeatedly. I have opposed just about every major issue of this president.  I oppose the tax cuts because I think they give too much to people who don't need anything and hurt people who do need; are scrapping social services programs and are fiscally irresponsible.  I opposed the social security privatization program; I oppose his entire,  [I can't think of anything in his environmental protection that I have supported.  I voted against [Mary McCartney].  

Look, I have a voting record.  You know what part of the problem is here?  And we will be talking to this in the campaign and I will spend some of the money I worked so hard to raise in this campaign to give this some visibility.  The press doesn't write this part of it. I am the guy who stood up against the Bush administration on the Defense Appropriation Bill just last year to block them from drilling for oil in ANWR.  And I did that because of the credibility I have on those issues, and we won.  I could go on.  I am trying to subpoena the White House to get information in our investigation about Katrina. This is the most closed government administration that certainly I have served, and I served under his father, Clinton and himself.

I am a Democrat because I know there's a difference in the two parties.  I have been a Democrat all my political life, and I intend to, with the good Lord's help, to continue to be one for the rest of my political life, and I will speak out as loudly as I can.

Questioner #8:-- continuing:  You say that but you don't really say much about being a Democrat on your flyer here...and just

Senator Lieberman:  With all due respect, I think you are nit picking.

[crosstalk]

Questioner #8:-- continuing:  I know.
[laughter]

Senator Liberman: [Talking over Questioner #8] You want to take my voting record with the labor unions, or on [unintelligible]  the university.  You want to rate my voting record with NARAL or you want to rate Civil Rights etc. etc.

Questioner #8 - continuing:  My question would be more about your thought about Immigration.  The status of immigration because it is, at least in Windham,   I represent [unintelligible]  in Windham, I am the Selectman from Windham and we have a tremendous population of undocumented aliens. And they wonder about the status of their lives.  Where are we going with it from here, today?

Senator Lieberman: Right.  We are in a situation where the immigration situation is broken and a lot of people are paying the consequences of those who are undocumented immigrants and those in the communities where they live.  I have been working on this for a long time.  I am the grandchild of immigrants; I think immigrants have tremendously added to this country and continue to do so.

I am a supporter of the Kennedy/McCain Immigration Reform Proposal.  It toughens border security, which will cut back on illegal immigration.  But let's be real honest about this, folks: These people are coming to America, risking their lives to come to America, to try to earn a better living for their families... It is the same reason my grandparents came here.  And we are going to try to do our best to stop it.  And I think this bill will help that happen.  

And the second thing that this Bill does, as you may know, is to say to the undocumented immigrants here and to say to every one else in America, We got a choice to make, what are we going to do about these 11 million people? Are we going to go out and spend the money to find them and deport them from America?  I think the answer is No.

The other choice [that] the Bill I am supporting makes, is to say, "Come out of the shadows, sign up, pay a fine because you can't be here illegally.  We will put you on a kind of probation for six years.  If you don't get into legal trouble, you pay your taxes, and you learn English and study American Civics, you get essentially a green card after six years.  Five years more and you get permanent status."  

And frankly, I think that is the most honest and progressive thing we can do.  The Bush Administration, the Republicans in the Senate are opposed to it.  They just want to hammer down on the immigrants; to make it a crime to be here, to make it a crime for church groups and others to help immigrants in any other way.  I don't support that.

We worked out that compromise.  We almost had it and it got blocked before we went to recess in the last two weeks.  We are going to come back to it in early May, the week after this one, and I hope we get something done to make the situation better for immigrants.

Questioner #9: - Hi, I am from Ashford, and I primarily have a comment and [want to] ask some questions about foreign policy.  I served in the Armed Forces and I was studying as Chemical Staff specialist, which is an enlisted position, and [I] basically learned how to fight with chemical weapons at a battalion/brigade level, oriented at the European battlefield and to a lesser degree learn how to fight with atomic bombs in the same battlefield.

I believe there are issues with classifying chemical weapons as weapons of mass destruction because you need a lot of shells to do a lot of damage.  A single shell is not like a single atomic bomb which is clearly a weapon of mass destruction.  Biological agents that are contagious are weapons of mass destruction.  Biological agents that are not contagious, I don't think can be categorized as such.  

There's an issue, there's an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that I have not read that addresses the issue that chemical weapons, that it is a mistake to consider them WMDs.

I believe the reason that Bush attacked Iraq is not from what he said because 911; I am convinced, had its origins is in Saudi Arabia, the Wahabi, the [Salafi], the [Tacterian] sects, which clearly believe that killing a heretic is legitimate. This is not a religion that deserves our respect, under any circumstance.

He felt that we needed a military footprint in the Mideast.  That's why they went there.  

I think that the real issue - I am a Vietnam Veteran; I joined Vietnam Veteran Against the War, worked for John Kerry, in 1970-71-72.  I see absolutely no comparison geopolitically in our national interest with Vietnam and Iran.  The one comparison that is true is the lying and the incompetence in the White House. There were no prior plans for peace keeping.  In fact they wanted to close peace keeping school at Fort Carlyle.

They did not commit the First Cav.  They did not have adequate Reserves to commit for the peace keeping.  There is no way that they needed more soldiers for the attack because that would have meant a greater logistic issue - need to move artillery and mortar rounds, not water and food.  So you need to minimize your advancing columns.  

There was no plan whatsoever for the looting that occurred; there's now people ripping off computers and [unintelligible]  the storefront, with the flatbeds and trailer trucks, of  sophisticated machine tools that went out in daily streams into Jordan and Syria.  

This kind of looting, and the privatization was another looting.  This is a socialist economy.  The whole retail [OSHA]and [CEEP] type ranks just to get the country back running.  

It's December of 05 that was the first time that there was a formal directive for changing the strategy to genuine Counter Insurgency and Peace Building.  Why wasn't this done two years ago?

I feel, Senator, that you have to attack Bush on the incompetency and the specifics of their bungling.  

Why do we have a backdoor draft when the Armed Forces should have increased by a quarter million?  Why are Reservists and Guards people not getting health care?  Why is the VA budget for the wounded and stressed out soldiers being cut?  These need to be specifically attacked.

To attack Iran is absolutely insane.  

A ground burst nuclear weapon, when you have an airburst, like Hiroshima or Nagasaki and most of the tests we get, you get maybe 500 thousand pounds of fallout.  When you have a groundburst, you get hundreds of thousands of tons of deadly radioactive fallout.

That would be a war crime to use these weapons anyway.

To attack Iran with anything means we have to occupy the southern coast and secure the Straits of Hormuz because they have rocker artillery, self-propelled cruise missile launchers which will attach tankers and all that.

It is an extremely dangerous situation.  I understand that there were overtures from Iran two years ago that the Administration ignored, this needs to be specially addressed.

The Bush Administration is a clear National Security Threat to the United States.
[Applause]

Why, funding for Hamas, why is Hamas not being funded?  Two years cease fire.....

Senator Lieberman: -  Okay, listen, first, thank you for your service.  Second, thank you for a thoughtful and very informed statement.  Third, Tony Rivers said and I agree pretty much with everything you said, and it's too bad you weren't in control instead of Rumsfeld.  

I think I have time for one more question.

Audience Member:  Maybe it's too bad you were in control, Senator.  We have been waiting for a United States Senator from Connecticut to say publicly about the President what you are saying today ...
Senator Lieberman:  I, I [crosstalk]

Audience Member - continuing: ....and I have yet to see you on a National News program....
Senator Lieberman: Let me say this.  And we can compare records of this from the beginning and right after the war.  I made many of the criticisms this gentleman just made. And I continue to do that in Armed Services Committee meetings. I am not going to make it into a partisan [unintelligible] because this is National Security, and we have 130,000 Americans over there.  But have I supported the strategic goals? Yes.   Have I opposed vigorously some of the tactical this Administration has taken [unintelligible] ?  You bet I have.

Audience Member-- continuing:  Your public support of the President makes it more difficult to elect a Joe Courtney.  
[Applause]

Senator Lieberman: You know, you know, I got to tell you something.  Everybody has a [unintelligible]  here.  And I think if you read the polls, you will see that I can help Joe Courtney which is what I want to do and a lot of people in this district, not just Democrats, but Independents, who ultimately decide elections.  We are better when we are united.  

Let me make something very clear:  This business that I am George Bush's best friend is nonsense.  If you look at my record and you look at the numbers, look at the votes I have cast.  Last number, one of the journals in Washington just came out with this,  last year I voted 90% of the time in the Senate with my Democratic colleagues... Harry Reid, who is the Democratic leader, voted 92%.

Audience Member-- continuing:  He hasn't kissed Harry Reid.

[Laughter]

[Crosstalk]

Senator Lieberman: I will say this, Will Rodgers, "I belong to no organized political party.  I am a Democrat."  But let me tell you something.  We can have our dissent.  I don't mind it; I respect it.  It is all part of the process.  But America needs new leadership.  America needs Democrats to take control of the Senate and the house.  And Connecticut needs that.  We can have debate, but if we don't get our act together and field the strongest ticket we can, and I believe I can help this ticket in a lot of ways, help Joe Courtney, then we are going to waste an incredible opportunity so finally I say to you: Thank you for coming.  Thank you for your interest.   Thank you for being, ah, a little aggressive with your questions.