Rudy Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York City HARDtalk


Rudy Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York City

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10 years after 9/11, a new power, the Freedom Power has risen from

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the ashes. Right here, Osama Bin Laden and so did agreed is wind on

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the United States. Americans have been remembering and reflecting. My

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guest is the man who was Mayor of New York City on its darkest day,

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Rudy Giuliani. How have he and his country been changed by 9/11?

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The de Chile and the, welcome to HARDtalk. Good to be with you.

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is an incredible spot. Here we said, right on the edge of Ground Zero.

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It is 10 years on from 9/11. By wonder what emotion you bring to

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this anniversary week. It is very hard to look at. I don't even know

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because I haven't gone through its yet. Every year it is very

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difficult because it was the worst experience of my life, the worst

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day of my life, the worst day in the history of my city and the

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worst attack. It was also a great deal of care was some. -- a great

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day of heroism. We got a tremendous help. It almost made you cry to

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think of all the people that came and volunteered and helped and put

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themselves at great risk. I've probably had some good knowledge of

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how dangerous this all was Paul stop -- this all was. I was worried

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that we would lose somebody because they were so over-anxious to do a

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good job. The conceive what has been achieved already. -- we can

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see now. I want to stick around the hours of 9/11 itself. You were on

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the north side, trying to get as close as you could do what had

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happened. The command centre was over their. How intensely do you

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recall what happened? What you saw, what you felt at the time. After

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all, it was 10 years ago. I have spoken about to do a lot. I have

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written about it. It helps me to talk about it. It helps me to get

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over the emotion of it and deal with the emotion of it. I have

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counselled other people to do that, get it out and talk about it. Some

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of the memories are with you for ever. Some of them stand out as

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pictures in your mind. The first time I saw somebody jump from the

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100 for. The first man to throw himself out that I saw, I think

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there were once before that, that was one of the most shocking

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experiences of my life, to watch a man at 100 stories flee the fire

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behind him and throw his body down. I had never seen anything like that

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before. It convinced me at that time that this was the worst

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experience they would never have to deal within we had better do as

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good a job as we can. -- as we would ever. I wonder, as Mayor, if

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you thought "I am losing control of the city. There are things

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happening around me that I could never have imagined and I cannot do

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a job here." That thought was there. Occasionally it would just flash

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into your head. Can be handled this? His is beyond us? -- can we

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handle? I thought that but then I thought "I cannot think this week."

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I did my best to get through it. My father gave me advice. He said "if

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you are ever in an emergency, remained calm, and if you are not

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calm, pretend you are calm." afterwards, you have already spoken

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about stuff that stayed with you, a lot of people have spoken about

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post-traumatic stress. Have you had dark nights? I have not. I have

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never dreamed about it. I find it strange that I have never dreamed

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about it. I think about did a lot. One time I was given medicine that

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makes you going to a sleepy state and I started talking about it. My

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wife was with me and the doctor and they were giving out orders to

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people -- they said I was giving it orders to people to leave the

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building and get at the building. I don't remember dreaming about it

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but I do think about it and talk about it a lot. I credit that to me

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avoiding some of the things that happened. He is there it is

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difficult. I wonder whether you have some specific regrets. Juba

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the leader of the city.The city for eight years. There were discussions

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about things like, for example, did 300 firefighters need to die in the

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operation that surrounded the Twin Towers? Daegu and others in the

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operation make some mistakes? did you? I think the 343

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firefighters was probably less than what would have died if the command

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hadn't been as effective as it was. If you read the 9/11 report, it

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says that 96 % of the people that could be saved were saved. What I

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regret is not anticipating specifically that kind of an attack.

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Let's talk about the 10 years since. Has New York City killed, do you

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think? There are still scars year but has the city sealed? The City

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has done remarkably well. It has done better than I thought it would.

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I knew they would be stronger as a result of this but they have more

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than exceeded my expectations. However you judge a city, a city --

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the city is a stronger and better city now. More to this come here,

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more people love you, the economy of the city is doing better than

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the economy of the country. -- more people live here. I think the city

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has healed to the extent that it can. I guess it has to. Associated

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Press reported just a couple of days ago that 1,000 new yacht City

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did -- Police officers day-by-day are assigned to counter terror

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opposition -- operations. Of course the city the allies sees it is the

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number one target. That is along with Washington DC. -- realises it

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is. I think people feel more secure here because they realised the

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police department is probably the best in the country. The police

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department which, according to this report, has set up a secret police

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unit, they call it the Demographic Unit, which uses undercover

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operations to monitor the likes of New York's Muslim communities,

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secretly. Is that what you believe should be done in New York City.

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course. Not the Muslim community got Mark that is what it is about.

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-- not the Muslim community... That is what it is about. You are

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monitoring a committee on the basis that that is where the next threat

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may come from. -- a community. threat is and from people living

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near Kings County Hospital. The reality is for the police are doing

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is sensible police work. They are looking at their terrorism has come

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from and they are focusing on people who are suspected terrorists.

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It turns out they are Muslim. They are not focusing on Muslims, they

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are focusing on suspected terrorist. Remember, the first attempt was put

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together in a mosque in New Jersey. When you know something like that

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and you know that there are certain Oscars, not all of them, but some

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of them that they used to plan terror attacks, you would not look

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in our synagogue on a church, but could be stupid police work. I used

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the word healing. I wonder if, for example, a city can be truly healed

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when such a raw and passionate argument was provoked by the plan,

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for example, from the Muslim community centre which would have

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been a couple of blocks away pyjamas on benefactors that was all

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about delivering a message of peace. -- which Amazon benefactor. You

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called it a desecration. This man wanted to put a mosque here. 90 %

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of the family members said it was going to cut them and create pain

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for them and create a tremendous amount of psychological damage to

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them. They said the Skye Bridge shilling people and he was going to

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put the mosque down. That is not healing. That is a divided.

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Thousands of people but killed here under the banner of distorted

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Islamic religion. It wasn't under the banner of Christianity on

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Judaism, that was the banner. you call a mosque a desecration,

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venue say it is right for the police to centre of their anti-

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terror demonstration on the move on committee, I wonder how many peace-

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loving Muslim residents off New York City will feel about that.

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they are peace-loving, they will feel fine. Maybe they will feel

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victimised. Not if they aren't involved in terrorism. No more than

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Italian-Americans shouldn't feel victimised when I went after the

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Mafia because there was a percentage involved in organised

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crime. The police cannot be irrational or politically correct.

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It has to be based on logical instincts on people's behaviour.

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The reality is that Mosques, not all, some, have become the source

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of terrorist planning. For the police to ignore that in the name

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of political correctness, because it makes you happy, that would be a

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dangerous thing to do. I wanted done to the bigger canvas of

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American national security beyond the city. With the benefit of

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distance and hindsight that comes with 10 years, do you think that

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America misjudged its national security response to name 11 mac?

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No. -- 9/11. I think it was misjudged before 9/11. America

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discounted the threat to this country. They had attacked the

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World Trade Center in Africa twice. I think we were minimising the

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threat against us and sending them signals that we were weak.

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Therefore, they took advantage of fires on 9/11. The prisoners and

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the pudding. They took advantage of that, but, in the end, is it not

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important, first of all to a member of the scale of the horror and the

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number of victims but also to remember who did it and fight it

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was done. It was 19 hijackers. The budget was less than $1 million.

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They were ordered and demanded from skate -- caves in Afghanistan by a

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small number of fanatics. They succeeded in achieving their

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objective but was it really war? Was at war that needed a response

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from the Bush administration that did they not just into Afghanistan

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but into Iraq as well and cost the nation up to four trillion dollars.

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And, in 10 years, there has been no attacks like that again. Every

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single intelligence source warned me that we would be attacked dozens

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of times again. If that was not for President Bush and his courage to

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deploy the military in the way he did, I am absolutely convinced that

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this country would have gone through format, five or six major

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terrorist attacks and that that was not for Barack Obama continuing and

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it, the attacks would have increased in the last three years.

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I can count 42 attempts by extremist Muslim terrorists to

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conduct terrorist attacks in the United States that have been

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stopped since 9/11. If we had not heightened our alertness to this,

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if we had not gone on the offensive, similar attacks would have happened.

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My question was about the broader response. The Bush administration

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decided to take up this war, not just specifically against Al-Qaeda,

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but, of course, it went much further. It went further in

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Afghanistan, it is still there with the desperate effort to stop the

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Taliban, but, also, in Iraq. I wonder that it today, 10 years on,

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you are ready to acknowledge that Why would I do that? What it did

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was it gave us an enormous amount of intelligence we would not have

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had, it tied up the people planning to attack and harmless inactivity

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is there so they could not conduct those activities here. With the

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loss of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives in those countries.

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In Iraq Mac and Afghanistan, there are numbers of NGOs that put the

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number at that. -- in Iraq. If the fact of the matter is that this was

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an attack outside -- from outside the United States and perpetrated

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inside United States. When we did not respond, we were continually

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attacked. When we finally did respond, we kept our homeland safe.

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That is the responsibility of the United States - to keep the United

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States safe. If it were not for our military, I do not believe our

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country would have been safer over the last ten years. Can you truly

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ever win a military victory over fanatical ideas? Yes. You can? Sure.

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Didn't we defeat Hitler? That is, I suppose, the point. Can you compare

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the threat posed by Al-Qaeda and its network of jihadi terrorists

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with the threat posed by Nazism and Hitler. If you ask the family

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members of people who died here, they would tell you, from their

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point of view, their threat was just as bad. Did they have the

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capacity to invade and capture all of Europe? No. Did they have the

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capacity to kill or injure hundreds of thousands of people? Yes, and

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they have demonstrated that. The head of the MI5 in the UK

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specifically said she believed America had been wrong to turn this

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into an all out war in the way the Bush administration did. She said,

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in a way, that served to give credos, status to the jihadis.

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Thank goodness she was not President of the United States

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because if she was we probably would have been attacked a dozen

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times between then and now. The one thing you cannot argue with is that

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President Bush and President Obama have kept the United States safe.

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You have written this in the last couple of days. You said that while

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the lessons learned from 9/11 is that America requires a long-term

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presence in those parts of the world that continued to endanger

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rus. Does that mean you believe that talk of a draw down in

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Afghanistan, for example, the withdrawal of the United States is

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a bad idea? Not if we keep troops there. Maybe we should not do it in

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2015. Perhaps we should do what later. This is totally unknown to

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do these things on irresponsible political timetables. The objective

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in Afghanistan is to make sure that Afghanistan is left in a situation

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that is not a danger to us any more. That is the reason we are there -

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to protect the people of the United States. If we can prove that we

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have accomplished that goal, we should leave. If we cannot, we

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should remain. We have to be ready to retain a significant military

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presence in the Middle East just like we did in Germany, just like

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we are to win in South Korea. -- doing. When you ran for office,

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when you wanted to make a bid for the White House in 2007, you found

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the American republic was not responding to your message, which

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was primarily a security message. - - the American public. They did not

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get a chance to respond to my message. I was in an American

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primary and John McCain one. -- won. John McCain seemed to have the best

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ideas a national security and he won. I look at the challenges in

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Afghanistan right now. Given the state of the US economy, the state

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of finances here, America has to make important decisions which may

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involve drawing down on its commitments overseas and, to use

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President Obama's stage, focus on that nation-building here at home.

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You can never put a limit on how to defend yourself and protect

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yourself. No matter what the cost? Unless it is irresponsible spending,

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unless it is fraudulent or irresponsible, which sometimes

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happens in the area of national defence. We are not in the economic

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condition we are in because of our defence spending, not even close to

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that. Our defence spending is roughly the average percentage of

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our GDP that it has been for the last 40 or 50 years, even less at

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some points. That is an erroneous analysis of our budgetary situation.

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We are out of control because we cannot control the cost of

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healthcare. The reality is we need a presence in the Middle East for a

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long period of time. The leadership requires explaining that to the

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American people and developing the patients we had during the Cold War.

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If that is what leadership requires -- patience. If that is what

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leadership requires, would you consider running again? You are

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worried that people are not issuing the message you are, which is the

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front and centre importance of national security. There are some

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people on the Republican side who are running who understand that.

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Some understand that better. My position will be based on whether I

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think one of those candidates can win and do the right job for the

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country. If they do not, I will make the decision to run. It may be

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that you have to convince the Republican party that you will are

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as socially conservative as they would like. Now you have located

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the reason why I did not win. The reason I did not win had nothing to

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do with national security. John McCain had the same views on

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national security as I do. The reason I did not win was because I

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:22:10.:22:16.

am considered too socially moderate. I cannot change. You're telling me

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that if you run for the White House it will not go anywhere. People

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have to decide whether these things are or frees not important. My

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:22:35.:22:36.

views are my views. -- or are not. I want to return to the meaning of

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this particular place where we are right now. Everyone in America

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seems to be talking about extracting the meaning from 9/11.

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Some argue that actually, although which felt... I was in North

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America at the time. Although it felt that the world changed

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completely on that terrible day, maybe it did not change as much as

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we thought. I do you think it changed at all. I think 11th

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September allowed us to perceive more clearly the realities that

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have been going on in the world since the 1960s. This was not the

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first terrorist attack. It was not the first terrorist attack on

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:23:34.:23:36.

America. What this did was not change anything going on in the

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world, it changed our appreciation of the world. I think someone

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attributed to Bin Laden, I think I am right about this, maybe one of

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the terrorist leaders, that this attack turned out to be a mistake

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because it awakened a sleeping giant. I think it was a terrible

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mistake for them because, even if it takes 20 or 30 years, Islamic

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extremist terrorism will eventually be destroyed. Rudolph Giuliani, we

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have to leave it there but thank you very much for being on HARDtalk.

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To bring the week to a close, we have a warmer day, feeling quite

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muggy and humid too. That moist air means we start off with quite a bit

:24:36.:24:43.

of cloud. As the sun comes out, the air tract across means temperatures

:24:43.:24:46.

will shoot up higher than recent days. We start of milder, wet

:24:46.:24:56.
:24:56.:25:00.

across the UK. Temperatures already in the mid-teens. For more than

:25:00.:25:05.

England, some heavy rain around, particularly to the east of the

:25:05.:25:09.

Pennines. For the South, a lot of cloud. Some brighter spells but not

:25:09.:25:13.

that much widespread sunshine initially. As we head towards the

:25:13.:25:18.

south coast, a lot of low cloud getting fed in off the Channel. We

:25:18.:25:23.

have a great prospect here. More to the south-west - a lot of low cloud,

:25:23.:25:27.

hill fog and a similar story for Wales. Your best chance for early

:25:27.:25:32.

morning brightness is to move up the Welsh mountains. Northern

:25:32.:25:40.

Ireland off to a dry footing. The overnight rain will clear. Looking

:25:40.:25:45.

at the bigger picture, you will see that rain does linger for Scotland

:25:45.:25:49.

but gradually eases across northern England. It is a much brighter

:25:49.:25:52.

prospect to the east of the Pennines through the afternoon.

:25:52.:25:57.

Elsewhere, a relatively dry story but struggling to see decent spells

:25:57.:26:03.

of sunshine in the West. The East has promising temperatures later in

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the day. Quite possibly 23 or 24 across eastern England. Low 20s

:26:10.:26:13.

towards the West and a shade cooler to the west of Scotland. All that

:26:13.:26:17.

warm air is coming of his pocket associated with this area of low

:26:17.:26:22.

pressure coming from the West. Tightly-packed isobars means strong

:26:22.:26:25.

winds and this cold weather Fund will bring another set of changes

:26:25.:26:33.

for the weekend. Outbreaks of rain on Saturday. They will work

:26:33.:26:42.

eastwards on Sunday. Still Printy - makes a pretty warm on Saturday --

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still pretty warm on Saturday evening. Outbreaks of rain getting

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