Hot Stories for the Week of April 7-11

This is a partial transcript from The Beltway Boys, April 12, 2003, that has been edited for clarity. Click here to order the complete transcript.

Watch The Beltway Boys Saturday at 6 p.m. ET and Sunday at 1 and 6 a.m. ET

MORT KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: Well, the hot story of the week is victory. There is still fighting going on, but Iraq is liberated from, from the evil regime of, of Saddam Hussein. The Tommy Franks, Don Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths.

There is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers are, are -- have been humiliated so far. Israel was not attacked and did not, did not have to retaliate. Baghdad was not Stalingrad. Iraq was not a Vietnam quagmire. The Arab street did not rise up and overthrow its, its leadership, and on and on and on.

FRED BARNES, CO-HOST: Yes.

KONDRACKE: The, the final word on this is, hooray.

BARNES: Yes. Did you mention the oil fields, which were saved? And, you know...

KONDRACKE: I left them for you.

BARNES: Yes, well one of the...I think only one was torched. Look, the amazing thing is, after putting 150,000 troops or so in Kuwait, twice the American military still achieved tactical surprise, first with that sprint by the 3rd Infantry up to the outskirts of Baghdad, and then rather than wait, as the British did outside Basra, went right into Baghdad, downtown, you know, the second day they were living in one of the presidential palaces.

It was, it was extraordinary. Now, of course, the naysayers now are saying, Well, you won the war, that was easy, but the peace, you're losing the peace because there's all this looting and mayhem in these cites.  That's nonsense, of course. American troops will have to become policemen.  They, there will established an Iraqi interim government that will work with American officials to restore order and so on.

Click here to order the complete transcript.

Copy: Content and Programming Copyright 2003 Fox News Network, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2003 eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.), which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, Inc.'s and eMediaMillWorks, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.