Tightening Security

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 7, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Continuing now with our special report on the terror bombings in London, joining us from Washington, Dr. Nile Gardiner, fellow of Anglo-American security policy at the Heritage Foundation (search). Here in the studio, R.P. Eddy, executive director of the Center for Policing Terrorism (search).

All right. I want to throw it out to you, Dr. Gardiner. Because I want to ask you the same question I asked Emerson, who didn't seem to know the answer to it. You know everybody — everybody who is honest and looking for the good — looking out for the benefit of free people know that you can't allow Iraq to degenerate into Afghanistan. Yet they won't help. Why?

NILE GARDINER, FELLOW OF ANGLO-AMERICAN SECURITY POLICY, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, I think the French and Germans and many others in Europe simply are weak, cowardly and spineless when it comes to the war on terror. Let's face it: there are only two countries, the United States and Great Britain, are actively engaged in fighting Al Qaeda (search) and in waging the global war on terror.

And it's highly significant, of course, that the French and the Germans have offered absolutely no help whatsoever in terms of troops on the ground in Iraq. The French and the Russians actively opposed efforts to remove Saddam Hussein (search) from power and had a very close, cozy relationship with the Saddam Hussein regime.

So it should be absolutely no surprise that Europe's response to today's bombings has been somewhat lackluster.

O'REILLY: Let's see tomorrow. Let's be fair. We'll give them to tomorrow, and then we're going to run them down tomorrow night on "The Factor" on how they respond.

But they'll say, "Look, we helped out in Afghanistan. We fought the Taliban (search) or helped you." And there are French and German troops there. And they'll also say that Saddam Hussein didn't help terrorists and why should we remove him? That's what they'll say, sir.

GARDINER: That's certainly the response that they will give. But they need to acknowledge, of course, that Iraq has become a central front in the war on terror. And that's why...

O'REILLY: Why would — but they're not acknowledging it.

GARDINER: Yes, they're not acknowledging it. But that's why 8,000 British troops are on the ground in Iraq. And ironically, I think, one of the effects of today's bombing will be to increase the resolve of the British government to stay the course in Iraq, and we might just see, in fact, perhaps even more British troops heading out there to fight Al Qaeda on the ground.

O'REILLY: I think you're right. I think that England and Great Britain, I should say, is not Spain, is not Spain. And they're not going to cut and run. And this kind of thing just makes Britishers more determined, and it will turn, I think, the tide. But the press in England is also a problem.

Let's go to the policing aspect of this, Mr. Eddy. You know, it doesn't look like we're really policing these terrorists too well. I mean, you know, we see President Bush out there, they will hunt them down. You'll hunt who down?

R.P. EDDY, CENTER FOR POLICING TERRORISM: Right.

O'REILLY: Usama's still running around. You don't hunt him down. Zarqawi, you can't get. You know, we're getting frustrated.

EDDY: We've had a sort of interdiction policy in the war on terror — go out and find the bad guys, be offensive and get them before they get here. That's fine if you can find them. That's fine if you can get them.

But the reality is we haven't been able to get all of them, and a lot of terrorists, it turns out recently, are growing up within the countries that they're attacking. The attacks in Istanbul, the attacks in Bali, the attacks in Madrid, these were all home grown terrorist attacks. So if we're — if we're worried about the future of terrorism, we think we might see threats in our states, they might be these homegrown threats.

O'REILLY: But they're not that many...

EDDY: You're not going to get the bad guys overseas.

O'REILLY: The optimistic thing for the United States is, No. 1, the FBI has infiltrated almost every Arab-American community, as well it should. The innocent Arabs are innocent. And that's fine. But we have to keep an eye on those enclaves, and we do.

And we also have a much stricter policy, as we talked about. Those guys in Virginia, they got convicted fast.

EDDY: Yes.

O'REILLY: Whereas Britain lets them go.

EDDY: That's right.

O'REILLY: And even when we send the Guantanamo (search) bad guys back to Britain, the press the next day said they didn't do anything, which is a bunch of hooey.

EDDY: Well, Bill, we're very aggressive about bad guys and getting them, but we're not very aggressive about looking for them in this country. Our federal system is highly attuned towards response after WMD attack, it's not tuned towards investigative investigation.

We have 400,000 police officers in this country that are not trained to investigate, that are not trained to prevent terrorism by the federal government. Some police departments are taking it on their own, New York City being a great example. But others aren't. The federal money is not there.

If you're a first responder in this country, you're getting money to clean up. You're not a first preventer being trained to go prevent terrorism and find bad guys.

O'REILLY: Dr. Gardiner, what did you think when Bush came out and said, "Well, we're going to hunt them down and bring them to justice?” What did you think when the president said that?

GARDINER: Actually, we have to go out there, hunt down the terrorists and kill them. We can't negotiate with them. We can't reason with them. We have to take the war to the terrorists.

And I think that we're likely to see a very aggressive joint U.S.- British response in the coming weeks. We have to also go after those who are aiding and abetting the terrorists, who are harboring the terrorists, who are funding the terrorists. And we have to take whatever military measures are necessary in order to defeat this.

O'REILLY: Yes, but why haven't we done that for four years? See, I'm not — look, I think the president of the United States has it right, theoretically. I think he's absolutely on the mark, theoretically. But you have to wonder why Usama hasn't been caught, why al-Zarqawi (search) hasn't been caught. And these guys continue to, you know, wreak horror across the globe.

EDDY: But Bill, you're missing the focus of where terrorism is coming from. Look at the last three attacks. They're not coming from Zarqawi. They're home grown attacks.

O'REILLY: No, I know what you're saying. They're home grown guys. They're jihadists. They're going to kill people for no reason. But the symbolic victory, surely you guys understand that, of getting an al-Zarqawi or a bin Laden (search), that's huge.

EDDY: Sure. But it makes them a martyr at the same time. You can't win the game.

O'REILLY: So what? Put his head on a stake.

EDDY: Sure.

O'REILLY: What about Pakistan? I mean, Pakistan is harboring these guys. I mean, you know, we're playing footsie with them. Saudi Arabia, same thing. Playing footsie with them. Doctor?

GARDINER: Well, I think increasingly a focus will be upon rogue regimes that back international terrorism: Syria, Iran, for example.

But you're absolutely right about al-Zarqawi. We have to track him down. We have to kill him. He has become a symbol of Al Qaeda's international network. He has to be defeated. And I think that is a clear reason why several thousand more British troops are needed in Iraq to fight the battle in and around Baghdad and in the Sunni Triangle (search).

O'REILLY: What did you think when the New York Times (search) called al- Zarqawi a, quote, "Jordanian fighter," unquote?

GARDINER: An absolute joke. Zarqawi is a monstrous, brutal thug who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians.

O'REILLY: Why would the most prestigious newspaper in America — and I believe the New York Times still holds that title — why would they do that?

GARDINER: I think that, unfortunately, there are all too many people in both the United States and the United Kingdom who are willing to appease international terrorists instead of taking them on. We are engaged in a war, not in a law and order exercise. We have to go out and aggressively hunt down these terrorists and destroy them.

O'REILLY: Last word from you?

EDDY: Well, let's figure out what this means for the United States. It's time to get strong on prevention. It's time to realize that terrorists actually can emerge in the countries they attack. And that means we have to have — we have to increase the amount of funding we give to police officers so they can look for bad guys.

O'REILLY: You want to put more training on the local level.

EDDY: Absolutely. I don't want them to be just the cleanup crew. I want them to be the prevention crew.

O'REILLY: Mr. Eddy, thank you very much.

Doctor, as always, we appreciate it.

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