Video & Transcript: Hugo Chavez Interview with CNN's Larry King!

On September 24, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was the guest on Larry King's CNN talkshow. In this interview, Chavez offered thoughts from the United States to Iran; from oil politics to the Gaza War; from his thoughts about assassination to his wishes when he was a child.

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LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, Venezuela's outspoken, headline making president Hugo Chavez. He called George W. Bush "The Devil" and now says it seems there are two Barack Obamas.

He counts Iran, Cuba, Syria and Libya as allies. He spends billions buying weapons from Russia and sells a whole a lot of oil to the United States. He's also the star of a new Oliver Stone documentary.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez for the hour is next on LARRY KING LIVE.

Good evening.

From the Venezuelan Mission, about a block from the United Nations, it's our pleasure to welcome to LARRY KING LIVE, President Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela.

He addressed the United Nations a short time ago.

The president of the United States addressed the U.N. earlier.

And he said, Mr. President, he's calling for a new era in world relations.

What sort of relationship do you want now with the United States?

HUGO CHAVEZ, VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT (through translator unless otherwise noted): Hi, Larry -- or Larry King?

The King.

KING: Any way you want.

CHAVEZ: Well, us and the whole world, we want relations based on respect -- relations of peoples where we are respected. Most governments in the United States in a hundred years have not respected the peoples of Latin America. They have sponsored coup d'etats, assassinations.

It's enough. We want to be brothers and sisters. We want respect and equality. Simon Bolivar, our father, said a balanced world -- a universe -- a balanced universe in order to have peace and development.

KING: Do you expect it to be better with President Obama?

Of course, you called him -- now, you said there are two Obamas. Well, what do you mean?

CHAVEZ: I explained this already. We have an Obama that talks about peace yesterday, to sponsor peace, to promote peace. And one of the pillars of his foreign policy I accept this calling and we join him in this calling for peace.

However, there is another Obama -- the one who approved the installation of seven military bases. That's another Obama -- the Obama sponsoring war; using food and the presence of military officers and using the U.S. weaponry against Latin America. We want to see the Obama of peace.

I shook hands with that Obama. That's the Obama we want. The world needs a true leader, an Obama that promotes peace and understanding in the world.

KING: But don't you add to it when you call President Bush a devil or you call -- as you called President Obama once -- an ignoramus?

Don't you think that insults, Mr. President, don't harbor peace?

CHAVEZ: Well, if you talk about insults and name calling -- well, if we withdrawal the insults on those name calling, then we can have peace?

Well, we need to do that, but all of us.

Now, how Bush called me?

The U.S. -- the -- the Bush government toppled me. They asked for my assassination. They disrespected us.

We reply in the firm manner, in the hard manner, but it's not the way you call a president or a human being. I said today it doesn't smell sulfur anymore in the United Nations. I want that we have new winds -- winds of hope.

Now who has been insulted?

It's us. Bush aggressed and used the world.

KING: How do you know -- know -- how do you know they tried to assassinate you?

How do you know that?

CHAVEZ: I saw my assassins. At dawn, I was a prisoner in Venezuela, being a president. They took me to the seaside.

I was debating with those who wanted murder me. They received the order to kill me. However, at this very moment, a group of soldiers refused. They did not kill me, but I saw those who wanted to kill me and the order came from the White House. There is no doubt in my mind. The same thing as they ordered to kill Salvador Allende and to kill Che Guevara and to kill Ojeda Rios. And the same thing to bombard Panama, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic.

That's our history and we want a new time. We want peace.

KING: Be that as it may, true or not, that's the past. Let's look to today. You are spending billions buying new weapons, large amounts from Russia, reports say tanks and rockets.

Why does your country need all these weapons?

What is the threat to Venezuela?

CHAVEZ: Well, that's the story they are telling around. All countries have a defense system. The United States have one.

How much do you spend in weapons daily -- atomic bombs, steel planes?

Who his the country that is sponsoring war around the world?

Now, Larry, for a long time, Venezuela has bought these F-16 planes manufactured in the United States. They do not sell us, however, the spare parts. So most of them cannot fly. Transportation planes -- you don't sell us the spare parts; also, surveillance planes to fight against drug trafficking. The U.S. government does not sell us the spare parts.

Now we have resorted to other options, to have at least the minimum required for our defense. But who can accuse us of arms race, the United States?

KING: But who do you -- the United States...

CHAVEZ: That's ironical.

KING: The United States had a 9/11.

Who do you fear?

Who do fear is going -- what country is going to harm you?

CHAVEZ: What did you say?

KING: Who -- what country...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: What country do you fear will harm you?

CHAVEZ: The empire. The empire. Seven military bases, gringo military bases in Colombia. That's a serious threat against Venezuela. Let's see the reality. That's the reality. The Colombian government, for instance, attacked Ecuadorian territory a year ago based on the principles of the preventive wall -- the same used by Israel to attack the Gaza Strip.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserve and Venezuela has to defend itself. That's what we are doing.

Now, I repeat, who can criticize us, the United States?

On what grounds -- that Venezuela is equipped with the minimum required to defend itself to ensure it -- assure the sovereignty of its country?

Can you criticize that?

KING: We'll be right back with President Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, at the mission in New York.

Don't go away.

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KING: You're watching LARRY KING LIVE.

We're back with President Chavez of Venezuela.

Secretary Clinton, the secretary of State, says that she is worried about your country, that you could trigger a regional arms race. She wants to make sure that the weapons that you have don't end up with insurgent groups and drug traffickers.

Is she right to be worried?

CHAVEZ: I think she's totally lost.

KING: Lost?

CHAVEZ: And you should be concerned. Yes, she's lost. She -- she has lost her way and you should be concerned you didn't have attacks on this country. Your State secretary is totally lost. She is totally wrong.

I think the United States and the secretary of State should be concerned about the poverty in this country -- people without health insurance. The United States should stop being the empire and be concerned about other countries. You've got to be more worried about your own people.

Now, let me tell you this, Larry, in Venezuela, our defense budget -- and pay attention and I'll tell you this. Our defense budget is one of the lowest of the whole hemisphere. You know, Colombia has a very high defense budget thanks to the support of the U.S., the U.S. president, the Pentagon. Colombia has 10 times more -- spends -- expenditures in military weapons than Venezuela. Venezuela is half that amount. Do you know how we spend our money?

In education, health care, schools, culture. That's the core element of our policy. Now, you want to present us -- Chavez -- as the arms race. We want peace, culture, education, health. That's the core -- the center of our attention. Well, the secretary of State is totally lost in her analysis.

KING: But shouldn't -- based on what you say, shouldn't Colombia worry a little about you?

CHAVEZ: No. We have given Colombia affection or an open hand, open arms. I consider myself Colombian and I want for them the same thing I want for us because Colombia was -- they get wide homeland built by Bolivar. I consider myself Colombian. We want peace in Colombia.

And I said to Obama in Trinidad & Tobago, when he approached me to say hello and he was very gracious. And I told him, "Obama, why shouldn't we do something for Colombia? Let's open a key committee -- commission."

And now Obama has stolen bases in Colombia to promote death and war. He is wrong. Mrs. Clinton is wrong. Obama should be consistent with what he suggested, which is to promote peace.

KING: Do you support rebels in Colombia?

CHAVEZ: No. Of course not. Never. I endorsed peace in Colombia. Larry, the first time and the only time I met with guerilla leaders was at the request of the Colombian government, Pastrana, 10 years ago. He wanted peace. And now Uribe asked me to receive some insurgents in order to foster peace.

I want peace, peace, peace in Colombia. And I ask for help to -- to this country to achieve peace in Colombia.

KING: We'll be right back with President Chavez.

Don't go away.

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KING: We're back with President Chavez of Venezuela.

You have a close relationship with Iran. And there have been huge protests in Iran over the past election.

Why do you support a government who's had so much bloodshed, whose presidential election is in question?

Why do you support Iran?

CHAVEZ: Well, we support each other and we have the right to do that -- we do that. We are sovereign nations because we have an excellent cooperation relation in the field of health. We manufacture medicine, technology, technology transfer for food production in Venezuela, we're installing milk processing plants to develop agriculture, to produce food. We have political cooperation.

Now, the internal situation in Iran, that's an internal situation. I do not meddle in those internal situations in affairs in Iran. And the same thing with Iran. The same thing with the U.S. You have relations with many countries.

Are we going to blame the U.S. for having relations with dictators and monarchs?

Israel, for instance, the United States -- you support Israel and Israel is a genocidal government. Iran has not invaded anyone. The Iranians have a revolution. The previous leader was the shah. He -- this is democracy in Iran with the Islamic style. But you have to be respectful.

KING: Mr. President, you said in Tehran on a recent trip that the Iranian government was going to help your government develop nuclear technology.

Why -- why do you need nuclear technology?

CHAVEZ: I've never said -- they have fooled you. I've never said that Iran is going to help us to have nuclear technology. We -- there is the opinion -- and that's a strategy -- to attack Venezuela and say that we are building an atomic bomb. That's the next accusation.

And I'm going to say this now. Please, come on. That's crazy. That's crazy.

Now, I tell you, right, you don't destroy your nuclear arms -- and those people who could criticize who have those weapons. Obama said that they want a world without nuclear arms. Let me tell you this, we have signed with Russia -- with Russia, with Medvedev, a mechanism to develop, in Venezuela, nuclear energy -- nuclear energy. That is not a bomb, but energy.

Who manufactures the bombs and -- the nuclear bombs?

The United States and then other countries.

Who launched the nuclear bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

We want -- Brazil does and Argentina, France and many other countries -- we want to develop the nuclear technology for medicine, to develop energy, because one day, we will run out of oil. You don't see it. Our grandchildren might see it. We need to invest in technology to generate alternatives of energy. Nuclear energy is an alternative.

KING: We'll be right back with President Chavez of Venezuela.

Don't go away.

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KING: Now there is something curious, Mr. President. You are friends with Iran and Cuba, Libya and Syria -- countries that are not friends with us.

Do you, just honestly, do you want to be friends with the United States?

CHAVEZ: Russia is not an enemy of the U.S. Libya is not an enemy. Iran, well, they have been aggressed by the United States and threatened by the United States. I want to be friends of everybody, Larry. I don't care about the internal political system of the United States. I want to be a friend of United States, of its baseball, its institutions, its rock and roll, its workers and its technology because we need it. I want to be friends of the Arab people, of the Persian people, of the Asian people. I was just talking to the president of Vietnam. We need to know those worlds in the world, what different worlds. We need to be respectful and we need to learn to live in this world despite differences.

KING: Why do you -- you denounce Israel, which is not in your part of the world. You -- you support the president of Iran. He denies that there was a Holocaust. Now, come on. You know there was a Holocaust.

CHAVEZ: Yes. But there also was another holocaust in South America. I do not deny the Jewish Holocaust and I condemn it. But in South America, when the Europeans arrived, there were close to 90 million Indians. Two hundred years later, we only had four million remaining. That was an holocaust. And the Europeans denied this holocaust. So we did have -- we might have different approaches. But you cannot demonize something because of their ideas.

How many did that -- believe that?

I do not believe this. I defend my ideas. But you cannot condemn someone because of his ideas or their approaches.

What happened in Gaza?

(AUDIO GAP)

Jimmy Carter.

They killed how many children in Jakarta?

What is that?

Genocide. Thousands of families destroyed with bombs and towns. That's crazy. That's a genocide. In Africa, there was a genocide. Millions died.

KING: You do not think Israel is a beleaguered country?

Small little Israel, surrounded by enemies, is not a beleaguered country? CHAVEZ: A small country with atomic bombs and very aggressive country who invaded the Golan Heights. And he had to give them back to Syria. They have massacred entire families. It is a war-mongering country. And I discuss the Israeli people and the Jewish people that live in Venezuela. They are my friends. I respect them. I've prayed with them, respecting their beliefs, as I respect the Islam -- Islamic people.

One thing is this the Israeli people, another thing those who kill people. They have no mercy.

Did you read the statement of an Israeli officer recently?

He regretted what they did against Gaza last year because they killed everybody -- children, elderly, women.

KING: Are we ever going to have peace?

Are we ever going to have peace?

CHAVEZ: Yes, we want peace. Of course we want peace.

KING: We'll be back with the President of Venezuela in a moment.

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KING: We're at the Venezuelan Mission next to the U.N. in New York City with President Chavez of Venezuela.

Your country, of course, very rich in oil. In fact, you claim to have the biggest oil reserves in the world. You're a larger of exporter world -- of oil, rather -- to this country, the United States.

Doesn't your economy need America?

CHAVEZ: We all need America. America needs us. And we need America. That's for sure. Yes, we are large oil exporters.

KING: Isn't it in your best interests to treat -- to have a peace with America, to be in concert with America?

I mean you're interdependent.

CHAVEZ: Yes, of course. No doubt. In my first government, I had good relations with the Clintons. I came to the White House. We met here in New York several times. We spoke on the phone. And I said to Obama and I said to Mrs. Clinton in Trinidad, we want -- I want to be as close with you as I was with Mr. Clinton. The thing is that Bush destroyed everything with the coup d'etat, with the sabotage. He ordered my assassination. They destabilized Venezuela, following Bush's orders. We want with Obama to come back to the Clintonian times. Despite all the problems with Bush, we always sent you 1.5 million barrels of oil. And we have here in United States Citgo that processes two million barrels a day. And they provide 10,000 gas stations in the United States. And they have the program to help the poor and the needy. Providing heating oil to the poor and need here because poverty is very important in United States.

KING: Will you ever cut off oil to the United States?

CHAVEZ: I didn't do this the time of Bush. I would never do this now. But even during the coup, that's my commitment. And we send oil to our oil company here. That's business. And we are sending oil over to China, to Europe, to the Caribbean, to South America. Venezuela, Larry, our reserve, could last 150 years.

Once we run out of oil on this earth, there will be four or five countries with available oil: Russia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The world will depend on us and we want to entertain the best relations investing in resources to be able to sustain and to meet the large energy needs of the world.

The United States do not have the reserves required. We want to have good relations with the US.

KING: With all your oil, why aren't you doing better economically? Why is there poverty in your country and unemployment? With all the oil you have, you should be dominant.

CHAVEZ: Well, let me tell you this. Venezuela, when I became president, poverty in Venezuela was almost 60 percent. Today, it's below 30. We met the millennium goal. Extreme poverty was 24 percent, now it's seven percent, and it keeps on going down. Unemployment was close to 20 percent. Now it's close to six percent, better than the US. Here, unemployment has increased.

The world crisis has not affected us. We have improved employment. The -- and child mortality has improved. And I know that you are a generous person. You have a foundation to help children suffering from heart diseases. I invite you to visit our heart hospital, built by the revolution in Caracas, the biggest of the hemisphere. We are operating 1,500 children every year, free of charge.

We have a health care system that's taking care of 15 million inhabitants and there's free distribution of food, donated to the poor people. And it serves 40 percent of the population. Venezuela has changed in a dramatic fashion. We have distributed the income.

KING: More with Hugo Chavez right after this.

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KING: We're back with President Chavez. We're in New York City.

In February, you won a referendum that lifts term limit. Some fear that you are power-hungry and you want to be president for life. Is that true?

CHAVEZ: No. I want to serve my country as long as my people want. We had a referendum and this is a constitution that's being enforced for 10 years. We have created a participatory democracy, moving away from the liberal democracy -- the democracy of the rich and the elite against the poor. The people decided to amend the constitution, and opening the possibility not only for the president, but also to the mayors, to governors, to the deputies. They can be elected without time limits.

KING: You are a full democracy?

CHAVEZ: Full democracy, no. A democracy in development, in progress. We want to have more democracy and hopefully one day we achieve full democracy.

KING: President Carter -- who you recently mentioned favorably -- said recently that you were becoming too authoritarian. He made the remarks in the Colombian newspaper "El Tiempo". He said that, "Chavez is consolidating all political power in his office at the expense of an independent judiciary." True?

CHAVEZ: Yes, I read that and I regret for him, because I think he's totally confounded and lost. It's a long time since he visited us. I respect him enormously, but I think he is wrong. He's a victim of so much falsehood in the world. He knew Venezuela before Chavez, when there was extraordinary power concentration.

We are distributing power. We need to transfer power to the people. We are creating the people's power, and I wish he visits us and see the communities -- the communities, the -- he's wrong. No one is perfect, of course.

KING: You're inviting him to --

CHAVEZ: I invite him because he's a serious person and I'm concerned that he's totally wrong now.

KING: How about silencing your critics, Mr. President? Fears you're going to shut down Global Vision, the remaining independent television station in Venezuela. In fact, some say that is a certainty, you're going to close down that television. Are you?

CHAVEZ: It's not the last independent network in Venezuela. We have hundreds of independent networks in Venezuela. Independents are those who do not belong to the state. I mean, they are not independent. They depend on the owners, of course. They are not independent. There is no freedom of speech.

Now, I said to journalists a while ago, never in Venezuela we had so much freedom of speech as now. You know Chomsky, right? He went to visit us recently. Some Venezuelan media supported openly the coup d'etat. They have called for my assassination, such as Pat Robinson said had to be murdered. They repeat the same thing.

Chomsky said that in the United States, some networks like your network, for instance, where you work, they call for a coup d'etat and to murder the president.

KING: CNN called for this? Are you saying my network did that?

CHAVEZ: No, no, no. In case you say such a thing, you do such a thing, Chomsky said what would happen in the United States if something like that happened. Not only they will be closed down, but they will be put in the electric chair.

KING: Didn't you close 32 radio stations?

CHAVEZ: Not at all. That's a lie. Again, that's a lie.

KING: Are you --

CHAVEZ: Listen. Listen, there is a law. You accept that there is a law, right? If I have a car, I drive my car in New York and I go against the -- the rules, the traffic rules, I'm going to be detained. If I want to drive in a -- in a -- in a street in New York 120 miles, I will commit a crime. And there is a law in Venezuela, those who break the law, they lose their right to use the -- these networks, because they break the law. But in our country, we have hundreds of radio stations.

KING: Yes or no, my original question -- are you going to close Global Vision?

CHAVEZ: I do not know. It depends on them. If they keep on sponsoring coup d'etats, if they keep on calling for my assassination, if they keep on breaching the law even as well, it is not Chavez that's going to close them. I want to apply the law. We need to respect the law. It is the law. It's out of logic, and it's pure logic.

KING: Back with more right after this.

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KING: We're back with Hugo Chavez. We're at the Mission in New York of Venezuela. He visited here and spoke to the U.N. earlier today.

Your friendship with Fidel Castro, very close?

CHAVEZ: Profound, very, extremely close. He's like a father to me, like a father, a political father. I admire him enormously. He is one of the greatest men of the 20th and the 21st century of this hemisphere and of the world.

KING: And he is a communist.

CHAVEZ: And what's wrong about that?

KING: You'd like -- you're not a communist. You don't support.

CHAVEZ: I am a socialist. Now, I prefer him as a communist than to the capitalist. I have friends who are capitalists. I'm not going to condemn them because they are capitalists.

Fidel, beyond his political ideas, he's a visionary. Fidel, he's the father of the Latin America revolution, and his ideas today are more alive than ever. I do not know if you have the time to read Fidel's reflections. It is a book now, and he is writing now that he has retired -- profound reflections on philosophy, the need to care about the environment of the planet.

And through socialism it's -- Fidel's path is the way to save the planet. It's not through capitalism that was born here in the United States.

You should reflect upon this. It is capitalism that was to blame for the great evils in this world, that was to blame for the crisis of this country and the rest of the planet. This socialism is going to save this planet. Rosa Luxemburg said socialism or barbarism.

KING: But Cuba has been oppressive. It has many political prisoners. You know that.

CHAVEZ: Cuba has a political system. It is a revolution. There are prisoners like you find them elsewhere. In Cuba there are election. People deny the truth about Cuba. In Cuba you have a people --

KING: All right. I got to get a break.

CHAVEZ: OK. OK.

KING: We'll be right back.

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KING: Back with President Chavez. What happens to Cuba after Fidel? I know he's not -- I know Raul now is charge, but basically what happens when Fidel goes?

CHAVEZ: Well, I think Cuba has a path already set. I know Cuba pretty well. Fidel is no longer in power. Its Raul, and Cuba keeps on building its socialism. Let's leave them alone.

Obama should -- as we requested him, all of us -- stop the embargo against Cuba. And Lula said this yesterday, and I said this today. It is absurd to block a country that becomes part of the 16th century. Obama should stop the embargo against Cuba. Let's leave them alone.

There are five Cubans in prison here for fighting against terror. Here in the U.S. there is a Cuban born prisoner who was the father of terrorism, and he is here protected. I've been asking for the -- requesting for him to go back to Venezuela.

And Posada Carriles, he has planted a bomb in a plane, and they killed a group of Cuban spokespersons, so I need to use this opportunity to ask Obama, President Obama, extradite the terrorist, Posada Carriles, to Venezuela. We are waiting for him. And comply with international law.

KING: Do you want to export your socialism? Do you want to spread to other countries, the Chavez socialism?

CHAVEZ: No. There is no Chavez socialism. That is ridiculous. Each country has its own sovereignty. Country has its own people, its own ideas, its own leaders. Each country should fill its own destiny. That's essential. That's part of the sovereignty of the people.

Venezuela has decided in democracy and in peace to go on the path of socialism. That's our right. We have the best of relations with all the -- the countries of the hemisphere, except for Colombia and the U.S., and that's regrettable.

But I am a good friend of -- friend of countries that speak several languages. We have good relations with all those countries, and we respect each other. There's no plan to export. We are exporting oil. That's yes. And we want to export chemical products and all that, but not the revolution.

KING: In our limited time left, some personal questions. What do you like about the United States?

CHAVEZ: Baseball. The people. Yesterday, I walked a little bit in New York. And the Secret Service people have been very gracious, very efficient, and very attentionate (ph), very kind. We walked with him -- with them, and we saw a group of people, women, elderly people greeting us. I love America the way I like Russia, Venezuela, Argentina. This is part of the world.

I like music. Yesterday, I met a lady who sings rock and roll, and we kissed. And I love the movies. Yesterday we went to see Oliver Stone and a group of actors -- Danny Glover. I love the movies. I was telling a person there that I love the movies of this guy Charles Bronson. I love this actor. Excellent actor. He died when he was very young, still young.

These are the most adventures. And baseball, the Yankee Stadium, Walt Whitman. I love those.

KING: All right. You've convinced me. We'll be back with our remaining moments with Hugo Chavez right after this.

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KING: Some other notes before you leave us.

Would you invite our president to Venezuela?

CHAVEZ: Of course. Of course. I invite him any time. When we met, I told him, "Obama, I gave this hand to Bush eight years ago and I told him the same thing I'm telling you, I want to be your friend."

I wish him to -- to be with us. I met a number of trade union leaders and they asked me to buy a cracker factory. And we want to have the best of relations -- economic, social -- with these great countries, but not with an empire.

So I invite Obama, no problem. KING: Truth -- would you rather here have been a Major League baseball player than president of Venezuela?

CHAVEZ: It was my dream. It was my dream. I would have preferred, personally, to do that. However, since you do not decide what you're going to do. I went to the army because I wanted to be a baseball player. I became a soldier.

Then Venezuela just shattered and the -- the wind that found me president. But I am still that young baseball player who wanted to play in the Yankee Stadium.

KING: Would you rather have been a singer?

CHAVEZ: I love to sing. Well, I'm not a very good singer. Of course, a poet. I love poetry, singing, culture.

KING: Are you, then, misunderstood?

The image of you in America, are we wrong?

CHAVEZ: I'm just a man with many defects. I love. I sing. I dream. I was born in the countryside. I was raised in the countryside. (INAUDIBLE) manufactured by my grandmother. I loved to live -- to live. My children -- my two daughters are with me. And I want a better world for my grandchildren, for your grandchildren.

Now, they demonize me. But that's the start of these world campaigns to try to defend what you cannot defend, a system that is destroying the world. What we want -- what -- this is what I wanted. I'm a Christian. I want the world of justice and equality. This is the only way to achieve peace.

I was an altar boy. My mother wanted me to be a priest. I am very Christian and Catholic.

KING: Do you have faith?

CHAVEZ: Oh, a lot of faith, yes. I'm very faithful. I believe in God, in Jesus Christ. I love Jesus Christ. I am a Christian. And I feel like the cross of Jesus Christ, a world of injustice, inequities. I cry when I see injustice and justice -- people, children die of hunger. And you -- you see that -- you see that. I know you do. You feel the pain of others.

I'm faithful that there will be a better world. That's why I said today, it doesn't smell sulfur anyone. I want to smell a different world -- hope, faith, peace. We need to unite. The United States should unite with the South American countries to produce food, medicine, to fight against poverty, to take people out of poverty. That's our goal.

KING: We're, sadly, out of time.

I thank you.

CHAVEZ (Speaking English): Larry -- Larry King. Larry the king.

Larry the king.

Larry the king.

KING: The king.

EA Exclusive: Iran and Venezuela are Going to Kill Us All

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UPDATE 0635 GMT: Ohmygod, this must be totally true because the editorial page of The Washington Post just said so . How do they know? Well, because of thorough investigative reporting which ventured as far as down the street: "The opening of Venezuela's banks to the Iranians guarantees the continued development of nuclear technology and long-range missiles," Mr. Morgenthau said in a briefing this week in Washington at the Brookings Institution. "The mysterious manufacturing plants, controlled by Iran deep in the interior of Venezuela, give even greater concern."

So says Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau in The Wall Street Journal:

With the groundwork laid years ago, we are entering a period where the fruits of the Iran-Venezuela bond will begin to ripen.

That means two of the world's most dangerous regimes, the self-described "axis of unity," will be acting together in our backyard on the development of nuclear and missile technology. And it seems that terrorist groups have found the perfect operating ground for training and planning, and financing their activities through narco-trafficking.

The Iranian nuclear and long-range missile threats, and creeping Iranian influence in the Western Hemisphere, cannot be overlooked.

Now this statement has angered some old Lefties, like a Mr Robert Dreyfuss of the scandal rag The Nation, who is pictured at right because he looks a bit like a Communist:

This is both creepy and conspiratorial, with almost no facts, and full of rhetoric and dark insinuations.

Picky, picky Mr Dreyfuss. Because we know that it is a trait of devious Marxist-Islamofascist-terrorist-New Axis of Evil bad people to put words like "evidence" and "proof" as obstacles before assertions which are undoubtedly true because we say so.

We have no doubt, therefore, that the jurisdiction of the District Attorney now encompasses not only part of New York City but also Iranian nuclear facilities and that he has obtained the authority to conduct extensive investigations in Caracas. We are not distracted by the inconvenience that the District Attorney has never presented a single document in court to establish an Iranian-Venezuelan connection, because this is, as Morgenthau say, "information developed by my office" and no doubt kept in a super-secret sugar jar underneath the office coffeepot.

And we dismiss any flimsy Leftie challenges that the District Attorney seems to be investigating a Persian Gulf country with no nuclear bomb, linked to a Latin American country with no nuclear bomb, rather than a Middle East country with at least 150 nuclear bombs receiving billions in military aid from a North American country with loads and loads of nuclear bombs/planes/ships/submarines/missiles.

Because Evil is as Good says. Deal with that, you lover of Mr Chavez Ahmadinejad Marx Stalin Hitler Michael Moore.

Video, Transcript, and Analysis: Gates Interview with Al Jazeera (7 September)

On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke to Al Jazeera on a range of issues including the situation in Iraq, the Iran nuclear progamme, the "necessary war" in Afghanistan, the role of Pakistan in the region, and the ties of United States with Latin America.



The most critical point Gates made was on the Iranian pursuit of uranium enrichment. It appears that the US is trying to neutralise Israeli opposition to a peace process with the "threat" of Palestine by offering an incentive of dealing with the greater "threat" from Iran. Washington will lead a political campaign rallying Arab states against Tehran's ambitions if Israel in turn meets some of the Arab concerns by engaging in genuine discussions with the Palestinian Authority:

I think there's a central question or a central point here to be made and it has to do both with our friends and allies in the region, our Arab allies, as well as the Iranian nuclear programme, and that is one of the pathways, to get the Iranians to change their approach on the nuclear issue, is to persuade them that moving down that path will actually jeopardise their security, not enhance it.

So the more that our Arab friends and allies can straighten their security capabilities, the more they can strengthen their co-operation, both with each other and with us, I think sends the signal to the Iranians that this path they're on is not going to advance Iranian security but in fact could weaken it.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Q - There are rumblings of discontent with the war in Afghanistan among many Americans. Is that cause for concern to you personally as secretary of defence?

Americans know that our country has been at war for a number of years ever since we were attacked in 2001.

Obviously we've lost a lot of our young men and women in combat, not to mention the casualties in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania on September 11.

And so there is a sort of war awareness on the part of the American people.

By the same token, I believe that they and members of our congress vividly remember that it was from Afghanistan that the attack was launched.

And that the Taliban did not just provide a safe haven for al-Qaeda, but actively co-operated with them, colluded with them and provided them with a worldwide base of operations.

And so I think the American people know that we have to work with the Afghan government and people so that they can establish control over their own territory and prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for al-Qaeda in the future.

The reality is also that al-Qaeda has killed many more Muslims than it has Americans, Europeans and others.

So this is a challenge we all face and I am confident the American people will sustain their committment to help the Afghan people.

Q - How much is the US in a pickle in Afghanistan?

I think the picture is mixed. It's clear that the Taliban have had success in reinfiltrating back into the country.

They have intimidated a lot of Afghans. And so we and our allies and a lot of the security forces, clearly have our work cut out for us.

The situation is serious, but General [Stanley] McChrystal and, I must say, the Afghan defence minister [Abdul Rahim] Wardak have told me that we can be successful.

Q - In light of the US attack in Kunduz, which resulted in the killing of many civilian Afghans, how much of a real problem are civilian deaths in Afghanistan?

I think it's a real problem, and General McChrystal thinks it's a real problem too.

Clearly, we regret any loss of civilian life in Afghanistan, and I've addressed this issue while in Afghanistan as well in the United States. And one of the central themes of General McChrystal's new approach in Afghanistan is significant change in our tactical approach to try and minimise the number of innocent civilians that are killed.

So he has changed the rules in terms of air power. He has issued a directive that convoys obey Afghan traffic laws, and, in fact, that our troops take some additional risk to themselves to avoid innocent Afghan casualties.

Part of the challenge here is that the Taliban actively target innocent civilians and they also create circumstances where they mingle among innocent civilians.

And they are willing to put innocent civilians at risk.

But we are trying to figure out new tactics that minimise this.

But it is a challenge. Central to the success of the 42 nations that are trying to help the Afghan people and government at this point is that the Afghan people continue to believe that we are their friends, their partners and here to help them.

So civilian casualties are a problem for us and we are doing everything conceivable to try and avoid that.

I think that based on the latest polling that we have, nationwide, in Afghanistan, fewer than 10 per cent of the people support the Taliban.

The Taliban's approach is one principally of intimadation of villagers and others, and Afghans don't want to live under those circumstances. They don't want to live under the Taliban rule again.

While they may not actively support the US, neither do they support the Taliban.

The Afghan people have been at war for over 30 years. What they want is peace and security. Over time, we and all of the international community with us, along with the Afghan security forces, are in a position to try to bring that to them.

Q - Do you think saying the US is in Afghanistan to help the people holds water despite the fact that Afghans have traditionally been hostile to foreign forces in their country? In the past they rejected occupation, first by the British and later on by the Soviets, for example.

I think that the historical rejection of foreign powers has been because the Afghan people have come to see those powers, whether it's Britain or the Soviet Union or anyone else, as being there for their own imperial interests, rather than being there in the interests in the Afghan people.

We have no interest in a permanent presence in Afghanistan; no interest in bases in Afghanistan.

What our interest is, is in giving the Afghan people the capacity to protect its own people and to prevent Afghanistan from being a centre for violent extremists again. And then we'll leave.

And I think that's an important message from us to the Afghan people. We want to give them the capacity to protect their own security as well as the security of other nations around the world from threats emanating from Afghanistan, and then we'll be gone.

Q - When Barack Obama said the war in Afghanistan was a war of necessity, did he say that because he knew it could be a winnable situation or because if he said otherwise and he talked about exiting Afghanistan, people would say President Obama does not have what it takes to look after the national security concerns of Americans?

I do not believe that President Obama would have made trhe committment he has made if he did not believe we could achieve our objectives in Afghanistan, which as I have described are giving them the capacity to secure their own territory and prevent al-Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan.

If he didn't think, he could achieve those objectives, I don't believe he would have committed the additional forces he has, or made the statement in support of the strategy as he did a few weeks ago.

Q - So you think the war in Afghanistan is winnable?

I don't like to speak in terms of winning or losing. I think we need to speak in terms of achieving our objectives.

This is not just about the United States, it's about the Afghan government and people, about dozens of nations and nongovernmental organisations that are in Afghanistan that all share the same objectives that I have just described.

Which is to bring peace and security to the Afghan people and to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a haven for violent extremists.

I think that those objectives are achievable and I think that's the way we ought to think about it.

Q - There is a debate about the level of US troops in Afghanistan. Some people say to secure the gains the US makes in Afghanistan, the troop level needs to be increased. Others say the more you increase the level of troops, the more you increase the targets for the Taliban.

We are not yet beginning to think about significant troops in Afghanistan.

The next step for us is to evaluate General McChrystal's assessment of the situation and the way he intends to implement the president's strategy going forward. And once we've done that, then we will look at the question of whether additional resources are needed to achieve those objectives.

I have been concerned about ... I have had a number of reservations about the number of US troops.

One of those is - as we were just talking - about whether our forces come to be seen by the Afghans at some point as occupiers rather than partners.

General McChrystal's point, which I think has great validity, is: it's really how those forces are used and how they interact with the Afghan people that determines how they are seen by the Afghans.

And I think that the approach that he has taken, in terms of partnering with the Afghans, and interacting with the Afghan people, and supporting them, mitigates the concerns that I had.

There are issues on both sides of [the argument] and, frankly, I haven't made up my own mind at this point, in terms of whether more forces are needed.

Q - So, as far as you are concerned, thinking about withdrawing the US militarily from Afghanistan, even thinking about it, is out of the question?

That's my view.

Q - This takes me back to the original point you made about 9/11. President Bush made the original decision to go to war in Afghanistan, which he did, and then subsequently made the decision to go to war in Iraq, opening himself to criticism that he diverted crucial attention from Afghanistan to Iraq. And yet, now we have President Obama saying that it is a war of necessity. A lot of people would argue it was a war of necessity then, but having moved away from it, then come back to it again, it's become a war of choice.

It is a matter of first of all, this gets very tied up into US politics and the controversies of the war in Iraq and so on. I think that success in achieiving our objectives in Afghanistan has been a consistent theme since 2002, for both the Bush administration and the Obama administration.

I think President Obama would say as you suggested that our attention was diverted by Iraq and now it is important to focus, again, on the situation in Afghanistan, and the truth is the situation in Afghanistan has changed, and it really began to change in 2005 and 2006.

Frankly, when agreements were reached on the Pakistani side of the border, it essentially relieved the pressure from the Pakistan side, on the Taliban who were then in Pakistan.

And so we have seen a steady increase in violence that really began late in 2005 and early 2006, and the Taliban have gotten better and better over that time.

You also now have alliances of convenience between the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Haqqani network, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar - his group - and al-Qaeda. So it is now perhaps a more complex situation than it was in 2002.

But in terms of the determination to deal with this problem and partner with the Afghans in achieving these objectives, the president is absolutely firm.

Q - When you say the situation now is much more complex, to what extent is that synonymous with saying we, US politicians, missed the bandwagon?

The way I would phrase it, and the way we have phrased, it is that we did not provide the resources in Afghanistan early enough to stem this change in the situation in 2005 and 2006.

And we have to speak frankly: because of the troop commitments in Iraq, we didn't have the resources to move in reinforcements if you will as the situation in Afghanistan began to deteriorate.

When I first arrived in this job, I extended one brigade in Afghanistan in January 2007 and added another brigade later in spring 2007 but that was really about all the resources that we had at that time.

As we have drawn down in Iraq, more capability has become available.

Q - I would like to ask you about the 'shenanigans' with the news agency Associated Press over the publication of the picture of the dead US marine. Doesn't that put you in a difficult position, leaving you open to the accusation of infringing or violating freedom of expression?

I have, in a letter that I sent to the head of the Associated Press, I said this is not a matter of law, this is not a matter of policy, this is not a constitutional issue, this is a question of judgement, of common decency, and out of respect for the family.

What I asked was, that they defer to the wishes of the family that these pictures of their maimed and stricken child not be provided the newspaper all over the United States. They chose to go ahead and do it anyway.

Q - And you are not concerned that this may have been interpreted as an infringement on the freedom of press?

No I don't think. There is no question, no issue of infringement of the freedom of the press whatsoever. I was asking them, I didn't pressure them, I didn't threaten them.

All I did was ask the. In fact, the words that I used with the head of the Associated Press was that "I beg you to defer to the wishes of the father of this marine".

That's all I asked. That's not an infringement of the freedom of the press. That's an appeal to common decency.

Q - [Washington Post columnist] George Will recently wrote about Pakistan, saying that it is the country that really matters. What do you make of that, given that the implications are that Afghanistan does not really matter, that the US should get out of Afghanistan?

Pakistan is very important. It is important intrinsically to the United States.

We have been a friend of Pakistan's for a long time and an ally of Pakistan's. We've had a very close relationship and we look forward to building that relationship, going forward completely independent of Afghanistan.

I think one of the new aspects of the president's strategy with respect to Afghanistan is the recognition that the problem we face there, we and the Afghans, is a regional problem.

And as we've seen in recent months, it is a problem that the Pakistani government faces and so I think Pakistan clearly is important.

It is important in its own right to the United States, as a friend and ally, but it is also important in terms of violent extremists that cross back and forth across that border and put both the government of Afghanistan and the government of Pakistan at risk.

Q - Given the difficulties that successive Pakistani civilian governments have had, how dependable, from a US point of view, do you think the current government in Pakistan is, in terms of being able to deal not only with the volatility of Pakistan but also the regional volatility, Afghanistan, India and so forth?

I think if you look back, 15 or 16 months, the Pakistani government has performed admirably.

No one I think would have predicted the political consensus that has emerged in Pakistan in terms of the effort to take on these violent extremists in the North West Frontier Province, in the Fata [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] and in that area.

I think people would not have predicted the success of the Pakistani army. I think people would not have predicted the success in the Pakistani government's effective dealing with internally displaced persons as a result of a military operation and how many of them have returned to Swat and how effective the Pakistani government has been in this respect.

So all of that is simply to say I believe that the Pakistani government, both the civilian side and the military side, have performed better than almost anyone's expectations in the region, or in this country, or elsewhere, and we are very impressed by that and we are prepared to be helpful, to help the Pakistanis in any way we can.

Q - Given the serious misgivings that the United States had in the past about the role of Pakistani intelligence, in terms of dealing with the Taliban, there were accusations to the Pakistani intelligence at that time that they were actually lending a hand of support to the Taliban. Are you 100 per cent satisfied now that that has stopped and that you, the US, the Pakistani military and the Pakistani civilian government are all in the same trench, working for the same goal?

First of all, I believe we are in the same trench, working for the same goal.

I think you have to go back a little bit in history. I was very much involved in the American effort 20, 25 years ago in co-operation with Pakistan to support the muhajidin in Afghanistan when they were fighting against the Soviet Union.

One of the vehicles that we used in that effort was the connection between the Pakistani intelligence and various muhajidin groups within Afghanistan.

So these relationships with groups in Afghanistan and with Pakistanis go back a long way and at that time we were very productive and very useful.

My own view is that the connections were maintained largely as a hedge because the Pakistanis are very concerned about the stability of their border area and about the stability of Afghanistan and they weren't sure whether we would continue our efforts in Afghanistan.

So I believe we're on the same page, I believe we're working for the same goals. I have a lot of confidence in the Pakistanis.

Q - Basically the implication of what you're saying is that the United States will not do again what it did after the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, which is to cut loose and leave the regional players to fend for themselves, undermining the credibility of the US in that part of Asia?

I think that's absolutely right. And I have to say I was in the American government at the time we did that and it was a serious strategic mistake.

As soon as the Soviets left Afghanistan, we turned our backs on Afghanistan and we did not cultivate our relationship with the Pakistanis properly. And so I think we gave rise to doubts in the region about whether we are prepared to stay there and be their partner on a continuous basis, and I believe we've learned our lesson and that both Afghanistan and Pakistan can count on us for the long term.

Q - In terms of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, you are absolutely categorically sure that there is no risk that they may fall into the wrong hands given the pressures that the Taliban in Afghanistan are exerting not just on the Pakistanis but also on the United States in Pakistan?

I'm quite comfortable that the security arrangements for the Pakistani nuclear capabilities are sufficient and adequate.

Q - What sort of guarantees do you have to cover that?

I would say it's based both on our own understanding of the security arrangements that the Pakistanis have for their weapons and their capabilities, their laboratories and so on. But also the insurances we have been given by the Pakistanis.

Q - Were you baffled by President Obama's envoy Richard Holbrooke, when he was asked how he would measure progress and he said 'we will know it when we see it'?

I probably would have answered the question differently.

Q - How would you have answered it?

I would have answered it: I believe that success or progress will be as when we see the Afghan national security forces, the army and the police, assuming a greater and greater role in security operations protecting Afghanistan and the Afghan people, so that we can recede, first into an advisory role and then leave altogether.

So in some way, it's somehow comparable to the situation in Iraq where our role has become less and less prominent, where the Iraqis have taken a more and more prominent role protecting their own security, and I think that will be one way we will be able to measure success in Afghanistan as we see the Afghan security forces taking a more and more prominent and leading role in protecting their own security.

Q - In the latest press conference that you gave, together with Admiral Mike Mullen, you talked about the analogies people often make between Afghanistan and Iraq. You said that the fundamental difference is that in Iraq there has been a strong central government but in Afghanistan, there has never been a strong central government. And in terms of fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, that's obviously making your work a lot more difficult. How confident are you that the Iraqi central government, led by Nuri al-Maliki, at the present time, can hold the country together after you leave?

I think we have real confidence that they can do that and I think the best evidence that a sense of Iraqi nationalism has returned is that al-Qaeda has made very strong efforts in recent weeks and months to try and provoke a renewal of the sectarian violence between the Sunnis and the Shias in Iraq through suicide bombers, and what has been interesting and encouraging is that they have failed in that effort.

The Shia understand this is al-Qaeda trying to provoke that kind of a conflict and they're having none (...) so there has not been any renewal of sectarian violence.

Our generals have very high regard of the Iraqi army and, increasingly, Iraqi police, and I think we would not have felt comfortable agreeing to the arrangements we have to pull out of Iraqi cities, and to put a deadline on the withdrawal of American combat troops, if we didn't have confidence in the Iraqis. I think [commander of US forces in Iraq] General [Ray] Odierno would say they have developed better and faster than he would have anticipated.

So we are very encouraged by the developments in Iraq with respect to the security situation despite these suicide bombings that we think are mostly the efforts of al-Qaeda.

Q - A lot of the people in the region will look at Iraq post-2003, now that you say al-Qaeda has been trying to stoke up sectarian strife in Iraq. A lot of people will look at 2003, and at what the United States did post 2003, and say: Actually that was the engine of sectarian strife in Iraq in the first place.

Well, I wasn't in government at the time and I was no expert on Iraq before I came into government. I wouldn't pretend to be an expert now either but ...

Q - But would you say the US getting out of Iraq would necessarily put an end to sectarian strife or would it actually increase the prospects of sectarian strife?

I think that what we have already seen in Iraq, despite the provocations by al-Qaeda, the Iraqis are ready to move beyond the violence of the last several years and to grove their economy and to have peace.

I think that's why you have not seen renewed sectarian violence and that's why we are comfortable with the arrangements in which we have withdrawn from cities and in which we will withdraw all our combat troops by the end of August next year.

We are very comfortable with that, and that means we do not believe there will be a renewal of the sectarian violence with our departure.

Q - My understanding is that President Obama has pledged that the US will not build any permanent military bases in Iraq after leaving. Does that pledge still stand?

Absolutely.

Q - Now how do you define permanent? Because bases in Germany have been there for about 60 years now. In Korea for a similar period of time. How do you define permanent and how do you define temporary?

Temporary is based on the fact that another part of this agreement is that all US forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. That is the agreement that we have with the Iraqi government: all US forces. No bases, no forces.

Q - Unless the Iraqis ask you to stay?

Unless there is some new agreement, or some new negotiation which would clearly be on Iraqi terms.

But we will not have any permanent bases in Iraq. We have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq and we are now planning on withdrawing all American military forces by the end of 2011.

Q - A lot of people, including some of your closest allies in the Gulf, think that at the end of the day, the real winner after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is Iran, and, you listen to US politicians here in DC, you have a real problem with Iran.

I think Iran has been a challenge for the United States, and for the international community for that matter, for 30 years. I think that a strong and democratic Iraq, particularly one with a multi-sectarian government, becomes a barrier to Iranian influence and not a bridge for it.

So I think, in the short term, perhaps Iran's position was strengthened somewhat but I think if you look to the longer term, and the role that Iraq can play in the region going forward, I think that Iran's position may well be diminished.

Q - But many people feel that you took out one fundamental bastion against Iranian influence in the region and that is the regime of Saddam Hussein. You changed the political configuration in the country, bringing a Shia government to power. Everybody knows there are Iraqi politicians in the Iraqi government who are very close to Iran or have some sort of sensibility that makes them close to the government of Iran. How is that going to be a bastion against Iranian influence even in the long term?

Well, I think first of all we've seen over the past years a genuine assertion of Iraqi nationalism from Prime Minister Maliki and from other leaders inside Iraq.

I have no doubt that at the end of the day, the leaders in Iraq are first and foremost Iraqis. After all none of them have forgotten the eight years of war that they fought with Saddam Hussein and they haven't forgotten that Saddam Hussein started that war.

So I think that, by all accounts that we can see and the actions we have seen the government of Iraq take, including for example Prime Minister Maliki's offensive in the Basra area over a year ago, made clear they are most concerned with maintaining Iraqi sovereignty.

If the United States has learned anything in the last year as we have negotiated the framework agreement with the Iraqis it is that the Iraqis are very sensitive about their sovereignty and, as with almost any other country, are not going to tolerate other countries trying to interfere in their internal affairs.

Q - Let's assume for a minute that in the short term, or medium term even, that the Iranians have strengthened their hand in Iraq, and that's going to change in the long term. Hasn't Iran been able to increase its influence in neighbouring Iraq, and therefore strengthened its hand in dealing with the West over its nuclear programmme?

No, I don't agree with that. I think that the situation in Iraq has little bearing on Iran and its nuclear programme.

Q - Can you, for example in the case the Israelis resort to military action, as they seem to be itching to do, against Iranian nuclear facilities, can you guarantee that Iranians will not use Iraq to retaliate against the Unites States for example?

Well, I'm not going to address hypothetical situations. Our view is that there is still an opportunity for diplomacy and political and economic pressures to bring about a change of policy in Iran, so getting into hypotheticals about military reaction, I think doesn't take us very far.

And I'm confident that we still have some opportunities in that area.

Q - Hypotheticals aside, if you say you still have some time for manoeuvring in that area, to what extent are you reading from the same hymn sheet as the Israelis?

Every country looks at a given situation through the lens of its own security. Our view, and the view that we have shared I might say strongly with all our friends and allies in the region as well as elsewhere, is that the way to deal with the Iranian nuclear programme at this point is through diplomatic and economic efforts.

Q - The issue of Iran and Israel is obviously rattling a lot of countries in the region, the Israelis, the Gulf states, who are thinking about buying more and more weapons, and indeed there has been some sales authorised by the United States. Some estimates put the weapons packages to the Gulf states and Israel at about $100bn. How much substance is there to that?

That figure sounds very high to me. But I think there's a central question or a central point here to be made and it has to do both with our friends and allies in the region, our Arab allies, as well as the Iranian nuclear programme, and that is one of the pathways, to get the Iranians to change their approach on the nuclear issue, is to persuade them that moving down that path will actually jeopardise their security, not enhance it.

So the more that our Arab friends and allies can straighten their security capabilities, the more they can strengthen their co-operation, both with each other and with us, I think sends the signal to the Iranians that this path they're on is not going to advance Iranian security but in fact could weaken it.

So that's one of the reasons why I think our relationship with these countries and our security co-operation with them is so important.

Q - I mentioned $100bn and you said that doesn't sound right to you. What does sound right to you as a figure?

I honestly don't know.

Q - But there are a lot of weapons being asked for by the countries in the region?

We have a very broad foreign military sales programme and obviously with most of our friends and allies out there, but the arrangements that are being negotiated right now, I just honestly don't know the accumulated total.

Q - You're asking the Iranians to give up their intentions to build nuclear weapons. They are saying they're not building nuclear weapons. On the other hand, a lot of people in the region feel that you know that the Israelis do have nuclear weapons and they say why doesn't the West start with Israel, which is known to possess nuclear weapons rather than with the Iranians, who are suspected of having them. What do you say to that argument?

First of all, it's the Iranian leadership that has said it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Those threats have not been made in the other direction. It is the Iranian government that is in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions with respect to these programmes, so focus needs to be on the country that is feuding the will of the international community and the United Nations.

Q - But you decided that the rhetoric of the Iranians reflects the reality of what's going on in Iran in terms of nuclear weapons. Isn't that a leap of faith?

Well, we obviously have information in terms of what the Iranians are doing. We also have what the Iranians themselves have said, so we only are taking them at their word.

Q - So you know for sure that they are working on a nuclear bomb?

I would not go that far but clearly they have elements of their nuclear programme that are in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

We want them to adhere to these resolutions and we are willing to acknowledge the right of the Iranian government and the Iranian people to have a peaceful nuclear programme if it is intended for the production of electric power so on. What is central, then, is trying to persuade the Iranians to agree to that and then to verification procedures under the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency].

That gives us confidence that it is indeed a peaceful nuclear programme and not a weaponisation programme.

The truth of the matter is that, if Iran proceeds with a nuclear weapons programme it may well spark and arms race, a real arms race, and potentially a nuclear arms race in the entire region.

So it is in the interest of all countries for Iran to agree to arrangements that allow a peaceful nuclear programme and give the international community confidence that's all they're doing.

Q - But the Obama administration seems to have a difficult circle to square because on one hand they're saying that they want improved relations with the Muslim world. On the other hand, any pressure on Iran, is seen by people in the Muslim world as an indication the US is not genuine in wanting to improve those relations because many Muslims say Israel has nuclear weapons, and the US is not doing anything about it.

The focus is on which country is in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions. The pressure on Iran is simply to be a good member of the international community.

The neighbours around Iran, our Arab friends and allies, are concerned about what is going on in Iran, and not just the governments.

So the question is how does Iran become a member in good standing of the international community. That's in the interest of everybody.

Q - A last issue, relations between the US and Latin America: There have been a lot of angry noises coming out of Latin America over the issue of military bases in Colombia. How much of a problem is the issue of bases in Colombia to the United States and its relations with Latin America?

I think that's an issue that has been exploited by certain governments down there such as the Venezuelan government.

I think for most of the continent it's not a problem. These are not American bases. This is a co-operative arrangement, negotiated with the government of Colombia, for counter-narcotic purposes.

That's all it is and nothing more, no permanent US base, no US base at all, but use of Colombian facilities in co-operation with the Colombians.

Q - But doesn't it concern you that even President Lula [da Silva] in Brazil, who is not really known for being over-vocal in his criticism of the United States, has actually been quite vocal recently in terms of criticising what is described by President [Hugo] Chavez of Venezuela, for example, as belligerent intentions on the part of the United States in Latin America?

Well, they are clearly not belligerent intentions on part of the United States and I believe that when the other governments that may be concerned in South America fully understand the nature of the co-operation agreement with the Colombians, they will understand that this is a very limited operation tightly focused on counter-narcotics.

Disaster and Politics: Can Anything Ever Be More Tragic Than 9/11?

In February, the World Wildlife Fund launched a press campaign in Brazil. To illustrate the scale of the loss of life in the 2004 Asian tsunami, a television advertisement used the images of dozens of planes about to crash into New York City.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IA_H3vYYEs[/youtube]

The campaign provoked criticism for "reducing" a terrorist activity to a comparison with a natural disaster. So WWF Brazil and DDB, the Brazilian ad agency that designed the campaign, have acknowledged that "the comparison should have never been made". The joint statement says:

In no way was it done in bad faith or with disrespect to American suffering. WWF Brazil and DDB Brasil acknowledge that such an ad should never have been made, approved or published.

So is it unacceptable, at any time, to make a comparison with 9/11? Does it stand as a unique moment, because of the loss suffered on that day and/or the connection of that loss with "terrorism"?

A footnote from an interested observer: in the years after 9/11, I would offer the point that the 1984 Union Carbide chemical disaster at Bhopal in India had killed more people but had received far less attention as an example of the criminal taking of life. --- WSL

Middle East Inside Line: Chavez Attack on Israel, Gaza Low-Intensity Conflict

Chavez's Diplomatic Dive Bombing of Israel: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez targeted Israel and the U.S. during his visit to Syria. After a one-hour meeting with Syrian President Bashir al-Assad, Chavez blamed Israel for "dividing the Middle East" as "a country that annihilates people and is hostile to peace":

The entire world knows it. Why was the state of Israel created? ... To divide. To impede the unity of the Arab world. To assure the presence of the North American empire in all these lands.

I believe [this] is a fateful battle. It's either now or never in order to liberate the world from imperialism and change the world from a unipolar into a multi-polar world.

Likud Splitting over Settlements Issue? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is feeling pressure from his Likud Party members in the wake of headlines that he already accepted a temporary freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank. More than half of the party leadership has accepted an invitation to speak at a hawkish rally in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. Vice Premier Silvan Shalom, Ministers Gilad Erdan, Moshe Kahlon, Yuli Edelstein and Michael Eitan, and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin have accepted, while Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon has not decided whether to attend.

Shalom has asserted:

A clear, wide majority in the Likud would not give a hand to any step that would strangle the settlements, which is one of the party's banners... We need to take steps to advance the diplomatic process, but with conditions, and one of them must be not freezing the settlements that we built. The Palestinians cannot ask us to make unilateral, irreversible, far-reaching concessions that impact the permanent [borders] just for agreeing to meet with us.

Shalom added that US President Barack Obama's diplomatic process would "blow up in our face and lead to a dead end."

Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar supported Netanyahu on Thursday:

In today's complex situation, our prime minister whom we chose, Binyamin Netanyahu, must maintain all our national interests - the settlements that are the apple of our eye, Jerusalem, and also our relations with the United States and avoiding international isolation, because we will not be able to do the things that are close to our hearts if we are isolated.

Israel-Gaza Low-Intensity Conflict: Seven mortar shells were fired from Gaza into Israel, all hitting open areas without casualties or damage. On Thursday night, Israeli jets bombed a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip.