Transcript: Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

ABC'S "THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS" MAY 17, 2009

SPEAKERS: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST

SEN. JON KYL, R-ARIZ., SENATE MINORITY WHIP

SEN. JIM WEBB, D-VA.

[*] STEPHANOPOULOS (voice over): Good morning and welcome to "This Week."

Harsh charges from the speaker.

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REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We were told that water-boarding was not being used. The CIA was misleading the Congress.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: Course corrections from the president...

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(ABC News Photo Illustration)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: ... and a P.R. blitz from the former V.P.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: We'd successfully defended the nation for 7 1/2 years. I believe it was possible because of the policies we had in place.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: Is Cheney right? Is Pelosi in trouble? Are Obama's choices making us more safe?

That debate, this morning, with two key senators, Republican whip Jon Kyl and Democrat Jim Webb. Plus, an expanded powerhouse roundtable with George Will, Democratic strategist James Carville, John McCain's campaign manager Steve Schmidt, Katrina Vanden Heuvel of the "Nation," and the former State Department official now joining her father on the front lines, Liz Cheney -- and, as always, the Sunday funnies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY LENO, HOST OF "THE TONIGHT SHOW": She spent eight years telling everyone how dumb President Bush is and then, the minute you're trouble, "He fooled me!"

(LAUGHTER)

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ANNOUNCER: From the heart of the nation's capital, "This Week," with ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos, live from the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue. STEPHANOPOULOS (on camera): Hello again. It has been a week full of accusations, confrontation, recalibration and new calls for investigation here in Washington -- just another week.

And with apologies for that burst of rhyme, we welcome our headliners to this morning's debate, Democratic Senator Jim Webb of Virginia and the Senate's Republican whip, Jon Kyl of Arizona.

Gentlemen, welcome to you both. And there is so much to talk about this week. But let's start with that war of words between speaker Pelosi and the CIA. She says the CIA lied about these 2002 briefings. Leon Panetta came out on Friday, said, no, they told the truth.

And former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has weighed in, saying that this is despicable behavior, take a look.

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NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: I think she has lied to the House and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry. And I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her. And I think this is a big deal.

I don't think the speaker of the house can lie to the country on national security matters.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Kyl, how big a deal is this and how should it be investigated?

KYL: Well, it is a big deal, obviously. She is the speaker. And at that time she was the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. And she was one of four people who got the briefings. And it is pretty clear that Leon Panetta, her former colleague in the House from California, now CIA director, totally disagrees with her recollection of events.

Let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say she doesn't remember, although that's a pretty important thing not remember accurately.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So does it need to be investigated?

KYL: I am less interested in investigating whether her memory or correct or she lied about it than I am in the policies that flow from the debate that we're having. I am not one who thinks we ought to have truth commissions and all of the rest of it and keep looking backward. I agree with the president. We've got enough on our plate, we need to look forward.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's the irony here, Senator Webb, as Speaker Gingrich says, investigate. He wants a separate House investigation. Speaker Pelosi says, fine, let's have a truth commission, the one that Senator Kyl doesn't want. Where do you stand on this? WEBB: I just don't think it's that big a deal. I mean, I think we have selective memories...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... is not a big deal?

WEBB: Well, I mean, they're going to have a fight. But in terms of where the country is right now, where we need to go, there are a lot of issues of accountability in terms of looking back as to the conduct of the past administration in a number of areas.

But really, in terms of what we need to be focusing on, let's accept that torture is inappropriate behavior. And I've interrogated hundreds of detainees and enemy combatants when I was a Marine in Vietnam, torture doesn't work.

Let's all accept that, separate it from these other issues that we're talking about in terms of having to resolve issues, like Guantanamo, and move forward.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, no truth commission?

WEBB: I think this will resolve itself without something like that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's move on to some of the other issues, because President Obama this week did make two significant shifts on national security policy. He said that the photos of that detainee abuse would not be released, he would fight that in court.

And he also shifted on the issue of military tribunals, even though he had been for them in the past, he heavily criticized the Bush tribunals, now he is bringing them back with some reforms.

And let me show you some of the human rights groups' reaction to these moves by President Obama. The ACLU says: "These military commissions are inherently illegitimate, unconstitutional, incapable of delivering outcomes we can trust."

Human Rights Watch: "By resurrecting this failed Bush administration idea, President Obama is backtracking dangerously on his reform agenda."

Human Rights First: "Reinventing commissions so deeply associated with Guantanamo Bay will merely add to the erosion of international confidence in American justice and provide more fodder for America's enemies."

Now you were also against the commissions during your campaign. Do you support what the president is doing here?

WEBB: I wasn't against commissions per se. I think that -- my view on...

STEPHANOPOULOS: I don't know -- well, let me just interrupt you there, because I have an AP story from April 2007 where you said -- it says that you told reporters that detainees should either be declared prisoners of war or charged in the American judicial system.

"We can't just continue to hold people in limbo without charges for this period of time and still call ourselves Americans."

WEBB: If I said charged in the American judicial system, I would mean under the traditions of the rules of evidence and these sorts of things. But my view has always been that we need to move these people forward.

We need to find those people who should be held accountable and hold them accountable. And people who have been held inappropriately should be released.

But I don't believe that the situation with people in Guantanamo, as opposed to others who have conducted activities in the United States are the same. I think that the people who have been held in Guantanamo are being charged essentially for acts of international terror, for acts of war, and they don't belong in judicial system, and they don't belong in our jails.

STEPHANOPOULOS: This is what the commissions...

WEBB: And I don't believe -- I do, I do. But with this caveat, we need commissions like this because there are issues of evidence that you cannot take care of inside the regular American court system, classified information that might have an impact on how we collect intelligence and those sorts of things.

And there are facilities built in Guantanamo right now that are able to do that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Agreement here?

KYL: Yes. I agree. There are some people that you try, very few, some more that you try in the military commissions, and we've always had military commissions of one kind or another.

Some that you can't because of the evidence and other factors try, and if they are the equivalent of prisoners of war, in this case, enemy combatants, you can hold them until the end of the war that you're in.

And then, of course, there are those who, on an annual review, you decide can be released. Unfortunately a lot of those that we have released because we thought they no longer posed a danger, have come back to the battlefield and have fought us.

But the president has made some changes in the military commissions to give these people some additional rights, and perhaps that helps to balance the situation. Congress, after all, passed the Military Commissions Act.

This would liberalize it to some extent. We'll have to wait and see whether it liberalizes it so much that they don't work anymore. But I'm happy to see how they work out.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You laid out nicely the various groups of detainees that the president has to deal with, which, of course, brings us to the question of, what to do with those detainees once Guantanamo is closed, as the president has called for.

I know this is creating a lot of controversy in the Senate because of the possibility that some of these detainees may have to come to the United States.

And the attorney general, Eric Holder, was asked about this at the Senate this week, and he said very clearly that no dangerous detainees will be released in the United States.

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ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don't know, whatever quantum of proof, however you want to describe it, to believe that a person posed a danger to the United States, we will do all that we can to ensure that that person remains detained and does not become a danger to the American people.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: And is that enough assurance for you, Senator Kyl?

KYL: Well, understand that we've already released those who, after careful examination, we thought didn't pose a danger. And the number is somewhere between 30 and 60 who turned out to continue to conduct their activities against us after they were released.

The remaining 240 or so do pose a danger. So there aren't any left that can easily be released because they don't pose a danger.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that's not exactly true, right? And I want to bring Senator Webb in on this, because I know there are about 17, I believe, Chinese Uighurs, they are called, who have been ordered released by a federal court, they've determined not to be a threat to the United States.

And the administration has been working on plans to bring them to Virginia. Can you accept them in your state?

WEBB: Well, let me back up for a minute. The answer is no.

STEPHANOPOULOS: No?

WEBB: No. And I'll -- and then let me explain why. But to back it up, the numbers that we've seen in my office are about 800 people have gone through Guantanamo.

The majority of those who have been released, we're down to 220 to 240, so the majority of those that have been released have been released to third countries, not actually released out into the open -- you know, to where they can... STEPHANOPOULOS: Just let out the door, right.

WEBB: Yes, right. So we don't know really where they have gone. This other group deserves due process. They deserve, in the right kind of environment, and I support what the president is doing on the military commissions, to have their cases examined, to see whether or not they should continue to be detained.

The situation with the Chinese Uighurs that you're talking about, on the one hand, it can be argued that they were simply conducting dissident activities against the government of China.

On the other, they accepted training from al Qaeda and as a result they have taken part in terrorism. I don't believe they should come to the United States.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Not to the United States and not Virginia.

WEBB: No, I don't believe so.

KYL: No, I totally agree.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about this, there is also the group that might have to be brought to the United States for trial or to be detained here. And the Republicans in the Senate have put out legislation -- not introduced legislation that says no detainee should be brought to the United States in any way unless the state legislature and the governor of the state passes -- signs off on that.

One, do you have the votes to pass it? And, two, will you block any funding for the closing of Guantanamo without those assurances?

KYL: That was a motion by House Republicans. We're taking up the bill next week. There will be an amendment that would preclude -- it would similar to that, but perhaps not identical.

A similar resolution passed a couple of years ago 93-4 saying, don't bring these detainees to the United States. And my guess is that none of this supplemental funding will be allowed to relocate detainees into the United States, that that amendment will be adopted.