J$P Instant Transcript! John Gibson interviews Michelle Malkin on cash-for-hostages.

From The Big Story with John Gibson, March 9 2005:

JOHN GIBSON [FOX NEWS]: Terrorists in Iraq may be buying their bombs and bullets and bombers and shooters with Italian lyra, if, as reported, hefty ransoms are being paid to free Italian hostages in Iraq, including the Communist reporter Giuliana Sgrena. Joining me now, syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor, Michelle Malkin. Michelle, the big question: so where's the outrage over Italy's reported negotiations and payoff to terrorists?

MICHELLE MALKIN: I haven't seen much of it, John. Certainly not from Il Manifesto, Giuliana Sgrena's Communist newspaper. Haven't seen much of it in the rest of the international press, not out of the leftist papers out of London, and certainly not much here out of the mainstream media in the United States. And I really think there ought to be more of an uproar over these terrorist get-rich-quick schemes. And we've had plenty of evidence where other governments have forked over cash to these throat-cutting thugs. And there's only one consequence of this kind of negotiation and capitulation with monsters. And that is, more terrorism.

GIBSON: Michelle, why shouldn't a person--me, you, the Italians--think that when these kidnappers in Iraq got Giuliana Sgrena, held her for a month, got her to make that sobbing video (in which we now learn she was being treated fine, but they told her to say those things), that they just didn't take the money and go to Lebanon and have a good time? Why do we think it goes into terrorist pockets?

MALKIN: Well, because as I say, John, we've seen from experience. Take the Philippines, for example--and I've sounded the alarm over this. I mean, it is my parents' native country, and I think they've become mollycoddling milksops. They've taken this money from the government and private sources and then given it to the terrorists. And guess what? They plow it right back into terrorist operations. They use it to buy AK-47s, land mines, improvised explosive devices, recruitment fees. And there's no reason to suggest that the terrorists in Iraq are using it to buy Prada handbags instead of more supplies for terrorism and kidnapping.

GIBSON: Well listen, I buy the general theory. But we've been hearing for months and months and months now that Saddam Hussein's oil-for-food smuggling money got hauled out to Syria where it's being doled out to run the insurgency. So how does it make sense, if the money's coming across the border from Syria, that they need to kidnap Italians, and somehow hold up the Italian government, to finance their insurgency?

MALKIN: Well, as I say, because it's quick, it's easy to get this money. At least eight Italians have been kidnapped since April. And as I reported in my column, it's fairly clear that they are getting this cash infusion from the Italian government and possibly other governments. And although Berlusconi is mum about this, and a lot of the top government officials are denying that this in fact happened, we know that, at least last fall, there were two Italian women, aid workers, who were released for at least a million dollars, reportedly. And that money was paid by the Italian government and transferred right to the insurgents.

GIBSON: Now the report in this case is that Giuliana Sgrena cost somebody, whether it's the Italian government or Prime Minister Berlusconi personally--he's a media mogul billionaire--six million dollars. Now, the American government is presently not making a lot of noise about this, even though I'm sure the government has the same objections you do. But would you guess that if the Italians keep pressing the issue, that we just might?

MALKIN: We might make a stink about it?

GIBSON: Yeah.

MALKIN: I'm sure. And as I try to make clear here, even though there are official denials from the government, there are murmurings even from top-level officials and even Berlusconi himself, that they ought to rethink this kind of policy. It sort of undermines their whole denial, because now they're saying, oh, well we paid this one million dollars last year for these two released. And yet this still keeps happening. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe it's because if you subsidize something, you get more of it.

GIBSON: Is any indication that the French have been up to this too?

MALKIN: I haven't seen that but I would not be surprised. And the Philippines particularly has been a hotbed of this, and we've had a lot of Europeans who have been delivering suitcases of cash to the insurgents there.

GIBSON: Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin. Michelle, thanks a lot; appreciate it.