J$P Instant Transcript! Marvin Kalb and Robert Novak on the latest purported Usama tape.

From Fox News Live, January 19 2006:

DAVID ASMAN [FOX NEWS]: Let's ask syndicated columnist Bob Novak and former diplomatic correspondent and Fox News contributor Marvin Kalb what they think of what's going on here. Bob Novak, first, I've just got to ask you one thing. We see at the bottom of the screen, it's Al-Jazeera. Once again it's Al-Jazeera. Now Al-Jazeera recently has tried to clean up their image. They've hired David Frost, they've hired actually a producer from Fox, for all things. They are trying to appear as centrist and down the road. But it's always Al-Jazeera that gets these UBL tapes. Why?

ROBERT NOVAK [FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR]: Well, they look like they're kind of a propaganda outfit for the Al-Qaeda. That's a burden they have to deal with, and that's why they're hiring all these people.

ASMAN: Now Marvin Kalb, what about the offers of truce that we now have. It appears that Bin Laden is right on the heels of a threat to the United States. He says he's going to go into the houses of folks in the United States with his terrorism. Right on the heels of that he offers a truce in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is he sort of feeling his way around public relations here?

MARVIN KALB [FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR]: I think there's a lot of feeling his way around, yes, David. I think that at the moment what we are saying is an organization that is in a form of disarray. What it has is the capacity to frighten people, because of 9/11 and the record of what happened in Madrid, what happened in London. These are all terrorists assaults which have the capacity, as the Russian revolutionary Lenin once said, the whole purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. And this is the strength that Usama Bin Laden has at this point. But his actual strength, in numbers, in capacity to organize, we don't really know. Therefore we have to prepare for the worst, and that's what we're doing. At the same time as we are aware that Usama Bin Laden did not show up on live television. This is an audio track. We don't exactly what it is. We are all depending upon what Al-Jazeera says at this point. I think we've got to be awfully careful about leaping to any kind of conclusion.

ASMAN: Right, absolutely. But having said that, Marvin Kalb brings up a great point, which is there are a lot of mixed messages in this particular audio tape. On the one hand the threat, right on the edge of offering a truce. He also seems to be going after Zarqawi. Maybe not going after, that might be too strong a term. But he says, based on what I have said it is better not to fight the Muslims on their land, referring to Iraq and Afghanistan. And of course Zarqawi continues to blow people up; there was just a report this morning of another suicide bombing in which 22 people were killed in Iraq. So is there, perhaps there may be a divide and conquer thing going on here, where there is a split between Bin Laden and Zarqawi.

NOVAK: That is one conclusion you can draw from this. We still don't know whether this is really Usama, but if it is, and he is coming over with this conditional truce, I'm very interested in what the antiwar people in the United States will make of this. Of course, the United States does not--

ASMAN: You don't think they're going to call on the United States to accept Bin Laden's offer?

NOVAK: I want to see what happens, because there's so much agitation on the left in the United States of boy we've got to get out of there fast, and we have to end this war immediately. I wonder if they're going to seize on that if this turns out to be a legitimate tape from Usama--

ASMAN: Marvin Kalb, what--

NOVAK: But of course, I should stress the United States does not negotiate. This is not the North VietNamese government in any way.

ASMAN: No. But Marvin Kalb, do you think we're going to hear calls from some quarters here in the US to accept this truce?

KALB: Look, maybe there will be a call or two. I don't think you take them seriously at all. And Bob just made a very interesting point. When you are dealing with terrorists, you don't have an address. You don't have an embassy. You don't have a state capitol. There is no organized diplomatic way for dealing with these people. And one of the things that Secretary Rice has been trying to point out is that this is a totally new kind of warfare, in which the traditional means of diplomacy, the traditional means of military strikes, simply aren't working that effectively. We see that in what is happening in Iraq. There's a new vision that is required, and as yet we are still struggling to find it.

ASMAN: Marvin Kalb, Bob Novak, both Fox News contributors Thanks to both of you.