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Tavis: Glad to have you on. So, how you doing? I haven't had a chance to talk to you since that campaign that you were involved in. At least, now you can see your wife for dinner, huh?

Joe: That's true. I'm doing really well. I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I had to run for president. Obviously, I wish I'd gotten nominated, but I'd do it all over again in a moment. You know, I feel good that I said what I believed was right for the country and also very grateful that I got the chance to be here as a senator and continue to fight for the things I believe are right and, as you said, have dinner with my family every now and then. I even went to the movies last Saturday night.

Tavis: Clearly, it is an honor to serve in the United States Senate. Let me ask you right quick, before I get into some major issues here, whether or not having to return to the senate twice now--once running with Al Gore, this time running on your own as president--are you still challenged by the senate? Do you still love this? I mean, why did you go back? You didn't have to.

Joe: Yeah. I am. You know, I didn't--at first I was fortunate enough in 2000 that Al Gore selected me. This time, I felt I had something to give, so I ran for president, but I didn't do it 'cause I felt that I was tired of the senate or that there wasn't more to do here. I mean, I--just in this week, I've been involved in matters related to the war in Iraq to trying to build better relations with the Islamic world to improving our public schools for low-income kids to protecting the environment. I mean, this is the stuff that I've worked most of my adult life on, and I feel very lucky to have the chance to actually try to get something done from the United States Senate.

Tavis: Speaking of the fighting, let's talk about whether or not we can, in fact, get something done here. It's been almost a year to the day since the fighting--the war, at least, was declared an end by our president a success in Iraq. In Fallujah, this stuff seems as bad now as the war was a year ago. Um, what do we do here?

Joe: Yeah, I mean, your description of this is absolutely right. Obviously when the president made that statement, the war wasn't over. Or to put it another way, you might say that the first war that we fought in the last couple of years in Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein was over--that was a victory, thanks to the brilliance and bravery of our military. But now we're in a second war, and that war is against remnants of Saddam's regime which don't want to quit, and a bunch of terrorists that have come in to Iraq to--to try to kill Americans and set back the cause of a stable and free Iraq. And I made this speech that you were kind enough to reference earlier in the week, at the Brookings Institute, and my point was that though there was a lot of controversy clearly about whether we should have gone in to get Saddam and what the Bush administration did or didn't do before and after, what they said or didn't say, the fact is that today almost everybody understands and supports a successful conclusion to what we're doing in Iraq, and it's gonna take a combination of military power, but we've got to let the Iraqis live a better life and take over their own destiny 'cause ultimately the solution here is not a military one, it's a political and economic one. It's to have a country that's governing itself in which people feel that they're living a better and a freer life, and that requires real partnership with the Iraqis.

Tavis: I think you're right to suggest that most Americans agree that we have to have a successful solution now that we are there. The question is, since the marker continues to move depending on what happens on any given week in Iraq, what is the definition of a "successful solution"?

Joe: That is a great question, and to me the successful conclusion to this is that Iraq becomes self-governing, that there's an elected Iraqi government, that the country is stable and democratizing and modernizing. And you know what? If all goes well, that can begin to happen right away in July when we transfer sovereignty back to the Iraqis themselves for an interim government, then they'll hold elections in January and then another set of elections about a year later. But the key is we've got to return stability and security 'cause if not, uh, people are gonna be afraid to exercise their rights. The other thing is, we gotta get back on the right side of doing what we said we were there to do, which is to liberate, 'cause too many Iraqis today see us as occupiers and that's the real fundamental failure of our policy.

Tavis: I want to broaden our conversation in just a second to talk more about the Middle East and not just Iraq. Before I do that, though, let me ask you, speaking of Iraq, let me talk about the 9/11 Commission and ask you what you make of this commission to date, and, moreover, what you make of the fact that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney will finally sit down tomorrow, we're told, with this 9/11 Commission. Of course, there aren't any transcripts. They're not under oath. There's no videotape. What do you make of the fact that they're at least sitting down talking tomorrow?

Joe: Well, it's a big deal. I mean, presidents and vice-presidents don't usually sit down with these commissions. Obviously it would be even better if it was under--if there was a transcript of it, but obviously also people from the commission will be taking notes and listening carefully. This commission was created according to legislation my colleague John McCain and I put in. We introduced it about a month after September 11th because we said how can we ever be sure that we're doing everything we can to stop another September 11th from happening if we don't do a full, independent, non-partisan investigation of how did September 11th happen? And I think the commission's really done pretty well in that regard. And it's critical. I regret that it took so long, but it's critical that the president and vice-president who are major players here testify to the commission for the benefit of future national security of our country. The report of this commission, I think, is gonna be very helpful to us, and I believe they're gonna take on some of the status quo in the intelligence community particularly, which let us down before September 11th and continues to need genuine reform and improvement.

Tavis: If I were a cynic--and somewhat argue that at times in my career I have been--but if I were a cynic, I would say to you that while you're looking forward to the report of this commission, I can already tell you, Senator, what this report's gonna say. 'Cause when you get together a bipartisan group, what that really means is you got checks and balances within the commission. Ain't nobody gonna point the finger too much at anybody on either side of the aisle. So we're gonna get a report right down the middle and more will have been said than actually done. And I can tell you what this report's gonna say already.

Joe: Well, I hope not. I hear you. And, you know, that's a possibility. So far it seems like the members of the commission have taken their work seriously. And sometimes when you give people a serious responsibility, they rise higher and above the partisan politics. And that'll be the ultimate test of it. I know that they've made an agreement with one another from the beginning that if they couldn't have a unanimous report, it wasn't worth issuing. Of course, we hope that the unanimity of the report is not achieved at the expense of holding back on saying some things that they need to say. I will say that the testimony already has pointed out some really infuriating failures, for instance, by the FBI and CIA to share information in a way that might well have prevented

September 11th and, hopefully, the testimony that the president will give tomorrow may even add a little more to that.

Tavis: I've been following your statements about this 'cause I'm always curious about your ideas. You seem to put some thought into some different ways to approach some old problems, and you've talked, I think, rather persuasively of late about the fact that we need--my phrase here, not yours...a more economic-based, a more financed-based approach to dealing with our problems in the Middle East. Can you expound on that for me?

Joe: Yes, indeed. You know, if I may use a biblical phrase to talk about the war on terrorism, unfortunately we need to use a sword against the terrorists, but ultimately we're not gonna win the war with just a sword. You've got to have the plow shares and the pruning hooks. In other words, we've got to create a better way to a better life for people in the Islamic world then the hatred and suicide that Al Qaeda offers. And that's why my Republican colleague from Nebraska Chuck Hagel and I have come together and introduced something that we're calling essentially an international Marshall Plan for the Middle East and central Asia, setting up 3 new trusts, a foundation, and a bank to assist people to live better lives and to support the development of civil society and democratic reforms in the middle east. You know, we feel that this is the way you gotta go--one, to build bridges so that the people in the Middle East don't see us just as at the other end of a gun or a tank. And the second is really to stand by our principles, because we're supposed to be all about liberty and democracy, and that's the ultimate antidote to the hatred that Al Qaeda and the terrorists offer. Incidentally, we had a great meeting during this week, Senator Hagel and I, in which we invited in the ambassadors of the countries of the region, and 18 of them came to the meeting, broad sweep of ambassadors, and we had a very good, constructive discussion. They're interested. They're supportive. They made some good suggestions, and we wanna work together with them. You can't say you wanna help people and then tell 'em the way you're gonna help 'em, whether they like it or not. That's true at home and abroad. You gotta work with the recipients, and we're gonna work with these folks and hopefully to make it better for all of us.

Tavis: Speaking of home and abroad, you can't talk about domestic or international policy these days without talking about this thing called a presidential election we have coming up in November.

Joe: Yes, I'm familiar with that.

Tavis: Yes, I know you are. I was flippin' channels last night, I guess it was, and I saw somebody somewhere make a suggestion that the only way to get George W. Bush and John Kerry to cool it, as it were, on this issue about who did what 30 years ago around the war in Vietnam--did the president show up, did he not show up, why didn't he show up? Did John Kerry serve honorably, did John Kerry throw the ribbons over the fence at this protest, why did he throw the ribbons over the fence? I mean, there's this back and forth. Dick Cheney's tearing into John Kerry about this issue. And while the president, as we both know, has not gotten personally involved, at least as yet, I saw somebody suggest last night that the way to get these guys to cool it on this issue and to talk about our future and not about our past would be for you--Joe Lieberman--and John McCain, in a bipartisan way, to come out and to challenge these guys to talk about the issues that the American people care about today. Any thoughts on that suggestion that one commentator made?

Joe: Well, you know what, as President Kennedy said, I don't shrink from that challenge. I welcome it, and I appreciate it. You know, I've been watching this, and I've been thinking to myself, this kind of argument, about what happened 30 years ago, is exactly why people get turned off to politics, and they don't vote. I mean, we're in a war today. We've got terrible economic problems here at home today. Too many of our public schools are failing here today. 44 million Americans don't have health care, health insurance today, and a lot of millions of others can't afford what they have. And we're having an argument about what happened 30 years ago? It's ridiculous and wasteful, and I'm gonna take your idea, or whoever's it was, and talk to John McCain and see if we can't do something about it. 'Cause this campaign, like all campaigns, is supposed to be about the future, not 30 years ago.

Tavis: Although I suspect, though, these campaigns are also about credibility, and there are some serious questions that you raise and your colleagues have raised and now Mr. Kerry is raising about whether or not the president does in fact have a credibility gap here on a variety of fronts. Does he have a credibility gap?

Joe: Well, I think he does. I mean, I think he has a credibility gap on the last 3-plus years as president and remembering that he said he was gonna unite us and not divide us, and we're more divided, unfortunately, today than we've been in a long time. He said he was gonna be a compassionate conservative, and we haven't seen a lot of that compassion in the way the administration has underfunded health care, education, environmental protection. So there's a real credibility gap that goes to the way people are living today, which is not as well as they lived when this president came into office, and I'd prefer to talk about that, although I understand that 30 years ago becomes a kind of symbol of credibility and because John Kerry did serve and served with honor, the other side's trying to knock that down. But I think that's a waste of time and counterproductive.

Tavis: We're out of time. This has been a great use of time, not a waste at all, but I'm out of it. Thanks for coming on. We'll do it again sometime.

Joe: Tavis, I'd love to do it. All the best to you. Thank you.

Tavis: And to you as well, sir. Thank you for coming on.

Joe: Take care.

Tavis: There he is. Senator Joe Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut. Up next on this program, acclaimed new R&B singer Rhian Benson. Don't want to miss this. Stay with us.