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Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Christopher Hitchens back to this program. The prolific and influential columnist, commentator and author has just released the paperback edition of his most recent book "Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays." He joins us tonight from Washington. Christopher, nice to have you back on. Happy New Year, my friend.

Christopher Hitchens: Happy New Year to you, too, Tavis. How are you?

Tavis: I'm doing well. And yourself?

Hitchens: Bit early to say.

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha!

Hitchens: Too soon to tell.

Tavis: Let me jump right into the news of the day. The Iraq Survey Group has announced officially that they have completed their groundwork in their search for stockpiles, and--surprise, surprise, Mr. Hitchens, as you well know-- nothing has been found. To that, you say what?

Hitchens: Well, then, I wonder where it went. I mean, people sometimes forget-- this all begins when the Iraqis declare quite a large number of stockpiles to the inspectors. After evading and obstructing and varying and concealing for a long time, they say, "OK, this is the final list. This is what we've got left." Let's say we take them at their word for it. Where did that stuff go? They never gave a convincing explanation of what they've done with it. And here's another thing not everyone knows--they're not allowed to destroy it themselves. That's a grave breach of the resolution. The resolution says it has to be turned over, tagged, bagged, and blown up under international supervision. If they can't account for it, you're entitled to the worst assumption, in my opinion. And I think that it was far too late to be giving the benefit of any doubt to Mr. Saddam Hussein.

Tavis: Let me play devil's advocate here, just to make a point. You are as brilliant as they come, and I suspect if anybody could spin--not that you are--but if anybody could spin or justify or rationalize why the U.S. did what it did in Iraq, you could make that case, and in fact have made that case, better than most, including folk inside the White House. But the question is this, I guess--does, uh, does that justify what the U.S. did in Iraq, now that we know that we are leaving that place and never found anything. Does it justify what we did?

Hitchens: Well, can I--I guess that's three questions. Um, first...thank you. I mean, yes, I was in favor of regime change in Iraq when Mr. Bush was still governor of Texas and was still saying that the United States shouldn't be doing nation building, or foreign intervention of any kind. That's how he ran against Al Gore, as a matter of fact. So, uh, it's nice of you to notice that. And, of course, we're in a real bad state if I'm the one who's left to make the case for this war.

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha!

Hitchens: We can't be that bad. Um, second--no, it is a pity. There was a very good case to be made for regime change in Iraq. You couldn't have a country of that importance with the people suffering so terribly under sanctions being left indefinitely under the rule of a psychopathic crime family that was certainly looking for ways of reequipping itself with weapons. And I think it was overdue to move Iraq into the post-Saddam era. It should've been done in 1991. There was no excuse for not doing it at all. Third--um, look, the Kay report, for example, shows, beyond a doubt, something we didn't know before the invasion, because we didn't get the documents till we did that. Saddam was trying to buy missiles--long-range ones...off the shelf from North Korea, from the North Korea-Pakistani Nukes-R-Us, Missiles-R-Us Wal-Mart that we didn't know existed till Libya turned in its weapons and capitulated after the invasion until we could certify Iraq was disarmed. Certifying Iraq now as verifiably disarmed is not a minor thing at all. It's well worth doing. And to say that it was disarmed before was to say we take Saddam Hussein's word for it. Third--No, that's fourth. Sorry, it'll be fourth now. Dr. Mahdi Obeidi's book--which I recommend you get--it's called "The Bomb in my Garden." It's the memoir of his chief nuclear physicist. He took American troops...not inspectors, because the inspectors would never have got to it--to his garden after the invasion and helped them dig up a nuclear centrifuge that he'd buried there under Hussein's orders. The nuclear centrifuge is the crown jewels of nuclear physics. Iraq had it. They had it buried until they thought the coast was clear and they could dig it up again. This is no beanbag.

Tavis: Let me jump in right quick, because even if one could argue that Iraq is a better, safer place--and I'll come back to these elections here in just a second--but if one could argue that successfully or legitimately, is the world a safer place when there is now this philosophy that we have certainly engaged which is that if we think you've got something, if we think you're gonna hit us, we'll hit you first and ask questions later?

Hitchens: Well, the benefit of the doubt shouldn't be given to a regime that had repeatedly, first, used weapons of mass destruction against people who lived inside its own borders as well as people who lived outside. That's a plain statement of fact. Second, they had repeatedly been caught cheating, or trying to cheat the inspectors, concealing, obstructing, and so on. The presumption of guilt should be applied to people like Saddam Hussein. And to people like Kim Jong Il.

Tavis: OK.

Hitchens: Yes, it's--that would be a nice change. In Libya, where they capitulated, they had far more weapons than we even suspected. The Iranians has been cheating the inspectors for far longer than we knew...and cheating the U.N.--far longer and far worse. We walked back the cat from Libya. We uncovered the A.Q. Kahn nuclear mart in Pakistan, helped, now, to shut that down. Um, The proliferation threat has been addressed a lot more seriously in the last four years than it had been in the previous forty.

Tavis: All right, Mr. Allawi, the prime minister in Iraq, says that elections are still planning to go forward. We're about, what, 2 1/2 weeks away now. Elections are still planning to go forward in Iraq, but he admits there are pockets in Iraq that are really too dangerous for people to go and to cast their vote. What do you make of where we sit today just a couple of weeks away from the elections scheduled in Iraq?

Hitchens: Well, there are two takes on the election, two extreme ones, let's say. One is from Mr. Zarqawi, al Qaeda's point man in Iraq. By the way, I've stopped hearing people say there's no connection between the Baathists and al Qaeda, now that they've formed an absolutely solid alliance together. So it's worth knowing that. Now, he says that Islam is against democracy, by definition. Democracy is a Greek idea and an alien infidel import. So that's what his view, uh, and, as I say, worth knowing. Then we have Grand Ayatollah Sistani who says that the obligation to vote is a religious obligation, that every Muslim should wish to vote in the special elections. Again, I don't think that's true either, as a matter of fact. I don't think it's a religious obligation at all. I think it's a right. But I think there's all the difference in the world between the two, and it's pretty clear which side we're on--that's on the right side. It's on the right side of history as well as of democracy, and it will spread. It's beginning already to spread through the rest of the region. Look at what's happening in Lebanon, for example, now...mass demonstrations in favor of an open election on the question of whether Syria should keep its forces there. This wasn't-- this kind of thing wasn't happening, wasn't being voiced before the keystone state of the totalitarian in the region was kicked out.

Tavis: Let me ask you right quick, then, as my time is running here, whether or not al Qaeda is, in fact--these days is as dangerous and as organized as we are been led to believe.

Hitchens: Well, it's taken some heavy hits, but that's nothing to what it should be getting and I hope will be getting, but it's, um...but it has metastasized, as we predicted it would, and it's openly declared itself on what I think is the losing side in Iraq, and it's drawn the line as plain as anyone could wish.

Tavis: All right, you and I had a chance on my radio show to spend more time talking about this. Let me give you about 25, 30 seconds each--when I say love, you say...

Hitchens: Literature. Most of my book is about why civilization is worth defending. And the best way to show that is to value literature as a source of pleasure in itself, of instruction about the past and of morals an ethics.

Tavis: When I say poverty--

Hitchens: Joyce, Proust, Borges--poverty--I mean by that poverty of the imagination--religion, um, the surrender of the reason, uh, the reasoning faculty to the faith-based idea. I'd say people should shake off tribalism and religion and superstition, and value reason and civilization instead.

Tavis: And with regard to these journeys and essays in this book, when I say war, you say...

Hitchens: Regime change. We have to know that it's not possible to coexist with totalitarian, aggressive, theocratic dictatorships. And it's a good thing it's not possible because it's not desirable. It's them or us, so it should be them. They want to change our regime? No, we'll change theirs.

Tavis: Let me ask you, with just a few short seconds here, whether or not, with all these issues--love, poverty, and war--you discuss in this book, are you at this moment hopeful about our future?

Hitchens: No. I'm not.

Tavis: Ouch!

Hitchens: I think there's a real danger of defeat that I think once people look at what defeat would mean, they might mobilize themselves and become a little less complacent.

Tavis: He is one of the most prolific and brilliant journalists, and, I might add, provocative journalists of our time. Like or loathe this guy, there aren't too many better at what he does. The new book in paperback now--"Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays," by one Christopher Hitchens, who joined us tonight from Washington. Christopher, again, Happy New Year. As always, you're welcome back anytime. Nice to talk to you.

Hitchens: That's very good of you, Tavis. Thanks.

Tavis: You be well, my friend. Take care.

Hitchens: Take it easy, but take it.

Tavis: Yeah, ha ha ha! I like that. "Take it easy, but take it." That's good advice. Up next on this program, actor Don Cheadle. If you have not seen this guy in "Hotel Rwanda," you must check it out. He's nominated now for a Golden Globe. Up next, a conversation with actor extraordinaire, Don Cheadle. Stay with us.