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Tavis: Pleased to welcome Senator Bill Nelson back to this program. The Florida Democrat is an influential member of two key Senate committees with oversight in Iraq, Armed Services and Foreign Relations. It's also worth remembering, as we watched those spectacular pictures today from the latest space shuttle mission, that Senator Nelson is a former shuttle astronaut himself.

He joins me tonight, though, not from up there but from down here, Washington, in fact. Senator, nice to have you on the program again, sir.

Senator Bill Nelson: Thank you, Tavis. I wish I were up there.

Tavis: (laughs) I'm sure you do. You saw the last space shuttle launch?

Nelson: I did, and my wife said - I was doing commentary on one of the local stations. She said I got so excited I almost fell off the set.

Tavis: (laughs) Well, you are not up there, and maybe that's a safer place to be right about now. certainly more safe than the Middle East. We all, of course, know the news coming out of the Middle East today, Israel responding on both of its borders, top and bottom, as it were. Your thoughts about the news today regarding Israel and Lebanon, and then Israel and Gaza.

Nelson: Well, it's what Israel characterizes, and I agree, an act of war. Hezbollah has come across a sovereign border. They have captured two Israeli soldiers. They're holding them hostage. Israel is insisting on their return, and is not gonna bargain by some kind of prisoner exchange. So, I agree with Israel.

Tavis: What's your sense of what the United States government, at this point, can, should, or should not do where their affairs are concerned?

Nelson: The United States ought to be using all of our diplomatic channels, through back channels, including through Lebanon. In some cases, through Syria. In some cases, working through the European community that has ties into Iran, that has ties to Hezbollah, to get them to release those soldiers unharmed.

Tavis: I guess it's difficult to ask a question like this at the moment, although we had an interesting conversation on this show the other night with an expert on Israel, and surprisingly, he was hopeful, even though the situation right now looks extremely dire, your sense of what might happen in the coming days and weeks, and as a member of our Armed Services Committee, and for that matter our Foreign Relations Committee, as I mentioned earlier, you see any hope at the moment?

Nelson: I'm always an optimistic person, Tavis, but this is a tough situation. Ever since Hamas won that election, because the Palestinians were so frustrated with the corrupt regime of Yasser Arafat, ever since that, where Mahmoud Abbas, the one leader of the Palestinians, was the hope that there could be a peaceful settlement, there could be two states living in peace, side by side.

But ever since Hamas won and said they wanna wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, they're not gonna renounce violence, that is a very difficult situation. Now you take Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and let them start crossing into Israel, and now you just have a powder keg. And I just can't tell you the outcome. I wish we'd send a tough negotiator like retired four star Marine General Tony Zinni over there and see if he could bring any of the parties together.

Tavis: Is that a recommendation you're making here, or one that you've made to the President?

Nelson: That is a recommendation that I'm making to you, and I'm gonna make that recommendation to Secretary Rice.

Tavis: Well, it might get a lot further with her than it will with me, but I'm glad you shared that thought with me. I hear where you're coming from. Let me move to Iraq and ask you - there are a number of things I wanna talk about with regard to Iraq. Let me start with the question that comes to mind first. Do you have any more reason, at this moment, to be hopeful about the situation in Iraq as compared to Israel? 'Cause one could argue that neither one offers a glimpse of hope as we speak.

Nelson: Well, it's tough in Iraq too, but let me tell you, this is the hope that I have. That the Iraqi army is finally getting its act together. That they are getting enough training so that over the course of the next several months, it is my hope that we're going to be able to shift the security to them, and that would allow us gradually but probably very small numbers, to start withdrawing United States troops.

But that's gonna be entirely upon the Iraqi army as to whether or not they are capable of providing the security. The indication is they're a lot better than they were six months ago, and that's a good indication. The flip side of that is there's continuing sectarian violence, Sunnis and Shi'ites are going at each other. (background noise) You get all of these kinds of suicide bombings that are going on. You get the corruption in the ministries, where they're not really functioning. That's the flip side of this. So it's a very, very delicate situation.

Tavis: All right, let's stay on this side of the coin, this flip side for just a moment, and let me challenge you, respectfully, with some numbers that I have in front of me, or in my head. A hundred and twenty-nine thousand American troops in Iraq as we speak. The entire country, 129,000 American troops, or thereabout. Iraq, I am told, we are told, is about the size of California.

So let me put this in terms that I understand, 'cause I'm talking to you live from Los Angeles right now. So that means in a state, a country roughly the size of California, you got 129,000 troops for the whole state. Fifty-five thousand of those 129, Senator, as you know, are in Baghdad. Fifty-five of the 129 are in Baghdad. So in a California scenario, 55,000 of the 129 up and down this state are in Los Angeles, where we live.

That means you have the rest to cover the whole state of California. San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose. That's all you have left for the entire state, because 55,000 are concentrated in L.A. and L.A. county. You tell me, then, how would you pull troops out of there. You see anywhere in the next few months that this violence isn't gonna get any worse?

Nelson: Well, you've just made the case as to why we should have had more troops than the 130, the 140, 150,000 troops. You just made the case. And that was a huge mistake. But it is what it is, ands I would just point out, to your figures, that most of the violence that's going on is in the Baghdad area. So that's where they have the troops concentrated. And our American military are doing a phenomenal job under very difficult circumstances.

Tavis: To that point, though, Senator, you've got General Casey, the top man over there, asking today for more troops. I'm trying again to juxtapose how you have the top general asking for more troops, and yet there are members of the Senate, respectfully, Republicans and Democrats, who keep saying we're hopeful in the coming days and weeks that we can train these soldiers and pull out. That language doesn't square with what the general is saying.

Nelson: Well, the general just said to us two days ago that he was looking forward to bringing out of Iraq about 7,000 troops by September or October. That's the general's own terms. And I think we ought to leave it up to the generals instead of us arbitrarily setting some kind of artificial timetable. We gotta leave it up to the commanders on the field as to what they need.

Tavis: And yet, most Americans, in every new poll, every new study, every new survey that comes out, we see that the American public are demanding now, with an increasing vocalness, some sort of target date for when we're going to pull out. The Democrats in the Senate, your party, put up legislation some days ago the Republicans voted down to try to set some timetables.

So tell me how you square a philosophy that we ought to listen to the generals on the ground with the American people, who those generals work for, saying that we want some timetables here.

Nelson: And you just made the case of why I voted against it. And I don't agree that we ought to set an artificial timetable to pull out, because the security interest of the United States in stabilizing Iraq ought to be as a decision of the commanders on the ground, not some artificial timetable of withdrawal.

Tavis: Let me jump now to North Korea. We hear today that China and Russia have announced a draft resolution that strongly deplores, strongly deplores is the language, what North Korea has been doing with regard to missile testing, but doesn't tell them to stop, doesn't do anything more than strongly deplore their tactics, and asks them to consider another approach here. What's your sense of what China and Russia have had to say, versus where you think we ought to be on this issue?

Nelson: This is a huge disappointment in China and Russia that ought to know better. Certainly, China is the one to yank the chain of North Korea, because they supply them with fuel and food, and could get a response out of North Korea. They've been reluctant to do that. China has the long view of not wanting to rock the boat in that part of the world.

Tavis, I'll make a prediction to you, that all of this recent flurry of activity, of launching these seven rockets, it was six SCUDs and a dud, on the Taipong number two, it, of course, as you know, failed in its first stage, I think, though, that has so shook up the country of Japan that Japan is gonna become a major player and rock the boat. And I think ultimately, that's gonna get China to finally come to its senses.

And I think China then might be more cooperative with us in trying to get North Korea to dismantle their nuclear weapons program.

Tavis: Finally, the G8 summit, set days from now in St Petersburg in Russia. Your sense of what you expect to come out of that, or not come out of it, as it were, given the volatile nature of hotspots all over the globe?

Nelson: Well, with a twinkle in my eye, I'll say that I hope that President Bush can look into the soul of Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and get him to finally respond in a positive way on a number of these hotspots. Clearly, in the G7 plus one, the industrialized nations of the world, North Korea, Iran, all of these hotspots that we've been talking about here.

Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, all of that, enormous consequences for the industrialized world. And I hope they will come out of this with some strong comments, some strong actions. We got a long way to go, though, Tavis.

Tavis: Senator Bill Nelson, always a pleasure to have you on, sir. Thank you for your time.

Nelson: It's a pleasure. Thank you, Tavis.

Tavis: Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat out of Florida. Up next on this program, Janet Murguia, the president and CEO of the National Council Of La Raza, the largest Hispanic organization in the country. We'll talk to Janet in a moment. Stay with us.