GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

GLENN: From WOW FM in Des Moines, Iowa, hello, you sick twisted freak. Welcome to the program. Glad you're here. So much to do today. We have Ted Poe on with us, Congressman Ted Poe. Is he there now? Congressman, how are you, sir?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: I am doing excellent, thanks.

GLENN: I'm so glad to have you on, and I have to tell you, sir, out of all of the people that are in Washington, you are really, truly one of the good guys and one of the brave people that we have in congress and you just never seem to be willing to give up on different issues and you also don't come down seemingly party lines. You will take on right and wrong first, not left and right.

Congressman Ted Poe (R - TX)

REPRESENTATIVE POE: Well, that is correct, but most issues are right and wrong, not partisan at all and you just have to do what's right for the people and for the country.

GLENN: Well, I wanted to talk to you about this one and this is really disturbing to me. It's a story of Jamie Leigh Jones. We talked about her yesterday. She was brutally, brutally raped in Iraq by Halliburton employees. Do we know if these employees were Americans?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: We don't know. They probably were but they may not have been. There were more than -- there were several of them and some of them may have been Iraqis or some other nationality.

GLENN: Okay. But she was brutally raped. Then she went to the hospital, got a rape kit. She then went back. It's my understanding that Halliburton took that rape kit, she's never been able to have the rape kit, she was thrown into a cargo container, one of those big container units that, you know, they put on big ships. She was locked in there, given a bed, couldn't use a phone. A guard took pity on her and gave her the phone. She called her father. Her father called you, but this was two years ago, right?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: That is correct.

GLENN: And nothing has happened since then. You were on top of it right away and you were responsible for getting her out. What happened?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: Well, as soon as I got the call from her father who was, you know, tremendously excited and worried, we contacted officials at the State Department and within 48 hours they had two agents there in Baghdad and found her, rescued her. And she needed much more medical attention, and she received that and finally was brought back to the United States very shortly thereafter.

Then things seemed to have just fallen off the radar. We've tried to find out what has happened to the perpetrators, these criminals. Who are they, where are they and what has been done, and really haven't gotten satisfactory answers. And so we've pursued it through the State Department now, through the new attorney general, and the Justice Department is now moving on the case to find out where these criminals are and who are they so they can be prosecuted.

GLENN: What does this say to you? I mean, here I'm a guy, I've defended Halliburton when I felt they needed to be defended and, you know, I watched the news last night, Congressman, and I saw something. What was it, on waterboarding. I know where I stand on waterboarding and I'm watching it like, okay, I don't really know who to believe anymore because I'm not getting the truth very often. What does it tell you how something like this could happen to an American citizen with most likely American employees and an American company and nobody pursues it for two years?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: It's very disappointing and it's unfortunate. You'd think in a situation like that, that a 22-year-old female that's been sexually assaulted, really brutalized, that not only our government but the corporation that she works for would side with her and do everything possible to make sure her medical needs were met and the people who did this were held accountable, but --

GLENN: They didn't only rape -- the employees raped her, but the company kidnapped her, imprisoned her.

REPRESENTATIVE POE: Held without her will, hostage, and that is -- and not in a room but in a container, a cargo container, as you said. It's just the worst of everything that happened to this wonderful person.

GLENN: So what happened? When you have been pushing for the last two years, "Hello, is somebody looking into this," what has happened along the way? What kind of answers are you getting from anybody?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: No answers at all. I suspect that there has been some preliminary investigation, but the point is I want results. We need results and what are the results. And we haven't heard those results. And what probably, what I think has really made this thing now take some initiative, because of the right of privacy that she's had and we have, you know, kept her identity and situation confidential, as we should, but when she decided to go public and let the world know what happened to her, now we are able to make sure that the federal government says, understands that this is something now the American people know about happened and they want some results.

GLENN: I have to tell you, you know, there's -- I got mail from people who questioned her credibility, why is she going public. Wouldn't you? If you waited two years for the Government to take care of it, wouldn't you? I don't think I would have waited two years.

REPRESENTATIVE POE: Well, a lady in that situation who's brutalized and, you know, thousands of miles from home and has nobody and alone, we can't really second-guess what she does as a sexual assault victim. She did what she thought was best. And we didn't get any results from our government and so she's made the choice to go public, which is a difficult situation for any sexual assault victim to do, and whether this happened or not, well, the proof is in the medical. The medical reports are -- without question show that she was brutalized over there in Iraq and now people need to be brought to court and held accountable and let's air it publicly now and find out who was there, who was responsible and why nothing happened until recently.

GLENN: I read a report and I believe it was a State Department person said that nobody really even broke the law because the laws of Iraq can't be enforced and the laws of the United States don't apply. Is there any truth to that?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: No. As a former judge and prosecutor, there is federal law that applies to this case and here's the reason. The jurisdiction of where this happened in the green zone, in Camp Hope in Baghdad is under the jurisdiction of the State Department and since it's under the jurisdiction of the State Department, federal law does apply and people can be prosecuted for crimes against American citizens.

GLENN: How ironic that it happened at Camp Hope. How far up the chain does it have to go before someone can quash an investigation like this?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: It could happen anywhere up and down the chain. I don't know where it fell apart. Probably initially it fell apart over in Baghdad. But now the attorney general, the new one is aware of this. We want --

GLENN: Hang on. Are you implying that the last attorney general you don't think was aware of it?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: I don't know about the last one, but the new one is hopefully the new one.

GLENN: Oh, you at Camp Hope, here, let me put you in a container, for the love of Pete.

Congressman, you know and I know we are dealing with something that is -- I mean, I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist because I'm not. I don't want to believe the things that I am beginning to believe because it's on the verge of insanity, but I have to tell you, at best our government is making so many bad steps that it makes them look like there is a shadow power that is not doing the American thing, has no one to answer to except themselves. We're seeing it with the fence in Mexico, we're seeing it with the still 21 missing Americans that have been kidnapped across our border and no one's doing anything about it. We're seeing it with this. A company can actually hold someone, kidnap them, hold them against their will and the government does absolutely nothing, and a congressman like you is beating the drum and beating the drum and you can't get any answers, who the hell has power in this country?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: Well, the people still have the power and we are going to get answers in this situation. In fact, Chairman Conyers of the judiciary committee is contemplating holding congressional hearings on this case and other similar cases that have happened overseas very shortly and I hope he does that.

GLENN: Wait. Other similar cases involving Halliburton?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: Involving corporations that have American contracts to work overseas and crimes committed against American citizens overseas.

GLENN: Is this -- please tell me this is the worst you've seen.

REPRESENTATIVE POE: This case?

GLENN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE POE: No question about it, you know.

GLENN: Okay.

REPRESENTATIVE POE: I have four kids. Three of them are daughters about Jamie's age.

GLENN: No, no, I don't mean that. I mean, please tell me there's not another shoe that's going to drop that makes this one look like nothing in comparison. Please tell me that this is the worst-case scenario of what we're looking at. You're not telling me there are other cases where companies are kidnapping Americans and holding them against their will or anything like that, are you?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: No. We've had some reports of other Americans having crimes committed against them overseas and working their contractors or subcontractors and so that's what we want to investigate to see if this is -- how widespread it is.

GLENN: Congressman, I am -- honestly it's people like you that give me hope in our country because I think we're entering a dangerous period. I think our Government has made so many mistakes, our corporations. I mean, I'm a capitalist, man. I love capitalism. I mean, I am all for corporations make the world a better place until they get out of power and that power, when it swings too far one way, it's going to swing just as far the other way and that's danger. I am concerned that we are more vulnerable because of the disconnect that the American people feel for their government and from each other. I feel we're more vulnerable today than we were on 9/11 -- or not vulnerable but fragile. Do you feel that way? Talk me down from that insanity tree.

REPRESENTATIVE POE: I do, too. I, like you, am a conservative, capitalist, free enterprise and all of those things. But what has occurred in my opinion is that there is a lack of trust with our government and the people in control by the people. We just don't really trust what we hear and what is said or what we even see, and it's these types of situations that we're talking about now that just continue to make us lose confidence in the people who are running the show.

GLENN: You know, let me switch gears here with you for a second if you don't mind going down the waterboarding road with me. Waterboarding, everybody was on board when this particular case happened. It was effective. I don't believe waterboarding is torture. Some do. That's okay. That's a debate. But now it's being played as if it was the evil United States torturing people when everyone was on board because we thought another attack was right around the corner.

REPRESENTATIVE POE: That's correct. The people are switching sides on this very issue and many people talk about waterboarding. They don't even know what it is but they --

GLENN: Do you believe it's torture?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: I don't believe it's torture at all, I certainly don't. You know --

GLENN: You know, I've wondered because it does know physical damage. It supposedly freaks the living daylight out of you but it does no damage to you physically. I'm wondering. All of these news people always line up to get themselves tasered: You know, hey, let me show you what it feels like. I know some of our troops, correct me if I'm wrong. If you're in special forces, this stuff is done to our own troops to say, "I want you to know what's coming."

REPRESENTATIVE POE: That's right. They are subject to waterboarding so they know exactly what happens to a person if they're captured. Of course, we know our enemies really don't capture Americans. They execute them. But I think this is something that's trying to inflame people and trying to treat our enemies with kid gloves, people who hate us and want to kill us and now it's the popular thing to say, oh, America's engaged in torture of prisoners, and waterboarding, as most people in congress have said earlier, is not torture as some imagine.

GLENN: And it's when you put a towel, a wet towel over someone's head and hold it there, you strap them down and then you pour water on the towel and it creates the sensation of drowning, correct?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: That's my understanding of it. And people start giving information when that happens.

GLENN: Congressman, you stay in touch with us and you let us know how we can help on this case. I think this is outrageous and don't you dare give up, sir, until you find the answers.

REPRESENTATIVE POE: We're not going to ever give up.

GLENN: Do me another favor, sir. I don't know if you feel comfortable answering this question. So many people want answers, they want to know who to trust, this he want to know who's the best on the border. Do you have somebody that you look at as a candidate and say, this is the guy who gets it; this is the guy who will -- this is the guy who will do it? Do you have anybody yet?

REPRESENTATIVE POE: No, I haven't thrown my support by any means behind any candidate. So I'm still waiting to see.

GLENN: Yeah. Okay, thank you very much.

REPRESENTATIVE POE: Okay.

GLENN: You bet, bye-bye. Congressman Ted Poe who is quite honestly I think an American hero today.

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