CNN American Morning

Good morning, gentlemen. Nice to see you both.

Victor, because it’s so early where you are, let’s start with you this morning.

We heard Senator Graham saying that in his mind at least it sounds like President Bush’s actions might meet the standards of impeachment. Think that’s true?

VICTOR KAMBER, THE KAMBER GROUP: Well, I said it on your show before, and I’ll say it again, I think the big question is if. If the president was aware of the misinformation that was being disseminated to the American public that allowed us to go to war, then there’s no question he rose to the standard that the Republicans set in the last Congress when they impeached Bill Clinton. It was never about sex with Bill Clinton, they all claimed, it was about lies, and misrepresentation of the American public.

And frankly, this is not a Democratic call. The Republicans should be outraged, calling for the impeachment or resignation of the president if he misled the American public. If he did not, if he did not, then some heads should roll, whether they be Condoleezza Rice, Cheney, Tenet, somebody who did mislead the American public, and mislead the government.

O’BRIEN: And, in fact, Cliff, Senator Graham, as he was trying to clarify what he was saying, later said, if the president knew or should have known — and really, isn’t that the critical difference there? Do you think them, as Victor is saying, if the president knowingly misled the public, then that is an impeachable offense?

CLIFFORD MAY, FMR. RNC CHAIRMAN: Except we already know the answer to that question. And to his great credit, Bill Clinton provided it on this network last week. He said what this is about is a disagreement between British intelligence and American intelligence, and in the end, in this particular case, whether or not Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire yellow cake uranium from Niger, President Bush chose to believe British intelligence.

Understand, in the U.S., we have six intelligence agencies. Every one of them agreed on this: Saddam Hussein was attempts to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. To do that, he would need uranium, and one of the places he might gait it would be Niger. He’s bought it from Niger in the past. And the British felt on the basis, of among other things, the trade delegation that went down to Niger, that that’s what was going on.

So we do know the truth. And there are those who want to impeach President Bush, there are those who would like to hang him by his toes on downtown K Street. I think this is very politically motivated, and you would have to expect it in the political season.

KAMBER: It’s not politically motivated, Cliff, because we know there were people that suggested what the president said was accurate. The question becomes, the information is not accurate, and the question is, did the president know it was not accurate? And if he did, he lied. That’s a big if.

MAY: As Bill Clinton…

O’BRIEN: Let me thrown in something here Victor. President also said on “LARRY KING,” he said let me move on, enough already, let’s move on. And don’t you think Victor something is lost by not moving on and raising a specter. Other Democrats candidates are backing up away from that pretty hard.

KAMBER: I believe we should move on. It’s more important, how do we bring the troops home. It’s more important how we save lives. All I’m answering is the question you raised, a standard was set and a lot of Democrats fought as to what impeachment is. For eight years, the Republicans who controlled Congress didn’t legislate, they investigated. They looked after the Clintons every which way they could, and they finally impeached him on lies. They claimed he lies. He had sex and he lied about having sex.

O’BRIEN: Let’s turn to another question. Cliff, I’ll let you talk, but I want you to turn to another question here. France says they don’t want to send troops in Iraq unless the U.N. has control of reconstruction. Do you think the U.S. should give up control of reconstruction and turn it over to the U.N.

MAY: We really cannot do that. The kind of action you saw by Task 20 in Mosul, where it went after Saddam’s sons last week. U.N. troops couldn’t do something like. The reconstruction of Iraq and trying to turn that country in a free and Democratic prosperous nation, you cannot give that authority, that responsibility over to the United Nations.

It is unfortunate and distressing that France at this point is saying, we’re not going to help you and we’re not going to let other countries like India help you, if you would like to, with the U.N. resolution, unless you cede control of the situation in Iraq over to Kofi Annan at the United Nations. That just isn’t going to happen, and it can happen. We have responsibility for this crisis in Iraq, and we have to have the authority as well. If the U.N. can do this, if they have the military force and they can nation build, let them put that on display in Liberia, which is a much simpler problem than Iraq is.

O’BRIEN: Cliff, you’re going to have the final word this morning. Victor Kamber as well. Thanks, guys. Nice see you as always. Victor, go back to bed. Get some sleep.