Tancredo Denies Suggestion to Bomb Mecca in Response to Nuke Attack
Think Progress (with video):
In a recent interview on CNN, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) claimed that it was “absolutely untrue†that he once said we should “take out Mecca in order to send a message.â€
After airing Tancredo’s remarks, host Anderson Cooper said, “As always, we care about the facts on 360″ and proceeded to display Tancredo’s statements from an interview he conducted with Pat Campbell in July 2005. A review of the transcript showed Tancredo arguing that if terrorists were to use nuclear weapons in the U.S., we should respond by nuking the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
The transcript from July 2005:
Tancredo: “Well, what if you said something like, if this happens in the United States and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist, Muslims, um, you know, you could, you could take out their holy sites.”
Host: “You’re talking about bombing Mecca?”
Tancredo: “Yeah. I mean what if you said, what if you said that this is the, we recognize that this is the ultimate threat to the United States therefore this is the ultimate threat, this is the ultimate response. I mean, I don’t know, I’m just playing, throwing out there some ideas because it seems to me you, at this point in time, or at that point in time you’d be talking about taking the most draconian measures you could possibly imagine and other than that all you could do is tighten up internally.”
-Pat Campbell Show, WFLA 540, Thursday, July 14, 2005. [original emphasis]
Free Republic readers, sharing their sentiments on the original story, agreed with the comments of Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado).
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