This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” March 27, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Our next guest broke a shocking story earlier this morning. Now, according to her reporting, the terrorist organization Hezbollah has been using Mexican drug smuggling routes to enter the U.S.
Sarah A. Carter is the national security/Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Times. She joins us now with the very latest.
Sarah, just to get it straight, the same Hezbollah that is funded by Iran?
SARAH A. CARTER, CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON TIMES: Correct, it is the same Hezbollah that is funded by Iran. These are wings of Hezbollah, criminal enterprises working in Latin America. So, yes, absolutely.
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HANNITY: All right. Now, you say in your report that they rely on the same criminal smugglers, the document traffickers, transportation, the drug cartels, and that they’re all working together. Can you explain with some specificity exactly what that means?
CARTER: Yes. You know, this isn’t as complicated as it seems. What happened is, you know, Hezbollah has to count on the same transit routes into the United States to raise money and to move people as the other cartels in Mexico, as well as Colombian cartels and other cartels in Latin America and South America.
At this point in time Mexico seems to control the majority of transit routes into the U.S.
You know, after September 11, we locked down a lot of our water ways. Fifteen years ago we closed off the Caribbean corridor, so it made it much more difficult to move things by ship or by plane into the United States.
So what happened then was that most of the South American drug cartels began moving all of their narcotics through Mexico, therefore having to pay the Mexican cartels a tax or permission to move their products through.
HANNITY: Yes.
CARTER: And what happened is it increased the power of the Mexican drug cartels to the point where they were making billions and billions of dollars and now pretty much control Mexico itself.
HANNITY: Sarah, I have made this case — I’ve been through and I’ve seen these tunnels. There was one in particular that I saw in San Diego, literally from Mexico to San Diego. I’ve been to the border from the Rio Grande, to El Paso, to San Diego and everywhere in between.
My biggest argument has always been that, if somebody can come to America because they want a job or they want hope or opportunity, which, by the way, if I was living in poverty, I think I’d probably do the same thing.
But the biggest threat to America is they can come here — these are terrorist organizations. And for the life of me, I don’t understand why the fence isn’t completely built, why Janet Napolitano is telling America that, in fact, we have no drug violence on our border right now. What’s it going to take for these guys to wake up?
CARTER: Look, this is not a law enforcement issue. This is a national security issue. It’s not just me saying this. These are defense officials. These are DEA officials. This is intelligence officials. These are people that work in that region day in and day out and risk their lives.
I’ve been down there myself. You know that, Sean.
HANNITY: Yes.
CARTER: I have seen homes blown up by bazookas. They’re using AK- 47’s. They’re using grenades. They’re using rocket launchers. They have bulletproof SUVs. These guys have built a criminal syndicate that we can’t even comprehend. These are armies. These aren’t gangs.
HANNITY: Sarah, I hope — I swear, I hope everybody’s listening. Do you think it’s possible, as they are — as they now are crossing the border and using those same routes, is it possible they can sneak in a nuke? You know, we keep hearing about these missing suitcase nukes from the former Soviet Union. Is it possible that they can bring in weapons of mass destruction, or am I living in a paranoid delusional fantasy here?
CARTER: You’re not living in a paranoid delusional fantasy. They can certainly sneak over radioactive material. They can sneak over people.
One of the things that I’ve been looking into — and it’s in my report, as well — is, you know, foot soldiers. And they would be willing to move suicide bombers into this country through the border. It’s just that easy.
It’s not that — there has not been sufficient amount of security on that border. We have been reporting this for years, since September 11. I mean, one of the things that the September 11 Commission said was that we needed to look outside of the box more.
HANNITY: Yes.
CARTER: I mean, we were struck by planes in the sky. It’s not impossible.
I mean, look, al Qaeda has already looked at the border. Hezbollah has already made their way through the border. We don’t know who else has made their way through that border…
HANNITY: Yes.
CARTER: … who’s here right now. I mean, really, we don’t. And this is coming from sources.
HANNITY: Yes. We can’t — well, and we can’t use the term “enemy combatant,” “war on terrorism.” You know, “operational contingency” or “contingency operation,” or whatever the phrase that Barack Obama uses. I mean, it seems that we’re going back to a pre-9/11 mentality.
And you mentioned the 9/11 report. The 9/11 report said if they were at war with us, we weren’t at war with them. And if we don’t pay attention to it, why do I think that the same results will happen?
CARTER: Right. You’re right. And we’re looking at a serious issue here. We’re looking at a very serious issue.
HANNITY: All right, Sarah, good report. Thanks for being with us. We appreciate it.
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