RAY SUAREZ: The United States is now trying to get help from the United Nations in the form of a resolution to internationalize the mission in Iraq. How much decision-making power can the United States share, while at the same time urging other countries to share the cost and share the risk of being there?

RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Kucinich, some of those allies that the two earlier speakers have referred to have already said that the current resolution that's circulating doesn't go far enough. Can we keep American civil administration and American military administration as it currently exists and expect the rest of the world to come to the aid of the United States?

DENNIS KUCINICH: I believe that it is time to bring the troops home, it is time to bring the U.N. in and get the U.S. out. (Speaking in Spanish) And what we need to do in order to accomplish that is to get the United Nations together in an agreement that provides for the following: first, that the U.N. will handle the collection and distribution of all oil revenues for the people of Iraq without privatization.

Second that the U.N. will handle all contracts. No more Halliburton sweetheart deals. And third…

And third, that the United Nations will proceed to work with the people of Iraq to construct a government that the people of Iraq can call their own. Under those conditions, the United States can move away from Bush's blunder, which Iraq will be known as because there was no reason to go into Iraq–at war with Iraq in the first place. And everyone who took the responsibility on this stage has to answer to the American people for voting for that war. I led the effort against it.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Let's talk about the economy.

So the economy is growing slightly. The number of jobs is continuing to decline. And unemployment has risen faster for Hispanics than any other sector of the country. Right now, it stands at 8.2 percent. What would you do as president of the United States to remedy the situation? Let's begin with Congressman Kucinich.

DENNIS KUCINICH: The following steps need to be taken in order to begin to help the American economy recover. First of all, when you consider that we've lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs since July of 2000, it's shocking but the United States does not have a manufacturing policy, an economic policy which states that the maintenance of steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping is vital to our national economy and our national security. We will have a policy when I'm president.

Secondly, we have to do everything we can to secure our manufacturing base, and that means giving a critical examination to those trade agreements that have caused a loss of hundreds of thousands, in some cases millions of jobs, in this economy. As president of the United States, my first act in office, therefore, will be to cancel NAFTA and the WTO and to return to bilateral trade, conditioned on workers' rights, human rights and the environment.

On Labor Day, I announced a new initiative, a new initiative which will enable the United States to rebuild its cities in the same way that Franklin Roosevelt rebuilt America during the Depression, called a new WPA-type program, rebuild our cities, our streets, our water systems, our sewer systems, new energy systems. It's time to rebuild America. We have the resources to do it, we have to have the will to do it.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: As many of you know, the U.S. and Latin America have been negotiating the FTAA–the Free Trade of the Americas–that would create a free trade zone in Latin America by 2005. Do you support it?

RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Kucinich, if we follow the advice and the assurances that you just gave and start to pull out of some of these treaties, if we start to demand these standards abroad in the places that America acquires the things it sells in its stores, won't the price of everything that you see when you walk into a Wal-Mart go up, everything that you see when you go into a Kmart or, indeed, even to the supermarket?

DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, the real question, Ray, is what kind of profits do the Kmarts and the Wal-Marts of the world make?

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Kmart, not too much.

DENNIS KUCINICH: But on the misery of those people in Third World countries who are working for pennies an hour and are finding themselves unable to support their own families. I mean, all this talk about trade here belies something that really needs to be looked at and that is NAFTA makes it impossible to be able to protect workers' rights. Now, those people say they're going to put conditions on NAFTA. If you put conditions on NAFTA, that's WTO illegal.

So what we need to do–the only way that we can go back to trade which will work for the American people and for people all over North America is to make sure that we have workers' rights, human rights and environmental quality principles in trade. And by workers' rights I mean this: the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike.

The right to join a union, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a safe workplace, the right to a secure retirement. Those have to be written specifically into our trade agreements and they were not. We had intellectual property written into the trade agreements. And we need specifically written into the trade agreements prohibitions on child labor, slave labor, prison labor. But you know what? Unless we cancel NAFTA and withdraw from the WTO, we aren't going to get there. So all of this is just talk. I'm the one, first day in office, cancel NAFTA, cancel the WTO, return to bilateral trade with all those conditions we've just spoken about. Thank you.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Forty-one million Americans do not have access to medical care or health care.

One-third of Hispanics of the 38 million Hispanics in this country do not have health care. At a time of record federal government deficits, how can this country bring the number of uninsured down?

RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Kucinich? How do you get more of the uninsured covered, and do you have to repeal the Bush tax cuts to do it?

DENNIS KUCINICH: I've introduced a bill which states that health care is a right, not a privilege, and it's to get the profit out of health care, and here's a copy of it. It's H.R. 676, the sponsors are Mr. Conyers, Mr. McDermott, myself and a number of members of Congress.

Congress right now has in front of it a plan that would cover all medically necessary health services, all individuals. Individuals would not have to pay premiums, deductibles or co-pays. But what it would do is it would take the profit out of health care. And with the exception of Ms. Moseley Braun, all the others here will retain the role of private insurers. And we have to understand that the insurers–the insurance companies and the pharmaceuticals right now, they own us. We need to take our health care system back.

This is the plan that will do it. And, you know, you can talk about balancing the budget in Vermont, but Vermont doesn't have a military. And if you're not going to cut the military and you're talking about balancing the budget, then what are you going to do about social spending? Hello?

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: We're nearing the end of the debate so let's try to be brief with our answers. We're going on to the next subject.

It seems like politicians nowadays are afraid to use the A-word, amnesty, as if it were a contagious disease. So let's talk about legalization or regularization of undocumented workers.

Would you support legalizing undocumented immigrants in this country?

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you. Congressman Kucinich, is it realistic to think that, in the environment after 9/11, that we could have a legalization program to legalize undocumented immigrants in this country? Is it realistic? Could it possibly happen in Congress?

DENNIS KUCINICH: One of the tragedies of 9/11 is that we've forgotten who we are as a nation. In the fear that's covered this country, we've forgotten about the optimism and hope that led so many people to sail under that light of Lady Liberty. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. America must remember where we came from as a nation. And in doing that, we need to extend our arms once again to the world community and bring those, the tempest-tossed, to the United States.

Yes, I'm for amnesty. Yes, I'm for legalization of status. Yes, I'm for broadening citizenship possibilities. Yes, I'm for enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act and making sure that those workers who come from Mexico have all of the protections of federal law and including universal health care.

Yes, I'm for repealing NAFTA, because there are so many reasons why people left Mexico because of NAFTA. Yes, I am for lifting up the cause of human rights.