The Threatening Storm: the Case for Invading Iraq
November 2002
Speaker: Kenneth M. Pollack
Interviewer: Lisa Anderson, Presiding
Lisa Anderson [LA]: Thank you, Nancy. Im Lisa Anderson and Im delighted to be here to discuss Ken Pollacks new book, which all of you know about youre here. I want to remind you that this conversation is on the record, so if Ken says anything really, really interesting you can repeat it wherever you want. His bio is in the back of the roster so I dont want to repeat it except to also remind you of course that the Council on Foreign Relations is largely responsible for this book because he did much of the work on it while he was here. And hes now of course at Brookings. Ken, let me just start with a general question that gives you an opportunity to frame the discussion to some extent. This is obviously an argument for invading Iraq, but its 400 pages long, so its a nuanced argument for invading Iraq. You started thinking, as you say at the beginning of the book, about Iraq in July of 1990 or thereabouts. Could you tell us a little bit about what prompted what I should also point is a beautifully written book. For those of you who havent had a chance to read it, it really is a book that you can read all 400 pages of it and its not hard and its not what it sounds like it would be 400 pages away. So its a beautifully written book and I think that helps you move your argument along. But why dont you tell us a little bit about why you thought this was an important book to write.
Kenneth M. Pollack [KMP]: Thank you, Lisa. And actually let me start by thanking you for agreeing to do this. I mean its a great privilege to me to have a world-renowned Middle East scholar like Lisa Anderson being the moderator of this. And also let me take just a minute to thank Les Gelb in particular. The Council was responsible for the creation of this book, but more than anybody else, it was Les Gelb. This book would not have been published had it not been for Les, and whats more, this book would have been a much poorer effort had it not been for Les constantly needling me (Laughter), constantly coming after me and saying, What the hell do you mean by that? And he was really just invaluable throughout it. So Les, thank you very much.
Lisa, as you point out, the first time as I described it in the preface of the book, the first time I really smacked my head against U.S. policy toward Iraq was in July 1990 when I was a junior analyst at CIA and I started to see the Iraqi forces piling up on the border opposite Kuwait, and I said, You know what? This guys about to invade Kuwait. And everybody I talked to assured me that, no, that would never happen . . . that Saddam would never be that foolish, that it was something else, it was a show of force, it was just going to be a limited military operation. But consistently I kept running into one brick wall after another.
And that convinced me of a few things. First of all, it convinced me I need to get the heck out of the intelligence community and get over to the other side of the fence where I could be the guy listening to the young analysts at CIA about to warn that there was an invasion of Kuwait. But it also convinced me that there was just misunderstanding within the United States of Saddam Hussein, his thinking, his approach to policy.
And all throughout the 1990s I had the opportunity to work both sides of the issue both in the intelligence community and on the other side of the fence at the Department of Defense and over at the National Security Council, and during that period of time I worked very hard on the policy of containment, and in fact in some ways Im the most unlikely guy of all to be making the argument in favor of invasion, because I did believe very strongly in the policy of containment. I worked very hard to try to make it work, and I still to this day believe that if the United States had done things differently, and in particular, if our allies had done things differently, containment would still be a perfectly viable option to Iraq.
But it really was in the time frame of about 1995, 96, up through 1998 that I began to recognize that there were some real problems with containment. Talking to the inspectors as they came back from Iraq and hearing about all of the different problems that they were having . . . and there were problems that none of you ever heard of before, because they were such minor little issues that they never made it to the level of international diplomacy. But they were real problems and they really blocked and constrained the inspections. Other problems that we had in terms of trying to stem Iraqs smuggling, and just the giant problems we had at the United Nations, trying desperately to get any other countries in the world interested in the problem of Iraq and willing to actually do something to enforce that very containment regime that the world had put in place in 1991.
And as time went on I began to recognize that we had a real problem with containment, and the first thing that I did was I started to write about the need to reform containment, to make wholesale changes to containment so that we could make it last longer. Well, that also kind of went into a black hole. Some of the ideas that I came up with among other people became something that down the road eventually became what the Bush administration would call the smart sanctions. But by the time the Bush administration embraced it in 2001 the opportunity was long past, and things that we might have done in 1996 and 97 that could have had real impact by 2001 were definitely a day late, a dollar short. By about 1998 it was clear to me that containment was really on the rocks, and in fact during that period of time the Clinton administration had made the intellectual conclusion, we as a group, that really regime change was the only alternative in Iraq.
Now obviously the implementation of regime change under the Clinton administration was not exactly what any of us would have liked. There were a number of different reasons for that. One of them, probably the most important, was that we all knew that really the only way to be sure of getting rid of Saddam Hussein and to do it in a way that minimized the potential for other problems elsewhere in the region was to mount a full-scale invasion.
When in 1998, in the days before September 11, there was no one in Washington who believe that anyone in the United States would be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to mount a full-scale invasion. So while on the one hand we looked out and we said, Really, regime change is going to be our only solution, the best option we had was off the table, and instead we went looking for this other . . . these half solutions: Arming the Iraqi opposition, covert action . . . all solutions we knew had a very low likelihood of success, but because the one thing we knew would work wasnt available to us, were the only things that were out there. By the time September 11 came around a number of other things had happened. First, additional defectors had come out of Iraq who had indicated that the Iraqis were actually much farther along in their nuclear program than anyone in U.S. intelligence realized. It led to in particular the German intelligence agency coming out and saying that they believe that Iraq no more than three may six years away from having a nuclear weapon. Some of those revised estimates were important to me, and in addition, many of the other things that I saw in terms of the worlds treatment of Iraq.
The willingness in 2000 that the Chinese were building a nationwide fiber optic cable network for the Iraqis in flagrant violation of all of the sanctions, which was clearly to be used by Iraqs internal security forces and their air defense forces. It was a clear sign to me that even the permanent five members of the Security Council, that is the other three aside from the U.S. and Great Britain, had simply washed their hands of the Iraq program and were willing to look the other way and pretty much allow the Iraqis to do whatever they wanted to.
All of these things, plus, in the wake of September 11, the sense that the country finally now recognized that there really were some very dangerous external threats out there in the world, external threats that the United States needed to be willing sacrifices to deal with . . . all of that led me to the point where I was willing to actually say out loud, to say in print, I think that at some point in the near future, maybe not immediately, but sooner rather than later, the only solution to the problems that we have with Iraq is going to be to mount a full-scale invasion of the country.
LA: Okay, youve suggested that the erosion of containment meant that was over the course of time not a real policy option. What about deterrence?
KMP: Very important question, because there is this question out there of, well, you know, we tried containment . . . and its important to understand that in the Iraq context, deterrence and containment have very different meanings from what we talked about when we were confronting the Soviets during the Cold War. During the Cold War deterrence and containment effectively meant the same thing. With Iraq they have very different meanings. With Iraq containment meant preventing Saddam Hussein from reconstituting his weapons of mass destruction through the system of the sanctions, the inspections, the no-fly zones and limited military operations whenever Saddam really pushed back hard.
Deterrence has a much purer meaning. It is much like what we did with the Soviet Union in terms of basically saying to the Iraqis, Look, we dont like your government, but were not going to try to stop you any longer from developing these weapons. We know that we can no longer do that, but what we can do is to say to you that if you try to cross your borders, if you try to move out to act aggressively against any of your neighbors, you will face the full fury of the United States. I think there are many different problems with deterrence of Iraq, but let me lay out three of them, and please understand that these are items that really are specific to Iraq and to Saddam Hussein. Im actually a big fan of deterrence and I think that it works well in most places in the world. But I also think that Iraq and in particular Saddam Hussein as a decision-maker are uniquely dangerous. What we found in the 30 or so years that weve been watching Saddam Hussein in power is that he is always difficult to deter and sometimes impossible. There are basically as I said at least three reasons why this is the case. The first is that Saddam Hussein is a terribly reckless decision-maker. He is an inveterate gambler and he takes gambles that certainly no one on the outside would countenance, and in fact as best we understand it very few others inside of Iraq would also take if they were in Saddams place.
He is someone who is deeply ignorant about the rest of the world. He has very few sources of information. His intelligence services spend most of their time keeping track of developments inside Iraq. And to a great extent whats going on in the outside world is kind of an afterthought for them. He has a very bad habit of shooting the messenger, and many inside of Iraqs intelligence services are terrified of delivering bad news to Saddam, and as a result, as best we understand it, most of what Saddam hears from his intelligence services is exactly what they believe that he wants to believe.
Beyond that, Saddam is one of these people who when he looks out at the world, he sees reality, he sees the world and he makes predictions about whats going to happen based on what it is that would best for himself, and as a result, he is willing to distort reality to fit his own views. And in particular what weve seen from Saddam Hussein over the years is that he will find himself faced with some kind of an internal problem. Now, he always exaggerates his internal problems because hes much more concerned about internal threats, and so hes paranoid and he will exaggerate them. And he will come up with some kind of an external solution to that internal problem, and oftentimes these external solutions are incredibly far fetched. Let me give you an example. In 1990, Saddam decided that he faced real internal problems largely as a result of Iraqs economic problems. Now Iraq did have serious economic problems. They had a fairly high rate of unemployment, they had a debt of $85 billion, they were having problems with inflation as well.
But economists, especially American and European economists, looking at Iraq, didnt believe that Iraq was in desperate straits by any measure. In fact, Iraqs bond ratings, all of the financial analysis of Iraq indicated that Iraq was far better off than the vast majority of third world states because of its oil resources and other factors that were in its favor. But Saddam saw the economic problems as being dire, as being critical. And the solution he came up with was to invade Kuwait. And there are a couple of things to keep in mind about the invasion of Kuwait.
First, Saddam believed . . . well, Saddam knew that the Kuwaitis had about 200 billion dollars in financial assets. But Saddam apparently believed that these were sitting in Kuwaiti banks in the form of gold bullion. And that he would be able to pay off his debts by seizing Kuwait, and seizing the gold. And in fact, when the Iraqis mounted the assault on Kuwait, and we captured some of the special forces guys who were responsible, the first thing that they did was to airlift two special forces brigades into Kuwait International Airport to go and seize the Amirs palace, and the Central Bank of Kuwait. Believing that they would get their hands on the gold.
Now of course, this was not the case. The Kuwaitis had about four billion dollars worth of gold, and of course all the rest was in portfolios. It was in assets all over the world. And Saddam was unable to get his hands on it. The second thing about the invasion of Kuwait. I think that a lot of people would assume that Saddam made the calculation that the United States wouldnt fight for Kuwait and therefore it was acceptable for him . . . he could go on and actually invade Kuwait.
Thats not actually what happens. As best as we understand it, and weve got quite a bit of evidence at this point in time of it. Saddam actually was convinced that he would have to fight the United States, but he calculated in his own mind that the United States would respond very quickly with light forces, the 82nd Airborne Division . . . some Marines, maybe air carrier battle group ... which his huge Republican Guard . . . 120,000 men . . . would be able to crush.
And once we had taken five or ten thousand casualties we would call it a day. We would say You know what? Were not wild about you taking Kuwait but were not going to fight you for it. Now these are some pretty fantastic ways to think about your foreign policy. These are some pretty fantastic ways to think about solving your internal problems. And again, what they demonstrate is Saddams willingness to distort reality, to fit what it is he wants to believe, and to take wild risks. And this is a critical point.
There are many people who say Well, we can deter Saddam because hes not suicidal. And the truth is, while Saddam is not deliberately suicidal, he has frequently been unintentionally suicidal. And I can count at least five instances in Iraqi history where Saddam took actions that should have led to the destruction of his regime and his demise, which he survived only through sheer luck. Actually let me stop there. I think theres enough on the third topic of deterrence.
LA: All right. Im persuaded. (Laughter) Lets say for the sake of argument that we are persuaded, and we decided containment hasnt worked, and deterrence isnt gonna work, and so forth and so on, and we buy your proposition that we should invade the country. Does that mean we sign up for the Bush Administrations lock, stock and barrel?
KMP: Great question, and appreciate getting a chance to talk about this. I hate the sub-title of my book: Case for Invading Iraq. Because any time anybody hears it, thats immediately what they assume. Is that I am a full fledged supporter of everything that the administrations done. And while I agree with the administration at the end of the day, military solution probably is going to be the only way of dealing with Iraq, Im not yet fully convinced that the administration is handling this in exactly the right way. I think there are a lot of things that we need to do. Let me put it this way. There are a lot of things that we need to have in place before we go into Iraq. Invading Iraq is going to be a very big operation. And while it may well be the case that the Iraqi army simply folds and we march into Baghdad unopposed, we cant bet on that. Theres actually good history, good evidence, to suggest that at least some of Saddams forces are going to fight very hard. And theres evidence to indicate that if faced with his own demise, Saddam is going to lash out with everything that he has, and he is going to try to pull the temple down around him. And that means using his weapons of mass destruction, that means trying to destabilize the region as best as he can . . . hes doing everything he can to make this operation costly for us.
And beyond that we have to remember that the invasion of Iraq doesnt stop the day that Saddam Hussein falls apart . . . the day his regime falls apart. In fact, in some ways the hard part really starts when Saddam Husseins regime is ended, because at that point in time were going to be left owning Iraq, and we have got to have in place a plan for how were going to reconstruct it. And what all this means is, before we ever go into Iraq there are a lot of things Id like to see in place. First, Id like the region to be a lot calmer than it is today.
What I hear consistently from the Arab allies whose support we are going to have to have to mount an invasion of Iraq, simply because we cant invade Iraq from the sea or our bases in the US ... were going to have to invade from bases in the region . . . is that they are concerned about their own people. That the tensions in the region, the violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians have gotten their people so worked up that they are quite concerned about popular unrest in their countries. And what theyve said to us is, look, we want you to go ahead and invade Iraq. But youve gotta do something for us first. Youve got to get negotiations resumed between the Israelis and Palestinians to try to calm the troubled waters of the Middle East.
They make very clear theyre not asking for a final settlement on a peace between the Israelis and all of the Arab states. Theyre not asking for Ariel Sharons head on a silver platter. Theyre not asking for significant compromises. What theyre looking for is for the United States to get everyone back involved in a peace process, to get negotiations going, to just bring down the level of violence, and bring down the level of tension in the region.
Id also like to see the United States build as large an international coalition as possible. If possible, Id like to see us go through the UN. Im glad to see that the administration did decide to pursue the route of the UN. I think its very important. The more countries that we have on board with this operation, the easier it is going to be. Politically, militarily, diplomatically and easier the reconstruction of Iraq is going to be.
Id like to make sure that weve got a very good sense of what it is that we want to do with Iraq after the operations over, and Ill say that in the administrations defense, they are working very hard right now on coming up with a plan for what do we do with Iraq. How do we rebuild it. Im not convinced that theyve yet got the right answer. But I am very glad to see that theyre at least taking this issue on board, working on it aggressively, and recognizing that the way that we handled Afghanistan, just getting into the war, and ad-libbing the reconstruction afterwards, is not going to work with Iraq.
And as a final caveat, I would also like to make sure that before we do start in on Saddam Hussein that Al Qaeda . . . Osama bin Ladens terrorist network is weak enough so that it is not in a good position to take advantage of what we are doing inside Iraq. Now none of this is a show stopper. None of this is setting the bar so high that it cant be accomplished. In fact I think that these are things that we could probably could even do this winter. But it may be hard to do. It may be that were not able to do so. And that being the case, I would be willing to put the operation off for another year if thats what it took to build the kind of support that we need . . . to get in place all of the pieces, to put it very bluntly . . . to get all of our ducks in a row . . . to make sure that when we do mount an invasion of Iraq, that we dont create new problems in solving the problems that we already have.
LA: Okay. I have one last question before I open up to everyone else. And this is something obviously you couldnt have done in the book. But how do you explain the difference in policy, or perhaps you have a different position than the Bush administration . . . on North Korea?
KMP: I actually think that as best I can tell, that the administrations doing a pretty good job with North Korea and differentiating the two. The first thing, just to be very clear, I think North Koreas nuclear program is a very serious threat. It is a very dangerous issue, and I dont want to underplay that. I dont want anyone to walk away thinking Oh, Pollack thinks that North Koreas nuclear program is no problem. Thats not the case at all. That said, I think there are a number of very important differences between North Korea and Iraq. First the North Koreans havent attacked anyone in 52 years. It is a crazy regime, as best as I understand it from the Korea experts. It is certainly an aggressive and expansionist regime. But it has demonstrated in 52 years a degree of prudence which Saddam Hussein has not. In 22 years, Saddam Hussein has attacked five of his neighbors, hes threatened three others, hes used weapons of mass destruction on his own people and on Iran, and there are a whole bunch of other things that we know about Saddam Hussein that make him very dangerous. In particular, from what I understand from the Korea experts, there is a consensus that the Koreans want their nuclear weapons because they are afraid of an attack on themselves. They wanted to deter that attack.
What we know about Saddams thinking about nuclear weapons is very different. What we know about Saddams thinking, is that he believes that once he has acquired a nuclear weapon, we will be deterred, and that this will allow him to once again resume his program of expansion in the Middle East, because we will be so scared of taking him on and risking some kind of a nuclear escalation, that we wont dare to do so. And that short of striking the US homeland itself, Saddam will effectively be free to do as he wants to in the region.
This is an extraordinarily dangerous way of thinking about nuclear weapons in the world. Its something that we used to worry about that the Soviets would think. And I think we now have the information that indicates that the Soviets were far more conservative, and they recognized that there was nothing that they could gain from external aggression that would be worth the risk of nuclear escalation with the United States. And what we know about Saddams thinking is he makes exactly the opposite calculation. Finally, Iraq is surrounded by weak states that have almost no capability with the exception of Turkey, and to some extent Iran ... have almost no capability to deal with Saddams own conventional capabilities, weak as they are. On the other hand, North Korea is surrounded by South Korea, is surrounded by China, by Japan, all very powerful states that have very powerful conventional armies in their own right, able to deal with the North Korean conventional threat. I think that makes North Korea a very different issue for the United States, the threats it raises are very different, and things that I think can be handled in different ways.
LA: Okay. Thank you, Ken. I have some more questions for you, but its 6:30, and this is the council, and so there are rules. (Laughter) So Im going to open the questions to all of you. A couple of those rules . . . please stand and state your affiliation when you ask your question. Try and be concise. And if we can group sets of questions together . . . Im going to try and do that. So that we can get as many issues on the table as possible. Steve? There is a microphone coming around.
Audience: Thank you. My name is Steven Kass. Carter, Ledyard, and Milburn. The title of your book is evocative of a book by Churchill, and with that of course is the suggestion that there are some analogies to be drawn to Hitlers rise, and the failure of England, France and others to intervene when they could. There are an awful lot of well qualified people who dispute the applicability of that analogy. And I wonder how you assess the similarities and the differences in this situation?
KMP: A great question. First, I think there are similarities and differences. First, let me start with the differences. Saddam Hussein is not Adolf Hitler. He is a very dangerous decision maker, like Adolf Hitler, but he does not possess all of Adolf Hitlers pathologies, in particular, he is not self-destructive. At least not purposefully self-destructive. Beyond that, he doesnt have Hitlers same idea about genocide, and the importance of that. I think Saddam would be perfectly willing to commit genocide if that served his purposes, but thats not a goal in and of itself.
Beyond that, Iraq is not the Germany of 1939. It does not possess the Wermach(?). It does not possess Germanys industrial capability. It is not . . . at that point in time, Germany was effectively one of the worlds super powers. Iraq is not one of the worlds super powers. I think those are all very important distinctions. And beyond that, I think theres another very important distinction to make. Which his that those people who are arguing against a war with Iraq today, should not be simply lumped together with Neville Chamberlain and the appeasers.
The alternative that people are laying out to a full scale invasion is not give Saddam whatever he wants to. Its some very muscular policies like containment and deterrence, which recognize that Saddam Hussein is a threat. They simply propose a different way to deal with the threat. And I think thats a very legitimate way to deal with it. The analogy, where I think that there is a similarity, and its an important similarity, but also shouldnt be overdrawn, is that once again, we are faced with an interesting situation in terms of we recognize that there is a country out there which so far international law and the international community has not been able to deal with. It clearly is aggressive. It clearly is bent on expanding its power. It clearly is ruthless and determined to acquire even greater weapons. And the expectation is that down the road it will be much more powerful than it is today.
And I think the question that we face is similar in terms of do we go to war today, when we know that there will be costs of any war? Or as far as Im concerned, do we wait? And in waiting, do we allow Saddam Hussein to build his capabilities and do we have to fight him later on, four or five years down the road, when he has much greater capabilities. And again, I think that there is a rough analogy in terms of when Churchill wrote . . . Well, when Churchill was arguing, not when he wrote his book . . . but when he was arguing, and when others were arguing, the point that they were making was look, Germany is a problem, this Adolf Hitler guy is a problem.
Were probably going to have to fight him in the future, and yes a war now would be costly, but a war later would be much more costly. And obviously Churchill and those who were making that argument were right in 1938 that that was the case. I cant guarantee that we will be going to war with Saddam Hussein in the future, if we dont go to war with him now. But what I can say is that once again, this is a very dangerous decision maker. He has goals that are inimical to our own. The way that he has pursued his goals in the past are extremely dangerous and reckless and I believe it is quite likely that if we dont go to war with Iraq sooner, we will face a much more costly war with Iraq later. And that is my principal reason for believing that we are going to have to go to war with Iraq in the next few years, to head off the threat of this much more costly war in the future.
Audience: Fernande Raine . . . McKinsey and Company. I have a quick question regarding the level of certainty around the goals that we think Saddam Hussein is pursuing, whether Hitler in 1938, Stalin in 1946, 45, we were always trying to figure out what exactly are the strategic goals that we had, and how sure are we that they actually are intent on pursuing them? So this is a question that has three parts. First of all, what are the main strategic goals do you think he is actually pursuing? What is your level of certainty around his determination around it, and the third is what are the sources that you base that decision on, or that gut feeling on?
KMP: Let me start with the sources, because its going to be the vaguest answer I give. We have a lot of information about Saddam. Some of it is stuff that the US Government has chosen not to release yet. Others are public information. I mean we have a lot of speeches by Saddam Hussein at this point in time.
In addition, weve got a bunch of defectors who have come out of Iraq . . . a number of people who were very close to Saddam Hussein who were privy to his own thinking. Wafi(?) Kasamuri(?) . . . one of his former intelligence chiefs . . . Hussein Kamel(?) before his bizarre death at Saddams own hands . . . told us a great deal about Saddams thinking. Sad(?) Bizaz(?) who was his minister of propaganda for a period of time. Others who have come out of Iraq, a number of generals who were close to Saddam Hussein . . . not all whose names are public, but many of them have gone public with their information. So we have that source of information.
We also do have an enormous number of speeches by Saddam Hussein, both general speeches, speeches which he has given outlining his vision of Iraq, and then also speeches in specific circumstances, justifying specific policy actions. All of this amounts to a pretty good sense. Now do we know what any historic figure ever believes? No. People are still arguing over what Adolf Hitler intended. You know, we have Mein Kampf and there are people who say Mein Kampf was a blueprint. And there are other people who say Mein Kampf is something he did in prison just to wile away the hours. So we never have any great level of certainty.
But in the case of Saddam Hussein we actually have a pretty good record, again because he has spoken on so many occasions, because we do know people from his inner circle, who have come out and spoken, because there are other sources still inside Iraq who have reported on his thinking, and it does paint a pretty consistent pattern of what Saddam believes.
To put it into a nutshell, this is a man who is obsessed with his place in history. He sees himself as a man with a historic destiny. That historic destiny includes uniting the Arabs in some way, shape or form. Its clearly something well beyond his idea of you know, Nassers goal, of being the leader of the Arab world. The way I put it is, Nasser was beloved and admired, but he wasnt followed. Its very clear in the way that Saddam Hussein talks about his vision that he is going to be followed. That his idea is an Iraq so powerful, with the rest of the Arab world so dependent on it, that when he gives orders, they will basically fall in line and follow him.
It does seem pretty clear that he wants to expand Iraqs power. At different points in time this has taken on different meanings. At some points in time it has meant actually territorial expansion. Its pretty clear that when he invaded Iran one of his goals was to seize Kusistan(?) province in Southwest Iran, which has about 95 percent of Irans oil revenues. Its also clear that when he sees Kuwait, in addition to his short term goal, of trying to get his hand on all this Kuwaiti gold that he thought was out there, he also did want to add Kuwaits own economic power, its oil power, to his own.
Hes also made it very clear that he believes that this power will be military power. And he said repeatedly, he wants to make Iraq a military super power, the equivalent of the United States, China and Russia. Hes said this on any number of occasions. Finally something he consistently talks about is a desire . . . he believes that as part of this historic mission is to strike some great blow at the State of Israel. Now its not like . . . it doesnt seem to be the case that he wakes up every morning thinking All right, how am I going to get the Israelis? But this does seem to be a very critical element of this historic vision that he has of himself. And remember, the leaders that he compares himself to constantly . . . Saladin(?) Nebuhadnazar(?)... their great roles were liberating Jerusalem . . . conquering the City of Jerusalem at different points in time, and hes explicitly made the same comparison. That Israel has some kind of a component in these great aspirations.
And then a final one . . . its also clear that he now is seeking revenge from the United States. And remember, in 1993 he tried to kill George Bush. This was in some ways a kind of lunatic action. If he had succeeded in killing George Bush, I think theres every reason to believe that the United States might, under those circumstances, have actually mounted an invasion of Iraq.
Now the Clinton administration was in power . . . who knows exactly what would have happened. But think about what this countrys reaction would have been if we had had Saddam Hussein kill the former President of the United States. Theres no way to justify this on strategic grounds. This was pure revenge. Weve seen Saddam act through pure revenge in other ways. And again, based on his thinking, its pretty clear he wants to land some kind of a blow against the United States as well, although again, its very vague, its unclear exactly what this means.
LA: Senator Goodman?
Audience: Your perception that at this point we do face the probability of a heavy strike, which would necessitate preemptive action (Overlap/Inaudible)...
KMP: From the Iraqis? No. I think certainly at this point in time its highly unlikely. I actually think that even after Saddam Hussein acquires nuclear weapons its unlikely hes suddenly going to decide Im going to use these things against the US, against Israel, against anyone. I wouldnt rule it out. Back when I was at the CIA one of my very senior bosses laid down the law, and said We are not going to predict what Saddam Hussein will not do. Thats a dictum which has served me very well for years since, because this is a guy who consistently does things that do not make sense to anyone else, including the people around him. That said, his pattern of behavior has not been to simply go off and pop these things. And as best we understand his thinking, its not that he wants to get a nuclear weapon and use it, its that he wants to have a nuclear weapon, basically so that he can blackmail other countries, or use it to shield acts of aggression, conventional acts of aggression, from the United States, or Israel, for that matter, intervening against him.
Audience: (Inaudible) Reicher(?). I wonder if you could explore this question of time a bit more. You mentioned that it might benefit all of us to wait a year, to get additional international support. Isnt there a risk though that time could work against us. Youve got a lot of regimes in that part of the world that are in enormous stress internally. Another year of this could produce some unforeseen consequences (Inaudible).
KMP: Its a great question. In many ways its a critical question. Because the pressures work in both directions. I think ... what I said before . . . there are a lot of reasons . . . put it a different way. There are a lot of things that we want to have in place before we mount this invasion, so that when we do mount it, we minimize the impact on the rest of the region. But youre also right that there are a lot of things about timing that would argue for moving faster rather than slower. We dont know exactly where Iraq is on its nuclear program. There is a consensus among the intelligence agencies in the West that hes probably four to six years away from getting a nuclear weapon, without acquiring the fissile material on the black market. Hes tried for 20 years to acquire the fissile material on the black market, and so far he hasnt succeeded, but if he does tomorrow, he could have a nuclear weapon in as little as six months. And the problem with this operation is, its not one you want to get wrong in terms of the timing. Once hes got a nuclear weapon, thats it, were done, this is off the table, and we are going to have to find ways to deter this guy. Doing something that has proven to be very difficult in the past.
Theres another issue out there . . . a political issue that I think is an important one. As I said before, what really changed in 2001 was the willingness of the American people to make sacrifices to deal with foreign threats. I think before 2001 . . . before September 11th, the United States was deeply complacent about a security in the wake of the victory of the Cold War, and our great victory in the Gulf War.
We felt like we were relatively safe and secure, and the threats that were out there in the world were actually kind of small and distant. And what September 11th really drove home, I think, to many people, is the fact that there actually are some really deadly threats out there, and that we need to really make some sacrifices to deal with those threats.
I think what youre seeing in the polls is that with each day that we get farther from September 11th, that willingness fades a little bit more, and people are more and more concerned about their economy and their own job, and less and less concerned about foreign threats that may or may not materialize in the future.
What all this says again . . . the sooner we can do this the better, because we will be much surer of addressing the strategic threat that we face. But by the same token, we do need to think about the downside, the fact that if we go into Iraq, and mount this invasion before we really have put in place all the prerequisites to make it work quickly, with low cost to ourselves in terms of casualties and treasure, and to the Iraqis in terms of the destructions well create there, and to our allies in the region, but we also risk creating as many problems as we solve. And I think that thats kind of a delicate balance that we face right now. And I think ultimately every person is going to come up with a different answer about whether that means go sooner, go a little bit later.
LA: (Inaudible)
Audience: Maurice Sonnenberg . . . former chairman, vice-chairman, National Commission on Terrorism. My question is post(?) . . . three times now youve mentioned having something in place. In 1921, the British set up a Constitutional Monarchy, which worked quite well until 1958, and probably influenced by Gamel(?) Nasser in the overthrow of that government. Now were in this fast-forwarding ... Assyrians . . . Tokeymans(?) . . . Shiites... Sunis... and others. How do you envision that in place ? What do you see as a way to handle Iraq after our victory?
KMP: Thank you, Maurice. Another very important question. A lot of people are proposing all kinds of different ideas for what we put in place in Iraq afterwards. Its going to sound strange to say this in some ways, but I actually think that a true functioning democracy is going to be the best solution that were going to be able to come up with in Iraq. Not just because the track record is that democracies tend to be more stable and less threatening of their neighbors, but simply because of the realities of the Iraqi state. A few facts to (Inaudible) on the table.
First, Maurice is absolutely right. Iraq is a nation of competing ethnic and religious groups. And any government that comes in is going to be able to have to balance the interests of all of these groups. There is going to have to be protection for minorities. Otherwise the best that were going to be able to hope for is some other brutal dictator who will come in and crack heads, and have a human rights record just as bad as Saddam Hussein. The problem is of course that it took Saddam Hussein decades to build the kind of a police state that can keep control over this.
And any new dictator who tries to get control of Iraq almost certainly isnt going to have the power to do so. And instead, what youre likely to have is civil war, as different dictators try to take over, and as different ethnic groups try to resist the would-be dictators of their opponents.
In addition, you, its important to remember that while there are these tribal elements, we tend to exaggerate how tribally culture Iraq is. In point of fact, 70 percent of Iraq is urban, they are secular. They are actually quite well educated, especially by Middle Eastern standards, and by and large, they are non-tribal. These are people who move to the cities generations before, and have really lost most of their tribal affiliation. These are people who are effectively disenfranchised under Saddam Husseins government, who have no voices out there. The people who are left in Iraq, the leaders who are left by Saddam Husseins regime, theyre people like the tribal sheikhs, who live out in the boonies. Theyre the mullahs, who rule over . . . well, not rule, the influence over some of the smaller shia groups. But none of these leaders can command followings larger than a few tens of thousand. The largest tribe in Iraq, the Sharma Jarba(?), tribal confederation has maybe a hundred thousand members...
KMP: . . . in Kosovo, in East Timor, provide a pretty good blueprint for the way over time we could build democracy in Iraq. We go in, we create a multinational force to keep security, to make sure that there arent reprisals among the different groups, that there arent would-be dictators vying for power. We allow the United Nations to set up a system to rebuild Iraqs economy and its political system. They bring in the non-governmental organizations who have tremendous amounts of experience doing exactly that. And we allow them, over a period of years, and it probably will be five, ten, 15 years in the making, but I have every expectation that given the raw materials in Iraq, the fact that Iraq is mostly an urban secular society, the fact that it does possess a large middle class, which has been economically devastated, but as a social force is still there. We know from history these are the forces that you need for democracy. These are the building blocks of democracy out there. And I have every expectation that five or ten years down the road, Iraq will still be a work in progress, but theyll have a workable democracy. Again, you know, its been six years since weve been in Bosnia. And Bosnia is not a model democracy by anyones standards. But its a heck of a lot better than it was six years before and they are making progress. And there is every expectation that ten or 15 years down the road, they will have a workable democracy.
LA: Peter.
Audience: Hi. Im Peter Bouckaert of the Human Rights Watch. I just returned from Northern Iraq and I left deeply concerned about the safety of the civilian population during war. And also the complete lack of that issue from the policy debates which are taking place in the U.S. We all seemed so high on our victory in Afghanistan that weve forgotten the terrible tragedy of Kosovo, where Milosevic continued his slaughter, even while our planes are in the air. Now I was just wondering if you could address kind of the dangers that you think the civilian population would face, and how we can address that in our planning for a war.
KMP: Its a very important question. And one of the points that I make in the book is . . . one of the tragedies of our Iraq policy is whats best for the Iraqi people is almost always in afterthoughts. Now there is, I think, a reasonable reason for that, which is . . . that, you know, there are tragic circumstances throughout the world. There are any number of countries where the people are horribly oppressed. And it isnt necessarily the responsibility of the United States to go in and fix every single one of them. But given that we do have a threat from Iraq, given that we have, in the past encouraged the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam Hussein, I think that it is important that we pay much greater attention. The first answer I give Peter to your question is that I think that the worst circumstances that the Iraqi people are going to find are their current circumstances. I think they live in a nightmare. And as you well know, the Human Rights conditions in Iraq are appalling. Human Rights commissioners have repeatedly compared the state of human rights inside Iraq to Hitlers Germany, to Stalins Russia. This is an abominable police state. That said, thats not to suggest that we should ignore it when we go into Iraq. And I am very deeply concerned because I think that Saddam Hussein will look at the people of Iraq as being 23 million hostages, which he can use to exploit, and I think that one of the great tragedies of Iraq is the fact that if we do invade, we are going to be much more concerned about Iraqi civilian casualties than Saddam is. And, in particular, at the end of the day, when we find Saddam, as I expect, dug in Baghdad, the four or five million residents of Baghdad are going to all be his hostages.
Now the first thing to say is I think that when we do go into Iraq, this has to be one of our biggest concerns. You mentioned the Kurds. I think we need to be in a position to defend the Kurds because I am concerned that if we dont, Saddam will go in and slaughter the Kurds both to deny us Kurdistan as a base of operations, and also simply to put pressure on us because he knows that we have given a guarantee to the Kurds that we will intervene to prevent Saddam from slaughtering them. I think thats one thing thats out there.
Second, I think youre right . . . that the Iraqi people themselves could face nightmarish conditions. But I think there the real key is how we handle the military operation. What we saw in the Gulf War, and its even more true today, is that the military balance is such that the United States really does have the capability to run roughshod over the Iraqi armed forces. And for me, the key to an invasion of Iraq is going in with overwhelming force to make sure that Iraq simply has no ability to really stand up against our forces, to go in with a huge ground force so that we can clear his army out of these areas. And also with a huge civil affairs tale to the operation.
So that as soon as we go in and liberate areas of Iraq, we have the people in place ready to start helping the Iraqi people to repair the damage from the war, to repair the damage from the 11 years of sanctions, to repair the damage from the Gulf War and the Iran/Iraq war before it, which still have not been repaired.
And to move with such speed that we prevent the Iraqi government from using its population as human shields, as hostages, and perpetrating new outrages on them. I think these are capabilities that are well within our purview. And we are a tremendously powerful nation, and we are capable of doing all these things. Again, its the willingness to make that kind of a commitment, and to say Weve got to do an invasion of Iraq right. And that means using all of our conventional capabilities and not trying to win this war with one hand behind our back, not trying to win it on the cheap.
LA: Bob.
BB: Bob Bernstein, Human Rights Watch. Ive heard it said that if the inspectors get in there at 220, and theyre going into a country the size of France, and that they have little chance of success, what is your feeling about that?
KMP: Unfortunately, I agree. Again, I spent long years sitting with the inspectors listening to their stories coming out of Iraq about how the Iraqis were deceiving them, how they were blocking them. Hearing their stories about the lack of support that they were getting, and all the problems they encountered. I also spent long hours recognizing the limitations of our intelligence. You know, Hans Blix has said that there are 700 sites in Iraq that hed like to inspect. Again, with 220 people. If hes able to inspect all the 700 sites in a reasonable amount of time, with 220 people, that will be a real feat. But I can just about guarantee, hes not going to find a damn thing in any of those 700 sites . . . because the Iraqis know exactly what were looking for. Charles Duelfer, the former deputy chief of the entire inspection mission, has said on a number of occasions that he thinks that there were maybe six truly surprise inspections in the entire history of UNSCOM. Because the Iraqis are simply too good at figuring out what UNSCOM is looking for, what the inspectors look for, where theyre going at any minute in time. And they have all kinds of ways to delay the inspectors in kind of little subtle ways. Things like they would show up at a landing field, and thered be an enormous aircraft on the landing field. And the inspectors would say, Get this damn thing out of the way. We want to land and we want to land right now. And the Iraqis would say, Absolutely. Were getting it out of the way. Well be right with you. And 20 minutes later, theyd have the airplane off the aircraft and then the helicopters could land. But that would be 20 minutes that the Iraqis would have to move their stuff around if they wanted to. And there would be delay after delay after delay all the way. There would be a ten-minute delay here, 15 minute delay here. And by the time the inspectors got to the actual target site, it would be six, or ten, or 12 hours later. And all the stuff would be gone.
And I think that if you look at the Iraqis body language, how quickly they accepted the inspections when the United States went to the . . . U.N., how quickly they accepted Hans Blixs timetable when he started negotiating with them. I think its pretty clear that the Iraqis are very confident in their ability to continue to hide this stuff from the inspectors. They know its simply a waiting game. And theyve waited out the international community once. And I think theyre confident they can do it again. Fortunately, everything that I hear from the inspectors, everything that Ive seen myself is theyre probably right.
Audience: Arlene Meister(?). Until recently the information seemed to be pretty prevalent that there was a difference between bad as Iraq was and al-Qaeda. Now it seems that the government is convinced that there is a direct link. If that is the case, and first of all, I wonder about your assessment. And second, if that is that is the case, what will it do as far as their cells in the Middle East are concerned, which are clearly there, in terms of our ability to handle the situation to which degrees its likely to serve as a really very serious problem?
KMP: Im very dubious about the connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Again, I cant rule it out. A link between Iraq and al-Qaeda would be a new development. It would also be, I think, incredibly stupid for Saddam Hussein. But as Ive said, this is a leader who has repeatedly taken actions that were incredibly stupid in the past and made no sense to anyone but himself, and landed himself in tremendous hot water. I cant rule it out.
That said, watching the Iraqis over the last ten years, I never saw anything that indicated a strong set of ties. There were contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda but these were always very tenuous. The Iraqis doing a little bit of business on the side with al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda operatives looking for something that they could get from the Iraqis. And there were people on both sides who did try very hard to see if they could take the relationship to another level.
And what we found repeatedly was that they were unable to do so. Bin Laden hated . . . hates Saddam Hussein as best we know. Saddam is on bin Ladens list. Hes just a little bit farther down below the United States and Saudi Arabia. And Saddam always knew that. Bin Laden was a free-lancer. He was somebody beyond Saddams control. And Saddam always was very wary and tried to keep al-Qaeda at arms length.
Now youre right. The administration is claiming that they have new information. Information which obviously Ive not seen because its come about since I left the government. Im certainly interested in hearing what they have to say. Id love to see it. I am still dubious, again, because it does represent such a break with Iraqs past. And also because when I hear from congressmen, who apparently have had the classified briefings, and also from the British, is that they believe theyve seen the information the administration has, and they dont believe it. Again, Im willing to believe it because I dont put anything past Saddam, but I am dubious. I think there is a very compelling case to be made of the threat that Iraq poses because of its determination to acquire nuclear weapons, and what a nuclear armed Saddam Hussein could mean for the Persian Gulf,, for the Middle East, for the United States. I think that is a much more compelling argument than the argument based on terrorist ties. But as I said, I am still waiting to see what the administration is going to come up with.
LA: The last question.
Audience: David Vidal(?) with the Conference Report(?). A year ago, our French paper said (In French). Its a year later and I dont think Ive seen any books like yours in Paris, Madrid, London, Munich, Mannheim. And Ive been in all these places in the last couple of months. Can you help me understand . . . is it the English language? Why is it that only us see this grave and compelling threat that you have so eloquently outlined? And if its only us, how can you have such great certainty given all the uncertainties that youve told us exist around the situation?
KMP: Let me make three points. The first point Id make is ... it isnt only us. In point of face, the British certainly agree with us. I would actually say that the German intelligence services do agree with us. The German intelligence service believes Saddam Hussein will acquire a nuclear weapon in three to six years, and that that will be extraordinarily dangerous. Their political leaders, for a whole variety of reasons, are basically shunting that aside and not paying attention to it. And there are a whole bunch of other countries out there. In Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia, who do agree with the United States about the magnitude of the threat. There are two additional points to make there. First, my experience has been that the European governments, in particular, but all of the governments of the world, have done an extraordinarily bad job of educating themselves and their populaces about the problem of Iraq. One of the things that always struck me when I was at the National Security Council was every time we had new European member of the Security Council, how completely ignorant they were of everything about Iraq. Not just the threat ... but of what the resolution said, of what the inspectors had been doing, of what they were supposed to do. There was always a long process of educating the new members of the United Nations, and in particular the European members of the United Nations.
And actually what we always found six or seven months into it, after we had gone through this long process of education, that the European states who were on the Security Council, were often our closest allies, our biggest supporters. In some ways much more supportive of us, and much more effective than any of the Arab states because once they did have the opportunity to see all the information, to understand what had actually been going on, they did recognize the magnitude of the threat.
And I think as far as their publics are concerned, there simply is just tremendous ignorance. And again, I actually hear this from any number of members of the embassies of the European embassies in Washington right now. They will say the same thing. It is incredibly difficult for them to explain to their government what is going on in Washington because their governments are so ignorant of Iraq. But I think there is at least one other problem out there, one other issue that needs to be put on the table. And, that is a great deal of concern on the part of the Europeans and other countries about the larger U.S. foreign policy agenda, and how Iraq fits into that larger U.S. foreign policy agenda.
I think that there are a lot of people in Europe who are very concerned that Iraq is simply going to be the first of many U.S. military operations in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. Its something that I think they have a real reason to be concerned about. I personally believe that we really have at this point in time only a military solution to the problem of Iraq because so many other alternatives have failed and fallen by the wayside at this point in time.
But I dont think that a military solution is the right solution to many of the other problems that we have in the region. Id like very much to see the administration making the argument to the American people, and to the world that Saddam Hussein really does constitute a unique threat, that were going to set very high standards for this kind of a preemptive action, and that Iraq can meet those very high standards. But I think in doing so, well reassure a lot of our allies around the world that were not simply going to take off on a crusade against a whole variety of other countries, that Iraq is a unique threat, which we believe does require a military solution, but that we understand that most of the problems of the world cant be solved by war and by force.
And I think that if we were to make that argument, youd see a lot more countries coming over to the United States very quickly because they do understand that Saddam Hussein is cat of a different breed, that the United Nations did decide in 1991 that he simply was too dangerous to allow to possess weapons of mass destruction, and that the time probably was right to actually move against him because, unfortunately, all of our alternatives have been tried and have been found wanting.
LA: Ken, thank you very much. I think this has been a very instructive session. For those of you who are persuaded, and even more for those of you who are not persuaded, the book is on sale downstairs. (Laughs) (Applause) Thank you all.