[Senate Hearing 105-725]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 105-725
UNITED STATES POLICY IN IRAQ: PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PRIVATE POLICY
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND
SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 9, 1998
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
50-913 cc WASHINGTON : 1998
_______________________________________________________________________
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office,
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
PAUL COVERDELL, Georgia PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming CHARLES S. ROBB, Virginia
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
BILL FRIST, Tennessee PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
James W. Nance, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon CHARLES S. ROBB, Virginia
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Eagleburger, Hon. Lawrence S., Former Secretary of State......... 26
Indyk, Martin S., Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern
Affairs, Department of State................................... 3
Kirkpatrick, Hon. Jeane J., Senior Fellow, American Enterprise
Institute; and Former U.S. Permanent Representative to the
United Nations, Washington, D.C................................ 18
Murphy, Richard W., Senior Fellow for the Middle East, Council on
Foreign Relations.............................................. 22
Prepared statement........................................... 24
Woolsey, Hon. R. James, Former Director, Central Intelligence
Agency, Washington, D.C........................................ 20
(iii)
UNITED STATES POLICY IN IRAQ: PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PRIVATE POLICY
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1998
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian
Affairs Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:08 p.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam Brownback
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Brownback, Coverdell, Robb, and
Feinstein.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, all, for coming. We are
delighted to have you here and the panel that we have to
present, both from the administration and the panel to follow,
about U.S. policy in Iraq: Public policy and private diplomacy.
I want to thank our witnesses for coming today to discuss a
very important matter.
The issues we are facing in Iraq as well as in a number of
crucial parts of the world is that of whether or not the U.S.
can live up to its position as the sole world superpower. It is
an issue of U.S. world leadership. The importance of U.S.
credibility in the world has never been more important.
We are in a time when world economies are collapsing,
terrorism is on the upswing, enormous holes are being poked in
the world's nonproliferation regime, rogue regimes are building
and acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and we are facing
new missile threats from North Korea and Iran, and ethnic
tensions threaten to explode in a number of different corners
of the globe.
At a time when it is crucial that we be able to stand for
strength and stability and credibility, we are suffering from a
lack of leadership and credibility in the White House, and an
apparent policy of transferring responsibility to a weak and
divided United Nations. U.S. foreign policy at the moment is
weak and seems oriented more toward appeasement than
leadership.
Because of this unfortunate lack of leadership, our enemies
will continue to test America. The U.S. needs the President to
exercise the power of the office. We need him to be able to
pull together international coalitions to help keep the world a
safer place. We need to have the credibility to give our
enemies pause. The U.S. word must be its bond. If we make a
commitment, we must keep it.
Iraq is but one of the most recent examples of difficulties
that we are having. Saddam Hussein has shown that he follows
U.S. domestic policy closely. Both in January and now in
August, he has timed his refusals to abide by U.N. agreements
to coincide with high points in the President's domestic
scandal. U.S. reaction has been tough on talk and weak on
follow-through. Major Scott Ritter's recent resignation exposed
U.S. policy on Iraq. And I hope we have a chance to talk about
that today.
Unfortunately, challenges to our leadership are not
restricted to our dealings with Iraq. The world is watching
whether the United States can live up to its responsibilities
as the superpower. American credibility is being questioned
around the globe.
There have been a number of editorials and articles written
from around the world regarding U.S. lack of leadership today,
but perhaps it is best put by the Business Times from
Singapore. They said, on September 2nd, this:
It is quite depressing to note that at this critical
period in international relations, with some experts
warning that the financial crisis in East Asia and
Russia could produce a global economic depression as
well as new military threats to international security,
both the world's only superpower as well as the former
cold war era superpower are now being led by people who
are unable to advance creative game plans to deal with
dangers ahead.
Our panel today will explore the problems with U.S. Iraqi
policy and U.S. leadership abroad. We will examine the problems
with our Iraqi policy--the stated and unstated policy--and what
America needs to do to recover its global leadership position.
Our first witness will be the Hon. Martin Indyk, Assistant
Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs. He has been in front of the
committee before, and we appreciate him returning again.
Our second panel will consist of the Hon. James Woolsey,
former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; the Hon.
Lawrence Eagleburger, former Secretary of State; the Hon.
Richard Murphy, former Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern and South Asian Affairs, currently with the Council on
Foreign Relations; and they will be joined by the Hon. Jeane
Kirkpatrick, the former U.S. permanent Representative to the
United Nations and currently a Senior Fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute.
This is a serious hearing and we have serious matters to
consider today. There have been a lot of questions raised
recently, publicly in the media, privately, that have been
discussed. I look forward to the administration's witness,
Secretary Indyk, to talk in very direct and frank and candidly
to us. We have got a lot of tough questions to ask, and we look
forward to having your response, and for the panel behind you
to state what the United States should be doing. I will turn to
the ranking member, Senator Robb.
Senator Robb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There is no question that within the jurisdiction of this
subcommittee we have more challenging and difficult public
policy questions to deal with than at almost any time in recent
memory. None of them are easy. We have people, witnesses, who
have been kind enough to appear before the subcommittee today
that have expertise in these areas. And I look forward to their
comments. And I hope that they can help us to discern what
would be the appropriate response to some of the challenges, in
addition to highlighting what those challenges are and the
difficulties that I think all of us would acknowledge that we
have had in dealing with some of the challenges to date.
With that, I join you in thanking our witnesses, and look
forward to hearing first from Secretary Indyk.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Senator Robb.
Senator Coverdell, thank you for joining. Do you have a
statement to make?
Senator Coverdell. Just very briefly, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate the opportunity to be with you today and to welcome
this distinguished group of panelists.
To me, Iraq sort of draws three major issues that are
growing on the horizon. Those three issues being: Are we indeed
producing a hollow military as we come to the new century?
Number two, has the United States effectively embraced what I
believe is an unchallenged conclusion that terrorism is now a
component of strategic warfare? And the growing question as to
the threat from which we have recently heard from the
congressional commission with regard to the vulnerability of
the United States to ICBM's.
And when you look at Iraq and recent events there, it
touches it all. Which is my distinct interest in hearing from
the panelists you have assembled here today. And I appreciate
the opportunity to be with you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Senator Coverdell.
Mr. Indyk, thank you for joining us. I know you got caught
in a traffic jam, but I appreciate you making it up here
anyway. The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF MARTIN S. INDYK, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Indyk. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful
for the opportunity to appear again before your distinguished
committee.
I do so with some trepidation, knowing that sitting behind
me is such a formidable group of experienced former U.S.
Government officials. And I will do my best to live up to the
incredible record that they have said in the past.
In recent weeks, Mr. Chairman, as you know, there have been
a lot of charges leveled at the administration and at the
Secretary of State personally for supposedly pursuing a
duplicitous policy toward Iraq. I welcome the opportunity that
you have given us to set the record straight. If you will allow
me, I would like to spend a little time placing on the record
our version of events.
As you know, the objective of Operation Desert Storm back
in 1991 was to roll back Iraq's brutal invasion of Kuwait. As
President Bush recalls in his new book, the war did not end
like World War II, with the surrender of a beaten army and the
punishment of the villainous enemies' leaders. Although
humiliated and weakened, Saddam Hussein and his military
survived, and we have been dealing with the consequences ever
since.
From the outset, our goal and that of the U.N. Security
Council has been to deny Iraq the capacity ever again to
threaten international peace and security. This effort has paid
dividends. Year by year, Iraqi efforts to conceal its weapons
of mass destruction programs have been unmasked. In the
process, the chosen tools of the Security Council, UNSCOM and
the IAEA have forced the destruction of more Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction capacity than was destroyed during the entire
Gulf War.
Throughout this period, Iraq has tried to undermine
Security Council unity on the key points of compliance and
sanctions. At the same time, with our allies, we have
constrained Iraq's military options through Operations Southern
and Northern Watch and, when necessary, the reinforcement of
our military presence in the Gulf. As a result, the military
threat posed by Iraq has been effectively contained. But that
threat has by no means been eliminated.
As long as Baghdad is under its present leadership, we must
expect that Iraq will seek to reconstitute its weapons of mass
destruction if given the opportunity. Iraq's goal is to gain
relief from sanctions while retaining as much as it can of its
residual weapons of mass destruction programs. To this end,
Baghdad had repeatedly probed for weaknesses in the Security
Council's resolve. It has sought to create division among
Council members. It has tried to portray itself as the victim
in a confrontation with a run-away UNSCOM being ordered around
by an arrogant and callous United States.
To dramatize this charge, Iraq has halted cooperation with
UNSCOM on three occasions during the past year, most recently
the beginning of this August. Throughout, we have countered
Iraq's outrageous propaganda with plain truth. We have backed
UNSCOM's efforts to expose the contradictions between Iraqi
declarations and the physical and documentary evidence. We have
stressed repeatedly the importance of full compliance with
Security Council resolutions.
And last spring we threatened the use of force, as we have
on three separate occasions since the end of the Gulf War if
Iraq did not permit UNSCOM inspections to resume. And in the
face of that threat, it did.
Mr. Chairman, in recent weeks, some have suggested that
since then, the United States has not done enough to support
the work of UNSCOM. It has even been suggested that we have
tried to prevent UNSCOM from discovering the truth about Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction programs. The people who level
these charges are undoubtedly well-intentioned. In particular,
we have nothing but respect for the work of Mr. Scott Ritter.
We are, after all, on the same side in this process.
But Mr. Ritter works from a different set of facts. And as
Chairman Butler told the New York Times today, the testimony he
gave as to those facts before your committee and the Senate
Armed Services Committee was, and I quote Chairman Butler,
often inaccurate in chronology and detail, and was therefore,
according to Chairman Butler, misleading.
The administration has to work with a broader set of facts
than those available to Mr. Ritter. First is the fact that the
United States has been, by far, the strongest international
backer of UNSCOM. For years, we have provided indispensable
technical help, expert personnel, sophisticated equipment,
vital diplomatic backing, logistics, and other support. And
nothing has changed in that regard.
For example, in May of this year, principals of the
National Security Council instructed the heads of all relevant
U.S. agencies to issue new directives, ensuring that UNSCOM and
IAEA inspections would receive high priority support throughout
our government. The Secretary of State issued that directive to
State Department officials on June the 23rd of this year.
On the diplomatic front, we have taken the lead in
rebutting and disproving Iraq's contentions in disputes with
UNSCOM before the Security Council. Secretary Cohen, Secretary
Albright, and the rest of the President's foreign policy team
have travelled the world, attempting to keep the heat on Iraq,
in demanding that it cooperate with UNSCOM.
The suggestion that this administration urged other
governments not to support UNSCOM turns the truth on its head.
It is exactly the opposite of what we have been doing.
A second fact is that, Iraqi intransigence aside, UNSCOM's
inspection efforts have continued to make important progress
during the time that we were accused of not supporting UNSCOM's
inspections. For example, just this summer, UNSCOM was able for
the first time to conduct inspections of sensitive sites where
it found new evidence that Iraq had lied about the size of its
chemical weapons stocks.
A third fact that we have to take into account is the
importance of maintaining Security Council and coalition unity
in dealing with Iraq. There is a very hard-headed reason for
this: Unless we are prepared unilaterally to send tens of
thousands of American ground troops into Iraq to remove Saddam
and destroy Iraq's military infrastructure, we are not going to
eliminate by force Iraq's ability to conceal and possibly
reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction.
If we are not prepared to take such action, we will have to
rely on the help of others, through sanctions, support for
inspections, and acceptance of the need to use military strikes
for limited objectives if necessary. This fact has an influence
on the tactical decisions we have to make.
As I suspect the veterans among you, like Senator Robb,
would agree, there is a great value in any confrontation in
being able to choose your own timing and terrain. Saddam's
provocations are designed with political purposes in mind: to
spark a reaction, to divide the Security Council, to isolate
the United States, and to diminish support for sanctions. Our
strategy is to deny Saddam that opportunity and to keep this
world spotlight not on what we do, but on what Iraq is failing
to do--which is to comply with its obligations under Security
Council resolutions.
A fourth fact is the importance of maintaining the
integrity and independence of UNSCOM. The continuation of
UNSCOM's work is essential if we are to achieve our goal and
the international community's goal of eliminating Iraq's
capacity to pose a serious military threat to its neighborhood.
Unfortunately, if UNSCOM is to succeed, it must, among other
things, both be and be perceived to be independent.
It is ironic that Scott Ritter and Saddam Hussein both
argue that UNSCOM's independence has been compromised by the
United States. If we were to agree with Scott Ritter on that
point, we would be conceding a very key point to Saddam
Hussein. It may be precisely the opposite of his intention, but
Mr. Ritter's allegations have profoundly undermined the
perception that UNSCOM is independent. And that will make it
harder for UNSCOM to do its job--a concern that Chairman Butler
expressed today in the New York Times.
As Chairman Butler has also repeatedly affirmed, the United
States has never impinged on UNSCOM's integrity or attempted to
dictate its decisions. But UNSCOM's purpose is to assure that
there are no prohibited weapons in Iraq. So we have a common
long-term goal. The purpose of every conversation and contact
we have had with UNSCOM has been to move us closer to achieving
that goal.
For 7 years, through Republican and Democratic
administrations alike, U.S. policy has not changed. We want and
insist on Iraqi compliance. But this does not mean that our
tactics are rigid. In pursuing our goal of Iraqi compliance, we
have sometimes made tactical suggestions to UNSCOM about
questions of timing and procedure. This is entirely
appropriate, and it is done by other Council members as well on
a regular basis.
No nation, however, has done more to encourage UNSCOM to be
thorough, unyielding and aggressive in its inspections, and no
nation has done more to support UNSCOM's dogged and at times
dangerous efforts in that regard.
Mr. Chairman, I would call your attention to a letter from
Chairman Butler to the Washington Post on August the 26th this
year, in which he writes that, I quote: I have never had any
reason to doubt the United States commitment to the need for
Iraq to comply with the decisions of the Security Council. And
in particular, the United States insistence upon the
requirements imposed by those resolutions upon Iraq to the
effect that they must be disarmed of their weapons of mass
destruction. End quote.
It is also true that on a few occasions our advice to
UNSCOM was more cautious. For example, this past January, when
our military preparations were incomplete and the Muslim holy
Senator of Ramadan was underway, we judged it was not the right
time for a major confrontation.
I note in this regard that Mr. Ritter told this committee
last week, in fact in answer to a question from Senator
Coverdell, that he had objected to a planned inspection of the
Ministry of Defense in Iraq in Baghdad because he thought it
was, quote, probably heading down a slippery slope of
confrontation which could not be backed up by UNSCOM's mandate.
End quote.
This, Mr. Chairman, was precisely the kind of question we
also sometimes found occasion to raise. If it was good enough
for Mr. Ritter, why, in Mr. Ritter's opinion, wasn't it good
enough for the Secretary of State?
Given the importance of Security Council unity, we have
been concerned in recent months that the responsibility for any
resumption of Iraqi non-cooperation fall where it belongs--on
the shoulders of Saddam Hussein, not UNSCOM. We had questions,
which Chairman Butler had answered, about a particular
intrusive inspection planned by UNSCOM in July of this year.
But it is important to note that at the very time that we were
raising a question in this regard, other intrusive inspections
were going on at the same time, and we were supporting those
inspections.
And when Chairman Butler, a short time later, decided to
proceed with intrusive inspections, under the leadership of
Scott Ritter, we supported those inspections, which were to
take place in early August. The issue became moot, however,
when Iraqi officials informed UNSCOM on August the 4th that
they were halting any further cooperation. At that point, we
believed it was best to let the onus fall clearly on Saddam
Hussein. And Chairman Butler agreed.
We also knew that some in the Security Council were
planning to blame UNSCOM for the renewed breakdown in
cooperation.
To summarize, if the allegation is that we sought to
influence the pace of UNSCOM inspections, we did. But we did it
in order to have the greatest chance of overcoming Iraqi
efforts at deception. If we had not, we would not have been
doing our job.
If the allegation is that we have undermined the
effectiveness and independence of UNSCOM, the answer is we have
not. On the contrary, we have been the foremost backer of
UNSCOM.
If the allegation is that we have retreated from our
determination to achieve our goals in Iraq, the answer is that
we have not and we will not.
In the Security Council now, even members who have been
most sympathetic to Iraq's point of view can find no excuse, or
even sense, in Saddam's last actions. Accordingly, we are
seeking to take advantage of this new environment to press
Council members to take the steps necessary to enforce the
Security Council's resolutions.
Iraq's latest refusal to cooperate with UNSCOM is a direct
challenge to the Council's authority. And we seek, in the first
instance, to have the Council make a firm and principled
response.
We recognize that this has put us back on the ladder of
potentially escalating confrontation with Iraq. So be it. We
will not accept the indefinite blockage by Iraq of inspection
activities of UNSCOM and the IAEA. And we will insist that Iraq
live up to its commitment to cooperate with UNSCOM's monitoring
activities.
For all its bluster, Mr. Chairman, Iraq remains within the
strategic box that Saddam Hussein's folly created for it 7
years ago. As we look ahead, we will decide how and when to
respond to Iraq's actions based on the threat they pose to
Iraq's neighbor's, to regional security, and to U.S. vital
interests. Our assessment will include Saddam's capacity to
reconstitute, use or threaten to use weapons of mass
destruction. The bottom line is that if Iraq tries to break out
of its box, our response will be swift and strong. But we will
act on our own timetable, not on Saddam Hussein's.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate
the statement. And I appreciate your service to your country.
You have toiled for years in a tough region of the world and
doing a great deal of work, and I appreciate that.
Nonetheless, there are some questions that remain some very
serious questions. You have started and you have touched on
some of those, and I would like to have you address some of
those, if we could. Scott Ritter testified last week--and I
have to tell you, I think he is an American hero. The
President, before he resigned, talked about Scott Ritter and
the destruction of weapons of mass destruction that the
inspection team had done, that more were being destroyed by the
inspections regime than were destroyed during the Gulf War. And
here is a stand-up guy that is out doing his job.
In the hearing that we had, a lot of people were
challenging him, saying he was dictating U.S. policy. He says,
look, I am not here to talk about U.S. policy, I was an
implementer on the ground of this, and I was told twice--
actually more than that--but I was told twice that you cannot
go in, and that that came from U.S. direction, that we could
not go in and do inspections.
And he stated as well at that hearing that the information
that they had was very important, it was time sensitive
information, that it was such that it had a very short shelf
life to it. If it was not used, was not acted upon, that the
information, the missiles, or the information regarding missile
technology and systems for Iraq would be moved quickly and they
would not be able to get it. And both times they were stopped
by U.S. action.
Now, I take it from what you are saying here today that you
do not deny that the U.S. did step in to delay those
inspections on July 15th and August 4th?
Mr. Indyk. Mr. Chairman, as I explained, there were two
instances--those two instances--in which the administration
spoke to Chairman Butler, in July and August, as you indicate.
In July, we were briefed about a number of inspections that
were going to take place as part of this intrusive inspection.
And we had questions about one of those--possibly two of those.
I want to be very careful here.
And we asked those questions of Chairman Butler. Our
concern and our only motivation, as I said in my previous
remarks, was to ensure that Saddam Hussein would not be the
beneficiary of inspections that did not produce results.
Now, I cannot, from my vantage point, my particular vantage
point, give you any judgment about how time sensitive the
information that Mr. Ritter said he had at the time--how time
sensitive it was or was not, or where, and all of that. That
was something that Mr. Butler had to make a decision about, not
the administration. That is the kind of operational issue which
is in his purview, not ours. We simply raised questions about--
--
Senator Brownback. But you were making an operational
decision, then, were you not?
Mr. Indyk. Certainly not, sir. We raised questions. We did
support the inspections that Mr. Butler decided on and which
were going to take place a short time later. Those were, as I
understand it, the same or similar inspections, with an
adjustment. That may or may not, because I am not aware of the
exact details, have taken into account the particular concern
we had about whether this particular inspection was going to be
productive.
And Mr. Ritter went in with Chairman Butler to conduct
those inspections, which we supported, in early August. In
other words, we are talking, in effect, about the same time
line in terms of inspections, which were adjusted by Chairman
Butler. And those were his operational decisions.
In early August, Mr. Butler had his discussions with the
Iraqis, and Tariq Aziz told him that they would not allow
UNSCOM to conduct further investigations, inspections, unless
UNSCOM declared that Iraq was free of weapons of mass
destruction, which Mr. Butler naturally said he would not do.
Therefore, a new situation was created by Saddam Hussein in
which the inspections were blocked and we felt at that point
that, since the inspections were not going to go ahead anyway
since they were blocked, it was better to keep the focus on the
fact of Saddam Hussein's blockage of those inspections than to
muddy the waters by making it look as if there was some kind of
provocative action, in our eyes provocative, but as I said in
my own prepared remarks, we were already receiving attacks on
UNSCOM from other members of the Security Council in
anticipation of the inspections that had now been blocked.
Senator Brownback. So, Mr. Indyk, two inspections were
changed by date, by the U.S. administration. You explained in
some detail the length of time, or why those were done, but
those were at the U.S. insistence that we not have inspections
taking place on those two dates.
Mr. Indyk. One inspection, Mr. Chairman, was adjusted. The
second inspection was blocked by Saddam Hussein.
Senator Brownback. So one was adjusted by the United
States, in your testimony?
Mr. Indyk. One was adjusted by Chairman Butler.
Senator Brownback. At the request of the United States?
Mr. Indyk. On the basis of his considerations. He consulted
with many people.
Senator Brownback. Did the U.S. ask that that date be
adjusted?
Mr. Indyk. The date, no. We asked----
Senator Brownback. Did the U.S. ask that they not inspect
at that point in time?
Mr. Indyk. We asked questions about the value of certain
inspections.
Senator Brownback. Did you suggest the date on that
inspection should be changed?
Mr. Indyk. The date?
Senator Brownback. Yes.
Mr. Indyk. Not to my knowledge, sir.
Senator Brownback. So you're saying Scott Ritter does not
have that portion of his testimony right, is that correct?
Mr. Indyk. Well, I am not aware that he had testified we
changed the date.
Senator Brownback. You said there were two times, and you
read his testimony. You quoted from his testimony that there
were two times that he was requested, or pulled off of
inspections, actually, that it was at the U.S. suggestion that
that take place. It was the lack of U.S. support and suggestion
that those be at different times, that it was very time-
sensitive information. Now, is that lack of U.S. support that
caused them to stop that inspection?
Mr. Indyk. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Butler was--is the chairman of
UNSCOM, was the one who made the decisions. I've told you in
the first instance we asked questions, in the second instance
we advised of our view that it made more sense to focus on
Saddam Hussein's blockage of the inspection than to simply try
and go ahead with an inspection that would have been blocked
anyway.
Senator Brownback. Was there communication between
Secretary Albright and Mr. Butler regarding these inspections,
direct communications?
Mr. Indyk. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Was there direct communications between
the two of them regarding the timing of these inspections?
Mr. Indyk. Well, again, I want to make sure that I do not
mislead the committee, and so I'm not sure what you mean by the
timing.
Senator Brownback. When the inspections would take place.
Mr. Indyk. As I said to you, as far as the July inspections
are concerned, we asked questions about a particular aspect of
those inspections. As far as I am aware it was not a question
of the date of the inspections.
The second one, as I made clear, was a different category.
It was in a different category. We supported the inspections
until they were blocked by Saddam Hussein.
Senator Brownback. Senator Robb.
Senator Robb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Secretary Indyk,
thank you for your testimony.
First, let me just make a very brief comment and say that I
think that the focus on keeping the international community
involved rather than attempting in fact, or to be perceived to
be acting unilaterally in this particular area, and in this
particular instance, is critical to any hope for long-term
success, and I think the way that you and Secretary Albright
have stated more recently that the consequences may be meted
out in accordance with a timetable not specifically driven by
Saddam Hussein is precisely the way to approach that particular
question.
There are some, I think, who might confuse the unilateral
response of the United States to the Osama bin Laden-backed
activities against U.S. facilities and U.S. entities where the
United States clearly had an interest and the requirement to
act alone in a situation in this particular part of the world
where our relationships with neighbors as well as the
international community and in particular some of the perm 5
members has been tenuous at best, and I think the distinctions
you make in this regard are important.
Let me just ask you a couple of questions, looking ahead.
It is clear that Iraq has repeatedly misstated its history and
intentions with respect to all of the weapons of mass
destruction and each time they have been forcefully confronted
with the lack of accuracy, would be the charitable way to
describe it. They have modified their position under pressure.
But I think it is fair to say that there is little in the
history of the relationship that would give anyone any reason
to believe that their statement as to whether or not they have
complied with U.N. Security Council resolutions or the
disposition of the weapons of mass destruction would be
questioned by any serious review of the history to date.
Are there, however, additional pressure points that might
be utilized in carrying out the approach that you have
suggested today?
I'm thinking in terms of additional no-fly zones, no-drive
zones, other matters that might be utilized to ratchet up or
down, depending upon how you look at it, the pressure for
compliance when we choose not to react in a specific military
way at a specific military time that might be to the advantage
of Saddam Hussein if for no other reason to generate support
within the area and make the international community look like
the bad guy or, more importantly to the extent that he can,
trying to personalize it as a U.S. versus Iraq situation, which
it is not and should not become.
Would things of this nature be useful in terms of future
policy options that we ought to encourage the international
community and the U.N. Security Council to consider?
Mr. Indyk. Senator Robb, I want to be a little careful in
answering your question, because we do not want to telegraph
our punches.
Senator Robb. I am not suggesting you be specific in terms
of what we intend to do. I am asking you about, in a broader
sense would additional measures--and maybe I should be even
less specific. I deliberately left out a couple of other
matters.
But maybe I should simply ask the question in the sense,
are there other options that the United States, in conjunction
with its allies, might consider to make the continued
intentions of Saddam Hussein and the Government of Iraq more
likely to, at the very least, pay a price that might be
something short of actually using sustained military force and
all that that implies.
And I might parenthetically add that in response to the
last question that I asked Scott Ritter in the hearing the
other day he acknowledged that the only way that his specific
objectives could be carried out would be with the sustained use
of military force and all that that implied.
Mr. Indyk. There is certainly a range of additional
pressure points. One in particular that we have focused on at
this moment is the sanctions regime, which has been under
persistent attack by those in the Security Council who would
like to see sanctions lifted.
Senator Robb. Including three permanent members.
Mr. Indyk. Indeed. Saddam Hussein has, I believe, two
objectives. One is to retain his residual weapons of mass
destruction programs, and the other is to have the sanctions
lifted, and our objective, obviously, is to deny him both.
UNSCOM is very important in terms of discovering his
residual weapons of mass destruction programs, but the
sanctions are very important in terms of denying him the
resources that would make it possible for him to rebuild his
military capabilities, including his weapons of mass
destruction.
That is why he wants the sanctions lifted, and if we can
use his refusal to cooperate with UNSCOM to strengthen the
sanctions regime, we feel in the first instance that that is a
worthwhile objective because it will increase the pressure on
him and it will deny him one of his objectives and the fact is
that keeping the sanctions regime on for the past 7 years has
significantly weakened Iraq and its capability to threaten its
neighbors.
So that is why at this very moment we are seeking in the
Security Council a resolution that will indefinitely suspend
the 2-monthly sanction reviews which take place, so as to send
a signal that as long as he does not cooperative with UNSCOM
there will be no sanctions relief. You can forget about that.
As far as other means, I think that perhaps what Mr. Ritter
was referring to is the fact that we have learned, through
many, many years, that the only language that Saddam Hussein
really respects is that of force, and that diplomacy must be
backed by the threat of force, whether it is UNSCOM efforts or
other efforts. The threat of force is necessary to make our
diplomacy effective.
And as the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and
the President have said repeatedly, we have not taken force off
the table. It remains an option, and it remains there to back
up our diplomacy.
Senator Robb. I was going to ask another question. My time
has expired. I would simply add parenthetically that I would
hope that we would never be in a position in this particular
situation where we would take force off the table, but I will
followup with the other part of my question on the next round.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you. Senator Coverdell.
Senator Coverdell. Mr. Secretary, back to the two meetings
that the chairman was alluding to. On the first one you said
you were expressing the need for an adjustment, and the second
you were trying to reinforce the view that Saddam was blocked
beginning with the first meeting. What adjustment were you
pursuing with Mr. Butler?
Mr. Indyk. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if there is a way that
we can deal with this discussion in closed session, because we
are getting into--I am sorry, I will repeat. I wonder if there
is some way we can do this in closed session, because we are
getting into some sensitive details here.
Senator Coverdell. Let me try to rephrase the question and
see if that still leaves us in this predicament. Then we will
leave it to the chair. But the assertion in the previous
hearing with Major Ritter was that the administration was
seeking to have him removed from the inspection. Do you know
whether that was the case or not? Does this----
Mr. Indyk. I certainly can answer that question, Senator. I
appreciate your indulgence, and I will be glad to answer it
personally to you.
Senator Coverdell. Perhaps on the other question we could
deal with that by memoranda. That way you would not have to
alter the matter of the hearing.
Mr. Indyk. Fine, if that is agreeable to the chairman.
Senator Brownback. That would be fine with me.
Mr. Indyk. We did not seek to have Mr. Ritter removed. On
the contrary. As I said, all we did was ask some questions.
They were not directed at Mr. Ritter personally at all, and as
I tried to explain, there were a series of inspections--I
believe three inspections--that were to be conducted by Mr.
Ritter a short time after he was told that he could not go
ahead with the inspections he was planning in July. That is why
he was going into Iraq with Mr. Butler just a very short time
later.
They were--as far as I know, there was considerable overlap
between the inspections he wanted to conduct in July and the
inspections he was authorized to conduct by Mr. Butler in
August a short time later, and we supported those inspections
that he was going to conduct.
We had no problem with those inspections. We wanted him to
go ahead with those inspections. I personally was briefed by
the deputy chairman in New York a few days before they went to
Baghdad, and I made clear that we had no problem with that.
I should emphasize that he was at that time also briefing
other members of the Security Council who did have problems,
but we did not.
The second set of inspections were blocked by Saddam
Hussein and, as I explained, we then thought tactically it was
better to keep the focus on Saddam Hussein's blockage. Those
inspections would not have occurred because of his blockage,
not because of anything we did or did not do.
Senator Coverdell. Parenthetically, coming to the second
point, would it not have been better to have executed the
inspection and demonstrated to the international community the
blockage, rather than just accepting the blockage, and it
strikes me that that did not play.
Mr. Indyk. Senator Coverdell, that is a judgment call. We
felt in the circumstances, and I think we continue to feel that
our judgment was the right one in those circumstances, because
you had a situation where the Iraqis clearly were blocking the
inspections where their Revolutionary Command Council issued a
proclamation that they would not cooperate with UNSCOM any
more, that it was much better to allow that to stand on its own
two feet.
If I can remind you that UNSCOM and particularly its
chairman were under withering assault throughout this period by
members of the Security Council and, as I alluded to before
that very moment one member of the Security Council was already
charging Iraq with provocation--excuse me, UNSCOM with
provocation even as the RCC, the Iraqi Revolutionary Command
Council was issuing its communique blocking the inspection, so
bear in mind that context.
People can have different views about what was the best
thing to do, but it was our view that it was the best way of
approaching this, since Saddam Hussein in our view had
blundered, had revealed his obstructions to the world again,
that we should keep the focus there and that that would redound
to our advantage in our efforts to get a united Security
Council response to his violation of Security Council
resolutions.
Senator Coverdell. Mr. Secretary, I am going to have to
depart, and I apologize to the chairman, but I just would say
in closing that I think the testimony that Mr. Ritter gave
needs to be reviewed again by the administration, but there are
clear inconsistencies here. Those things happen in this city,
but they are particularly meaningful on this point and the
assertion and documentation with regard to a case being made
for his removal is pretty clear in the testimony from the
previous hearing.
Two specific questions that address that point, and so for
perhaps a written exchange, if the chairman would allow that.
We might pursue that question at a later moment, and I
appreciate the Secretary's response to my questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Senator Coverdell. I think in
the essence of time, if you would be open to answering some
written questions, we will submit those to you, Secretary
Indyk, because there remain a lot of questions, but there is a
record that is already being created from Scott Ritter's
testimony that needs to be followed up with the administration.
Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr.
Ambassador. Since August 5 how many inspections have been
carried out?
Mr. Indyk. To my knowledge, I think it is accurate to say
zero, because of Iraqi refusal to allow these inspections to
take place. Chairman Butler notified the council a little while
ago that he had tried to conduct three more inspections and
they were all blocked.
Senator Feinstein. So for the last month and 3 days,
essentially, there has been no inspection whatsoever anywhere
in Iraq, is that correct?
Mr. Indyk. That is correct. There is still some monitoring
going on of what I would call declared sites that could be used
for weapons of mass destruction production. Those are like
passive monitoring television cameras and so on. That is going
on.
Senator Feinstein. And which members of the Security
Council are having problems sustaining the program of
inspection?
Mr. Indyk. I would perhaps answer it by rephrasing the
question a little bit and see if it does answer your question.
Senator Feinstein. You can do it much more diplomatically
than I, I am sure.
Mr. Indyk. Russia, France, and China are the permanent
members who believe that the best way to ensure Iraq's
cooperation is to provide it with incentives to cooperate by
closing files, weapons of mass destruction files, or partially
lifting sanctions, and that is obviously not something we are
prepared to go along with.
Senator Feinstein. I wanted to talk for a moment about the
chemical weapons, particularly VX. It is my understanding that
Iraq did not include VX in its initial postwar declaration, and
up until 1995 denied producing VX, and it is my understanding
no VX has been found. However, Iraq has admitted to producing
3.9 tons of VX, and I understand that unaccounted for is 600
tons of VX precursors, is that correct?
Mr. Indyk. I believe so.
Senator Feinstein. That is enough to produce 300 tons of
VX.
Now, UNSCOM apparently revealed that they had unearthed
missile warheads which contain traces of VX, and those weapons
were subsequently tested and found to have VX on them, is that
correct?
Mr. Indyk. That is correct.
Senator Feinstein. And yet for over a month there has been
no testing whatsoever, and I take it no one knows, outside of
intelligence, where those precursors may be.
Mr. Indyk. That is correct.
Senator Feinstein. So there has been ample time, wherever
they are, for the Iraqis to move them.
Mr. Indyk. That is correct. That, of course, would be the
case even if UNSCOM were operating in Iraq. They still might
get caught, but they would still have the ability to move
things around, and we know that they do that on a regular
basis.
Senator Feinstein. I guess what bothers me, and the reason
I brought up this one indication, is here you had a missile
warhead tested in a neutral country, and it came up positive
for VX, and yet you have these countries committed, including
our own, theoretically committed to a regimen of inspection
allowing some technology transfer to go ahead in the meantime,
and yet there is this glaring problem among others.
What is keeping countries from carrying out their
responsibility?
Mr. Indyk. Well, I think the best way I can put it is that
they view things differently to the way--let us say, they view
their responsibilities different to the way that we view ours,
and they weigh other considerations when they assess their
national interest. Whether they are economic considerations, or
their view of strategic interests, they come out in a different
place.
Senator Feinstein. Of the warheads that were tested that
have the VX on them, can you tell us more about those warheads?
Mr. Indyk. I would refer you to a recent submission in the
last few days by Chairman Butler to the Security Council which
has some very detailed information about not only the VX
warhead but also this document on chemical munitions used
during the Iraq-Iran War, and I would be glad to provide a copy
of that letter for you. I think it has some details, and
perhaps we could put that in the record. I think that has not
been generally available. People are aware of it.
I would like, if you will indulge me for a moment, to focus
on the other issue which has not had much attention, which is
this document that was discovered. I might add that it was
discovered in July of this year as a result of intrusive
inspections, which we supported, of Iraqi Air Force
headquarters, and the importance of this document, which is
still in Iraqi possession, which they refuse to hand over, also
a violation of the Security Council resolutions.
But that document reveals that Iraq used in the Iraq-Iran
War substantially less, perhaps 50 percent less chemical
munitions than it claims to have used, therefore leaving the
question of what has happened to thousands of chemical
munitions which are now unaccounted for as a result of this lie
that the Iraqis have told and other lies they have told about
how many munitions they used up during the Iraq-Iran War.
Senator Feinstein. Just to conclude, because my time is
about up, because it seems to me that the presence of this kind
of VX chemical which is so 100-percent deadly already on a
warhead tested by a neutral country ought really to be a signal
to these nations that they ought to heave-to.
Just one final question. When do you expect that there will
be some action out of the Security Council with respect to
their own initiatives being violated?
Mr. Indyk. Well, on the first point, not for the first
time, Senator Feinstein, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
On the second question, I think that we should expect in
the next day or two a Security Council resolution which will
indefinitely suspend the sanction reviews, and that will make
it clear that the Security Council will not even discuss the
possibility of lifting sanctions as long as Iraq is not
cooperating with UNSCOM and the IAEA, and I hope that that will
be a unanimous decision of the Security Council.
The Security Council has already taken some other actions
which help to build the diplomatic effort here, first of all by
declaring that Iraq's actions were totally unacceptable, and
then by responding to complaints by the heads of UNSCOM and the
IAEA to the fact that they were unable to carry out their
mandated activities.
The council unanimously told them to go ahead and conduct
those activities, and that they have the support of the council
for doing so.
Now, with the indefinite suspension of the council reviews,
if we have unanimous support for that I think that the council
will clearly be on record as condemning Iraq's actions and
making clear that it is unacceptable, and making clear that a
price will be paid.
Saddam Hussein has threatened that he will take ``decisive
actions'' if this resolution goes ahead, and we will have to
see, and then, of course, the council will have to deliberate
about what other steps it is prepared to take if he does not
come back into compliance with UNSCOM and the IAEA, so it is an
unfolding drama, if you like, in which we are taking it one
step at a time.
But we are finding this time around, as opposed to any time
in the last year through the multiple crises we have been
through with Iraq in the Security Council, that we have much
stronger support on our side than we have had in those previous
crises.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Senator Feinstein. We do have
limited time. We will probably go on to the next panel. I know
Senator Robb had an additional question. Can we go ahead and
wrap up with this witness and move to the next panel?
Senator Robb. Mr. Chairman, the only question I was going
to ask for Secretary Indyk had to do with concerns that are
frequently raised by other members of the Arab community and
specifically raised by a number of Arab-Americans that are
concerned on a humanitarian basis about the oil for food
program and whether or not it is working and whether or not any
changes might be being considered in that area, and I would
just welcome any comment Secretary Indyk might have on the
effectiveness of that program as we see it today.
Senator Brownback. Let me hook onto the back end of that,
then, a question, if you are going to raise that, because I
have got some concerns about that and particularly, apparently,
there have been reports that Iraq was cleared by the U.N.
Sanctions Committee to receive medical shipments from the plant
that we bombed in Sudan, and I wanted to get from you--I do not
quite understand that, if that, indeed, took place, and that
was supposed to be in this oil for food program, so if you
would care to explain how that clearance could have passed
through if the plant was not producing pharmaceuticals.
Mr. Indyk. First of all, to answer Senator Robb's question
quickly, as you know, the oil for food program which was
instituted through our initiative, because of our concern about
the impact of sanctions on the Iraqi people, and because of
Saddam Hussein's refusal to meet the needs of the Iraqi people,
that oil for food program has been expanded as a result of a
recommendation from the Secretary-General, and the expansion
was designed to meet the basic needs of the Iraqi people for
food and medicine and then some to pay for infrastructure
improvements for schools, hospitals, the electricity grid and
so on.
The difficulty that has now been encountered relates to the
fact that the drop in the price of oil requires the export of
greater amounts of oil to make up the revenues needed to
purchase these foods and medicines and other things, and the
Iraqi infrastructure, oil infrastructure is not capable of
pumping at a rate that would meet the demand and that is
something that we have to look at through the Security Council
mechanisms to see if there is something that can be done at the
same time as we make sure that dual use equipment does not go
to Iraq in this process, and that is something we can do, and
we do scrutinize very carefully through the Sanctions
Committee, where every member of the Sanctions Committee has a
veto over whether these contracts should be fulfilled, and we
do have an ability to exercise fairly tight control over what
goes in.
On the other hand, by exercising tight control sometimes it
can take longer for this equipment to get in there to be able
to improve the oil infrastructure so that the oil can be
exported and the revenues generated to buy the humanitarian
goods.
As far as your question, Mr. Chairman, I am not personally
aware of the exact details of this supposed contract from
Sudan, and if you will indulge me I will take that and get a
written answer.
Senator Brownback. I appreciate that. Thank you, Secretary
Indyk. It seems like we are at a precarious time here. I look
forward to your further advice to this committee and working
closely with us, because this is an extremely important issue.
Thank you for coming.
Mr. Indyk. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. The next panel will be a group of
luminaries that have served the U.S. well in many capacities.
First, Hon. Jeane Kirkpatrick, Senior Fellow, American
Enterprise Institute, former U.S. Permanent Representative to
the United Nations.
Next will be Hon. James Woolsey, former Director, Central
Intelligence Agency, and Hon. Richard Murphy, Council on
Foreign Relations, and former Assistant Secretary of State for
Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, and Hon. Lawrence
Eagleburger, former Secretary of State.
This is quite an illustrious panel we are delighted to have
in front of us and join us here today. I think unless the
panelists have agreed differently we will go down the order in
which I read your names, unless you would like to go
differently.
That would be Ms. Kirkpatrick first, and Mr. Woolsey and
Mr. Murphy and Mr. Eagleburger, unless the panelists have
agreed on any different order.
I do know there has been a request from Secretary
Eagleburger that he not go first. He has asked me that. So that
is the only request the chairman has today.
So if you do not mind, we will run the time clock, because
it is a large panel and we would like to get a number of
questions, at 7 minutes, if that will help a little bit on
direction on time, and then we could get to a series of
questions if that would be acceptable as well.
Ms. Kirkpatrick, thank you very much for joining us today,
and we appreciate you being here. I am sure you have been in
front of this committee before in various capacities. Thanks
for coming.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEANE J. KIRKPATRICK, SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE; AND FORMER U.S. PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE
TO THE UNITED NATIONS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
and I thank you for inviting me, and I thank the committee, and
I am honored to appear.
Senator Brownback. Could you speak right into the
microphone? I think it is a cheap system, so you have got to
talk right into it.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Is that all right?
Senator Brownback. Yes, it is.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I just thank you for inviting me. I
wanted to say that I have thought a good deal about the subject
of this hearing since you invited me to appear here, as,
indeed, I have thought a good deal about it before you invited
me to appear here, and I remain as puzzled in my thinking about
it as I was before I started thinking about it.
I cannot fathom quite what the administration intends by
its policies in regard to the testimony of Scott Ritter, who I
think is a distinguished international public servant, and who
has obviously done brilliant and outstanding work in UNSCOM.
I was shocked when I initially read the charges, is perhaps
not the right word, but the indications from other anonymous
members, the members of the UNSCOM Inspection Committee, that
the administration was seeking to discourage inspections,
particularly intrusive inspections which might cause trouble,
and I thought, well, there must be some explanation for this,
and there probably is, but I have not found it myself.
I have thought hard about the U.N. environment, which is
one I know something about, frankly, and I assumed initially
that perhaps there was an agreement with the Secretary-General
or perhaps a complex agreement perhaps only half spoken and
half-understood, that the members of the UNSCOM team would
avoid provoking Iraq, and if the inspection team behaved with
enough discretion and respect and restraint in exploring the
issues it is assigned to explore, that the Iraqis would
cooperate.
Let me say that I do know from personal experience in the
United Nations that Iraq enjoys much greater standing in the
United Nations generally than most Americans understand, and
its representatives enjoy better reputations inside the U.N.
than most Americans anticipate, and moreover there is within
the United Nations a powerful drive to conduct its activities
on the basis of consensus.
Indeed, it is often suggested that seeking consensus in
almost all activities is a goal in itself, and a principal goal
of the U.N. It becomes an end as well as a means, and so I
thought to myself that perhaps there was some agreement between
the Secretary of State and the Secretary-General that was,
perhaps, part of an offshoot of the agreement, or the report
from the Secretary-General on his trip to Iraq, the time of his
trip to Iraq, which was designed to quiet a previous
disturbance, and to make it possible for the basic agreement
that had given rise to the creation of UNSCOM to be carried out
and to be implemented.
And then I thought, well, when I thought that, I thought
well, maybe that is not so bad, maybe it is not bad at all, but
we need to know about that.
What seems to me to be not reasonable, really, is to give
the American people, including the attentive public, the
impression that the United States is vigorously pursuing a
policy of inspections and is determined to do so, and will do
so, and then not to do it, but to repeatedly instruct members
of the UNSCOM team, which has been a very distinguished and
very outstanding international team, it seems to me, looking
from a distance, not to follow their own judgment or to
implement their judgments concerning the possibilities for
inspections, and which inspections are most likely to yield the
kinds of information that it is their business to seek.
And then I thought, well, perhaps the Secretary of State
has made some sort of special agreement with France, who is
sometimes given to make special agreements, to be restrained in
the pursuit of the inspections, but then I thought, if they can
share this information with France, or perhaps with the Foreign
Minister Primakov, for example, concerning timing or some other
aspects of the inspections, perhaps that is reasonable, but
surely the administration ought to tell us something about
these arrangements, enough to assist us in making sense of this
policy.
I read Secretary Albright's testimony, her comments on the
Ritter testimony, and she sounded simply angry, it seemed to
me, and suggested that Mr. Ritter was not looking at the
problem in its full complexity, and that if he was looking from
a higher perspective he would see a broader picture, and so I
thought, well, yes, the broader picture must be some sort of
arrangements, understandings with France, or with China. We
have never had special understandings with China usually on
these subjects at the United Nations, but we certainly do with
France, and with the Russians.
I believe that the administration has an obligation, and I
believe that no matter how far one bends over backward to try
to understand their goals and their justification for this
behavior and this treatment of a distinguished American civil
servant, I think that it is unacceptable, frankly, that it does
not fulfill the necessary obligation to assist us in making
sense of our policy. It is a kind of trust-me attitude which is
really not adequate about a matter which is so important that
we went to war over it, our relation with Iraq.
And so I think the administration has violated its
obligations to us in this regard, and to UNSCOM, and that they
owe us all some sort of explanation and perhaps apology.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you for joining us, Ms.
Kirkpatrick. We appreciate it very much, and we look forward to
having some questions with you.
Mr. Woolsey, thank you for being here in front of the
committee.
STATEMENT OF HON. R. JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In addition to
endorsing Ambassador Kirkpatrick's remarks, let me make just a
few points, perhaps derived from Ambassador Indyk's testimony,
and let me preface this by saying, I have a rather bipartisan
view toward our policy with regard to Iraq.
I think from the closing hours of the war in 1991 we have
made a number of mistakes in dealing with Iraq. I think the war
stopped too soon. Even if one does not believe we should have
continued on to conquer the country, we could have done a lot
more damage to Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard than we did.
I think we were hurt badly by not protecting the Shia in
the South when they rebelled in 1991. I think we erred badly in
permitting the flight of helicopters around Iraq and in not
establishing a no-fly zone over the entire country when we had
the forces and the support there to do it, including from the
Government of Turkey.
I believe we erred badly in 1993, when President Clinton
responded to the assassination attempt against former President
Bush by putting a few cruise missiles on an empty building in
the middle of the night.
I think we erred badly in 1996, when we stood aside and our
pilots watched from the air while supporters of democracy in
Iraq were massacred in northern Iraq.
I think we erred badly, and I appreciate the support of
some members of this committee, in taking a very harsh and
procedurally unsound stance against some Iraqis who had fought
against Saddam, an issue that has come up in other contexts I
am involved with.
I think we have erred badly in criticizing Scott Ritter,
the Government has, for the principled stand that he has taken,
and I believe that this set of errors in dealing with Iraq has
spanned, now, some seven-plus years.
It is almost as if we have in a random set of
circumstances--although we have done some useful and positive
things I will certainly admit--nonetheless in an important
subset of our dealings with Iraq we have seemed to punish and
deal harshly or at best ignore those who are struggling for
democracy and against Saddam Hussein, and have appeased--and
there is no real other word for it--appeased Saddam himself.
Now, I believe Ambassador Indyk is a very able public
servant, and a dedicated one, and I take issue with some of the
things he said here in a spirit of vigorous debate before the
Congress, and not any denigration of his abilities or
dedication.
Let me make several points in connection with his remarks.
He said that American policy with respect to these inspections
has not been duplicitous. I suppose I would agree with that. I
think it has been far too clumsy to deserve the label of being
duplicitous.
Sometimes in foreign policy it is useful, on national
security matters, to feign weakness in order to be able to act
strongly. That goes back at least to Joshua, Joshua's conduct
of the campaign against the city of Aa in the war to take
Canaan, where he retreated in order to be able to attack from
the rear, but we are doing it the other way around.
We are reversing Theodore Roosevelt's dictum and speaking
loudly but carrying a flimsy stick. We are behaving as if we
were a sheep in wolf's clothing, rather than the other way
around.
Now, Ambassador Indyk said that he criticized Mr. Ritter
for indirectly, and not intentionally, playing into Saddam's
hands by saying UNSCOM was not independent. But Mr. Ritter has
said that UNSCOM was not independent in that the United States
was tweaking UNSCOM to be weaker, whereas the charge from Iraq
is that the United States improperly urges UNSCOM to be more
harsh than would be appropriate. There is a very large
difference between what Mr. Ritter has said and what Saddam
Hussein and the Iraqis have said.
Ambassador Indyk said that on a few occasions we have
advised caution, and there was a good deal of colloquy about
the July 15, as well as the August 4 inspections. But as I take
it, Mr. Ritter's point is that on a number of occasions we have
inspected things which were not particularly strategically
important, and we have foregone inspections that were extremely
important.
Now, I know from my conversations with Ambassador Ekeus,
who was a diplomatic colleague of mine some years ago in
Central Europe, that--and this has been widely reported in the
press--the key elements in Saddam's hiding of weapons of mass
destruction and in much of what he is doing are the Special
Republican Guard and the Special Security Organization, which
organizations are also involved in his own personal security.
They travel around with him. They prepare where he goes.
Therefore, efforts to be productive, to use Ambassador Indyk's
term, are by definition going to be provocative in a sense.
If you are a head of State and your body guard is smuggling
narcotics and they travel around with you, an outside law
enforcement agency that insists on pursuing those narcotics is
going to come very near you. You would probably regard that as
provocative, and Saddam does.
But that is a very different thing than keeping just a
numerical scorecard of inspections, as if inspections came by
the pound, like beans, and one was equal to another. They are
not. The inspections could have been geared toward uncovering
the role of the Special Republican Guard and the Special
Security Organization about which Mr. Ritter has complained.
From this perspective as being some inspections that were
struck may have been considerably more important than some of
the ones that were undertaken.
Now, regarding the role of the Russians, the Chinese, and
the French in this matter, Ambassador Indyk spoke
diplomatically about their having a different perspective--
their believing that incentives such as closing files and the
like would have an effect, and their having a different view
about economic and security reasons and the like.
I would be far harsher here. The French are after oil
contracts. The Russians are after getting paid for the many
billions of dollars that they are owed by Iraq from earlier
weapons contracts. The Chinese doubtless have a mixture of
motives.
But all three nations are behaving in this regard somewhat
the way a friend of mine with whom I used to scuba dive
regularly described, with tongue in cheek, the buddy system in
diving. He says the buddy system is, if a shark comes up, you
take your diving knife, scratch your buddy, and swim away in
the opposite direction. That is essentially what the Russians,
the Chinese, and the French have been doing in this matter.
And I see, Mr. Chairman, my time is up, so I will close
with these opening remarks. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. That is some buddy to dive with. I would
not go into too many shark-infested waters with him.
Mr. Woolsey. He was kidding.
Senator Brownback. Mr. Murphy, thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD W. MURPHY, SENIOR FELLOW FOR THE MIDDLE
EAST, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Mr. Murphy. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation.
The administration is charged with weakening, even
withdrawing support for UNSCOM. Some commentators have gone
further and talked of malfeasance and betrayal by senior
officials. I have personally been critical of the
administration in the past, for its excessive use of rhetoric
about using force when I did not feel that it was ready to back
that rhetoric up.
But I submit that the administration, as you look at some
other evidence, has been consistent in pursuing its core
objectives of curtailing Baghdad's ability to produce weapons
of mass destruction and to deter Iraq's aggression against its
neighbors. Now, these objectives have been, and they remain,
well within America's capability to assure their achievement.
There has been a shift of emphasis, as best I understand
it, from talking of the military option and stating we will
respond militarily and automatically if Iraq interfers with the
inspection process. It has shifted to, call it, the diplomatic
option. There is not a new policy, however. And deterrence is
certainly not a new policy. We have always stood ready to deter
Iraqi aggression. But, of course, for deterrence to work, we
have to be both ready to use force, and Baghdad has to clearly
understand that we are ready to act and deter it.
Now, UNSCOM has unquestionable value in tracking and
supervising the destruction of the weapons and to limit the
chances for further cheating. I think the question that Senator
Feinstein posed earlier is very legitimate, and it is a
pressing one: How long should Iraq be allowed to block
inspections and continue the present impasse?
Going it alone militarily is an issue that no one appears
to be pushing because of the cost in American lives and the
deepening of American isolation in its efforts to contain Iraq.
I think that the way Mr. Indyk has described it, and some
earlier statements by the Secretary of State, suggest it has
been a shrewd policy, or a shrewd tactic, to pin the
responsibility on Saddam Hussein in the month of August for
calling for a total blocking of inspections. I think it was
shrewd.
No one in the administration, to my knowledge, denies that
the use of force may yet be needed. I think there are two
reasons we must keep in mind in order to avoid some of the
excesses in our past rhetoric. First, we cannot compel Iraq to
surrender whatever remaining stocks of weapons of mass
destruction it may possess. We can punish it for failing to do
so. We can work on the sanctions. We can work on building on
what I believe was the British suggestion to suspend even
periodic reviews of sanctions.
A second reason for avoiding this excessive rhetoric is
that we do not appear to have the support of regional powers to
mount a major military campaign against Iraq, whether we go it
alone or whether we can pull other nations along with us.
The emphasis on diplomacy in recent weeks suggests that the
lessons of last February were learned. The role of the
Secretary-General, Ms. Kirkpatrick has addressed. I believe the
U.S. should continue to see the Secretary-General as a useful
instrument. But it has to make clear to other Council members
that it is pointless to broker diplomatic deals unless the
Council itself acts to enforce those deals.
Until recently, we have had a relatively strong consensus
in the Council. I certainly agree with Ms. Kirkpatrick's remark
that consensus is not an end in itself. But the fact is we have
had a pretty good consensus. Time has eroded that consensus,
and regional developments beyond the Iraq issue have eroded
that consensus. We have focused today exclusively on Iraq and
the U.S. reaction to Iraq. But we cannot look at Iraq in total
isolation.
There is a twofold value in keeping that Security Council
consensus. We have overriding interests in preserving financial
controls over Iraqi revenues and an effective long-term
monitoring program of its weapons. And for that we need the
votes, the support, in the Council.
The U.N. currently controls the bulk of Iraqi oil revenues
through the food-for-oil program. Iraqi leaders detest this
program. They make no secret of it. And they are working to
discredit it around the Arab world. The long-term monitoring
program includes the right to make surprise intrusive
inspections prompted by any evidence that Iraq is continuing to
manufacture weapons of mass destruction. And so that long-term
monitoring is also obviously vital.
Arab criticism of our Iraq policy has grown because of two
interrelated reasons. First, they doubt we would do enough
militarily to cause Saddam's overthrow. Second, open agreement,
open cooperation with the United States against a fellow Arab
state is more embarrassing for them today, than it was in 1991,
right after the war, up until 1996. This is because more than a
year has passed with no progress in the Arab-Israeli peace
negotiations,
In the regional environment, in terms of openly cooperating
with us, there has been a sea change. President Clinton was
able 2 years ago to convene virtually all regional leaders,
along with many other world leaders, to an anti-terrorism
conference at Sharm al-Shaikh. This was in 1996. That kind of
attendance could not be duplicated today.
The critics, both foreign and domestic, of America's
current policy toward Iraq, on the question of the humanitarian
program, would argue that it should be maintained, and that
linkage should be kept between economic sanctions and military
sanctions. I do not think those should be separated, as some
have recommended to your body--not by today's panel but in
letters circulating in the Congress.
There needs to be a better dialog between this
administration and the Congress. You have authorized funds to
stimulate unity among Iraq's fractious opposition elements. You
should, you will, I am sure, continue to demand an accounting
of the administration's efforts. But you must accept that there
are likely to be no quick results in that regard.
In sum, Washington should focus its energies on obtaining
Security Council cooperation against any effort by Saddam to
reactivate his weapons program or attack his neighbors. The
diplomatic option offers no quick fix. But it should, and it
can be developed to support our interests rather than undermine
them.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Murphy follows:]
Prepared Statement of Richard Murphy
The Administration is accused of weakening if not withdrawing its
support for UNSCOM. It is well to recall our longstanding objectives in
Iraq. True, last February the Administration stressed its readiness to
launch a military strike on Iraq if Baghdad continued to obstruct
UNSCOM's operations. As the Secretary of State outlined to the New York
Times August 17, ``We will decide how and when to respond to Iraq's
actions, based on the threat they pose to Iraq's neighbors, to regional
security and to U.S. vital interests . . . (including) Saddam's
capacity to reconstitute, use or threaten to use weapons of mass
destructions.'' Therefore according to the Secretary of State our core
objectives remain the same: Washington seeks (a) to curtail Baghdad's
ability to produce weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and (b) to deter
Iraq's aggression against its neighbors. These objectives remain well
within our capabilities to achieve.
The shift of the past months has been towards giving more emphasis
to pursuit of our diplomatic options than to a military strike. Critics
here and abroad have asserted that Washington is following a ``new''
policy of deterrence. This is not new. From the beginning, one element
of our policy has been to contain, i.e. deter Iraq from future
aggression. We can and will keep Iraq from attacking it neighbors. Both
readiness to use military force to support US interests and Baghdad's
clear understanding that we will do so are vital to deterrence.
UNSCOM has been of great value in tracking down and supervising the
destruction of Iraq's existing WMD stocks. Its presence has also made
it easier to limit the chances of further cheating by Iraq. If Saddam's
latest challenge is allowed to stand, UNSCOM is finished. There have
been no surprise inspections since Iraq's announcement in the first
week of August that it had suspended cooperation with UNSCOM and the
International Atomic Energy Agency. It has extended its interference to
routine monitoring operations. How long Iraq should be allowed to block
inspections is a pressing and legitimate issue for debate. But going it
alone against Iraq militarily would deepen America's diplomatic
isolation and could cost American lives. Indulging in bellicose
rhetoric, meanwhile, only damages American credibility.
I am not privy to whatever discussions may have taken place between
US officials and UNSCOM Director Ambassador Richard Butler about the
inspection process, in particular about the timing of surprise
inspections. But I believe the Administration acted shrewdly to deny
Baghdad any ground to argue that the UNSCOM by a specific surprise
inspection had provoked Iraq into blocking the inspection process.
No one in authority has denied that force may yet be needed to
curtail Baghdad's capability to produce WMD or to block any move Iraq
might make against its neighbors. As the Secretary General of the
United Nations himself last February commented that while diplomacy is
good, diplomacy backed by force is better.
In the meantime, there are two principal reasons to avoid what I
consider our past excessive rhetoric about America's military option.
First, we cannot compel Iraq to surrender whatever remaining WMD stocks
it possesses. But we can punish it for failing to do so. We can, for
example, maintain sanctions on Iraq and build on the British suggestion
that even the periodic reviews of sanctions be suspended until Iraq
reopens the door to further inspections. Second, we do not appear to
have the support of regional powers to sustain a major military
campaign against Iraq.
On the first point, since ``Desert Storm'' Saddam has been willing
to forfeit the $100-120 billion in oil revenues Iraq could have earned
through compliance with UN resolutions. Instead of enjoying
unrestricted oil sales, he has opted to conceal key details about the
procurement and production time tables of his weapons systems. Saddam
must consider this information and these stocks central to his hold on
power.
Furthermore, in a television appearance last weekend, former UNSCOM
inspector Scott Ritter usefully reminded us that Iraq had absorbed the
blows dealt it in ``Desert Storm'' by the international coalition and
appears to have decided it can absorb another such attack. So what is a
credible objective for the use of force?
By emphasizing the diplomatic over the military option, the
Administration shows it learned from last February's experience in the
Council. Six months ago we talked tough, while hoping Secretary General
Kofi Annan would bring back an acceptable agreement from Baghdad.
Saddam has now dishonored that agreement. Yet it is not clear that he
intends to burn his bridges with the Secretary General. Presumably
Baghdad hopes to use Annan in its campaign to split other Council
members from the United States. The US should continue to see the
Secretary General as a useful instrument. But Washington must make it
clear to other Council members that it is pointless to broker
diplomatic deals unless the Council acts to enforce those deals.
Until now, Washington has maintained a relatively strong UN
Security Council consensus on a policy of combining sanctions on Iraq
with intrusive inspections of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The
passage of time and regional developments, including stagnation in the
Arab-Israeli peace process, have eroded that support. This seems to
underpin the reasoning of the Administration's new stress on diplomacy.
We need to keep the maximum possible unity within the Security
Council for two reasons: preserving financial controls over Iraqi
revenues and an effective long term monitoring program of its weapons.
The UN currently controls the bulk of Iraq's oil revenues through the
``food for oil'' program. Iraqi leaders detest this program and is
working hard to discredit it. The long term monitoring program which
includes the right of making surprise intrusive inspections prompted by
any evidence of Iraqi continued manufacturing of WMD is obviously
vital.
We need to pursue several US objectives in the Persian Gulf and the
broader Middle East. To achieve many of them we need an endorsement of
our policies by regional states, beyond those already received from
Israel.
Arab criticism of our Iraq policy has grown because of two
interrelated reasons. First they doubt we would do enough militarily to
cause Saddam's overthrow and, second, open cooperation with America
against an Arab state is more embarrassing for them today after more
than a year of no progress in the Arab-Israeli peace process than it
was in the period 1991-96. The regional environment favoring open
cooperation with the United States has undergone a sea change since
President Clinton was able to convene an anti-terrorism conference in
Sharm al-Shaikh in 1996. That attendance could not be duplicated today.
We have heard a chorus of complaints from the Arab World about
America's double standard. Their speeches and media commentaries
contrast US demands for strict implementation of UN resolutions by Iraq
while seemingly reluctant to press Israel on peace process issues. One
need only recall the negative Arab reaction to our talk of a military
strike on Iraq last February to appreciate how the peace process and
Iraq policy are intertwined. Washington realized at that time that its
military options could be severely restricted even by such friendly
countries as Saudi Arabia.
It is hard to maintain a consistent policy towards Iraq. The
Administration must contend with foreign critics many of whom want us
to ease sanctions and domestic critics who want us to intensify
pressures on Saddam. Fortuitously, Saddam's latest challenge has again
served mainly to embarrass both France and Russia, the Council's
leading proponents of easing the existing sanctions.
Some have argued that Washington should delink economic and
military sanctions on Iraq because the economic sanctions only serve to
extend human suffering. I prefer the current approach of permitting
generous sales of Iraqi oil for food and infrastructure development but
retaining the UN control mechanism over Iraqi exports and imports.
On the domestic side, there needs to be a better Administration
dialogue with the US Congress. Congress has authorized funds to
stimulate unity among Iraq's fractious opposition elements. Congress
should and will continue to demand an accounting of the
Administration's efforts but must accept that there likely will be no
quick results.
In sum, we will need more cooperation from fellow members of the
Security Council and from regional states. Washington should focus its
energies on obtaining Security Council cooperation against any effort
by Saddam to reactivate his weapons program or attack his neighbors.
While diplomacy offers no quick fix, it should and can be developed to
support our interests rather than undermine them.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. I appreciate you
coming and testifying. Secretary Eagleburger, thank you for
joining us.
STATEMENT OF HON. LAWRENCE S. EAGLEBURGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF
STATE
Mr. Eagleburger. Yes, sir.
I want to approach this from a somewhat different
perspective. I was fascinated to listen to Secretary Indyk this
afternoon, and thought maybe I would get some clear sense of
what the administration's policy was with regard to Iraq. I
have to say I do not think I got it.
But let me start by saying I can understand the
administration's concerns with regard to the Security Council
members who do not like the sanctions or want to relieve them.
I can understand all of the pressures that they see developing
with regard to a policy that would be more confrontational. But
what I do not see, and I want to try to go through this in just
a minute, is what the conclusion to this whole set of
assumptions they make--where does all this lead us. And I
cannot find it leading us anywhere.
But let me quote one thing, and I think I got it directly
from Secretary Indyk, which I think is really the clear-cut
sense of where they are, and also how I think fruitless all of
this is. The United States supported inspections until Saddam
Hussein blocked them. Well, gee whiz. I mean, he said it. And
it seems to me it kind of leaves us about where we now are,
which is we do not know where we are.
He said, as well, that we want to focus on Saddam Hussein
and the fact that he blocked the inspections rather than try to
go ahead with the inspections. I think Senator Coverdell asked
a particularly useful question when he said, wouldn't the way
to demonstrate that the inspections are being blocked have been
to insist that we go ahead with the inspections and then have
it demonstrated that in fact Saddam Hussein was blocking them?
But, again, the point here is that I do not understand what
is being said about a policy when we say we are going to focus
on Saddam Hussein and his blocking of the inspections rather
than pursuing the inspections. To me they are certainly
related. And I do not know how you focus on Saddam Hussein's
blocking the inspections unless you make it clear you want to
go ahead with the inspections. I suppose you can have a press
conference every day and say, Saddam Hussein is blocking the
inspections. That is the only way I see that you can focus on
this thing.
Now, as I said, I can understand the administration's
concerns about a more clear-cut policy. But I worry very much
about where the administration is in the sense that I do not
think we go anywhere with it. It is nice to say that we have
not taken the threat of force off the table, or rather the use
of force, off the table. I would suggest to you if in 30 years
in the U.S. Government I did not learn anything else, I learned
that if you are not careful, you will send the wrong message to
your adversary, and he will decide you are not going to do
something when in fact, at the back of your mind, you may have
to do it.
Now, I am not saying that--what I am saying, rather, is
saying we have not taken the threat of the use of force off the
table does not mean a thing unless the other side understands
that you in fact may be prepared to use force. And I would
suggest to you that the whole reaction to what has taken place
since Saddam Hussein, this time, has blocked the inspections--
and indeed, I would go back in fact to the arrangements that
were made by the Secretary-General of the U.N. earlier this
year--I would suggest that the fundamental message at this
stage is while we say we have not taken the threat of the use
of force off the table, if I were Saddam Hussein I would
probably be sitting there saying, they may say that, but they
do not mean it. They really do not want to use force. And
therefore I probably can get away with more than would be the
case if I really knew that they were prepared to use force.
So simply saying you have not taken the threat of the use
of force off the table does not mean anything unless your own
actions have demonstrated that you are quite prepared to use
force. And I do not think we have demonstrated that over the
course of the last month.
However it is described by Secretary Indyk today, there can
be no question that the United States evidenced caution one way
or the other with regard to the inspections. Whether we said do
not do it, whether we asked questions, when the U.S. asks
questions, it is a fairly important factor. And it seems to me
we made it very clear, one way or another, that the United
States was reluctant, at best, to permit inspections to go
forward. Whether this was because if we pushed the Iraqis we
would get to the confrontation that I think we are inevitably
going to have to get to anyway, or whether it was simply
because, in their way of thinking, this is a policy, I cannot
answer that.
I can only tell you, when you analyze what was said today,
at the end of that train of logic--if you can call it that--we
are at a point where I do not know what it means as to where we
go next. And with all respect to my friend, Ambassador Murphy,
to my right, who used it, I constantly get concerned when I
hear people talking about we must take the diplomatic route,
not the military route; diplomacy will work. What diplomacy?
I mean, what is it we are going to do? Where is the
diplomacy involved in this thing, other than, to some degree,
bowing to the Chinese, the Russians and the French? And I think
Mr. Woolsey was quite correct in his description of their
motives. Maybe that is diplomacy, but I would suggest to you
this: if you think about those three countries, what are the
consequences of their being unhappy about pushing the
inspections and confronting the Iraqis?
The fact of the matter is the sanctions will stay in place
as long as the United States is prepared to veto any resolution
which would in fact take them away. Now, that does not mean
that the Russians and the Chinese and the French cannot play
games with the sanctions. But if you think about the
consequences of our confronting those three Security Council
members, I at least have some question as to why we have to be
quite so gentle.
So, to put it not too bluntly, I do not know what the
policy is. I listened carefully. I can understand the rationale
for being cautious. But then we come to this question of is
this policy sort of, with all respect, the use of diplomacy for
another 6 months, another 6 years? Where is the denouement?
Where is it that at some point we say enough is enough and are
prepared to move to something else? And I do not know that the
something else is other than the use of force.
And I do not think it means that we have to send the 82nd
Airborne Division into downtown Baghdad. I mean there are other
less vociferous means of using force, if that is what we have
to do. And I am not even advocating that so much as I am saying
what I listened to today was, with all respect, a policy that
led me nowhere. It goes nowhere. And it is going to have to at
some point change one way or the other. And our evidencing
caution and concern about confrontation I suggest to you is
sending Saddam Hussein a message which we probably do not even
mean but which is going to encourage him to believe that we in
fact do not want to use force.
Thank you, sir.
Senator Brownback. I have listened carefully today, too.
And it just sounds like to me we are in a mess. I almost think
it is predictable that we would be where we are today given the
Kofi Annan agreement that was at the first of this year, the
U.S. hesitance on using military force at the first of this
year, the exhibited hesitancy within the administration, the
Ohio State meeting that took place, and the weakened state of
the presidency, that we would almost--this is a predictable
meeting that we would have had.
One could have looked 6 or 7 months ago and said, if this
train of events continues to take place, and the drift in U.S.
policy or a U.S. policy, I think as Mr. Woolsey was describing
it, of speak loudly and carry a little stick or something to
that effect, then you would invite Hussein to say, well, you
are not going to inspect anymore, then. And we have not stated
to date when we are going to push this issue or reinspection.
We have mostly spent the time here today saying, now, are we
articulating a public policy that is different than our private
actions?
And that is what the Congress has been interested in here
of late, just to see are we going--is there something above the
surface that is different than below the surface. And I
continue to believe that there is something to that that is
taking place. And we are going to continue to pursue that.
The bottom--overarching that whole train of thought or even
some of the comments that each of you put forward is something
that is nagging this entire town and entire country, and I
would suggest even the world, is the weakened state of the
President. How much has that at play with where we are today in
Iraq? Is that the but for a weak President, we cannot move
forward against Iraq today or with the Middle East peace
process or Iran or India and Pakistan or Russia or China? How
much is that underlying the whole situation we are in today?
Mr. Eagleburger or whoever, Mr. Woolsey?
Mr. Eagleburger. I do not know the answer to that, Senator.
I have to assume that to some degree it is clearly a problem,
at least in our own minds. And I mean by that within the
administration. If I were in the administration right now, I
would be worried about how much I could do in a policy of a
forceful nature--and I do not necessarily mean the use of
force, but a positive, hard-knocking policy--in the sense that
I would be worried about the support both of the American
people and just as much the support from the Congress.
Which, by the way, leads me back for just one moment to
this question of has the Congress spoken on whether we ought to
be prepared to use force with regard to Iraq if necessary. And
as I recall it, there was a resolution some months ago, or some
weeks ago at least, in fact that failed or that was not pushed.
All I am saying is there is a responsibility here for you.
If you are going to ask the administration to be tough, I think
the Congress has to indicate that they are prepared to support
that.
Now, having said that, back to your original question. Yes,
I am sure it makes a difference. And I am sure, here again,
perceptions are so dangerous. If a Saddam Hussein perceives
that the President is weak--in fact weaker than he may be--he
may take actions which in the long run will lead to the kind of
confrontation that if he would have had a different analysis in
the first place he would not have done. I cannot believe that
Saddam Hussein would have invaded Kuwait if he had known what
he was getting into the first time around.
Misperceptions can be a terribly dangerous factor in all of
this. And I think in that sense at least, the weakness of the
President, or the apparent weakness, can make a big difference,
yes.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Kirkpatrick?
Ms. Kirkpatrick. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I think that Saddam
Hussein has a known, an established tendency moreover, to
underestimate his opposition, to underestimate his opponents.
And I think he did that in the case of Kuwait. And I think he
may well be doing that in the case--at least I have thought
that he might be doing that in the case of the U.N. inspection
regime and the sanctions regime.
But it may also be the case that Saddam understands that
this administration has had a habit, in any case, of
threatening more than it--offering threats and not following
through. It has done that repeatedly. Actually, it has done
that from the beginning of the President's tenure, and in many
places. And this may just be one of them, but it is a very bad
policy and, I agree with Secretary Eagleburger, a dangerous
policy, likely to be misunderstood. More likely than almost
anything else to produce a confrontation and the use of force,
however unintended.
Senator Brownback. Mr. Woolsey?
Mr. Woolsey. Well, even Presidents in strong positions can
take weak decisions, such as President Bush's decision in 1991
not to support the Shia in the South, or such as President
Clinton's decision in 1993 to respond in such a very limited
way to the attempt to assassinate President Bush. And even
Presidents in weak political situations can behave strongly and
decisively. I think of President Nixon's decisions in the fall
of 1973, in the middle of Watergate and the Saturday night
massacre, during the Yom Kippur War and the strategic alert.
But I think it is much more difficult for a President in
circumstances such as the one we see today to regain or recoup
any ground that might have been lost by earlier mistakes. And I
think that is the problem. It is harder, definitely harder I
think, to dig yourself out of a hole by rallying the Congress
and the people and foreign support and the like for forceful
and decisive actions, especially if you must act, or be seen to
be ready to act, alone in order to bring support around to you.
Senator Brownback. Mr. Murphy?
Mr. Murphy. President Saddam is one of our age's greatest
mis-readers. He misread the resistance level in Iran to his
invasion in 1980. He misread President Bush's ability to pull a
coalition together. He misread not only American preparedness
for the war, but our readiness to sacrifice, because he misread
the likelihood of our losses. He talked of thousands of bodies
being returned to the States, and said no American President
would dare get into such a conflict.
So, is he misreading President Clinton today? I do not
know. But it would be part of a pattern. He is ill-advised.
Very few people have access to him personally. He listens to
very few voices, perhaps some inner ones.
What I would hope is, remembering the January 1991 vote on
committing U.S. forces, the approval, which was a very near
vote--what was it, two votes, three votes--I would hope that we
would not have that kind of public debate which would lead to
further misreading on the part of President Saddam. I hope that
there would be some very intensive private discussions between
the Senate, the Congress as a whole, and the White House on the
present state of play. It is very serious. And the odds of our
being misread are great, based on past experience.
Mr. Eagleburger. Senator, may I make one more comment?
Senator Brownback. Yes.
Mr. Eagleburger. During all of Watergate, I was sitting at
the right hand of God, otherwise known as Henry Kissinger. And
let me tell you, from experience through that whole period,
when you are in the kind of situation that Nixon was in that
messy time--and I do not say that--his condition was a lot
worse than what is going on right now in terms of whether he
had both feet on a banana peel or not--but what I recall so
vividly is each time when you are that weak, you may make the
tough decision, but the debate that goes on before you can make
that decision, with people worrying about whether it will be
misread by the opposition in the Congress or will be seen as an
excuse for trying to strengthen or weaken the presidency, those
kinds of debates are agonizing, and I can tell you they stretch
out the decisionmaking process by a great, great deal.
And usually, when the decision is made, it is at about a
51/49 percentage level, where almost half the President's
advisers are against it. So there is an inevitable caution that
goes into this and an inevitable weakness when the decision is
made that you in fact are going to carry it out. At least that
was my experience with all of the Nixon period. Whether that is
the case now or not, I do not know, but I will bet you it is.
Senator Brownback. Senator Robb.
Senator Robb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin by
saying that I have had the privilege of working with, learning
from, interacting with all of the members of the panel at one
time or another, and I have a very high regard individually and
personally for all of those assembled.
But I must say that I respectfully note that there are
significant differences between having current responsibilities
and not having current responsibilities, and I say that in the
context of one who was fully supportive from the outset of the
actions by President Bush, in fact helped to rally support on
my side of the aisle. I was the only member of the leadership
at that time who took that position.
I was proud of that action. I felt it was the right thing
then. I have never wavered in my belief that we did the right
thing, and I will say that just to put this issue to rest,
because I raised it implicitly the other day when Scott Ritter
was before us that the decision that President Bush made to
bring the active implementation of Desert Storm to bear at the
time that he did was in very large part supported by the
intelligence that was then available.
I was briefed daily. In fact, I was concerned at one point
that we were being briefed about the next day's air strikes,
and I thought there was absolutely no reason for Members of
Congress, even members of the intelligence committee, to have
that kind of information, but we did get the same real time
intelligence and the intelligence, it turns out, was not as
accurate as we might have hoped, and another day or two would
have been very useful, no question about it.
But we thought at the time, and I think that the President
and Secretary of State and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and
others who were advising him, the Secretary of State, believed
that the Red Guard was far less likely to be able to--or, the
Republican Guard was less likely to be able to reconstitute
itself, that the Basra box was even more devastated.
I visited those areas while the area was still smoking,
along what was later referred to as the highway of death. I was
up in the northern Iraq area when the Kurdish forces were
pushed back up into the mountains and saw all of the dying that
was taking place there, and I agree wholeheartedly with the
suggestion that effective foreign policy requires us to have
credible deterrence, a strong and able military, well-led,
well-trained, well-equipped, and it has to combine that
credible deterrence with a demonstrated will to use force if we
are called upon to do so.
No quarrel with that whatsoever. I have long advocated
that, and have in some cases been more aggressive in
suggestions to not only this administration but previous
administrations regarding the use of force and acceptance of
the consequences of the use of force.
But I must suggest at this point that we have had a very
good critique, which comes from people who are highly regarded
and certainly knowledgeable, but I have been unable to pick up
any nuggets that I might use in making suggestions to the
administration as to what they would do, what they should do
now to address the very real challenges that face both the
United States, the United Nations, the international community.
And I would simply ask, and ask each one of our
respondents, or each one of our distinguished witnesses, if
they would be kind enough to tell me, in your best judgment, if
you were still in office, what you would do or recommend to the
President of the United States that he do today to enforce the
sanctions or to enforce the inspections that have precipitated
the hearing we are holding today.
Secretary Eagleburger, I want to let you lead off on that.
Mr. Eagleburger. Senator, one of the things you pointed out
at the beginning, I have long since discovered that one of the
great advantages of being out of office is you do not have to
be responsible for what you say.
Senator Robb. I am appealing to your conscience in this
case.
Mr. Eagleburger. Then you have directed it to the wrong
mail box. [Laughter.]
Mr. Eagleburger. I will give you the answer, if I were
still in office the answer, and the rest of the panel here can
then retreat, but I am back to my point, which is, it seems to
me that with this last confrontation on Saddam's part, having
first tried very hard to make the Kofi Annan thing work when
Saddam not unexpectedly pulled it again, I frankly am prepared
to say to you that I think that there is the need for the use
of force, and I said it earlier.
I do not think it has to be that you level Baghdad, but I
am sure, unless things have changed greatly from when I was in
office, that there are targets that Saddam would just as soon
not lose.
All I am saying is, to me we are the stage, and have been
for some time, where if we have to act unilaterally, so be it.
Whether it will work or not, I do not know. That is the danger
of using it. But I do believe that the only solution I can see
at this stage is, in fact, that we have got to make the threat
of the use of force credible again, and that is, saying that we
have to pass a U.N. Security Council resolution which will say
that we are going to review things every 2 months does
absolutely nothing.
I am sorry, that is my only answer.
Senator Robb. But in other words you are suggesting right
now that we use force today.
Mr. Eagleburger. If we need to.
Senator Robb. Believing that it would accomplish the
objective.
Mr. Eagleburger. I am not sure it will accomplish the
objectives.
Senator Robb. Then what do we do on phase 2?
Mr. Eagleburger. I have asked that question for years, and
the fact of the matter is, this time I cannot answer it, other
than the obvious. The obvious answer is, you have to be
prepared to escalate.
Now, what does that mean? I do not know.
Senator Robb. But you used--and I am just looking at notes
I made. You said, where does it lead, and if you implement
phase 1, you have to have some sense of what phase 2 is going
to be, and I am not trying to get in an argument, because I
have a high regard for you.
Mr. Eagleburger. I agree with your point. If I were
listening to me my first criticism would be precisely the
question you have raised, and I cannot answer it, because I am
not at all sure we would be prepared, or our allies would, to
go much further than some use of force that does not lead into
a major confrontation.
If we were prepared to do it, I think you have to follow it
through, but I am not at all sure we can, but I am sure of
this, that you have to take the risk of the use of force now,
understanding you may have to cut it off because you cannot
pursue it any further, and that we will therefore not have
accomplished our objective, but sitting where we are now is it
seems to me the worst of all possible situations.
What I am saying to you is, some use of force. If it does
not work, I am not prepared to say to you, we ought to go to
World War III. I am saying we cannot stay where we are, and my
answer to your question is, if it does not work, I do not know
what the answer is.
But if you do not take steps because you never know what
the answer is, you will never do anything.
Senator Robb. I am not going to debate.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Well, I would first of all strongly
recommend to the administration, I would share the problem with
Congress and with the people candidly.
Senator Robb. Let me just interject, if I may, that
Congress illustrated a distinct lack of intestinal fortitude
when the prospect of answering that question was raised
recently.
I was prepared, even though I had real reservations about
phase 2, to support the administration, but I thought that in
the long run--and I do not remember whether you or Mr. Woolsey
or Mr. Eagleburger made reference to the fortuity of the Kofi
Annan mission in terms of whether or not we were prepared to
follow through at the time.
Excuse me. I did not mean to interrupt.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. But I think that the administration
needs to share with the Congress how they see the situation,
what it is they are in fact doing with UNSCOM, what kind of
pressures are they under, share with the people.
Senator Robb. What if Congress says no, we are not going to
go out on that limb with you?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Well, if the administration is
sharing the problem with Congress, and does not even give the
Congress the chance to say no----
Senator Robb. Can you advance the ball, though, if we
demonstrate the weakness, I.e., the unwillingness of Congress
to support the administration in this circumstance?
Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I do not think the Congress would
do that. I would like to say that, but I do not think that war
necessarily follows on a frank statement of the problem. If the
problem is that bad, then the Congress and the people need to
know it. If it is not that bad, then the Congress and the
people are not going to respond in a way that would drive the
administration to war.
First of all, I just think that the first step is leveling,
if you will, with the Congress and the people, instead of
engaging in this very misleading sort of explanations that do
not explain, and that are inconsistent with the situation and
their behavior.
The second, I think, in dealing with such a man as Saddam
Hussein, the administration should also be very straightforward
about what that implies, and share that also with Congress and
the people, and we all think together about whether there is,
in fact, or whether there are issues here that today we regard
as so important that we would be willing to support our
Government taking strong measures, using force, and I think it
puts everybody on the spot, including the Congress, including
the public.
I believe it would also involve us all in the problem, and
I think we must be prepared if necessary to use force, but not
if not necessary. I mean, perhaps we would even impress Saddam
Hussein with our seriousness. Perhaps the administration would
impress him with their seriousness by so doing.
Senator Robb. There is no question in my mind that, had we
used force we would have impressed Saddam Hussein the last time
around that the situation, because of intervening events and
the redeployment of forces, has changed in terms of our ability
to provide quite the message we were going to provide.
Mr. Woolsey, I know you have been loading up for a response
to that question. You have had a chance to ponder it. I would
welcome your response.
Mr. Woolsey. I will open by saying that I would give
essentially the same answer, with a little preface, that I gave
six months ago before this same committee when Mr. Chalabi and
I and others testified about a program to essentially bring
down Saddam's regime, not a covert but an overt program.
I want to say first of all I agree with the Secretary
Eagleburger that the policy we have got now is not going
anywhere. You cannot figure out what they are trying to do. It
is reminiscent of what Churchill once said at a dinner party:
``Sir, take this pudding, it has no theme.'' I mean, you just
cannot figure out where this is going. They do not seem to be
trying to accomplish anything.
I think what is important is that Saddam, as bad as he is,
should not be viewed in isolation. It is bad enough that he is
working on weapons of mass destruction, and we pointed out in
the Rumsfeld Commission Report the prospects of ballistic
missiles and such weapons in Iraq. I will not go into that
further here.
But the point is that a number of the leading Sunni
extremists in the Mideast, opponents of King Hussein in Jordan,
for example, call Saddam the new Caliph. His calligraphy is on
the Iraqi flag. That is roughly equivalent, given his
antireligious background, to Stalin's having embraced the
Russian Orthodox Church at the opening of World War II after
having blown up cathedrals.
Saddam is wrapping himself in the cloak of Sunni extremism,
and people like bin Laden and, I think, other people with a lot
of money in the Mideast are turning to him. So by being weak
vis-a-vis Saddam we are also making ourselves weaker vis-a-vis
the terrorist threats by the bin Ladens of the world.
I think that a strong and confident and decisive American
President tends to create support both within the country and
among friends and allies, and I would suggest that things have
certainly now gone to the point--I thought they had in March,
but I certainly think they have now--where this set of
proposals that Mr. Chalabi and I and Richard Perle and Bill
Kristol and a number of people have recommended ought to be
adopted.
He ought to be declared a war criminal. We ought to declare
a no-fly zone over the entire country. That means reinforcing
our air forces in the Mideast. We ought to support the Kurds in
the north and the Shia in the south from the air if they rebel
against him.
This would entail, the first time we did it, taking out the
air defenses in Iraq so our pilots would not be at risk, but
this is not something that is beyond our capability.
We can broadcast into Iraq. We can delegitimize the Iraqi
regime.
Senator Robb. I can agree with you on every point. Do you
think the Congress will support it?
Mr. Woolsey. If you have a strong and decisive President
pointing out the links between this threat, ballistic missile
threats to the United States in the future and terrorist
threats from the Mideast to the United States today, I think
yes, but it will take leadership and effort. It is not a slam
dunk, but I think it can be done.
Senator Brownback. Can we wrap this up with Mr. Murphy
here?
Senator Robb. Yes. There is a lot more I would like to say
and would like to engage, because we have got some fascinating
and informed witnesses, but Ambassador Murphy really has
responded in what I thought was a very thoughtful article
sometime recently in the Post that there was a point that you
made about effective long-term monitoring of weapons as
controlling the financial assets and effectively monitoring the
long-term control, but how do you effectively, or how do you
define effectively controlling the long-term monitoring program
of its weapons?
Mr. Ambassador.
Mr. Murphy. Well, you have UNSCOM running--we have been
discussing today the reinstatement of UNSCOM's full operation.
UNSCOM would be running the long-term monitoring, as I have
always understood it.
Senator Robb. They are running it now, and the suggestion
is that this is no longer effective.
Mr. Murphy. No longer effective in the sense that, well,
they are not able to operate today. How do you mean?
Senator Robb. What I was attempting to do is get a
definition of effective, because that is really what we are
talking about.
If our policy is simply containment of the threat and
willingness to use force if he attempts to export either
directly or indirectly weapons of mass destruction, then it is
working, but if this policy is not sufficient, then there is
more to it. I am asking.
Mr. Murphy. Long-term monitoring involves use of the
cameras, the sensors, all of the equipment that has been put in
place.
Senator Robb. In other words, what we are doing now is
effective?
Mr. Murphy. Nothing is fully effective, Senator, with
Saddam Hussein. This is not the last, this is the latest
confrontation with Saddam. As long as he is around, we will
continue to have confrontations.
Senator Robb. I could not agree with you more.
Mr. Murphy. Let me add one point on what the others have
talked about. I do not think anything Mr. Woolsey said could do
harm, the specific extra pressures on Iraq. How much it will
actually accomplish, if we get it launched; time will tell.
When I speak of the diplomatic option, I would take issue
with Secretary Eagleburger on his saying it is meaningless to
talk about suspending the sanctions review. He asks what does
it mean to Saddam Hussein. The meaning, the target, the
audience is not Saddam Hussein. The audience is Paris and
Russia. Our message is: ``You (French and Russians) are never
going to get your oil contracts (with Iraq) operating, never.''
They are the ones whom we have to energize to get to Saddam
Hussein.
He is not taking it seriously in that sense, yes, I agree
with Secretary Eagleburger. But the targets for our pressure
are Paris, Moscow, and Beijing, a lesser target.
Senator Robb. Mr. Chairman, I apologize. I think it has
been a constructive dialog, and it is useful to raise the
public consciousness that we have got some very difficult and
occasionally seemingly intractable issues to deal with.
Senator Brownback. I come back to my earlier point when I
started with the questions, which was that we are in a mess
because of the situation we find ourselves today, the
administration policy that is difficult to follow, an
inability, either perceived or actual, that the United States
either will not or cannot act, and that perceived weakness
being provocative to others abroad.
I think you raise interesting points about, would the
Congress respond if the administration came up here today and
said, OK, we have got a problem with Iraq, and we want to use
force, because of the weakness of the administration, that we
would have difficulty responding.
I know 6, 7 months ago, when Mr. Woolsey and Mr. Chalabi
came up in front of this committee, I thought they presented a
very good proposal of a long-term tightening of the noose
around Saddam Hussein to the point that we could do that policy
at that point in time, rather than just go in, drop a few
bombs, and then say, OK, we did our deed and that is it. Let us
project a long-term policy.
But the difficulty would be for the President today, in the
President's condition, to get this Congress to do something,
and that is being perceived in many places around the world,
not the least of which is in Iraq, and I hope we can work to
rectify that problem quickly, because it hurts the United
States, and I think we are in a very perilous position today,
not only in Iraq on Iraqi policy, but broad-scope around the
world in many policy fields and foreign policy fields.
We have held you here longer than I intended to. I
appreciate deeply your patience and your commitment and what-
all you have done for your country. Thank you very much.
The committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]