|
|
| DEAL DETAILS
February 24, 1998The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript |
|---|
After briefing the Security Council, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he felt a "general sense of approval" for his deal with Iraq. What does the agreement mean to U.S. international relations? Former Secretary of State James Baker and former Secretary of Defense William Perry discuss the deal's impact on U.S. foreign policy.
A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
February 23, 1998
Secretary Albright discusses the U.N. brokered deal with Iraq.
February 23, 1998
Four policy experts discuss the latest deal with Iraq.
February 23, 1998
A report from Amman on the impact of the deal on Jordan.
February 20, 1998
A panel of experts examine the crisis from the Iraqi perspective.
February 19, 1998
An exploration of public support for the use of force in Iraq as compared to past conflicts.
February 18, 1998
Four diplomatic veterans discuss the possibility of an attack on Iraq.
February 17, 1998
Analysis of the U.S. military arsenal in the Middle East.
February 16, 1998
How significant a threat does Saddam Hussein's country really pose?
February 11, 1998
Ambassador Richardson discusses the ongoing crisis with Iraq.
February 10, 1998
Members of Congress discuss the U.S. government's support of military action against Iraq.
February 9, 1998
Regional commentators give local perspectives on the growing crisis with Iraq.
February 4, 1998
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tries to marshal support for a possible attack on Iraq.
January 30, 1998
The U.S. tries rallying support for military action against Iraq.
January 14, 1998
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon, defends his country's actions.
January 13, 1998
Amb. Butler discusses the latest disagreement with Iraq.
December 18, 1997
Amb. Butler discusses Iraq's continued defiance of U.N. inspections.
December 1, 1997
Margaret Warner leads a discussion on the proposals to ease the impact of international sanctions on Iraq.
November 25, 1997
Is Saddam Hussein illegally hiding weapons throughout Iraq?
Online Forum:
What's the best way to deal with Iraq?
November 20, 1997
U.N. Ambassador Richardson on the possible resolution of the Iraq crisis.
November 17, 1997
Arab perspectives on the Iraqi crisis.
November 14, 1997
Sandy Berger the National Security Adviser, discusses the Iraqi crisis.
November 13, 1997
Newsmaker interview with Deputy PM Aziz who defends his country's expulsion of U.N. weapons inspectors.
November 12, 1997
U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson discusses the Security Council's vote to impose stricter sanctions on Iraq.
November 11, 1997
Four foreign policy experts debate how best to deal with Saddam Hussein.
November 10, 1997
Defense Sec. Cohen discusses the situation with Iraq.
November 6, 1997
The chief U.N. arms inspector discusses Saddam's latest moves.
November 3, 1997
U.N. Ambassador Richardson discusses tensions between the U.S. and Iraq.
October 9, 1997
Sec. Cohen issues a stern warning to Saddam Hussein.
Online Forum: 1996:
The plight of the Kurds in Northern Iraq.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Middle East.
OUTSIDE LINK
United NationsELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We get the views now of two former cabinet officers who have dealt with Iraq over the past seven and a half years through one full-scale war and several lesser military confrontations. James Baker was Secretary of State during the Bush administration and during the Gulf War. William Perry was President Clinton's Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997. Thank you both for being with us. Secretary Baker, what do you think of this deal?
Can we rely on the promises of Saddam Hussein?
JAMES BAKER, Former Secretary of State: Well, I think we ought to--we ought to praise what the secretary-general of the United Nations has done because he has averted for the time being at least a military conflict. I think it's quite right, as he himself has very generously noted, that his diplomacy was assisted considerably by America's forceful presence in the Gulf. I think it's probably a good agreement based on what I've seen of it, which is not everything. I think it's important that the administration clarify the details that Bill Richardson was talking about. But the main issue and the real question and the real question throughout all of this saga is whether or not we can rely on the promises of Saddam Hussein. And I have great doubt about that. And I don't think we've heard the last of this. I think we'll be right back here maybe talking to you again in a couple of months, if not weeks, hopefully months. And I think it's going to happen all over again, and we're going to go through this again.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But, Secretary Baker, you would not be quite as critical as some Republicans. You heard in the News Summary what Sen. Helms said and Sen. Ashcroft of Missouri said, this deal was a tragedy and that Saddam Hussein is a clear winner.
JAMES BAKER: Well, I didn't hear them say that and I didn't hear the News Summary. I'm not sure that I would call it a tragedy, but I just said, without knowing what they said, I've just told you that I think we're going to be here again in a couple of months. That's not to take anything away from the dexterity that the secretary-general showed in negotiating this agreement. It took the administration off of a really hot spot. They were faced with the option of either a very sustained aerial engagement, which would have had some very costly diplomatic and political consequences for the United States, or saying no, we're not going to engage that way. And that would have been even worse for the United States. So they've been given a little bit of breathing room here, but I'm afraid we're going to come right back around to this point in another couple of months anyway when we see Saddam Hussein re-employing his cheat and retreat strategy, which he's been employing now for some years.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. We'll come back to that in a second. What do you think of this deal, Mr. Secretary?
WILLIAM PERRY, Former Secretary of Defense: Well, I agree with Secretary Baker that we've not seen the last of this problem or Saddam Hussein, but I do believe that this agreement was a victory for coercive diplomacy. Cromwell once said that the best ambassador is a man of war. Well, we have seen here a very good ambassador, added to two carrier battle groups, produce an agreement which I think was a good agreement.
U.S. military forces will stay in the Gulf.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What details of the agreement concern you the most, the details that still have to be worked out?
WILLIAM PERRY: Well, I believe it is important that we keep our carrier battle groups in the Gulf until the inspectors continue--make real progress in finding and destroying the chemical weapons and biological weapons and the missiles that we are concerned about. Those are real concerns, not theoretical concerns. And we ought to keep our forces there until real progress is made. The question of what we do over the longer-term is still a different question, but I believe even in the long-term we should maintain a standby--keep a standby force over there to preserve the peace.
JAMES BAKER: Elizabeth, let me--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So this--
JAMES BAKER: --volunteer that I--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Yes, go ahead.
JAMES BAKER: I really agree with Bill Perry on that. I think you want to talk about tragedy, the real tragedy would be if we reduce those forces by anything until we see full and complete compliance because I think that it is true that those forces had a lot to do with the ability of the secretary-general to get the agreement. There's nothing wrong with approaching the long-term from the standpoint of containing Iraq. What's happened over the past six or seven years has been good. We've gotten a pretty good handle on his conventional weapons capability--it's significantly reduced--on his nuclear--on his chemical, on his missile capability. It's the biological stuff that we have--that we've had absolutely no real progress on. That's what this argument has been mostly about, and there's no reason why--at least in my view--that we cannot contain Iraq from the standpoint of its weapons of mass destruction proliferation abilities and consequences. And we ought to do that. It's very important to the rest of the world. It's important to America. There is no higher foreign policy priority that I know of than countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Secretary Baker, you said you think we'll back at this, though, in several months. Why? What is not in the accord that should be there that will take us back?
JAMES BAKER: Well, what will take us back is that Saddam Hussein has a history of breaking his promises. We took his promises, you know, here four or five months ago. The Russians brokered a deal. We didn't like it much, but we went along with it. We refused to use force at the time, even though we threatened the use of force. We went along with that deal. That promise was broken. This promise can very well and probably will be broken as well. If you go back and look, there were other promises before the Russian deal that were broken, including just failure to comply with the original Security Council resolution, so that's where I think the problem is--not so much in what he said he will do--not so much in the agreement itself--but in what I feel sure he will not do, and that is keep his promise.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Secretary Perry.
WILLIAM PERRY: Yes.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you think about that? Is it inevitable almost that there will be promises broken, or because Saddam Hussein, himself, was part of negotiating this agreement, is it likely that he'll want to live up to it?
WILLIAM PERRY: I agree with Secretary Baker that Saddam Hussein has a history of breaking agreements. And that's why I think it's very important that we not only keep the carrier battle groups in the Gulf until we see real progress made but that we keep for the long-term a steady state force in the Gulf like we have had for many years. We have almost 15,000 troops on a steady state basis in that area--in Army, Navy, Air Force. And in addition to that, we keep almost a division worth of equipment based in three countries in the Gulf so that this is heavy armored equipment, so that if there were a crisis, we can quickly move our troops over to join with their forces and be ready. That, I believe, has been a very important deterrent to adverse actions in the Gulf in the past.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Secretary Perry, how long can those troops be kept at that level of readiness without hurting American readiness elsewhere?
WILLIAM PERRY: What the Navy forces are doing over there is just part of their regular steaming. If they weren't steaming in the Gulf, they'd be steaming in the Mediterranean. So this is part--we have not changed the cycle of carriers and the time they spend at sea and the time they spend at bases and the time they spend training. We've just concentrated several of them in the Gulf. The terms of the Army, we do not have--we do not ordinarily keep heavy armored forces in the Gulf, but we keep the equipment in the Gulf. The troops that belong with--that marry up to that equipment are back in the United States going through a regular training cycle. We just send them over there occasionally to marry up with the equipment and train on that equipment. So I do not see this as breaking the training cycle.
"We are reserving the right to enforce those resolutions through the use of force."
JAMES BAKER: Elizabeth, let me volunteer that in addition to keeping all of those forces there--and as I indicated I totally agree with Bill Perry on that--there's something else we ought to do, I think, and that is make it clear that time for diplomacy and political engagement on this issue of compliance with the weapons of mass destruction part of these Security Council resolutions has passed. We've done all that. We've now had two or three major negotiations: one by the Russians, now another by the secretary-general of the United Nations. Certain promises have been made. Seems to me we ought to make it very, very clear that if those promises are broken, we're not going to get ourselves involved in another negotiation, political or diplomatic; we're not going to get wrapped around the actual--with procedural questions and things like that. We are reserving the right to enforce those resolutions through the use of force, which is already a resolution that's on the books. I think we need to make that clear to Iraq. We need to make it clear to the American people. We need to make it clear to Congress. We need to make it clear to our former coalition partners. So if this happens again, we'll be ready; we won't have to go through this four-month exercise of negotiations.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Secretary Baker, do you think that if that happens, it will be easier to get the coalition, to put it together in the way that you did in '90 and '91?
JAMES BAKER: I think we will at least have put everybody on notice that this is the policy of the United States of America; it is a reasonable policy under the circumstances. We intend to carry it out. And we don't intend to go through a long negotiation about it. And I have to tell you that while most--many of those coalition partners may not say they'll join with us in the use of force, they will be very glad to see that kind of United States leadership, in my opinion, and as I said earlier, I don't think there is a more important issue, foreign policy issue, facing this country today and, indeed, perhaps the world than stopping the proliferation of these horrific weapons of mass destruction.
"This is not Desert Storm revisited."
WILLIAM PERRY: Let me build on that point, Elizabeth, because there's been much confusion in some of the discussion on this problem, comparing it with Desert Storm. This is not Desert Storm revisited. This is not about regional aggression and the flow of oil. It is about nerve gas, anthrax, and the missiles to deliver them. That's not a theoretical problem; that's a real problem. They have the anthrax; they have the nerve gas; they have some missiles. That poses a real threat to their neighbors. And if they supply those to terrorists, it supplies a real threat to the United States in its homeland and to European countries. So this is something we must keep sharply focused on. I do not believe also that it would take a Desert Storm II to deal with that problem, but it has in the past taken the threat of military force. And if we take the threat, we have to be prepared to use it.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Secretary Baker--
JAMES BAKER: It is a significantly important problem--just to add one more point on that--since it is a significantly important problem, in my view, Elizabeth--and there are enough rogue nations around the world watching what we do here--and watching us accept promises instead of performance--that we need next time if the promises are broken, this is a sufficiently important issue that we need to act with as many of the coalition countries as will come along, but if we can't get any of the rest of them, we ought to act unilaterally. That is still the surest and best test of a great power. And we have a responsibility to lead the fight against a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Secretary Baker, Secretary Perry, thank you for being with us.
 |
        |
|
| Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station. | ||
| ||
| PBS Online Privacy Policy Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved. | ||
| ||
