|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
| CONGRESS REACTS | |
 November 16, 1998 
|
||
 |
|
|
|
MARGARET WARNER: We get four perspectives on the President's decision. They come from two Republican Senators, who serve on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas; and two Democrats, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee. Sen. Hutchison, what do you make of the administration's rationale for calling off the attack as laid out by the President and just now by Mr. Berger? Was it the right decision? |
|||||||||||||
|
Right decision? |
||||||||||||||
|
MARGARET WARNER: But do you think - SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON: The thing that bothers me - MARGARET WARNER: Do you think he - as you put it - pulled our chain this time too? SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON: Yes. I think he definitely has, because he doesn't think we're serious, because we keep backing down. What Sandy Berger said earlier was we'll either know or we won't know, we'll either be let in or we won't. I fear another option, which is that Saddam Hussein will wait three to six months. We will be in a lull situation, and then he will start the process of shutting it down and we will have the same situation. I think we've got to be very firm. I think we've got to show a resolve. Saddam Hussein is in control right now. America should be in control. MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Biden, your view on the decision to hold off. SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, (D) Delaware: Well, you know, it's a tough call. If I'd been sitting there and the President asked me, I may have said go ahead, but I can't second guess the decision and I'd disagree with Sen. Hutchison in one sense, that I don't think Saddam pulled anybody's chain this time. I think Saddam vastly overplayed his hand and miscalculated. He had hoped that he could split the coalition that had mounted against him, including the Arab world, and he backed down in an ignominious way. Our hand is strengthened significantly if we use force, but I agree with Sen. Hutchison in terms of what next, and that is that if, in fact, he fails to produce documents, if, in fact, he fails to allow inspections, if, in fact, he fails to meet the terms of the agreement, then I think there should be no time short of whatever safety and military considerations have to be taken in consideration, no interval between the refusal and our using military force. |
 |
|||||||||||||
| Trade-off? | ||||||||||||||
|
SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: Well, I think he had to say what he just said, because the truth of the matter is that if we - if we make UNSCOM a U.S. agency, then we lose, it loses all its credibility. I read between the lines in what he said, and it may not be appropriate, but I read between the lines to say the following: that we know what we need. UNSCOM knows what they need. They know the documentation they need, and they know they will take a little while - several weeks - to figure out what the new road map will be to get to the point where they - they need to be. I spent a lot of time with Scott Ritter after our hearing, when he and I went at it, and - but then in my office - and he, as others have explained to us, we know they know - UNSCOM knows where they want to go, what the grit is, what they want to look at. And so I think that what you saw - what I heard Sandy Berger saying was that it's not a secret -- what we need to know -- and it won't be a secret when we're not allowed to see it. And it will have to come from UNSCOM to say they weren't allowed to see what they needed to see, rather than us make that judgment up front, because if we make the judgment, then we alienate, once again, the Arab world, we alienate the United Nations, and we alienate our allies. And I think the President - quite frankly - has done a very skillful job in keeping our allies boxed, our French friends silent - the Russians and Chinese out of the picture, and the Arab world unified in suggesting that Saddam had stepped over the line. MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Hamilton, how much confidence do you have that the trade-off, as the President really described it, will pay off between bombing this week - past weekend - versus letting UNSCOM reassert its role and having that work? |
 |
|||||||||||||
|
At this point in time I'm inclined to agree with the other Senators. I think that we have to be very firm in our judgment, we have to test them. That test should come sooner, rather than later, with regard to the inspections. It doesn't look to me as if it's all that complicated a question. Either they cooperate, or they don't. It's very clear to me what the United States wants. We want unfettered access. It is by no means clear to me that the Iraqis have agreed to that. I don't like the kind of language that they threw into their - their several communiqués, and even Mr. Berger a moment ago, I thought, was not as direct I would like to have had him be with respect to what the United States is prepared to do. Look, if we don't get cooperation, we should resort to military strikes. Those strikes ought to be massive; they ought to be sustained. |
 |
|||||||||||||
| Overthrow Hussein? | ||||||||||||||
|
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, (R) Pennsylvania: Absolutely. I think that the surprise inspections are indispensable if we're really to find out what is going on. It would be my hope that Mr. Butler could make a determination of whether Saddam Hussein is going to cooperate relatively promptly. Mr. Butler spoke over the weekend about his ability to get the inspectors back into Iraq in 24 hours. Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be within 24 hours, but I think that the momentum ought to be maintained. And I think that Mr. Butler ought to do everything he can. He's very experienced in this field. There were some documents, which had been kept away from the U.N. inspectors. I think he ought to insist on prompt access to those documents, which showed what Iraq and Saddam Hussein had been doing, so that we make a determination as early as possible whether or not there is cooperation. Then it would be my hope that the Congress of the United States would be involved. I'm still of a view that a missile strike, air strikes are acts of war and only the Congress of the United States has the authority to declare war under the Constitution. And I am inclined to support the use of force, but I would like to see the Congress involved and getting into this matter in some depth, and the long-term strategy about really how we topple Saddam Hussein. I think we're pussyfooting on that issue. I think we really want to overthrow that government, and the sooner we face up to that directly and make plans accordingly, the better off the world will be. MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Hutchison, do you agree with that, that that should be a goal, getting rid - overthrowing Saddam Hussein? SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON: Well, I definitely think we should have a long-term strategy of undercutting that regime. |
 |
|||||||||||||
| Long-term proposition. | ||||||||||||||
|
MARGARET WARNER: And how far would we go? For instance, you heard Jim talk to Mr. Berger about it. Are we talking about military assistance? What if there's an uprising, should the U.S. support it with military action? SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON: I think that first we should take the step that Congress has laid out, and that is to try to find dissidents in Iraq or people living outside of Iraq who are Iraqi expatriates and help them come in and foment revolution. Secondly, I think a Radio Free Iraq, I think a no-fly zone containing Baghdad, a no-drive zone, I think sanctions have got to be totally enforced, and our allies have got to stand with us. We cannot have some of our allies not enforcing sanctions because it undercuts us totally. We have got to be totally together on this, and I hope that we would have a united front and have help from our allies financially as well. MARGARET WARNER: Congressman Hamilton, you heard Sandy Berger say it's not going to be -I think his word - it's not an overnight proposition. I mean, is there a viable game plan here really for creating what the President said he wanted, a new government in Baghdad? REP. LEE HAMILTON: I think the President said he thought we should
address that question. Sandy I think it is part or should be part of our policy - apparently it is - to try to replace that government. But the Iraqi opposition is very divided; they live in Washington and Paris and London. Some of them are in the North of Iraq, some in the South of Iraq. You've got the Kurds and the Shiites. You've got many, many of these groups to deal with. And no one should think that uniting the opposition is going to be easily done. Secondly, if we decided to support that opposition, I think it is incumbent on us to make very clear what we are prepared to do and what we are not prepared to do with regard to military support so that we do not put these populations on the ground at risk. Are we prepared to put air power in there in case they get into a difficult situation? Are we prepared to put ground troops there? Are we not prepared to do those things? I think we have to be very clear about our intentions here or otherwise, as has happened in the past, some people are going to get hurt relying on the United States to do something that they thought the United States was committed to do. |
||||||||||||||
| Future plans. | ||||||||||||||
|
MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Biden, what do you think - briefly because I want to get to Sen. Specter too - but what do you think should be the answers to those questions ultimately? SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: And the answer to those questions are we shouldn't do what we did in the past; that is, in 1991, there were genuine uprisings in the South of the Shias, and there were genuine uprisings in the North with the Kurds. We let Saddam go in and crush them. We should have used air power to take out his helicopters, take out some of his forces.
We're not looking for another Bay of Pigs. We're not looking for promises that cannot be met. And so it seems to me the policy now is contain and over time replace and if contain does not work, because he violates the agreements with regard to UNSCOM, then it's deter, which means strike him and replace. But the replace part takes time. MARGARET WARNER: And Sen. Specter, your view on what it ultimately will take, are we talking about U.S. military action, perhaps even U.S. ground forces? SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: I believe we made a decision in 1991 not to use ground forces. By 2020 hindsight perhaps that was a mistake. We had a united Arab world behind us. Whether they would have been with us if we had gone on the ground really remain to be seen. I would not be inclined to make a judgment on a sound bite to use ground forces, but I think if we're talking about missile support, if we're talking about air power, where we do not risk significant U.S. military casualties, I think that's the kind of support we ought to be prepared to give to any group which is in a position to overthrow Saddam Hussein. MARGARET WARNER: All right.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thank you, Senators, very much, and Congressman Hamilton. |
 |
|||||||||||||
 |
   
|
|
| 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. | ||
| ||
SEN.
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, (R) Texas: Well, I don't think we need to talk
so much about what has happened. But I think what we need to do is make
this different from all the other stop and go, push, pull efforts that
we have made with Saddam Hussein. I think clearly he knows that he can
pull our string and we've got to show him this is different. We've got
to show resolve, and I think we need to set some clear deadlines. If
we go in and we say we want to see a certain site, then within six hours
of not being let in, we bomb. 
MARGARET
WARNER: What did you think, Sen. Biden, of what Mr. Berger said in terms
of how the administration is going to judge whether he's complied? 
REP.
LEE HAMILTON, (D) Indiana: I think the President made the right decision.
After the second or third communication from Iraq, not the first one,
but after the second or third one, the conditions that the Security
Council had laid down had been met by Iraq, at least on paper. And at
that point, it seems to me, there was a viable diplomatic option. I
do not think the United States should use force, except as a last resort,
and certainly not when you have a viable option. So I think the President's
decision was a correct one. 
MARGARET
WARNER: Senator Specter, do you think the United States, for instance,
talking about UNSCOM's role, should support say surprise inspections,
the kind of things Scott Ritter wanted to do in the past few months,
and by all accounts the United States did not support? 
Berger's
certainly right. It's not going to be a short-term matter. We've been
working at this for seven or eight years. This was our policy right
following the Gulf War. It's a very difficult proposition. 
Secondly,
this is a process. It's going to take time. It's going to take time
to rebuild the notion among the population that we would be of assistance
at least in air and in use of air power. Thirdly, the point made by
Congressman Hamilton is correct. We should not over promise this. 
SEN.
ARLEN SPECTER: I think he's an overwhelming menace. I think that if
we do not clear up this problem, you may well find him using chemical
warfare at a big city in the United States. I don't think we ought to
underestimate him. And we ought to do whatever it takes within the limits
of not spilling American blood.