Online NewsHour: The U.S. continues to press its attacks on Iraq -- September 12, 1996

SENDING THE RIGHT MESSAGE?

SEPTEMBER 12, 1996

TRANSCRIPT

The U.S. continues to place military pressure on Iraq's Saddam Hussein, but critics say the Clinton adminstration is being too soft on the renegade state. Two senators, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Glenn (D-Ohio), debate the president's strategy and if politics is shaping the president's foreign policy.

A RealAudio version of of this NewsHour segment is available.
Previous NewsHour Transcripts:

September 10, 1996:
A NewsHour look at the Kurdish question.

September 6, 1996:
Browse the Online NewsHour's recent forum: Who are the Kurds?

Two experts discuss the ramifications of Iraqs invasion of the Kurdish "Safe Haven."
The NewsHour looks at the U.N. decision to lift sanctions against Iraqi oil sales.
The state of Iraq five years after the imposition of sanctions.
Three experts discuss why Saddam Hussein has agreed negotiate the lifting of sanctions on his country.

JIM LEHRER: Now to two senators on [the Senate Armed Services] Committee, John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and John Glenn, Democrat of Ohio. First, picking up on the point that Sen. Cohen made, Sen. McCain, do you think presidential politics are playing a part in what's going on in the U.S. response to Iraq?
SEN. JOHN McCAIN, (R) Arizona: I would not like to believe that, and I will not believe it until there's evidence that that's the case because that's too reckless a use, risk of American lives. I would argue that the President probably took the least military option, the last one that would still entail some military action, which was launching the cruise missiles, which would pretty well ensure that no American was injured or captured. But the motivation for that I wouldn't question, except to say I didn't agree with it.
JIM LEHRER: Sen. Glenn, what do you think about that?
SEN. JOHN GLENN, (D) Ohio: No, I don't think it was political at all. I can't think of anything dumber than a president that's 20 points ahead in the polls by multiple polls reliable polls, going into something where he's going to take combat of any kind if it was done for political reasons. I just don't think that was behind it.
JIM LEHRER: All right. Then, to the basic question, Sen. McCain, do you agree with [former Secretary of State James] Baker that the United States should have responded in a stronger way, is that right?
SEN. McCAIN: Absolutely. The result, the net result was Saddam Hussein made two significant gains. One was consolidation of the control over areas that he had not controlled, Northern Iraq, since the Persian Gulf War, and of course, in the--he split the coalition very dramatically or revealed splits in the coalition which can have consequences as we mount strikes in the weekend or in the next few hours or days when the next round of strikes will come. And I believe they will come.
JIM LEHRER: There's no question about that, is there, at this point?
SEN. McCAIN: Not that I know of. Unfortunately, our 117's are having to fly out of a base in Kuwait instead of Saudi Arabia.
JIM LEHRER: Those are the Stealth fighters, right?
SEN. McCAIN: Yes, indeed, and, of course, the Turks, the last I heard, were still not going to allow us to launch sorties out of there, which really limits our ability in Northern Iraq. So it's--it's--the failure of our coalition partners, especially in the region, but also the French and others, is going to have an impact on our ability to punish Saddam Hussein.
JIM LEHRER: Sen. Glenn, what do you think? What is your response to the charge that the President has not responded in a strong enough manner to this point and may not the next time?
SEN. GLENN: Well, I think the first attack this time or our attack on them was a response--was supposed to send a message. We tried to send a message before, and thought when we pulled out, instead of going through to Baghdad and taking over Iraq or taking over the capital, anyway, before, I thought that was a good decision at that time because I thought he certainly got the message, but that was a measured response to spare too many Americans from being killed or imprisoned or whatever. The President thought he would send the message this time because of the incursions into Irbil and that area up north, and send a message with what was done. Well, Saddam Hussein didn't react well to that, perhaps, and much as we thought he should, so I think the next attack is going to be probably even heavier. And let me say this. I don't think it should just be out on SAM sites and things like that next time around. I think we can still do a lot in there with our cruise missiles without sending our air crews into harm's way, and this time instead of it just being on--out at the end of tentacles out here someplace on the end of a SAM site or a command site out someplace, I'd tend to hit the--something that brings it home as Sec. Baker said. We need to send a message to the Iraqi people. And to me, that means hitting the power plants and the power grids and things like that, that really mean more and really might have more chance of bringing Saddam Hussein and those people to heal.
JIM LEHRER: Do you think that's going to happen, Sen. Glenn?
SEN. GLENN: I don't know. I have suggested that as one of our options. I don't think we should go on just hitting people out in the middle of the field someplace. I know suggestions were made we should have hit the forces up at Irbil when they were going in up there, but that means hitting individual trucks and tanks and things like that, that are far less meaningful than the targets we had at the SAM sites and the command sites down south, more valuable to Saddam Hussein. But I think since he didn't get the message, I think next time, if you want to hit hard, you send a cruise missile, and you go in and take out the power plants in the country. And most of ‘em are within a range that we could probably do that.
JIM LEHRER: Sen. McCain, take out the power plants, go that large?
SEN. McCAIN: I wouldn't rule anything out. That wouldn't be my first priority. I wouldn't rule anything out.
JIM LEHRER: What would be your first priority?
SEN. McCAIN: I would probably go after command and control even if it means downtown Baghdad, as we saw so spectacularly in the beginning of the Persian Gulf War. I would also send in tactical air. I would use our 117's to hit areas where there are concentrations of Iraqi troops. I would certainly punish the Iraqi military, which is something I would have done the first time around, punish those forces that caused this house of cards to collapse up in the Kurdish area. Could I also just mention--
JIM LEHRER: Sure.
SEN. McCAIN: --one thing on the political side. I regretted it very much when the President of the United States sits in the Oval Office and says that this operation was a success when clearly it was an abject failure. I think that had some political overtones to it that I think--
JIM LEHRER: You mean, the first--the first two rounds. You mean, when he said it was a success in getting a message to Saddam Hussein, you think that is just not right?
SEN. McCAIN: Because it was clearly a failure. Now, as Sen. Glenn says, maybe the next round will get his attention, maybe--and I'm convinced that, particularly my conversation with Sec. Perry, this will be a very robust response, but the first time around, it could not be termed a success.
JIM LEHRER: Sen. Glenn, what about the President's use of the word "success"?
SEN. GLENN: Well, I thought the term success was used to mean that we sent a message to Saddam Hussein that we were serious about this. We hit some of his military forces. Albeit we didn't obliterate everything in sight, but it was a success in that we did send a message. Now if you want to talk about success, we can go back to whether it was a success of the original Gulf War. We made a decision not to go into Baghdad and end this thing once and for all. I didn't criticize that at that time or say that the whole mission had not been a success because Saddam Hussein a few months later or a year or so later was trying to once again send forces down toward Kuwait. So we obviously didn't succeed. He didn't get the message out of the first effort either, even though we had 540,000 Americans and all of our allies over there.
SEN. McCAIN: Could I respond--
JIM LEHRER: Yes, sir.
SEN. McCAIN: --in all due respect. I think Sec. Baker in the earlier clip explained what our charter was and the risk of significant loss of American lives. Success is gauged by results. The results of this first round are, as I mentioned earlier, that Saddam Hussein attained two major successes. If you want to gauge success as being sending a message, then fine, but I don't think most observers will.
By the way, people around the world like in North Korea, in Iran, in China, and other places watch very carefully what the United States does, and I don't think there's any doubt that this initial response was not only inadequate but was--would have better not have been launched as to what the results were.
JIM LEHRER: All right. Let's go on to the next--to the possible next step here. And both of you gentlemen, among many other things, are former military combat pilots. Beginning with you, Sen. Glenn, explain what is so important in Iraq that it is worth risking American lives at this point in a way that both of you gentlemen now support?
SEN. GLENN: Well, we saw the--we saw the original intent of Saddam Hussein to take--to try to take over what was at that time about 70 percent of the known oil reserves of the world. Now there have been some other reserves discovered since then, but still in that area there are somewhere around 63 or 65 percent of the known reserves of oil in the world. His intent would probably still be to take that over. That would give him control of much of the energy for the, for the whole industrialized world. Some countries depend almost entirely on, on Persian Gulf oil. Now, he has--I don't have any doubt that he has not forsworn that. In fact, he tried to move toward Kuwait once again, and we warned him off. So the thing is to keep him in the box, keep him in the box we've got him in right now that he was in at the end of the war. He keeps trying to break out of that, first feigning toward Kuwait. He keeps sending his airplanes down toward the no-fly zone, turning around just short of going over, just--he just is provocative to the nth degree repeatedly and repeatedly. And this time he got--he got beyond his depth, I think, and we warned him. I think that's all the original attack was supposed to do with the missiles. And I think this time if he doesn't cease and desist, he's going to get hit even harder.
But let's make no mistake, even when we went all out with an air war before, it didn't fully convince him. And I'm not sure that fully out with an air war now will do it anymore, so we're just going to have to keep him in a box and that's the purpose of what we're trying to do to keep him from going down and trying to get the oil once again.
JIM LEHRER: And it's important enough to risk American lives to get that done?
SEN. GLENN: I think it is because we're talking about our--we're talking about the energy sources of the whole world. We're talking about the--our leadership position in the world, and I think it's important enough. Now if we were going to mount a ground war and say there were going to be Americans probably on the order of a hundred thousand killed coming back or something like, would we think that was worth it? I think probably not. But I think our results of this--of his provocation so far have been measured, as they were in the original attack, the original Gulf War, and I think we've done the right things. And I have no doubt that when we hit again, he's going to get more of a message than he got last time.
JIM LEHRER: Sen. McCain.
SEN. McCAIN: Well, you mentioned that John and I were both combat pilots. There is a difference. John used to shoot people down, and I used to get shot down. And there's--
JIM LEHRER: But there was--you had the same intent, at least.
SEN. McCAIN: Just a little difference in skill levels.
SEN. GLENN: We've had this going back and forth for a long time, I can tell you.
SEN. McCAIN: I think John said it. Our vital national security interests lie there. That has been the policy of every president going back to Harry Truman, if not before. As long as our energy resources are dependent and our ability to live our American lifestyle is dependent on that part of the world, we're going to have to be there and we're going to have to be there in force. And by the way, I do believe that during the military operation, you're going to see John McCain go dark, and you're not going to hear a word of criticism until that's over. After it's over, I do believe that then it's not only my right but my obligation to voice either criticism or praise. And I believe that due to the urging of some of us, we will be able to praise the next step, although I still believe the President needs to tell the American people exactly what he intends to do and what our overall strategy is because there's a lot of confusion out there now.
JIM LEHRER: Sen. McCain, what is your reading as to why the Desert Storm coalition fell apart, why we're doing this by ourselves, with the exception of the British behind us?
SEN. McCAIN: Failure to nurture that coalition, for one thing, failure to appreciate the impact of an election in Turkey where an Islamic for the first time, as you know, an Islamic government has taken charge in Saudi Arabia, the King is ill, the crown prince does not share many of his views, the terrorist bombings have rattled the Saudis a great deal.
The French, very frankly, again, we talk about leadership, I would have said to President Chirac, look, we got 20,000 Americans in Bosnia right now bailing you out; now if you can't join us in the expansion of this no-fly zone, then we're going to have to re-evaluate our relationship. You've got to lead these people too, and you've got to sometimes get tough, and make them recognize there are consequences to their failure to come to our assistance when we need it.
JIM LEHRER: Sen. Glenn, what's your reading on the coalition?
SEN. GLENN: Well, I think the coalition, I didn't expect the coalition to be in the same condition it was in at the end of the Gulf War. We pulled out our ground troops. They pulled out their ground troops. There was no--no one had any idea that we were going to be in this kind of a situation. We thought that Saddam Hussein had got--would get the message after what had just happened, and that didn't happen. So we still have five nations involved. We have the British and French, along with our own people flying out of Saudi Arabia on the no-fly zone monitoring. We're going to be based out of Kuwait. That's a fifth nation involved, small though it is. And so we do have part of the coalition there. Now others that were involved originally I wish they were in there too, but I don't think we're proposing at this point. Some of them don't have air power to join us in the efforts right now, air power that we'd even want in there trying to enforce the no-fly zone. So they might be more of a hindrance than help, but I think as far as putting ground forces back in, I don't think anyone is proposing at this point certainly that we reconstitute the coalition with the idea of ground forces coming back in when there were 540,000 Americans over there.
JIM LEHRER: All right. Senators, thank you both very much for being with us tonight.
SEN. McCAIN: Thank you.
SEN. GLENN: Thank you.

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