|
|
| NEWSMAKER: WILLIAM PERRY
SEPTEMBER 3, 1996TRANSCRIPT |
|---|
The U.S. military launched cruise missile attacks against 14 Iraqi air defense bases following Iraq's invasion yesterday of the Kurdish "safe haven" in the north of their country. Secretary of Defense William Perry explains the logistics and the politics behind today's counterstrike against Saddam Hussein's regime.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Thank you very much for being with us, Mr. Secretary.
WILLIAM PERRY, Secretary of State: Thank you, Elizabeth. It's good to be here.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let's start--thank you--let's start first with the weapons. Tell us about--there were two kinds of Cruise missiles used, right?
SEC. PERRY: There were two different kinds of Cruise missiles, one of them launched surface ships and submarines, which we call a Tomahawk, land attack missiles, TLAM sometimes called, and the other is the air-launched Cruise missile, which we launched from the B-52's, a somewhat different design but very much similar characteristics.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What were the targets?
SEC. PERRY: The targets were the air defense network that is south of the 33rd Degree Parallel on Iraq. And that included surface-to-air missile sites and air defense control sites, 14 in all. And these are the 14 sites which would control any attacks on our airplanes that would be monitoring the no-fly zone.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How successful were the Cruise missiles in hitting these targets?
SEC. PERRY: We're still doing the bomb damage assessment. I think it would be probably till the end of the day until we have all of the data we need on that. What we have seen so far, though, suggests that it was very considerable damage done on the sites which we've been able to assess so far.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Your goal here, I gather, is to knock out these control centers so that U.S. airplanes will not be threatened.
SEC. PERRY: Exactly. So that our pilots can monitor the no-fly zone, fly over that region, without being vulnerable to attacks from surface-to-air missiles on the ground.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What reports do you have of casualties on the ground?
SEC. PERRY: We do not have any reports of casualties on the ground. It's possible that there would be casualties at the sites, themselves, and when we attack radar, if that radar was manned and operated, then it would be possible there could be casualties from that. It is exceedingly unlikely that there would be any civilian casualties. All of these sites were remotely located and were not near any populated or residential areas.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you not have reports on the damage done by missiles because of bad weather, because it's something you aren't going to talk about, or just because it takes longer than this period since the missiles were launched?
SEC. PERRY: All of the above. There was some cloud coverage over some of the sites, and, therefore, we do not have a confident assessment yet of those. But we did have clear weather in some of them, and we do have good assessment of that. That's what led me to the statement that some of the sites we know were totally destroyed. We would not want to describe in specific detail exactly what happened, but I can tell you that the sites that we have seen we have good data on, and we good assessments on, there was very considerable damage, some of them were completely destroyed.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Secretary, this is something the U.S. did on its own. Why? Why is there not more help from allies?
SEC. PERRY: We have--first of all, we are responding to our national interest. Our national interest dictated that this be done. Secondly, we did not need assistance to carry out the mission. These Cruise missile strikes, which was our preferred mode of attack, is a unilateral United States capability, one which we can carry out very much by ourselves. We did have participation from our allies, the British, in logistic support, and we believe that we will have support from many of our allies, and when the reports are out, I think you'll find that a good many of them support us in this.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You don't think the Gulf War Alliance has broken down, then?
SEC. PERRY: Not in the least.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The French are critical. There are many Arab states that are critical.
SEC. PERRY: I think the ultimate--the--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I shouldn't say the French are critical, but the French have not approved. Let's put it that way.
SEC. PERRY: The key test will be in the continuation of Operation Southern Watch. While we can conduct and did conduct this Cruise missile strike unilaterally, the Operation Southern Watch is very much a coalition operation. It involved cooperation of the United States, British, the French, the Saudis, and the Kuwaitis, and I believe you will see that that operation will continue, that whole coalition will continue, and will continue with the new expanded no-fly zone.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And explain what that operation is, please.
SEC. PERRY: This is an operation which is it set up to prevent the Iraqis from flying aircraft--of
course, this is specifically directed at military aircraft--in the Southern part of the country. It was done to prevent them for two reasons: first of all to prevent them from committing atrocities against their own people, in this case the Shiites, when we first set this up, and secondly, to minimize the chance of their being able to mount another invasion into Kuwait, and so we have been conducting that operation now for more than four years, have been very successful. What we're doing as a result of this extending the no-fly zone is increasing that another 60 miles farther North.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The criticism from Arab countries, or the lack of support, if not open criticism, is this something that is happening for self-protective reasons? Do you think that there's something of a gap between what people are saying and what they actually think?
SEC. PERRY: I think that we will find many of the leaders of the Arab countries support this more strongly than public statements would indicate.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We've been talking about Southern Iraq and the extension of the no-fly zone in Southern Iraq. But the attacks by Iraqi troops are in Northern Iraq. Why the concentration in the South rather than in the North, which is where this event is taking place?
SEC. PERRY: What's going on in the North is a military conflict, the nature of a civil war, four-sided military conflict. We did not--we do not want to become a part of that military conflict. We do not want to become a part of the civil war. Our interests, our interests in the North are primarily of a humanitarian nature. We would like to see the Iraqis stop committing atrocities on their own people. And that's what got us involved in North in the first place, but a larger strategic interest directed towards the South, and therefore, we wanted to direct our punitive action against--in an area which would support our own strategic interests. We did not want Saddam Hussein to determine the time, the place, and the modality. That's why we responded. We wanted to do that for our own convenience and our own interests.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The larger strategic interest being?
SEC. PERRY: The larger strategic interest being the threat that Iraq poses to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which they first, of course, manifested in 1990 in Desert Shield, in Desert Storm. Twice since then in October of ‘94 and August of ‘95, they amassed their troops as if they might present again another threat in that area, and they are physically located close enough to Kuwait and in Northern Saudi Arabia that they can within a few days have a substantial military force in that area, and so it is very important that we maintain the air power there and we conduct Operation Southern Watch to keep that operation from getting started, we do not want to have to go through another large scale war like we did in Desert Storm to stop an invasion which has already started. We want to deter that invasion in the first place.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But the troops are invading in the North, 40,000 troops, as I understand it, is that about right, Iraqi troops?
SEC. PERRY: There are--our best assessment is that there are more than 40,000 Iraqi troops, more than 300 tanks, more than 300 artillery. This is quite a large operation. The complication from the political point of view is that they were invited by the KDP, which is the Kurdish unit in that area. The KDP, I think--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That's the main Kurdish faction.
SEC. PERRY: KDP is one and the PUK is the other Kurdish faction. They've been fighting with each other. And the KDP thought that they were going to be able to gain an advantage when fighting Iraqi troops on their side. I think that was a strategic blunder on their part. They think they can manipulate the Iraqis and they'll find that they're too powerful and too ruthless to be manipulated. But in any event, they have made that move, and that has complicated quite a bit the actions that we could take.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is that the primary reason that the United States is not attacking the troops that are in the North, because it's--there is a division among the Kurds, or is the primary reason that they're too mixed up with civilians there?
SEC. PERRY: That is certainly a complicating factor, Elizabeth, but the primary reason gets back to where our strategic interests lie. We do not get involved in the military conflict, and we do not send the troops in unless we see a vital national interest involved. And our vital national interest is in Iraq and the South, not in the North.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What is the situation with the Iraqi troops now? There were some reports they had withdrawn from Arbil but were attacking other cities, is that right?
SEC. PERRY: the Iraqi armored units, which are the ones that invaded Arbil, have pulled back now from Arbil. They are still in the area and the are regrouping. Some of them are already in the vicinity of Chom Chamal, which is another Kurdish city now controlled by the PUK, and, in fact, in the last two or three days, they have been shelling the city of Chom Chamal, and they already have a large enough military force positioned there that they could move into Chom Chamal if they decide to do that.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you believe Saddam Hussein's objectives are?
SEC. PERRY: I think he has laudable objectives. One of them certainly is to regain control of Northern Iraq, which he has not had for the last five years. Another one is to assert his military ascendency in the area to give him a free hand to move into the South either through coercive power or through actual military--actual military power.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what are U.S. objectives? What does Saddam Hussein have to do for us not to take more military action?
SEC. PERRY: Our objectives, first of all are protecting our vital strategic interest, which
means protecting our friends and allies in the region, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. Secondly, keeping the flow--free flow of oil from the Gulf, which is a vital national interest to the United States and indeed to the whole industrial world. Those are the two primary vital national interests. We also would like to see Saddam Hussein stop committing atrocities on his own people and stop being a bully in the neighborhood, but to the extent we can stop him from doing that, then we've accomplished these other interests.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, if, for example, if Iraqi troops stay in the North, will we carry out more military actions?
SEC. PERRY: Our objective is to see them stop this military action, stop him from being a bully, as I said, but I would not want to equate a particular action he must take to bring about a certain action on our part. We reserve the right to conduct further military actions, and we will be watching his actions very, very carefully. He knows pretty much what it is we want him not to do, which is not to conduct aggressive military actions in the area.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I noticed you said that in your press conference today. Are you saying that it's possible the U.S. will carry out military actions depending on the success of the attacks already carried out no matter what Saddam Hussein does?
SEC. PERRY: We do reserve the right to conduct further military actions. One factor which would influence whether we conduct those is what he does in the future, but that's not the only factor.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: There was some criticism--I'm thinking of former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger today--that the administration's action was not broad enough, that there should have been attacks in the North and that more should have been done. How do you respond to that? In fact, the criticism was specifically that promising to escalate is not the way to deal with somebody like Saddam Hussein, or saying you'll escalate if certain goals aren't met.
SEC. PERRY: Well, we have not said that.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That was a misreading of what--
SEC. PERRY: Yes.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I see.
SEC. PERRY: We have not said that. Our, our interests, our strike was taken for limited purposes, and we may, if we have to take further strikes, it would still be for the purpose--it would still be to achieve those limited purposes, but the limited purposes are focused primarily on will we see our vital strategic interest, which is minimizing his ability, Iraq's ability, to threaten its neighbors to the South.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In attacking Saddam Hussein for doing something which he says was aimed at countering Iran, are we likely to be seen as helping further Iranian interests in the Middle East?
SEC. PERRY: He has--yes--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I should explain this. He was countering Iran he said because he claimed that the--the PUK, this one Kurdish faction had received some aid from Iran.
SEC. PERRY: The PUK has received very limited support from Iran, including some shelling across
the border, including perhaps a hundred or so trainees in the army. This is correct. And this, I believe, Saddam Hussein has used as a rationale for doing something he wanted to do anyway, but there is no comparison between what the Iranians did in support of the PUK, where there are a hundred or so trainers versus the 40,000 troops and the 300 tanks which Saddam Hussein sent in. His goal, it seems to me quite clearly, immediate goal, is to regain control of Northern Iraq. And one of the greatest--one of the groups that will suffer the most in this are the KDP, which is the group that invited him in in the first place. But that's a lesson they have yet to learn.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for being with us.
SEC. PERRY: Thank you, Elizabeth. Good to talk to you again.
 |
   
|
|
| 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. | ||
| ||
