Scowcroft: Well, the first thing that wasn't happening is the fish weren't biting and so we went out there for about four hours and it was a very calm hot day, and so we started talking very philosophically, and it's actually difficult to do.

Time is usually more precious than that and one's discussions are usually more action orientated, but we were talking about what had happened in Kuwait and, what was happening in the world as a result of the changed relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

And, it was shortly after the Soviets -- Schevardnadze and Jim Baker -- had stood together and denounced the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

And I said, I think that you know, that this could be the beginning of you will of a new world order that since the founding of the United Nations, the Security Council had always been paralysed in carrying out its job as foreseen by the founders, because of the veto in the Security Council, and if now the United States and the Soviet Union could cooperate there could be a world order really, that would be able to deal with cases of aggression in a way that it had never been known before.

Q: And the President, what was he saying?

Scowcroft: The PresidentI think as a matter of fact he was the first one to use the term New World Order, but he was as much the initiator of the conversation as I, but the prospect of the things that could be done in the world with a changed US/Soviet relationship, instead of every conflict in the world automatically becoming US/Soviet conflict, that the two could at least in some cases cooperate to deal with conflicts.

You opened up perspectives that none of us in our, in our lifetimes really had seen.

Q: When did you and the President first think about the issue of the use of force?

Scowcroft: I can't say when we first thought of it, but it was basically he and I talked about it quite a bit. I think we both early came to the conclusion that sanctions were unlikely to be on our side, if you will, that we had this big ungainly coalition, if you will, a very desperate kind of forces unified only in one thing and that is to deal with Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

And it was going to be a very difficult thing to keep that coalition together and that it would very likely that our coalition would collapse before Saddam's ability would collapse.

So, I never had any faith in sanctions and I don't think the President did either. I think he made up his mind early on that if Saddam did not withdraw of his own accord that we would force him out.

Q: Is there a specific moment that you recall when force seemed the only option?

Scowcroft: No it didn't happen that way because he -- even after the final meeting between Jim Baker and Tariq Aziz, the French came in with a proposal for mediation. The Russians came in with a new proposal, so there was never, you know it was always something that was if you will, an alternative to the use of force, so there was never a point at which we said "There's nothing else that can happen, we're going to use force" right up until except maybe about 48 hours ahead of time.

Q: Do you remember the Emir visiting and telling about what was happening in his country?

Scowcroft: Well, the President was very personally touched by the, by the stories he had heard of the atrocities that the Iraqis were perpetrating.

And I remember at this time he was reading a book about World War II, a massive book and he was right in the early part of it about the Nazi invasion of Poland, and that's where all the statements that the President made equating Saddam with Hitler, that's specifically where they came from--from this book that he was reading, and the parallels seemed so striking that the atrocities that the Nazis perpetrated in Poland and what he was hearing going on in Kuwait.

He was very personally touched by them, and as I say very early on he I think had determined to do whatever was necessary and about that time it was probably even earlier we told General Schwarzkopf to, you know he was building up to the hundred thousand and his estimate was that it might take two hundred and fifty thousand to reverse the invasion but we told him to, to start planning for all contingencies and the President told him specifically and said publicly "I want to keep my options open" The declared mission at that time was the defence of Saudi Arabia but the President said "I want to keep my military options open."

Q: You were pretty upset about the first military briefing given at the White House.

Scowcroft: I was not happy and it sounded to me like a briefing by people who didn't want to do it. Or didn't want to undertake the operation and that's why I was so upset. The preferred option that they presented was frankly a poor option and my first question is "Why don't you go round to the west" and the answer was "Well, we don't have enough gas trucks for it, running out of gas when we're up there on the shoulder, we can't do that, it's not feasible option." And maybe something--"We, don't know what kind of sand there is" --Or something, but I was pretty appalled and ....

Q: What did you think was going on?

Scowcroft: My interpretation, whether it was right or not was that that the Command didn't have the stomach for this operation.

Q: Norman Schwarzkopf?

Scowcroft: Well, just leave it at the Command. There was a Command briefing and I presume it had to have the General's blessing. I mean he certainly wouldn't send somebody to the situation room in the White House to give a briefing on a major operation without having reviewed it.

But, I don't know. Paul and I went immediately to Cheney and said, you know "This, this can't happen. If, this is what we're going to get then we'll just have to find a different way to do the military planning" and I said, you know "Why don't I talk to Colin Powell" and you know, I always wanted to be careful between Secretary Cheney and General Powell, so that I didn't get in between the military chain of command and it was so easy, it would have been easy for me to do, being military myself, so I said, you know "I'd be happy to talk with Colin about this."

He says "No, let me do it" So I did and, Cheyney subsequently developed a different kind of an option which was to put forces in the western sections of Iraq to try to draw his forces away,and I stuck with my sweep around the right flank.

But gradually we got the Command to change its view and whenever they asked for additional forces or would take more forces, the President said "Fine, you've got them" And I don't think he turned down a single request for additional forces.

Q: What did you think about all these requests from the military?

Scowcroft: Well, look you know, I'm a military man and military always want to have a padding, if you will, which ensures success and there's no question that overwhelming force helps to ensure success and we all wanted success, but this was a) a terribly expensive operation b) a terribly time consuming operation and c) the Saudis were straining to take care of all the forces we were pouring into the northern desert.

So, you know I agreed with the President saying "Look I don't want to be in a position where the military say they can't do the job because I won't provide the forces they say they need. If they say need them, they've got them."

And that was, I think, the appropriate answer.

Q: The President announced on November 8th that significant increase in forces - do you recall that time?

Scowcroft: Yes, I certainly do recall that time. Well we ran into a kind of firestorm because the President made the announcement and we had not really done briefings up on Capitol Hill and had not alerted the Congress probably sufficiently.

My position was that the President early on had said "I want to keep my options open."

Well, all the time that had gone on the Iraqis were reinforcing their forces in Kuwait so, just to keep the President's options open he had to put more forces in then we had said we needed for a defensive posture.

So I was relaxed, I was surprised at the congressional reaction which was sharply negative and the Congress took it almost as a Declaration of War. And, I think they made that point to the press and I think public support dropped as a result of it.

But the message that we were trying to put out to Congress is that this was of vital national interests to the United States and we kept reiterating that over and over and over and the press kept saying "You haven't explained why it is we're there and why this is a threat to US national interests" It was a very frustrating period.

Q: After the `all necessary means' motion was passed at the UN.....there came the idea to have a meeting with the Iraqis.

Scowcroft: It was basically the President. I was reluctant to do that. It seemed to me that we had made it abundantly clear that if the Iraqis had anything to say we were prepared to listen to it. I believe it was the President, it may have been Jim Baker, but I believe it was the President who said "Look, I think we have to make clear to the American people that we have left no stone unturned to solve this peacefully and so what I want to do is to invite Saddam Hussein to send somebody here to talk with me and to talk eh, with the Congress and so on."

That was the original plan and eventually it turned out to be a meeting in Geneva. But it was basically the President who felt strongly about that.