Trainor: The pious hope that the administration had that the Iraqi military might possibly turn against Saddam Hussein, I think resided in a belief that the Republican Guard, the praetorian guard around Saddam Hussein, may view Saddam as a liability to the best interests of the Iraq nation and people, time to get rid of this man. But, I think a lot of that went to gleaming with the Shi'ite uprising, because the Iraqi Republican Guard was populated mostly with Suni, Suni Muslims which are same as Saddam Hussein and those that were rising up were the Shi'ite and I think there may have been a real concern even on the part of Suni Officers that were perhaps willing to turn against Saddam Hussein, that if they did so and the Shi'ite were the victor in an uprising, that they themselves would suffer. So, I think it was kind of a case of the devil we know, is better than the devil we don't know and they stuck with Saddam Hussein.

That's one interpretation. Another interpretation would be that the Suni officers were so committed to Saddam Hussein, benefited so much from Saddam Hussein that there wasn't a chance of them turning against them regardless of the circumstances. Now, the the Iraqi army was made up mostly of Shi'ite with Suni officers, but they were never in a position to threaten the regime because between Saddam Hussein and that army, there was always the Republican Guard to protect Saddam Hussein and deflect anything that might happen with the regular army.

Q: The Shi'ite uprisings. Did they ever have a chance of being successful?

Trainor: When the Shi'ites revolted, they did have some organization. It was fractionalized but it was there and an uprising had been encouraged by the U.S. government and we abandoned them when it did take place. What chance would they have had say if the Republican Guards have not escaped? They would not have had a chance at autonomy, but I think that they probably would have been able to have sufficient success that they could negotiate with the Baghdad regime for better circumstances of their lot, within Iraq. I think that's the best that they c could have hoped for.

Q: And the Kurds in the north?

Trainor: And, the Kurds in the north would probably be basically in the same position. By that I mean that Saddam Hussein, was faced with the potential problem of the Kurds in the north breaking away and the Shiites in the south breaking away, I'll use that term. And his instrument of restoring order was the Republican Guard that escaped from the south. First, he did the Shi'ites and then he started to move north and would have done the same thing, with the Kurds in northern Iraq until the international community, led by the United States, stepped in and prevented him from doing so.

Q: Describe the role of the Republican Guard.

Trainor: The Republican Guard was the key to Saddam Hussein's salvation. As long as the Republican Guard remained loyal to him, did not turn on him, he was in a reasonably good position because his political infrastructure was in place, as well as his secret police infrastructure in place, and now he has loyal praetorian guard, if you will. If the Iraqi Republican Guards had been destroyed in Kuwait, then you might have had an entirely different situation with part of the regular Iraqi rmy, largely Shiite, going over to the side of the Shi'ite uprising. That, certainly could have happened. But the fact that the Republican Guards were able to reconstitute themselves because so many of them had escaped intact from Kuwait, the chances of the regular Army moving against Saddam Hussein, I think were minimal.

Q: Did Bush pay a price for his demonizing of Saddam?

Trainor: I think that when the war ended, most of the American people were so relieved that the war was over quickly and that the casualties were very few that they were relatively indifferent to the outcome of the war beyond that point. While Saddam Hussein had been demonized and I think the American people wanted to see him tossed out of office, they were not willing to see the war progress and the kind of red herring that was thrown up as well--the possibility of having to go to Baghdad to get rid of Saddam Hussein. The American people were not for that because they felt that there would be a lot of casualties involved so they were satisfied. They were satisfied with the outcome of the war and went on to other things. I think one of the examples that they became quickly indifferent to the war was what happened to the Shi'ites and there no sense of outrage in the United States that we're allowing Saddam Hussein to crush the Shi'ite revolt in such a brutal fashion. The Americans were just so relieved that it was over and so involved in welcoming our troops home , the whole war went out of sight and out of mind. I think it's remained that way for the last five years.

Q: You say in your book that the military has become overly concerned about casualties. What's your sense of that in the context of the Gulf War?

Trainor: No nation wants to suffer casualties with their sons and daughters in warfare. But the fact is, war is a dirty business and you do suffer casualties and most people, and including Americans, are prepared for that sort of thing and they were prepared for a lot of casualties in this war. People were talking openly about 10,000 casualties in the first 48 hours of the war and the American people were prepared to accept that because they were prepared to support the war. But, when you have a war where you have so few casualties and the fact that you use high technology equipment and weapons and systems, then you start to get the mind set amongst people that all fighting can be this way - very, very clinical and antiseptic, where we use weapons and equipment rather than flesh and blood. Now, if that takes hold, then you have created a condition that any time an enemy wants to make mischief and he's afraid about American intervention, all he has to do is wave a bloody shirt and say you going to have a lot of casualties here and you may scare off the Americans. Well, I think we made a sterner stuff than that but I have to tell you in the Pentagon today, there is this sensing that when they look at any possible military employment of U.S. forces, be it in Rwanda, be it in Bosnia, be it anywhere in the world, the first thing that they look at, which is different from years ago, the first they look at is what are the likelihood of casualties and that becomes a determinant on when and how you use military forces. As noble as an objective as it is, I think this is dangerous for the execution of foreign policy on the part of the United States.

I think that the U.S. military has become convinced, because of the almost bloodless victory in the Gulf and the public's great concern about friendly/unfriendly casualties, that the American people will not tolerate casualties in the use of American military forces. That the American people insist on a very low casualty rate in warfare. You talk to planners in the Pentagon and the first thing that is brought up when they are thinking, when thoughts go into a possible use of military force around the world, what's the likelihood of casualties and the likelihood of use of military forces diminishes in proportion to the likelihood of an increase in casualties. They're almost paralyzed, maybe that's too strong a word but they're almost paralyzed in the use of military force because of the perception that the public won't accept casualties. I think that's wrong. I think the American public, if you sell them on the benefits and properness of military action are willing to accept the costs that are involved in it. On the reverse side, it's a very dangerous mind set to have because then a mischief-maker can simply wave a bloody flag and threaten casualties and convince the American military to recommend to the President that they not use military force and what does that do for the President? He's not likely to go against military advice along those lines because he puts himself in tremendous political risk.

This phenomena existing today which says we cannot have high casualties in a military operation, I think it is an outgrowth of the Gulf War. But, I think its deeper roots go back to Vietnam. That the business that we took so many casualties that were useless over such a war that was inconclusive, I think that has conditioned the thinking of the military people on active duty today who were the junior officers during the Vietnam War.

Q: What do we know now about the actual state of progress Iraq has had on its weapons of mass destruction?

Trainor: Our intelligence agencies had a pretty good handle on the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program prior to the outbreak of the Gulf War and all of the installations associated with those capabilities were targeted very early on, very high priority targets and were hit and were hit very successfully. Well, we only knew and hit the tip of the iceberg as it turned out because after the war, we kept finding out more and more about what they had, where they have it, about which we knew absolutely nothing and we just most recently, with the defection of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law to Jordan, he's disclosed information--even at this late date--that we were totally unaware of. So, they had a major program going on there. The fact that for five years after the end of the war, they kept it secret, is an indication that Saddam Hussein, in no way, has changed his spots and he still wants to be a major power and to him a major power is one that has weapons of mass destruction - nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons, any one of them, if possible, and all of them desirable.

Q: Five years on, what's the price we pay for not killing the Republican Guard and leaving Saddam in power?

Trainor: We don't know how the final chapter the Gulf War will be written, other than we could put at the bottom of the page, to be continued. We don't how this will go. Saddam Hussein, may be overthrown. He could be replaced by something better. Could be replaced by something worse. Conceivably, they could reject their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. We don't know and I think it's idle to speculate. I think what one has to do is look not in terms of speculation, but in terms of evidence and the evidence that we have before us is that Saddam Hussein is still in power, will use his brutal police forces to ensure that he stays in power and will do his level best to increase his military capability to include a capability of weapons of mass destruction.

Q: George Bush's demeanor at the press conference he gives in March--could you talk about that?

Trainor: When the Gulf War ended so quickly, with so few casualties, the American people were absolutely elated and yellow ribbons were going up all over the place. The one person in the country that didn't seem to share this elation was the man who was the architect of the victory and that was the President and you have to say to yourself, why? Well, he asked himself that very question. Why don't I feel this, this sense of elation? And, I think that was because he measured the war in the same sense that he had started his observations on it, that this was like Nazi aggression and he was using that as the yard stick and at the end of World War II, that Nazi aggression and its capability was completely destroyed by the destruction of Adolf Hitler and Third Reich. Well, he did not see the same allegorical situation with Saddam Hussein and I think that left him uneasy, as well, it should have.

Q: And what about how the American public viewed this war at its end?

Trainor: The Americans were elated at the end of the war and while they were not lied to by the Pentagon and the military and the administration, as to events, they certainly, had a spin put on their explanations of what had happened. And this left the American people to this day with the impression that this was the perfect war fought by perfect generals and it was far from it. While it was a victory, it was a modest victory, snatched from the jaws of triumph. The generals had beauty spots on them and they had warts, the same as our political leaders did. If there was anything perfect about the war, it was probably the enemy. It was perfectly awful. And it was perfectly capable of making all of the wrong decisions, at the wrong time. That was the only part of perfection in the war.

Q: For good or for ill, what do you see as the effects of the Powell Doctrine as it played out in the Gulf War?

Trainor: The Powell doctrine, which really emerged from the war but was reflected in the war, get both high and low marks. If the doctrine is applied rigidly, it's always going to get low marks because you're not going to do anything and you'll paralyze yourself. On the other hand, you're going to get very low marks, if you ignore some of the things that are in the Powell doctrine because that brings you back into things, like Vietnam, which it was designed to avoid. So, in the war, it got both good marks and bad marks. It gets a bad mark, in the sense that perhaps we could have prevented the war, if we had taken some deterrent action beforehand to stop Saddam Hussein. It gets good marks in terms of using overwhelming force in the region for a quick victory. It gets poor marks in temporizing by saying that we ought to give sanctions a chance--the element of the Powell doctrine that says, you only use force as a last resort, after all other means have been exhausted. I think it also gets poor marks in the end of the war, in that in our rush to avoid being tied down, something which the Powell doctrine admonishes against, we rushed out of the area, without taking advantage of the victory that we had to put finish to Saddam Hussein, both in the final stages of the war and in the outcome at Safwan and thereafter. So, I think it, it gets a mixed bag. There's nothing wrong with the Powell doctrine as long as it's intelligently applied and not rigidly applied.

Q: And, how did the Powell Doctrine play out for the President?

Trainor: The politician--particularly a President--if he is told by his military, `Oh Mr. President, here are the conditions that have to be met before you can use us.' -- I think that's eroding the authority and the power of the President of the United States, to say nothing of reducing his flexibility. The military is not separate from the rest of society and it is not separate from statecraft, it is part of state-craft. It is one of the arrows we have in our diplomatic quiver. It is the steel fist inside the velvet glove that gives diplomacy some kind of meaning where you have to use force to either support friends/intimidate enemies or go into active use against enemies. You can't separate it from that velvet glove, nor should it be separated. And you should never be dictating to the President of the United States who has these constitutional responsibilities that go with being the chief executive when and when not he can use his military forces. This is not in the best interest of the republic.