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S. HRG. 107–417

WHAT’S NEXT IN THE WAR ON TERRORISM?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 7, 2002

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware, Chairman

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota

BARBARA BOXER, California

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

BILL NELSON, Florida

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia

JESSE HELMS, North Carolina

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

EDWIN K. HALL, Staff Director

PATRICIA A. MCNERNEY, Republican Staff Director

(II)

CONTENTS

Page

Berger, Samuel R., former National Security Advisor, Washington, DC ............ 7

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11

Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, prepared statement . 4

Helms, Hon. Jesse, U.S. Senator from North Carolina, prepared statement ..... 6

Joulwan, Gen. George A., U.S. Army (Ret.), former NATO Supreme Allied

Commander, Arlington, VA ................................................................................. 14

Kristol, Hon. William, editor, The Weekly Standard; chairman, Project for

the New American Century, McLean, VA .......................................................... 17

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 23

(III)

(1)

WHAT’S NEXT IN THE WAR ON TERRORISM?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2002

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:38 a.m. in room

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

(chairman of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators Biden, Feingold, Helms, and Allen.

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. Let me begin in

a way I do not like to, by having to apologize to the witnesses for

the late start. I have to tell you, the vote being called saved me

from the total embarrassment of having to be fully responsible for

it being late, since the train was 20 minutes late. I am sure Mr.

Kristol and his publication will start talking about how we need to

fund Amtrak, I hope. This is really an Amtrak hearing, Bill.

Thank you all very, very much. Once again, Mr. Chairman, we

have a very distinguished panel here today as we continue our next

in a series of hearings on the review of American foreign policy in

the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11. These hearings, as you well know, are designed to explore the full range of

potential challenges to our national security and to attempt to ensure that we are allocating our resources properly in order best to

defend our Nation from threats.

The more we move forward in these hearings from—this is the

third in a series that will be, I hope, around a dozen—it comes

down to what my father always said from the time I was a kid:

‘‘Joe, if everything is equally important to you, nothing is important.’’ We have to prioritize, and that is what we are really trying

to figure out here.

On Tuesday, the Secretary of State presented a comprehensive

overview of the administration’s budget priorities. Yesterday two

very distinguished former Secretaries of Defense presented their

views on issues ranging from arms control to the threat of the use

of chemical and biological weapons in the hands of terrorists.

Today we deal with the question of where the war on terrorism

is likely to move next. For many, this is the heart of the national

security debate. When we ask where the war will move, this question can be taken both literally and figuratively. When we talk

about upcoming battles, we are talking not only about geography,

but also about strategy and debates within the Congress and within the administration.

In the realm of geography, there has been much discussion over

which parts of the globe are most likely to harbor members of the

2

al-Qaeda network and other terrorists plotting their next attack on

Americans. I know you have all read this morning’s paper and

many of you heard the testimony yesterday from the head of our

CIA, George Tenet, on his prediction that there is an attempt to

reconfigure what is left of al-Qaeda and that we still face a serious

threat from that very organization, let alone others.

The question is, as I said, will our efforts take us next to countries like Somalia, Yemen, and Sudan, where governments lack either the ability or the will to crack down on terrorism? Or will it

focus on countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, where

governments may share our desire to root out terrorist groups and

could be willing, may be willing, to cooperate with us if given the

proper resources and diplomatic backing?

Will our effort concentrate on the open societies of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, whether NATO allies or

other longstanding friends? Many of our allies fully support our

goals in the war against terrorism, but have significant disagreement with us about how to best wage this new type of warfare. If

you read today’s major publications, there is an awful lot of discussion among our European allies about whether or not we are

‘‘using’’ the war on terrorism to, as one Foreign Minister of an allied nation said, settle old scores.

If we want their continued and unstinting support for intelligence, for extraditing the suspects, and perhaps for military operations, the question is how do we have to treat their concerns? Is

it necessary to treat their concerns? I suspect we should with all

the respect and seriousness that friendship and simple prudence

requires.

If our war on terrorism turns eventually to rogue nations, such

as those described by President Bush as the ‘‘axis of evil,’’ what

will such a decision mean? What sort of military, diplomatic, and

economic pressure will we bring to bear on these nations? What

sort of timeframe are we envisioning? What actions by one or all

of these nations might trigger an immediate response? How can we

build support for action, whether military or non-military, among

the rest of the world? And if we do move and succeed, as I am confident we would be if we did, are we ready to stay the course in

those countries?

The discussion on Iraq yesterday in two different venues—there

is no doubt in my mind of our ability to take out Saddam Hussein,

none whatsoever. The question is, if we are reluctant to keep folks

even in Afghanistan, what does that say for what will happen in

Baghdad after Saddam’s gone? What is our game plan?

Today’s issue, where next in the war on terrorism, can be understood in a non-geographical sense as well. When we look at the direction and source of future threats, we are not merely looking at

a map. Will future terrorists likely focus on chemical or biological

weapons and, if so, what will be their most likely source for acquiring such barbaric instruments of mass murder? What methods of

delivery will they most likely employ? Will they seek to acquire a

radiological dirty bomb or a full-fledged nuclear weapon? As for

chemical and biological agents, the black market in such materials

makes these threats too terrible for our Nation to ignore.

3

Will they be more likely to turn their attention in a more conventional direction, perhaps by attacking our Nation’s bridges or tunnels or sports arenas or other high visibility infrastructure? Let us

not forget the heroic devastation of September 11 was wrought by

technology no more sophisticated than knives, and not much of a

knife to begin with, airline fuel, and fire.

No nation can provide a perfect protection against every threat

that could ever possibly materialize. We have to figure out our priorities. We cannot do everything, at least we cannot do it all at

once. Do we put our money into airport, rail, and port security, border patrols, beefed-up police, fire departments, medical response

teams? Do we invest more money and invest more creativity in intelligence assets and language training for these specialists?

Each and every day, our electronic monitors gather a vast wealth

of raw material. They literally suck the ether out of the air, and

that remains, much of it remains, essentially useless because we

lack the specialists able to interpret it or even able to read the language that we intercept.

Do we invest more money in foreign aid, cultural exchanges, or

other programs which help drain the swamp of terrorism? And do

they in fact drain the swamp of terrorism? Do we invest in narcotic

crop substitution, equip friendly governments to help to battle our

common enemy, and hire more financial watchdogs to hunt down

terrorists’ finances and choke off the money that keeps these

groups alive?

How much of our limited resources do we devote to missile defense, a project outside the scope of today’s hearing, but directly related when we consider the issue of allocation of time, money, assets, and intelligence, that is the raw brain power that this country

and this government possesses? Do we spend $60 billion, $100 billion, $200 billion?

Are we going to produce a boost phase, mid-phase, end phase

system? Or do we think, as some have suggested and was mentioned yesterday, a pre-boost phase system, which is preemptively

go in and take these out? It costs less, raises more costs in other

ways maybe.

I will say parenthetically that in my view one of the best investments we could make in the security of the United States would

be to fund fully ongoing programs to corral, safeguard, and destroy

stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear materials in the

former Soviet Union. I have indicated that I think, as much as I

am concerned about Iraq, and I am, the real candy store out there

is Russia. If you want to go shopping, that is the place to shop. Do

we provide the funds necessary to keep scientists with dangerous

technical expertise from selling these services to the highest bidder?

The budget priorities put forward by the administration in my

view are ones that we have a responsibility to debate and discuss

because, as, general, you know from your days at the Pentagon, if

you want to know what is important to a military establishment,

look at their budget, look at the budget.

I will also say that in my view one of the most important lessons

of September 11 is the need for a global perspective. In the battle

against terror, unilateralism is not an option. That is not to sugVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:08 May 06, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 78906 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
4

gest we do not have unilateral options and we need not preserve

them and exercise them if need be. Our military can take on any

adversary in the world. But this battle on terrorism at least is not

one that can be fought purely by the military. It relies on intelligence, police, diplomacy, and these rely firmly on cooperation with

other nations.

As Secretary Perry said yesterday, the tough call we are going

to have to make in the next decade or so—my phrase, ‘‘the next

decade or so,’’ not his—is what are the tradeoffs here? Clearly, we

like to act with independence. Clearly, we like to act without having to be bogged down with anyone else being any part of the decision. But what is the tradeoff? If we act that way, if we lose cooperation, what is the end result? Is the tradeoff worth it or is it

not worth it?

These are very difficult decisions that do not lend themselves in

my view to simplistic formulas. So we may not know precisely

where the war on terrorism will take us next, but I firmly believe

that it is likely to require us to have some cooperation from our allies and friends.

[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.

Today the Committee on Foreign Relations continues a series of hearings to review American foreign policy in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September

11. These hearings are designed to explore the full range of potential challenges to

our national security, and to insure that we are allocating our resources properly

in order to best defend our nation from any such threats.

On Tuesday, the Secretary of State presented a comprehensive overview of Administration budget priorities. Yesterday, two former secretaries of defense presented their views on arms control issues. Today we deal with the question of where

the war on terrorism will be likely to move next. For many, this is the heart of our

national security debate.

When we ask ‘‘where’’ the war will move, this question can be taken both literally

and figuratively. When we talk about upcoming battles, we are talking not only

about geography, but also about strategy.

In the realm of geography, there has been much discussion over which parts of

the globe are most likely to harbor members of the al-Qaeda network and other terrorists plotting their next attack on Americans. Will our effort take us next to countries like Somalia, Yemen and Sudan, where governments lack either the ability or

the will to crack down on terrorism?

Will it focus on countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, where

governments may share our desire to root out terrorist groups, and could be willing

to cooperate with us if given the proper resources and diplomatic backing?

Will our effort concentrate on the open societies of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere—whether NATO allies or other longstanding friends? Many of

our allies fully support our goals in the war against terrorism, but have significant

disagreements with us about how best to wage this new type of warfare. If we want

their continued, unstinting support—for intelligence, for the extradition of suspects,

and perhaps for military operations—we will have to treat their concerns with all

the respect and seriousness that friendship and simple prudence require.

And if our war on terrorism turns eventually to ‘‘rogue nations’’ such as those described by President Bush as the ‘‘Axis of Evil,’’ what will such a decision mean?

What sort of military, diplomatic, and economic pressure will we bring to bear on

these nations? What sort of time-frame are we envisioning? What actions by one—

or all—of these nations might trigger an immediate response? How can we build

support for action, whether military or non-military, among the rest of the world

community?

Today’s issue—where next in the war on terrorism—can be understood in a nongeographical sense as well. When we look for the direction and source of future

threats, we are not merely looking at a map.

5

Will future terrorists be likely to focus on chemical or biological weapons? If so,

what will be their most likely sources for acquiring such barbaric instruments of

mass-murder? What methods of delivery will they be most likely to employ?

Will they seek to acquire radiological ‘‘dirty bombs,’’ or even full-fledged nuclear

weapons? As for chemical and biological agents, the black market in such materials

makes these threats too terrible for our nation to ignore.

Will they be more likely to turn their attention in a more conventional direction,

perhaps by attacking our nation’s bridges, tunnels, sports arenas, or other high-visibility infrastructure? Let us not forget that the horrific devastation of September

11 was wrought by technology no more sophisticated than knives, airline fuel, and

fire.

No nation can provide perfect protection against every threat that could ever possibly materialize. We have to figure out our priorities. We can’t have everything, all

at once: do we put our money into airport, port and rail security, border patrols,

beefed-up police, fire departments, and medical response teams? Do we invest more

money—and invest it more creatively—in intelligence assets and in language training for area specialists? Each and every day our electronic monitors gather a vast

wealth of raw intelligence that remains essentially useless, because we lack the specialists able to interpret it or who might understand the language.

Do we invest more money in foreign aid, cultural exchange, and other programs

which help ‘‘drain the swamp’’ of terrorism? Do we invest in narcotics crop substitution, equip friendly governments to help battle our common enemy, or hire more

financial watchdogs to hunt down terrorist finances and choke off the money that

keeps these groups alive?

And how much of our limited resources do we devote to missile defense—a project

outside the scope of today’s hearing, but directly related when we consider the issue

of allocation of time, money and assets. Do we spend $60 billion? $100 billion? $200

billion?

I will say parenthetically that, in my view, one of the best investments we could

make for the security of the United States would be to fully fund ongoing programs

to corral, safeguard, or destroy stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, and to provide funds necessary to keep scientists

with dangerous technical expertise from selling their services to the highest bidder.

The budget priorities put forward by the Administration, in my view, are ones that

we have a responsibility to debate and discuss.

I will also say that, in my view, one of the most important lessons of September

11 is the need for a global perspective. In the battle against terror, unilateralism

simply is not an option. Our military can take on any adversary in the world—but

this battle against terrorism is not one that can be fought by the military alone.

It relies on intelligence, police, and diplomacy—and all of these rely firmly on the

cooperation of many other nations.

We may not know precisely where the war on terrorism will take us next. I firmly

believe that it is likely to require us to ask for cooperation from our allies and

friends.

The CHAIRMAN. I am anxious to hear what our distinguished witnesses—and they are distinguished—have to say about these and

other issues, and I will now yield to the Senator from North Carolina, the real chairman of the committee.

Senator HELMS. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I am glad to see we have a group of young people here this morning. Can you hear all right? Would you raise your hand if you cannot hear any of the witnesses, because we have a blue ribbon group

of leaders here and I want you to hear what they say.

The first is Samuel Berger. He was former National Security Advisor to the President for 8 year. Then Gen. George A. Joulwan—

I got it right, did I not?

General JOULWAN. You got it right.

Senator HELMS. He is former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. Last and certainly not least is Bill Kristol, editor of The

Weekly Standard and chairman of the Project for the New American Century, which is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.

6

Now, I welcome all three of you, and I know it is an imposition

sometimes to come up here, but it makes a lot of difference in

terms of understanding the problems and questions.

One of the things the American people learned on September 11

is that there are implacable enemies seeking to destroy us. Everybody knows that. And if those enemies are not identified and disarmed and/or destroyed, ‘‘they will come for us,’’ to quote the President of the United States. President Bush understands that and,

in his State of the Union Address, he put America’s enemies on notice: ‘‘We know who you are, we know what you are doing; stop or

we will stop you.’’ And he said it rather emphatically, to a standing

ovation.

Terrorism and despotism, weapons of mass destruction and the

missiles to deliver, all of these threats exists today to our Nation,

and to our allies. Previous administrations have erred in believing

that one could confront terror and weapons of mass destruction

[WMD] proliferation as law enforcement problems. Un-uh. No indeed, these are matters of vital national security and must be addressed with a broad, consistent policy that brooks no bargaining,

no pinpricks, and no half-measures.

In all likelihood, there will be no need to make war on all of our

enemies, but we must be forthright in identifying them, giving

them an opportunity to reform, and, if necessary, isolating or eliminating them. For that reason, many of us have declared that Saddam Hussein must go. Now, all of our half-measures have failed

and our efforts to give Saddam room to improve were used by him

to consolidate his power and buildup more weapons.

Every year a group of people, Saddam’s constituency, who want

him out of office, come to see us and tell us what is going on. If

we bury our heads in the sand, as was done with the Taliban and

Osama bin Laden, we are going to find ourselves confronting Saddam on his terms and at a time of his choosing. Sure, we will prevail. We are certain of that. But at what cost?

One last thought, Mr. Chairman, and I am through. At the end

of the cold war we discovered that none were more beloved in the

Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc than Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Why were they beloved? They were respected and

beloved because they told the world the truth about Soviet tyranny.

I believe America will be equally beloved today if we speak the unvarnished truth about the terrorist totalitarian rulers in this world.

After all, the people of Cuba, Syria, Iran and Iraq are not terrorists. They have no desire, let alone any plans, to annihilate us,

with nuclear weapons or anything else. But no one suffers more

than they do at the hands of the kind of leadership that they have.

The time has obviously come, I think, for all of us to speak out.

The President of the United States began a new day last week with

his denunciation of what he called the ‘‘axis of evil.’’ The rest of us,

I think, will do well to follow in his footsteps.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Senator Helms follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JESSE HELMS

Distinguished gentlemen, welcome. We are here to hear from you, and not to hear

Senators pontificate, so I will be brief.

7

One of the things the American people learned on September 11 is that there are

implacable enemies seeking to destroy us. If those enemies are not identified, and

disarmed or destroyed, they will come for us.

President Bush understands that, and in his State of the Union, he put America’s enemies on notice. ‘‘We know who you are; we know what you are doing; stop or

we will stop you,’’ the President said emphatically.

Terrorism and despotism, weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver

them, all these are threats today to our nation and to our allies. Previous administrations have made the mistake of believing that confronting terror and WMD proliferation could be treated as law enforcement problems. No indeed, these are matters of vital national security and must be addressed with a broad, consistent policy

that brooks no bargaining, no pinpricks and no half measures.

In all likelihood, there will be no need to make war on all of our enemies, but

we must be forthright in identifying them, giving them an opportunity to reform,

and, if necessary, isolating or eliminating them. For that reason, many of us have

declared that Saddam Hussein must go.

All of our half measures have failed and our efforts to give Saddam room to improve were used by him to consolidate his power and build up more weapons. If we

bury our heads in the sand, as was done with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden,

we will find ourselves confronting Saddam on his terms at a time of his choosing.

Sure, we will prevail, but at what cost?

One last thought:

At the end of the Cold War, we discovered that no one was more beloved in the

Soviet Union and East Bloc than Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Why were

they beloved? Because they told the world the truth about Soviet tyranny.

I believe America will be equally beloved today if we speak the unvarnished truth

about the terrorist, totalitarian rulers of this world. After all, the people of Cuba,

Syria, Iran and Iraq are not terrorists; they have no desire, let alone any plans, to

annihilate us with nuclear weapons. No one suffers more than they do at the hands

of their disreputable leaders.

The time has obviously come for all of us to speak out. President Bush began a

new day last week with his denunciation of the ‘‘axis of evil’’. The rest of us will

do well to follow in his footsteps.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

We will hear from the witnesses, and I will introduce each and

say a little about them in this order. I would like to hear from Mr.

Berger first. I should say that for 8 years I had a chance to work

with Mr. Berger. I think he is the single best mind that existed at

the time in that administration. One of the things I have found

about him is that this is a man who is not reluctant to speak his

piece and to suggest the use of force when he thinks it is needed.

I am happy that he is here. I look forward to his input. I must

acknowledge in full disclosure, I consider him a friend. So that does

not mean I will not ask him tough questions, but I consider him

a friend and I am delighted he is here.

Would you begin, Sandy. Then what we will do is go to General

Joulwan. I want to say a word about him after you finish your testimony.

STATEMENT OF SAMUEL R. BERGER, FORMER NATIONAL

SECURITY ADVISOR, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. BERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for those kind words.

Senator Helms, Senator Allen, other members of the committee

who are here in spirit——

The CHAIRMAN. Some members will possibly make it who are not

now present. The farm bill is on the floor and what we all know

and all three of you know is farm policy always takes precedence

over foreign policy when there is an election year and notwithstanding terror. So I am afraid there are a lot of our colleagues

down there dealing with farm policy right now.

8

Mr. BERGER. I welcome your invitation to participate in this important and timely set of hearings and to address in particular the

next stages of the war against terrorism. Let me begin briefly with

what we have already accomplished with decisive and courageous

leadership from President Bush, skillful diplomacy and a military

that has demonstrated superbly the strength it has gained and the

lessons it has learned over the last decade. The Taliban regime is

gone, its demise unlamented by the Afghan people, its first victims.

An interim coalition, fragile but representative, has taken over in

Kabul. Al-Qaeda has been shaken and dispersed, for now disrupted

as a functioning network.

September 11 was a watershed for our country and the world. It

breached the boundaries of the unimaginable. A horrified world

stood with us. The response of the United States was fierce and focused, directed at those what perpetrated the crimes and those who

support them. This response thwarted bin Laden’s fundamental objective, to provoke indiscriminate actions by the United States that

would further polarize the West and the Islamic world, collapsing

not just the Twin Towers, but governments linked to us from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. We were not just the object of these attacks,

but also we were the potential instrument of the terrorist purpose,

to advance the vision of a radical pan-Islamic region from central

Asia to the gulf and beyond.

Americans, led by the President, have responded with unified

purpose. We have known that our cause is both right and necessary, and so has the world.

So where do we go from here? We have an historic opportunity

if we show as much staying power as firepower, if we are unrelenting but not overreaching, if we exercise not only the military power

necessary to protect our people, but also the moral authority necessary to demonstrate that our strength serves a purpose broader

than self-protection, to build a safer world of shared wellbeing.

Our first task, as the President has said, is to finish the job of

destroying al-Qaeda. That job necessarily involves getting bin

Laden. We must not define him out of existence. We must dictate

his destiny. After all, he is the man most responsible for the crime

against humanity nearly 5 months ago. We cannot permit him to

reemerge in a month or a year. We do not want the legend of bin

Laden, a symbol of defiance. We want the lesson of bin Laden, a

symbol of defeat.

It may take months or years. He may be dead already. But the

victims cannot rest in peace until that justice is done.

We must continue to take down al-Qaeda cells and hunt down alQaeda operatives elsewhere, in Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, in this country and elsewhere. Disruption will be an ongoing

enterprise, a priority that will require international intelligence,

law enforcement, and military cooperation for the foreseeable future. As Director Tenet said yesterday, these cells of fanatics will

reconstitute themselves. We must treat this as a chronic illness

that must be aggressively managed, while never assuming that it

has been completely cured.

Where we can help our friends suppress terrorist threats, we

should do so, as we are in the Philippines, Bosnia and elsewhere.

We must be careful to distinguish that from suppressing their leVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:08 May 06, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 78906 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
9

gitimate opposition. Where we see remnants of al-Qaeda and its allies regroup in countries with virtually no governments, it may be

necessary to act militarily, balancing the genuine security gains

against potential allegations that we are assuming the role of world

policeman.

As we move beyond al-Qaeda and its allies, we need to be clear

about our purposes, strategies, standing, and capacities. In the

State of the Union, the President dramatically expanded the battlefield. He redefined and expanded the war to embrace an ‘‘axis of

evil.’’ Implicit in that ultimatum, I believe, is the conviction that

the threat of American power against radical regimes and presumably its exercise will create a new dynamic that causes these regimes to abandon activities that threaten us. It assumes that others will follow our clearly defined leadership and, if not, we will act

alone if necessary.

These are profoundly important premises which promise a far

more interventionist global American posture. They deserve serious

and open-minded discussion. I do not believe the President is engaged in empty threats or rhetorical bluff.

Each of the governments singled out by the President pose unmistakable dangers. Saddam was, is, and continues to be a menace

to his people, to the region, and to us. He cannot be accommodated.

Our goal should be regime change. The question is not whether,

but how and when.

Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons and advanced missile

systems and to support terrorist and rejectionist groups like

Hezbollah, Hamas, and PiJ. Its involvement in arms shipments to

the Palestinians is unacceptable.

North Korea’s regime, a relic of the cold war, is repressive toward it’s people and promiscuous in peddling its missile technology.

We ignore the risks these governments pose at our peril. But

each of them, and their context, is very different. Merely labeling

them as evil does not answer hard questions about the best way

to deal with them to effect needed change.

How do we build support in the region and among our allies to

intensify pressure on Saddam Hussein? Can the Afghan template

be applied in Iraq, where Saddam’s power is more entrenched and

the opposition is weaker? Are we prepared to go it alone militarily?

Is that feasible and what would it take? How does our role in the

deteriorating Middle East conflict relate to a more aggressive posture toward Saddam? Do flames in Baghdad inflame the Middle

East or quiet it?

Have we given up on the internal struggle in Iran, where majorities of over 70 percent have expressed their desire for change? Does

branding Iran part of an evil axis strengthen those who want to engage the United States or those who want to demonize us?

Does disengaging from negotiations with North Korea, which

produced a missile moratorium that has held since 1998 and a

freeze on nuclear fuel production that has been continuously

verified by outside monitors, make it more or less likely that we

will gain restraint? Does it make war on the Korean Peninsula

more or less likely? Does it matter that our ally South Korea believes that the policy of cautious engagement with the North has

reduced tensions on the peninsula to an all-time low?

10

Finally, do we lose the focus on our war against terrorism and

the support of our allies for fighting it when we redefine the conflict as a war against rogue states? From the beginning, the President described the war against terrorism as a monumental struggle

between good and evil. But as our definition of evil becomes more

expansive, from Baghdad to Teheran to Pyongyang, will our support in the world for the fight against terrorism become more diffuse?

I think the President is absolutely right to sound the alarm

against the nexus between biological, chemical, and nuclear states

and terrorism. The discussion we should have in a bipartisan and

respectful way is not whether we deal with these risks, but how.

It must also include reducing the threat of loose nukes and inadequately secured nuclear materials in Russia. It should include

putting teeth in the Biological Weapons Convention and I would

argue ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty. It must include stopping friends and allies from selling dangerous technologies to hostile governments.

The struggle against global terrorism is not a fight we can win

alone. We need partners, coalitions built around us, not against us.

The President was also right when he said we are usually better

off in the world when we say less and do more. A great power

threatens only if it is prepared to act if intimidation fails. In an effort to impose new world order, we must be careful not to contribute to new world disorder.

Let me make one final principal point about the war against terrorism. We have been focused since September 11, Mr. Chairman,

on the military dimension of this struggle. It is an essential part

now and perhaps in the future. But this is not a war we can fight

with military power alone. Our objective must not be only to destroy the terrorist networks that have attacked and threatened us;

we must do so in a way that makes the world more stable, not less,

that isolates the extremists, not us.

That means, as Secretary Powell has said, we must commit our

resources to stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan, including the

possibility of participating in an international security force. It

means that we must make sure President Musharraf succeeds. He

has bought the program that he must take on the terrorists within

or lose his country. If he fails, no one else in the Islamic world will

try again, and it would be more than ironic if we defeated the military extremists in Afghanistan only to see them prevail in Pakistan

and seize control of nuclear weapons.

It means supporting the administration’s active role in diffusing

the crisis between Pakistan and India, where confrontation can

lead to miscalculation and, with nuclear weapons on both sides,

miscalculation can lead to disaster.

It means that we must fight the terror and seek to break the

death grip in the Middle East. Pessimism about the Middle East

is an honest reflection of reality, but it cannot lead us to fatalism,

the view that we are unable to make a difference. The situation

will only get worse without sustained engagement led by the

United States, on Arafat to defeat the killers and on the Israelis

to respond as he does. The alternative is a destructive war of attrition and a radicalization of the entire region.

11

It means we must put as much energy into the Arab world as

we take out of it, but of the diplomatic, political, economic, and intellectual variety. We must act more purposefully to convince our

friends in the region that pluralism and reform are not the enemies

of Islam, they are the enemies of the extremists.

Finally, we must put at the heart of the U.S. agenda efforts to

enable the poor to reap the advantages of globalization and opportunity. This too is part of the war against terrorism, for unless we

do so the world will become a more divided and bitter place and

our power, unrivaled as it may be, will produce as much resentment as respect.

In short, Mr. Chairman, phase two in the war against terrorism,

a long-term struggle as the President honestly has told us, must

be defined not only by what we destroy, but also by what we build,

not only by what we stand against, but what we stand for.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Berger follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SAMUEL R. BERGER, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

I welcome your invitation to participate in this important and timely series of

hearings and to address, in particular, the next stages in the war against terrorism.

Let me begin with what we already have accomplished with decisive and courageous leadership from President Bush, skillful diplomacy and a military that has

demonstrated superbly the strength it has gained and the lessons learned over the

past decade. The Taliban regime is gone, its demise unlamented by the Afghan people, its first victims. An interim coalition, fragile but representative, has taken over

in Kabul. Al Qaeda has been shaken and dispersed, for now disrupted as a functioning network.

September 11th was a watershed for our country and the world. It breached the

boundaries of the unimaginable. A horrified world stood with us. The response by

the United States was fierce and focused—directed at those who perpetrated the

crimes and those who support them. This response thwarted bin Laden’s fundamental objective: to provoke indiscriminate actions by the U.S. that would have further polarized the West and the Islamic world, collapsing not just the Twin Towers

but governments linked to us from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. We were not just the

object of these attacks but also the potential instrument of the terrorists’ purpose:

to advance the vision of a radical pan-Islamic region from central Asia to the Gulf

and beyond.

Americans, led by the President, have responded with unified purpose. We have

known that our cause is both right and necessary, and so has the world.

So where do we go from here? We have an historic opportunity—if we show as

much staying power as fire power . . . if we are unrelenting but not overreaching

. . . if we exercise not only the military power necessary to protect our people but

also the moral authority necessary to demonstrate that our strength serves a purpose broader than self-protection—to build a safer world of shared well-being.

Our first task, as the President has said, is to finish the job of destroying al

Qaeda. That job necessarily involves getting bin Laden. We must not define him out

existence; we must dictate his destiny. After all, he is the man most responsible for

the crime against humanity nearly five months ago. We cannot permit him to reemerge—in a month, or a year. We do not want the legend of bin Laden—a symbol

of defiance. We want the lesson of bin Laden—a symbol of defeat.

It may take months or years. But the victims cannot rest in peace until that justice is done.

And we must continue to take down al Qaeda cells, and hunt down al Qaeda

operatives elsewhere—in Asia, Europe, Africa, here and elsewhere in this Hemisphere. Disruption will be an ongoing enterprise—a priority that will require international intelligence, law enforcement and military cooperation for the foreseeable

future. These cells of fanatics will reconstitute themselves. We must treat this as

a chronic illness that must be aggressively managed, while never assuming it has

been completely cured.

Where we can help our friends suppress terrorist threats, we should do so, as we

are in the Philippines, Bosnia and elsewhere. We must be careful to distinguish that

12

from suppressing their legitimate opposition. And where we see remnants of al

Qaeda and its allies regroup in countries with virtually no governments, it may be

necessary to act militarily, balancing the genuine security gains against potential

allegations that we are assuming the role of world policeman.

As we move beyond al Qaeda and its allies, we need to be clear about our purposes, strategies, standing and capacities. In the State of the Union, the President

dramatically expanded the battlefield. He redefined and expanded the war to embrace an ‘‘axis of evil.’’ Implicit in the ultimatum, I believe, is the conviction that

the threat of American power against radical regimes—and presumably its exercise—will create a new dynamic that causes these regimes to abandon activities that

threaten us. It assumes that others will follow our clearly defined leadership and,

if not, we will act alone if necessary.

These are profoundly important premises, which promise a far more interventionist global American posture. They deserve serious and open-minded discussion.

I do not believe the President is engaged in empty threats or rhetorical bluff.

Each of the governments singled out by the President pose unmistakable dangers.

Saddam Hussein was, is and continues to be a menace to his people, to the region

and to us. He cannot be accommodated. Our goal should be regime change. The

question is not whether but how and when.

Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons and advanced missile systems and to

support terrorist and rejectionist groups like Hezballah, Hamas and PiJ. Its involvement in arms shipments to the Palestinians is unacceptable.

North Korea’s regime, a relic of the Cold War, is repressive toward its people and

promiscuous in peddling its missile technology.

We ignore the risks these governments pose at our peril. But each of them, and

their context, is very different. Merely labeling them as ‘‘evil’’ does not answer hard

questions about the best way to deal with them to effect needed change.

• How do we build support, in the region and among our allies, to intensify pressure on Saddam Hussein? Can the Afghan template be applied in Iraq, where

Saddam’s power is more entrenched and the opposition is weaker? Are we prepared to go-it-alone militarily? Is that feasible and what would it take?

• How does our role in the deteriorating Middle East conflict relate to a more aggressive posture toward Saddam? Do flames in Baghdad inflame the Middle

East, or quiet it?

• Have we given up on the internal struggle in Iran, where majorities of over 70%

have expressed their desire for change? Does branding Iran part of an evil axis

strengthen those who want to engage the U.S. or those who seek to demonize

us?

• Does disengaging from negotiations with North Korea, which produced a missile

moratorium that has held since 1998 and a freeze on nuclear fuel production

that has been continuously verified by outside monitors, make it more or less

likely that we will gain restraint? Does it make war on the Korea Peninsula

more or less likely? Does it matter that our ally, South Korea, believes that the

policy of cautious engagement with the North has reduced tensions on the Peninsula to an all-time low?

• Do we lose focus in our war against terrorism, and the support of our allies for

fighting it, when we redefine the conflict as a war against rogue states? From

the beginning, the President described war against terrorism as a ‘‘monumental

struggle between good and evil.’’ But as our definition of evil becomes more expansive—from Baghdad to Tehran to Pyongyang—will our support in the world

for the fight against terrorism become more diffuse?

I think the President is absolutely right to sound the alarm against the nexus between biological, chemical and nuclear states and terrorism. The discussion we

should have, in a bipartisan and respectful way, is not whether we deal with these

risks, but how. It must also include reducing the threat of loose nukes and inadequately secured nuclear material in Russia. It should include putting teeth in the

Biological Weapons Convention, and, I would argue, ratifying the CTBT. And it

must include stopping friends and allies from selling dangerous technology to hostile

governments. The struggle against global terrorism is not a fight we can win alone;

we need partners—coalitions built around us not against us.

The President was also right when he said we are usually better off in the world

when we say less and do more. A great power threatens only if it is prepared to

act if intimidation fails. In an effort to impose new world order, we must be careful

not to contribute to new world disorder.

Let me make one other principal point about what is next in the war against terrorism. We have been focused since September 11th on the military dimension of

this struggle. It is a necessary part, now and perhaps in the future. But this is not

13

a war we can fight with military power alone. Our objective must be not only to

destroy the terrorist networks that have attacked and threaten us; we must do so

in a way that makes the world more stable, not less—that isolates the extremists,

not us.

• That means, as Secretary Powell has said, we must commit our resources to

stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan, including the possibility of participating

in an international security force.

• It means we must make sure President Musharraf succeeds. He has ‘‘bought the

program’’—that he must take on the terrorists within, or lose his country. If he

fails, no one else in the Islamic world will try again. And it would be more than

ironic if we defeated the militant extremists in Afghanistan only to see them

prevail in Pakistan, and seize control of nuclear weapons.

• It means supporting the Administration’s active role in defusing the crisis between Pakistan and India—where confrontation can easily lead to miscalculation and, with nuclear weapons on both sides, miscalculation can lead to disaster.

• It means that we must fight the terror, and seek to break the death grip, in

the Middle East. Pessimism about the Middle East is an honest reflection of reality, but it cannot lead us to fatalism—the view that we are unable to make

a difference. The situation will only get worse without concerted and sustained

engagement led by the U.S.—on Arafat to defeat the killers and on the Israelis

to respond as he does. The alternative is a destructive war of attrition and a

radicalization of the entire region.

• It means that we must put as much energy into the Arab world as we take

out—but of the diplomatic, political, economic and intellectual variety. We must

act more purposefully to convince our friends in the region that pluralism and

reform are not the enemies of Islam; they are the enemies of the extremists.

• Finally, we must put at the heart of the U.S. agenda efforts to enable the poor

to reap the advantages of globalization and opportunity. This too is part of the

war against terrorism—for unless we do so, the world will become a more divided and bitter place, and our power—unrivaled as it is—will produce as much

resentment as respect.

In short, Mr. Chairman, ‘‘phase two’’ in the war against terrorism—a long-term

struggle as the President honestly has told us—must be defined not only by what

we destroy, but by what we build, not only by what we stand against but what we

stand for.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Berger, I want to thank you on behalf of the

committee for taking as seriously as you did our invitation. That

is a first-rate statement. Whether anyone agrees or not—I happen

to agree with it—the fact you took it so seriously we appreciate

very much.

Mr. BERGER. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. General Joulwan is a man who has had experience in combat. He had two combat tours in Vietnam. He worked

in the White House. He has worked in the Pentagon. He was

SACEUR. I find it interesting and somewhat poetic to know that

he was a second lieutenant when the Wall in Berlin was built and

he was a lieutenant general when the Wall came down in Europe.

I have said this publicly as often as I can lately, Mr. Chairman,

because I have been incredibly impressed over the last 10 years.

Maybe it relates to my responsibilities and exposure to individuals

in the military, unlike I have had in the first 15 years of my career.

I find our flag officers among the brightest, the most informed diplomats, diplomats, as well as warriors. I have been stunned by it

over the last 10 to 12 years.

I would point out—I do not want to get him in trouble, but during the period of the expansion of NATO, which you and I strongly

supported, I suspect that—and I suspect Mr. Berger, who oversaw

that, would agree—that General Joulwan’s diplomacy and his input

14

and his efforts as SACEUR were incredibly important as well as

they were in getting our allies to do what I am convinced they did

not want to do, which was the right thing in the Balkans, including

your recommendations, I would add, with regard to Kosovo.

I have been mightily impressed, general, and we are delighted to

have you here. Please proceed at your pace.

STATEMENT OF GEN. GEORGE A. JOULWAN, U.S. ARMY (RET.),

FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER, ARLINGTON, VA

General JOULWAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for

inviting me to testify here today. At the outset, I too want to thank

you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Helms and Senator Allen and this

committee, for your support during my time on active duty and for

the important role you have played in the development and implementation of American foreign policy.

You have asked me to look at several questions as part of your

effort to better understand what we are confronting in this war to

defeat terrorism, specifically what are our next steps in Afghanistan, how do we drain the swamp of terrorism, and how do we foster better civilian and military cooperation? I will do so as a soldier

of 40 years, the last 7 as a commander in chief of our forces in

Latin America, and later as the Supreme Allied Commander of

NATO.

Let me make a few brief points and then respond to your questions. First, Mr. Chairman, we are at war, but it is a different war

than those we have fought in the past. There are no front lines, the

enemy is dispersed and operates in small cells, and the

underpinnings of this threat are in its religious radicalism and its

hatred of the United States and the civilization that embraces freedom, tolerance, and human dignity. It is an enemy willing to commit suicide of its young to achieve its aims and with little regard

for human life. While the enemy may be small in number, it would

be wrong to underestimate the threat or the depth of their convictions.

Second, the al-Qaeda network has been in place for years, if not

decades, and we as a Nation have been surprised at the number

of countries from which al-Qaeda operates and the sleepers who

provide assistance and comfort to terrorists in many democratic

countries, including our own. Such is the pervasiveness of this

threat. While it would be wrong to paint al-Qaeda 10 feet tall, it

would be equally wrong to dismiss the pervasiveness of the threat.

I adhere to a very basic principle: Never underestimate your

enemy.

Third, let me underscore what President Bush and his advisors

have been saying. This will be a lengthy campaign, not of months

but years. We have bought some time in the disruption we have

caused the al-Qaeda terrorists, but do not for a minute believe we

have eliminated nor greatly diminished the threat to our homeland

and to our allies and friends. We have not.

While we Americans are used to quick action and return to normalcy, the Congress, the media, and our elected leaders must prepare our country for a long struggle. During the cold war, we demonstrated a commitment and resolve for over 40 years. That comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:08 May 06, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 78906 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
15

mitment and resolve transcended political party and labels such as

liberal and conservative, and we prevailed. In this fight we need

the same resolve and commitment for however long it takes. And,

Mr. Chairman, we will prevail.

The fourth point: The war on terror is being conducted on three

fronts. One front is Afghanistan and the surrounding region, another here in our homeland, and the third is global in scope. In Afghanistan we acted swiftly to punish those who killed so many innocent people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Indeed,

in my opinion our military actions were out in front at times of the

political decisions needed to provide clarity and direction for the

campaign plan. We surprised al-Qaeda, bin Laden, and their supporters with the swiftness of our action and the resolve of the

American people. The surprise attack on the United States was answered in weeks, not months or years.

The resolve of the American people to take the fight to this new

enemy has been resolute and unwavering. When the Taliban and

al-Qaeda chose to stand and fight, they were defeated. The union

of Northern Alliance fighters, the U.S. and British Special Forces

has been extremely effective in bringing accurate deadly air strikes

on the enemy, but the war in Afghanistan is not over. The leadership of al-Qaeda has still not been killed or captured. We have disrupted the enemy’s activities, but not rendered him ineffective.

Without constant pressure, the enemy can reconstitute and pose a

threat to the new interim government and to our troops on the

ground.

Intelligence collection and sufficient U.S. ground troops are needed to ensure that al-Qaeda and Taliban are not just disrupted, but

defeated. This means staying in South Asia. It means developing

a stronger relationship with Pakistan that is economic and political

as well as military. It means involvement in resolving the potentially dangerous dispute between India and Pakistan.

Mr. Chairman, it was clear from the outset that the only way we

were going to be successful in Afghanistan and beyond was to enlist global support. That support has been there from the beginning. The stand-up attitude of the British confirms the special nature of our relationship and NATO’s invoking of Article 5 for the

first time in its history are the two best examples.

There are others as well. Australia has troops on the ground and

Japan is supplying ships and aid for the war effort, which is unprecedented. In addition, Russia, despite the ups and downs in our

relations, has been supportive. President Putin, to his credit, has

decided to use this opportunity, I believe, to seek common ground

with the United States and broaden our relationship. As you know,

Mr. Chairman, I had a Russian three star general as my deputy

for Russian forces in Bosnia. We do have common interests and can

build a foundation for better relations in the future.

Also, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are providing bases for U.S. and

coalition forces. Part of the reason we have had such immediate access to bases in both these countries is because Americans have

been training there since 1995 as part of the Partnership for Peace

developed between NATO and the states of the former Warsaw

Pact and Soviet Union. Engagement works, Mr. Chairman, and our

allies and partners are important in this global fight against terror.

16

As I said before, we should not be lulled into thinking we have

drained the swamp of terrorism in Afghanistan or anywhere else

quite yet. Afghanistan is still a dangerous place and the two priorities in the near term to me are clear. One is a combat mission to

disrupt and defeat al-Qaeda and the terrorists. The second is an

international security force in Afghanistan to provide security for

the interim government and the multitude of agencies committed

to rebuilding Afghanistan after the devastating years of Taliban

rule. Both efforts are important, both efforts need to complement

each other, and both efforts require U.S. leadership and direction.

I believe there are some lessons from Bosnia that we can apply

to Afghanistan. We went into Bosnia in the winter of 1995 in the

worst terrain in Europe and in 6 months accomplished all military

tasks, separating 200,000 armed insurgents in 30 days, transferring land in 45 days, and demobilizing all warring factions in 180

days, and NATO did so with a coalition force from 36 nations, including for the first time a brigade of Russian troops.

Unlike UNPROFOR, the U.N. Protection Force, we had clarity of

mission, unity of command, and clear robust rules of engagement.

However, the civilian side was not well organized or as successful.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, 6 years later U.S. and NATO troops

are still in Bosnia and the unemployment rate is higher than it

was in 1995. We are better than that as a Nation and as an alliance.

Clearly, the military can bring about an absence of war, but it

is the civilian follow-on agencies that will bring true peace. Therefore, my fifth point is that we must have an effective, integrated,

disciplined, multinational team with clear objectives and milestones as a follow-on force in Afghanistan. This is not nation-building, but security-building. We did not do so 10 years ago in Afghanistan and we must not make that same mistake again.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, al-Qaeda is not confined to Afghanistan. I uncovered an al-Qaeda cell in Bosnia in 1996. It has a global reach. President Bush is right, we cannot wait for the next attack in order to take the next step. We must anticipate, we must

be proactive, not reactive. We must take on those who support terrorist organizations with a global reach.

But while doing this, we must take into account several criteria:

What is the best allocation of our resources? What will it take to

succeed, and what impact will this have on the international support we need over the long term to defeat terrorism? We should not

make threats we are not prepared to carry out and we must match

requirements with resources. While we cannot be tied to the wishes

or judgment of the international community, we cannot ignore the

very important support it has to offer.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me say that the most difficult challenge will be that of Governor Ridge and homeland security. My

prior experience as the commander of U.S. forces in Latin America

reinforces how vulnerable we are to asymmetrical threats. While

missile defense is important and should be pursued, a more

daunting challenge is to develop a long-range strategy for the protection of our people here at home. We are vulnerable.

We need to better organize the 40 agencies involved in homeland

defense, particularly on our borders, which are extremely porous.

17

If the narcotraffickers can smuggle 200 metric tons of a chemical

called cocaine through our borders every year, what other chemicals can be brought into our country? Make no mistake about it,

Mr. Chairman. There is a direct link between the narcotraffickers

and al-Qaeda, not just in Afghanistan but also in South America.

I would also urge that the U.S. military play a key role in homeland defense and I support the idea of a homeland defense commander in chief or CINC. Intelligence collection and sharing is the

key to success. We need to ensure there is effective coordination between our military, intelligence, law enforcement, customs, and immigration agencies. The military can help in that effort.

In my view it is very important: Law enforcement is in the lead,

the military is in support. The military should serve as the operations coordinator, not as the operational commander for homeland

defense.

Mr. Chairman, these are the points I wanted to make. I am prepared to elaborate on those in the question period. In conclusion,

let me say the terrorists who carried out the attacks of 11 September greatly miscalculated the resolve and resourcefulness of the

American people. I can attest to the quality of our troops and their

ability to carry out any mission assigned and I can assure you that

those who died on 11 September did not die in vain. But I truly

believe it is a time for hope, not despair, optimism, not pessimism;

and with the help of this committee and the resolve of the American people, we will prevail. Mr. Chairman, failure is not an option.

Thank you again for inviting me here today.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, a very powerful statement.

Our next witness is a man for whom I have great respect. He is

a serious intellect and he has persuasive advocacy that sometimes

I wish was not so persuasive. I liked him better in 1976 when he

was a Democrat. I still like him personally, but I have said—and

I will probably get in trouble with my colleagues for saying this—

almost all the intellectual ferment in the political spectrum in the

last 20 years has been on the right as opposed to the left.

But I am happy that he is here. I know he takes—anyone who

knows and takes American politics seriously knows of Bill Kristol,

and we are delighted to have you here, Bill, and the floor is yours.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM KRISTOL, EDITOR, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, AND CHAIRMAN, PROJECT FOR THE NEW

AMERICAN CENTURY, McLEAN, VA

Mr. KRISTOL. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Helms,

Senator Allen. You have my prepared statement, so let me summarize it and elaborate on one or two points.

The CHAIRMAN. Take your time. Do not short-circuit anything in

the interest of time here. We are anxious to hear what you have

to say.

Mr. KRISTOL. Thank you.

The question you posed to me was what is next in the war on

terrorism. Obviously, what is next in the short term is finishing the

war in Afghanistan, engaging in nation-building in Afghanistan as

we are doing, appropriately I think, trying to secure Pakistan, and

18

then moving on to do, as we are now already doing in the Philippines, to roll up the al-Qaeda network around the world.

I think this phase one of the war, though it is a difficult phase

to execute, requiring adept use of intelligence resources, diplomacy,

military assets, is not particularly controversial in terms of U.S.

goals. I think there is huge bipartisan and popular support for

that, and I will not dwell on it. I think it looks unlikely that it will

require major military assets, at least major commitment of troops,

though obviously there will be Special Forces and others and trainers and others supporting friendly governments and using some of

our own forces as need be. But it seems to me this phase one of

the war, which will now expand, obviously, into the Philippines and

presumably into other countries as well, perhaps Somalia, is—we

are in that phase. As I say, I do not think there is any great—there

will be controversy, I am sure, about tactics and details, but I do

not think there is any controversy that we need to roll up the alQaeda network and convince states that have provided safe havens

either willingly or sort of inadvertently to aspects of that network

and allies of that network that they should stop doing so.

So the real question I think is what is next in the sense of what

is next in phase two of the war. I think what is next is Iraq. I am

not simply saying that because I think that should be phase two,

but I think it will be. I think that is the implication of the President’s State of the Union speech last week and really the implication of the logic of the war as the President understands this war.

It seems to me that the President sees the threat of the nexus

of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and hostile dictatorships, those three things coming together—terrorism, weapons of

mass destruction, and hostile anti-American dictatorships—differently from the way our European allies see that threat. I was

just at the Werkunde conference in Munich this weekend with several of your colleagues, Mr. Chairman, and I think we were all

struck by how differently the Europeans see the situation we are

in.

I think this President sees the threat differently from the way

his predecessor or even his predecessor’s predecessor, his father,

might have seen it. This President understands the challenge of

September 11 to require, I think, that he build a new world or a

new world order, to use a phrase that was perhaps unjustly

mocked when it was used in the first Bush administration.

This President, it seems to me, does not simply aim to restore

the status quo ante. He does not think, well, let us mop up the alQaeda network, punish the people who inflicted this terrible damage on us, try to prevent them from inflicting further damage, but

then the world of September 10 is basically what we go back to.

What struck me most about being in Europe is that that is, I

think, the mainstream European view of where we are: We were

attacked, we are entitled to respond, we should obviously do our

best to rip up the terrorists, but basically the world has not

changed and basically we are going to go back to the way things

were on September 10 and the way things were in 1999 and 2000

and 2001 and the same policies more or less would and should stay

in place vis-a-vis Iraq and Iran and North Korea and other parts

of the world.

19

I think the meaning of the President’s State of the Union speech

last week was that he does not agree with that assessment of

where we are and where we should be, where we should go. His

analysis of the threat posed by the nexus of terrorism, weapons of

mass destruction, and hostile dictatorships post-September 11

leads him to a different place.

This is a legitimate intellectual debate and political debate, and

I very much agree with Sandy Berger that it is an important debate for all of us to have in a serious and bipartisan way. It is

good, I think that your committee, Mr. Chairman, is having these

hearings for that reason. It is not necessarily unreasonable to say

that we cannot really reshape the world order, we simply have to

manage these threats that exist, that after all the nineties was not

a terrible decade, getting back to that status quo, certainly there

would be worse things than that, that we are not going to be able

to change the Middle East, we are not going to be able to change

fundamentally the character of the regimes that exist even in

Southeast Asia, that all we can do is keep Saddam in his box, hope

for hopeful developments in Iran, contain North Korea and engage

in arms control efforts, and try to find further agreed frameworks,

and that this is basically where we will end up 6 months or a year

or 2 years from now when we basically have taken care of this particular problem, the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Now, as I say, I do not believe the President has this view that

this is where we should go, that we can really afford to take such

a limited view of our war, of our war aims. It seems to me that

since September 11 the President has been increasingly clear and

detailed in laying out what he views as a necessary and fundamental shift in policy and strategy. In the State of the Union he

really articulated this pretty clearly.

The war, he said, has two great objectives, I think a striking

statement. The first objective obviously is defeating terrorism and

in particular the al-Qaeda network. The second objective, he said—

and I do think this was the most significant declaration by an

American President perhaps in 2 decades—was that, as he said,

‘‘The United States of America will not permit the world’s most

dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive

weapons.’’

That seems to me to imply an unequivocal rejection of the international status quo, or at least where that status quo uninterrupted by dramatic American efforts, is going, because the fact is

several of the world’s most dangerous regimes are developing the

world’s most destructive weapons and are perfectly happy to

threaten us with those weapons, certainly our friends and our allies, and absent decisive intervention by the United States there is

no reason to think that they will voluntarily cease that sort of development.

President Bush singled out, obviously, three regimes—North

Korea, Iran, and Iraq—as an ‘‘axis of evil that poses a grave and

growing danger’’—again a startling statement. One could have argued a year or two ago, one could argue today, that the dangers

posed by those regimes, while serious, are not growing. But the

President believes the danger is growing. The President believes

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that the peril draws closer and closer. The President believes that

time is not on our side.

Now, those are all legitimate statements to debate, but they need

to be debated. He has articulated his view. If you believe that the

danger is growing, if you believe that time is not on our side, then

I think one is led to the conclusion that the President has come to,

that we need to be willing to act, if necessary preemptively and

unilaterally, and that this is a matter of American self-defense, not

merely of American self-defense which we think will also produce

a safer and more just world, but it is first and foremost a matter

of American self-defense, and we cannot rule out preemption, we

cannot rule out unilateral action, if that is necessary.

The Bush doctrine seeks to eliminate dictatorial regimes developing these weapons of mass destruction, especially such regimes

that have a link to terror, and they all happen to do so. So there

is an almost perfect correlation between terror-sponsoring regimes

and regimes developing weapons of mass destruction. The President makes clear that in fact rogue regimes developing weapons of

mass destruction in and of themselves is a sufficient threat to warrant U.S. action, whether diplomatic, political, or ultimately military.

The President does also lay out a positive vision based on true

and unchanging American principles which we will advance in the

world. One of the more startling sentences in the speech, which I

think received insufficient attention, the President said: ‘‘America

will take the side of brave men and women who advocate these values around the world, the values of liberty and justice, including

the Islamic world,’’ which I think is a commendable statement by

the President.

For too long, this country and our allies—this has been a bipartisan problem—have assumed that certain parts of the world somehow are not interested in freedom or democracy or are not ready

for freedom or democracy or do not deserve perhaps freedom and

democracy. It seems to me the President overturned an awful lot

of American policy when he said that we will be advancing these

principles around the world, including in the Islamic world.

The President said this was the only way to build a just and

peaceful world beyond the war on terror. This is, I think, a strategic imperative, therefore, as well as a morally desirable situation.

These words I do think augur a fundamental departure from the

U.S. policies of the past decade, both from a certain kind of pseudosophisticated realism of the first Bush administration and from a

somewhat evasive multilateralism of the Clinton years. The Bush

doctrine I think is a shift, it is a shift in U.S. foreign policy. It is

a shift prompted by September 11, but it is a shift that goes beyond

the direct response to September 11. As I say, it is therefore very

legitimate and important, I think, to debate it openly and seriously.

What was distressing, frankly, at the Werkunde, the annual security conference in Munich, that there did not seem to be much

interest in debating this with Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz

or Senator McCain or Senator Lieberman or the other members of

the U.S. delegation. There was more interest on the part of the Europeans in simply deriding it as if the President was simply throwing around slogans or inventing enemies for us to oppose.

21

But in fact he seems to me to have thought through the kind of

world he thinks we need to try to build over the next 5 or 10 years

or more. As I say, it is a legitimate topic for debate, but it certainly

is not fair to say, I do not think, that he and his administration

are simply trying to settle old scores, or using the war on terror

as an excuse to buildup U.S. power and marginalize the allies, or

the kinds of things that were said, unfortunately, at this particular

conference in Munich.

In this broader war on the nexus of terrorism, weapons of mass

destruction, and hostile dictatorial regimes, there is no question

that the Middle East is the central front in the war. It is now, I

think, the foremost problem area for U.S. foreign policy, which incidentally is something new, I think, in the last half century. The

Middle East has always been, I think, a difficult part of the world

for us, and for the people there unfortunately. It has not been really the heart of our strategic concerns.

Certainly Europe was, Asia was during the wars in Korea and

Vietnam. But now the Middle East is the region of the world that

poses the greatest threat to the United States and certainly to our

friends and our allies. It is the most unstable part of the world, the

part of the world that unfortunately has been least amenable to

movement toward freedom and democracy. It is today’s challenge.

And at the heart of that challenge are the two regimes in Iraq

and Iran. North Korea plays a role clearly in disseminating weapons of mass destruction or at least the means to deliver them and

in that respect is, I think, an appropriate third, junior member of

the axis. It also creates problems, obviously, in Asia that are worth

thinking about seriously in their own right. But the Middle East

is the center of the issue and Iraq and Iran are key to addressing

the problem in the Middle East. This is not to say that other nations do not raise very serious issues as well, both issues of terrorism and issues of whether the regimes there are over the long

term stable and friendly to U.S. interests. But Iraq and Iran I

think are key.

As my friend Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington

Post last week: The good news about Iran is that you clearly do

have opposition to the regime. There is something of ‘‘a revolution

from below’’ going on there. The question for us is how we can accelerate that revolution. One answer is ‘‘by the power of example

and overthrowing neighboring radical regimes’’ would, I think,

show the people of Iran, it would inspire the people of Iran, ‘‘show

the fragility of dictatorship,’’ show that dictatorship is not the inevitable way in the Middle East or in the Arab world. It would ‘‘challenge the mullahs’ mandate from heaven and encourage disaffected

Iranians to rise.’’ As Krauthammer points out: ‘‘First Afghanistan

to the East, next Iraq to the West, and then Iran.’’ I think that is

a reasonable strategic template, stipulating always the uncertainties of war and that one has to be ready for anything in this broad

war on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

I will not elaborate the problems we have with Iraq. Sandy

Berger certainly referred to them and there seems to be a bipartisan consensus that regime change is desirable with respect to

Iraq. The question is how to do it. Obviously, there are risks in tryVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:08 May 06, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 78906 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
22

ing and now moving to do it through military action. There are

risks in not moving to do it through military action.

We need to have a serious debate about that. I am pretty convinced that military action is now both necessary and poses less in

the way of risks than sitting by and hoping for a coup or hoping

that somehow U.N. inspectors could not just get back in, but magically actually have the right to inspect in such a way that we could

have confidence that Saddam was not developing weapons of mass

destruction.

I think the President has decided, though, that a simple policy

of containing and deterring Saddam, of keeping him allegedly in

the box he has been in or supposedly been in for the last decade

is no longer acceptable.

The risks of moving against Iraq are considerable, both the direct

military risks obviously, and no serious and responsible Commander in Chief will do this without taking seriously those risks.

But there are also, of course, political risks—the stability of the region, will Iraq stay together as a nation, Saudi Arabian oil, Turkey.

These are all familiar issues. I tend to think they are more manageable than some other people do, but that is something we can

debate and discuss.

I think they are certainly more manageable if a military action

against Iraq is combined with and followed on with a serious commitment to, let us call it, nation-building in Iraq, which I think is

absolutely necessary. We would need to leave troops there for a

while. We would need to buildup a decent civil government there.

We could help hold the country together, reassure neighbors. Obviously, the military effort would have to go hand in hand with a serious political, diplomatic, economic effort, and I believe this administration would do that once we commit to the military effort.

The one point I would make is that I think in all the discussion

of risks we have lost sight of some of the rewards of a reasonably

friendly, reasonably pro-Western government in Iraq. It would really transform the Middle East. A friendly, free, and oil-producing

Iraq would leave Iran isolated. I think Syria would be cowed. The

Palestinians would, I think, be more willing to negotiate seriously

with Israel after this evidence of American willingness to exert influence in the region. Saudi Arabia would have much less leverage,

if only because of Iraqi oil production coming on line, with us and

with Europe.

Removing Saddam Hussein and his henchmen from power would

be a genuine opportunity, I think, to transform the political landscape of the Middle East. The rewards would be very great, and I

would also say the risks of failing to do this I think are very great.

We are now at a crossroads. Before September 11, one could have

argued—I did not personally agree with this argument, but one

could have responsibly argued—that we can in effect kick the can

down the road, put off a decision, see what happens. The threat did

not seem imminent. I think after September 11, after the attack on

us, after the President has identified this nexus of terrorism and

weapons of mass destruction as unacceptable to us, to not go ahead

and achieve regime change in Iraq and after that put pressure on

Iran for serious regime change could really be disastrous.

23

The degree of the loss of American credibility in the region and

the world, the degree to which it will seem that we are willing to

go change regimes when it is the Taliban and they do not have

anything in the way of an air force, let alone weapons of mass destruction, but a serious larger nation that has the potential to use

weapons of mass destruction, that they somehow are immune from

our efforts, sending that message around the world is obviously, I

think, terrifying really in terms of the implications others will

draw, in terms of the implications allies of ours will draw, in terms

of the potential for arms races and instability and a loss of confidence in America and in American credibility. That confidence is,

as we all know, I think, the bulwark of a stability and a reasonable

order in so many regions of the world.

So to leave Saddam there and to fail in a sense to achieve the

regime change that I think many people in both parties think is

so important there would have real consequences. Our allies in the

region who have stood with us—Israel, Turkey, Pakistan now, the

new Government in Afghanistan—would feel, I think, a very lonely

chill. Our allies in Europe, who might enjoy for a month or two the

fact that the United States superpower had to retreat, would soon

begin to worry about their own prospects in a world in which terrorists and terrorist states have acquired weapons of mass destruction, and I think around the world we would see friends appeasing

adversaries. We would see dictators deciding that the way to be secure against American attack is to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

We would see neighboring nations deciding that the way they

could be secure is if they in turn acquire weapons of mass destruction. This could happen not only in the Middle East. It could easily

happen, of course, in Asia, and you really do have I think 5 or 10

years from now an extremely dangerous world.

So, we are at a crossroads. Either we secure the safer and more

stable and more just world that President Bush hopes to secure or

we are on a road toward a more dangerous and scary world. We

cannot really go back to the situation of September 10. I do not

think we can find a stable balance of power with the likes of Iraq,

Iran, and North Korea. We cannot afford any more, as the President said, ‘‘to wait on events while dangers gather.’’

Obviously, there are risks involved in carrying out the President’s strategic vision. But I very much believe that the risks of not

moving ahead to phase two and, if necessary, phase three of this

war on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, are greater.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kristol follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM KRISTOL, EDITOR, THE WEEKLY STANDARD;

CHAIRMAN, PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY

Thank you, Chairman Biden, Senator Helms, and members of the committee, for

inviting me to testify before you today. You have asked me to address the question,

‘‘What’s next in the war on terrorism?’’

The short answer is that Iraq is next. I am not simply saying that Iraq should

be next—although I think it should be. I am rather drawing a straightforward conclusion from President Bush’s State of the Union speech, and from the logic of the

war itself. The president sees this war differently from our European allies and differently, I think, from the way his predecessor or even his father might have seen

it. The president has chosen to build a new world, not to rebuild the old one that

existed before September 11, 2001. And after uprooting al Qaeda from Afghanistan,

24

removing Saddam Hussein from power is the key step to building a freer, safer,

more peaceful future.

To explain my answer, let me address the basic questions about the nature of the

war. Have the events of September 11 fundamentally changed the world? Is our aim

to restore the status quo through limited actions or is it a broader attempt to reshape the Middle East and the other breeding grounds of terror? And how and when

should we deal with our enemies who possess or will soon possess weapons of mass

destruction?

Reviving the status quo would mean that we would be satisfied at having deposed

the Taliban, and at having dealt with Osama bin Laden—presuming we eventually

find him—and having crippled his al Qaeda network. We would not overly concern

ourselves with who’s in power in Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or in Central and South

Asia. We would continue to try to keep Saddam Hussein ‘‘in his box’’ and similarly

to contain Iran. We would return to the old Israeli-Palestinian ‘‘peace process.’’ We

would regard North Korea not as a Stalinist state organized for war but as an arms

control problem amenable to an ‘‘agreed framework.’’ This has been the ‘‘post-Cold War status quo.’’ It has been a period of unprecedented great-power peace. The great international questions of the 19th and 20th

centuries, of Napoleonic France, imperial Britain and Japan, the Kaiser and Hitler’s Germany, of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, have all been largely settled. Indeed, the only real unresolved great-power issue is that of China.

Yet this has also been a violent time, especially in the region from the Balkans

through the Middle East to Southwest and Central Asia. Even before the final collapse of the Soviet Union, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Though his army was

defeated and driven back to Baghdad, the failure to remove the Iraqi tyrant left a

problematic legacy.

Since then, the pace of major terrorist attacks—now directly aimed at America— has increased, as Norman Podhoretz has chronicled in the most recent issue of

‘‘Commentary’’ magazine. The initial attempt to bring down the World Trade Center

was in February 1993; two months later, Saddam tried to assassinate President

Bush when he visited Kuwait. In June 1996, nineteen U.S. airmen were killed and

240 wounded in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. On August 7, 1998,

the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were simultaneously attacked, killing 12

Americans and more than 200 Africans. On October 12, 2000, the USS Cole was struck while docked for refueling in Yemen, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39. And

during the past decade, there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of smaller attacks—as well as untold numbers of foiled, failed or postponed assaults.

Despite these escalating costs, American policy has implicitly considered the costs

of significant U.S. action against terrorists as higher still. As Podhoretz points out,

this is a tradition that began during the Cold War. But it has persisted through

the Soviet Union’s final days and through the Clinton Administration. Even as terrorists and rogue regimes lost their superpower sponsor, they learned there would

be few consequences from attacking America. President Clinton’s policy was, as his

first CIA director James Woolsey has said, ‘‘Do something to show you’re concerned.

Launch a few missiles into the desert, bop them on the head, arrest a few people.

But just keep kicking the ball down the field.’’ Maintain the status quo.

Is that the goal of this war?

No. Since September 11, President Bush has been clear—and increasingly detailed and articulate—that there has been a fundamental shift in U.S. policy and

strategy. On the evening of the attacks, he vowed to bring to justice ‘‘those who are

behind these evil acts.’’ Yet by September 20, when he addressed a joint session of

Congress, he had determined that we were at war not only with a group of terrorists

directly responsible for the attacks but with ‘‘every terrorist group of global reach’’

and with the ‘‘nations that provide safe haven to terrorism,’’ as well.

Over the past few months, the president’s views of ‘‘our mission and our moment’’

have progressed further still. On November 6, he assured the Warsaw Conference

on Combating Terrorism that the United States would wage war on terror ‘‘until

we’re rid of it.’’ He also saw the potential threat of terrorists armed with chemical,

biological, radiological or even nuclear weapons: ‘‘We will not wait for the authors

of mass murder to gain the weapons of mass destruction.’’ And shortly afterward,

the president shifted his emphasis from terrorist groups to terror-loving states: ‘‘If

you develop weapons of mass destruction [with which] you want to terrorize the

world, you’ll be held accountable.’’

The State of the Union address marked the maturation of the Bush Doctrine. This

war, according to the president, has ‘‘two great objectives.’’ The first is defeating terrorism. The second objective, marking the most significant declaration by an American president in almost 20 years, is an unequivocal rejection of the international

status quo. ‘‘The United States of America,’’ said President Bush, ‘‘will not permit

25

the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive

weapons.’’ And President Bush singled out three regimes, North Korea, Iran and Iraq, as enemies; they constitute an ‘‘axis of evil’’ that poses ‘‘a grave and growing danger.’’ Nor

will he ‘‘stand by, as peril draws closer and closer.’’ Time, he said, ‘‘is not on our

side.’’ The president is thus willing to act preemptively and, if need be, unilaterally.

This is a matter of American self-defense.

The Bush Doctrine seeks to eliminate these weapons and the dictatorial regimes

that would use them. The president also seeks to challenge tyranny in general. ‘‘No

nation is exempt,’’ the president said, from the ‘‘true and unchanging’’ American

principles of liberty and justice. Moreover, our role with respect to those principles

will not be passive. According to the president, ‘‘America will take the side of brave

men and women who advocate these values around the world, including the Islamic

world,’’ and will do so because it is the only lasting way to build ‘‘a just and peaceful

world beyond the war on terror.’’ This is now a strategic imperative as much as a

moral one.

The president’s words augur a fundamental departure from the U.S. policies of

the past decade, from the pseudo-sophisticated ‘‘realism’’ of the first Bush Administration or the evasive ‘‘multilateralism’’ of the Clinton years. The Bush Doctrine

rests on a revived commitment to the principles of liberal democracy and the restoration of American military power.

If the president has defined a new goal—or reminded us of what Americans have

always regarded as our true purpose in the world—how do we get there? The president and his lieutenants have suggested answers to what the next steps should be.

Since September 11, we have all understood that this will be a large and long

war. Already it is being waged on a variety of fronts. The campaign in Afghanistan

is far from complete. The Taliban has been routed, al Qaeda’s safe haven destroyed.

But while bin Laden is on the run, he is still on the loose. The initial battles have

been successful, but true victory in Afghanistan will be measured in the long-term

effort to create a viable and stable state that protects individual liberties and promotes justice. Nor can victory in Afghanistan be ensured without securing Pakistan.

The campaign against al Qaeda now is taking American soldiers into Southeast

Asia. More than 600 troops have been deployed to the Philippines to help the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in its war against the Abu Sayyaf group of

Muslim extremists. Singapore and Malaysia both have arrested terrorists with al

Qaeda connections and the Bush Administration is stepping up pressure on the Indonesian government to do the same. The trail is also likely to lead into Somalia

and elsewhere in Africa.

The presence of North Korea in President Bush’s ‘‘axis of evil’’ underscores his

larger view of this war. The administration previously has taken somewhat contradictory stands on North Korea, first suggesting it would overturn the Clinton Administration’s policy and then to maintain it. North Korea may be impoverished and

isolated, but it is extremely dangerous. American policy must be to change the

North Korean regime, not simply to contain it and coexist with it.

The president also makes it clear that he regards the Middle East as occupying

the central front in this war, and that the problem is political, not religious. What

links Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and the mullahs in Tehran is a common

hatred of America and a desire to drive America out of the region. President Bush

wishes to promote the principles of liberty and justice especially in the Islamic

world.

The principal obstacles to that goal are the regimes in Iran and Iraq. Ever since

the revolt against the shah, experts have been arguing that eventually shared interests would create a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran. ‘‘Openings’’ to

Iran are like the first blooms of spring. But they are just as ephemeral. Iran’s offer

to rescue American aviators hit in Afghanistan has been more than offset by the

discovery of its arms shipments to the Palestinian Authority. The character of this

Iranian regime is obvious, and implacable.

But, as Charles Krauthammer wrote in the ‘‘Washington Post’’ last Friday, the

good news is that Iran ‘‘is in the grips of a revolution from below. We can best accelerate that revolution by the power of example and success. Overthrowing neighboring radical regimes shows the fragility of dictatorship, challenges the mullahs’

mandate from heaven and thus encourages disaffected Iranians to the rise. First,

Afghanistan to the east. Next, Iraq to the west.’’

This summarizes the strategic implication of President Bush’s war aims. We may

never definitely know, for example, whether Saddam had a hand in the events of

September 11; the relationship between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence may

be lost in the mists of Prague. But Iraqi involvement would come as no surprise.

After all, Saddam Hussein has remained at war with the United States since 1991.

26

Every day, his air defenses target U.S. and British aircraft enforcing the no-fly

zones over northern and southern Iraq. He flouts the UN resolutions agreed to following the Gulf War. And we know that Iraqi-sponsored terrorists have tried to kill

an American president and Saddam’s agents were likely involved in the effort to

bring down the World Trade Center in 1993.

And Saddam’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction have ruled out a return to the status quo strategy of containment. President Bush has asked himself

how this man will behave once he acquires these weapons. The delicate game of nuclear deterrence, played with Saddam Hussein, is an unacceptable risk.

A military campaign against Iraq is also something we know how to do. Other

than the Euphrates River and Saddam’s palace guard, nothing stood between the

U.S. VII Corps and Baghdad in March 1991; the Army even developed a plan for

encircling and reducing the city in one move. Despite the weakness of the sanctions

regime over the past decade, and Saddam’s care and feeding of his army at the expense of the Iraqi people, the Republican Guard is probably less formidable now

than it was then.

Moreover, as operations in Afghanistan show, the precision-strike capabilities of

U.S. forces have improved. While the Iraq campaign would be far larger and would

demand the immediate and rapid commitment of substantial American ground

troops—and though we should not underestimate the lengths to which Saddam will

go once he understands that the goal is to remove him from power or kill him—

the military outcome is nearly certain.

The larger question with respect to Iraq, as with Afghanistan, is what happens

after the combat is concluded. The Iraqi opposition lacks the military strength of

the Afghan Northern Alliance; however, it claims a political legitimacy that might

even be greater. And, as in Kabul but also as in the Kurdish and Shi’ite regions

of Iraq in 1991, American and alliance forces will be welcomed in Baghdad as liberators. Indeed, reconstructing Iraq may prove to be a less difficult task than the

challenge of building a viable state in Afghanistan.

The political, strategic and moral rewards would also be even greater. A friendly,

free, and oil-producing Iraq would leave Iran isolated and Syria cowed; the Palestinians more willing to negotiate seriously with Israel; and Saudi Arabia with less leverage over policymakers here and in Europe. Removing Saddam Hussein and his

henchmen from power presents a genuine opportunity—one President Bush sees

clearly—to transform the political landscape of the Middle East.

Conversely, the failure to seize this opportunity, to rise to the larger mission in

this war, would constitute a major defeat. The president understands ‘‘we can’t stop

short.’’ But imagine if we did: Saddam and the Iranian mullahs would be free to

continue their struggle for dominance in the Persian Gulf and to acquire worldthreatening weaponry. Our allies in the region who have truly stood with us—like

Israel, Turkey and now Pakistan and Hamid Karzai’s nascent government in Afghanistan—would feel a lonely chill. And our allies in Europe, who may enjoy a moment’s smugness at the defeat of the U.S. ‘‘hyperpower,’’ would soon begin to worry

about their own prospects in a world in which terrorists and terrorist states have

acquired weapons of mass destruction. Very shortly, for lack of confidence in America’s willingness to preserve and shape a global order, our friends would start appeasing our adversaries, and our adversaries’ ambitions would grow even greater.

Whether we want it or not, we are at a crossroads. We can either take up the task

the president has laid out before us, or we can allow the development of a world

that will soon grow far more unstable and dangerous.

In short, even if we wished to, it is now impossible to recover the world of September 10, or to find a stable balance of power with the likes of Iraq, Iran and

North Korea. Nor can we afford, as the president said, to ‘‘wait on events, while

dangers gather.’’ And while there are risks involved in carrying out the president’s

strategic vision, the risks in not doing so are all the greater.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Senator HELMS. Mr. Chairman, you and I have been around this

place exactly the same length of time. He was sworn in maybe 2

minutes before I was in January 1973. I have heard a lot of good

panels, and some others, but I have to say to you three gentlemen

that I have never been more impressed with three individuals who

testified before this committee.

I was speaking to the chairman, and indicated that I think we

ought to give our colleagues an opportunity to have the text of

27

1The book is a Committee Print entitled, ‘‘What’s Next in the War on Terrorism?’’ S. Prt. 107–

59, February 14, 2002.

what you have said printed in a little booklet. We would make it

available to Members upon request so that they can mail it as they

wish to constituents who may desire to read what you have said.

The CHAIRMAN. I would concur in that and we will do that. I do

think they are the three best statements I have heard, the most

thoughtful. I would suggest—we can work this out, Mr. Chairman,

but what I would like to do is bind them up in a small book 1 with

a short preface as to the context and make sure all 100 colleagues

have it.

Senator HELMS. Exactly.

The CHAIRMAN. The reason why I think that is not just that they

were good, but you are the first group of people with differing

views who have agreed on at least two overriding principles. One

is that debate is needed. On the Democratic side of the agenda,

there is half my party afraid to say anything, to debate anything,

for fear of being accused by the half of the Republican Party saying

you are not supporting my, our President, who is popular now. My

Democratic friends are going to be mad at my saying that, but it

is true. It is the truth.

The second half of it is that there are those in the Republican

side of the equation who suggest that to debate is to be disloyal

right now. You all three have indicated that this warrants a debate.

The second thing, overarching principle you all agree on, is that

this is seriously a pivotal moment in American history, in American foreign policy. This is a big deal. This is not any small—we

are not talking tactic here. We are talking a debate about a fundamental shift in American policy that may be able to be arrived at

in a bipartisan way, because the world has changed. We have all

said it has changed.

Toward that end, let me—and I say 10 minute rounds, Bertie, if

we could, since we have four of us here, and hopefully we can keep

you guys a little bit because we would like very much to be able

to ask you a bunch of questions. We will not get to all of them.

But let me begin with—and assuming for the sake of discussion

I was correct about the two things you agree on, the two broad

points. Let me make a characterization and I am going to be as absolutely honest and straightforward as I can. My objective here, by

the way, in these hearings, and I hope I have demonstrated it so

far, is I genuinely, genuinely want to engage in the intellectual tussle of what we should or should not be doing here.

I do not pretend to have the answers. I have some points of view

that I must tell you I have found myself rethinking as time goes

on. I would suggest that there has been a shift—and this is a

premise to my question—there has been a shift within the Congress after September 11—it did not always break down on party,

either, I might add—about what America’s role in the world was

after the Berlin Wall came down.

There emerged in my view—and this is a vast oversimplification

in the interest of time, though—as we say in my family when you

are putting forward a proposition you are not absolutely positive of,

28

you say: I get a ‘‘Get Out of Jail Free’’ card on this one. I want a

‘‘Get Out of Jail Free’’ card on this. I am not trying to label anybody, but I am just trying to give a context in which I think—how

things have changed from one politician’s point of view.

I recall as I was asking for your help, General Joulwan, and you

always gave it, and as I was going down and talking to Sandy, and

we tended to agree most of the time, and as I was imploring my

friends like John McCain and others on the other side of the aisle

for us to get involved in the Balkans. I felt very strongly that was

important and for a while I was probably up here the only voice

literally, even before Bob Dole or anybody else.

It made me wonder whether or not I might be wrong. If I am the

only one saying this, I must be wrong. As time went on, we found

two things developed. In my party, some of the remnants of my

generation, of the Vietnam generation, were so concerned about

getting involved anywhere in anything that they were very reluctant to deal with this. On the Republican side of the equation,

there was sort of the isolationism at the beginning of the century

was rearing its head, that that was not our role, our responsibility,

all we had to do was——

So we went through a period. I can remember discussions with

you, Sandy, where you would say to me: OK, Joe, I agree with

you—or you were ahead of me on it. I was not suggesting you were

following me, but we would agree. And you would say: But Joe, if

the President does this the Congress is not going to come with him,

and then we are really going to look foolish, not you the President,

but the Nation.

I remember us being pilloried by many Republicans for saying—

thoughtful people—for saying we were violating the sovereignty of

Serbia by moving on Kosovo. Remember that debate? Remember

how many times we sat in your office and said: Look, how do we

deal with this? What happens if we do not get the votes? We could

not get the votes in the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives to use air power, air power, in Bosnia—in Kosovo. We had

been in this thing for 5 years.

Now, the reason I give you that background is I think we have

all sort of had an epiphany, left, right, and center, both parties.

September 11 comes along and now we are all saying basically

what you all three agreed in terms of the broad principles: We not

only have to worry about going after the al-Qaedas, we have to

worry about countries like the three that were mentioned by the

President and others that were not mentioned by the President—

Iraq, a lot of others.

But the thing they have in common, as you pointed out, one of

you or all of you pointed out, was they have dictatorships, developing weapons of mass destruction, and they have engaged in terrorist activities or support of terror in the past. A serious problem,

big deal.

So the President enunciates, Bill, a principle. You said he articulated his view. With all due respect, I think what the President has

done is—and I have been impressed with him. I mean this sincerely. I have only spent about 51⁄2 hours with him since September 11 either alone or with one or two other of my colleagues

29

and his staff in the Oval Office. I have been impressed with his instincts. I have been impressed with his instincts.

I think this is one of those cases where a man whose instincts

are right has enunciated a policy that has gotten out ahead of his

troops. Let me explain what I mean by that, and I am going to finish this and let you all comment. One of the things that I hear

from thoughtful Europeans—and I do not know how many there

are these days because they are so upset—and from thoughtful

Democrats and Republicans is not if we go to Iraq and take it out,

but what is the President’s vision for Iraq, what is the Iraq he is

looking for? Has he articulated what that is, and how can he at the

very moment—and I will not mention names, Mr. Chairman.

You were necessarily not able to be there yesterday, but Senator

Allen was, up in S–407 talking about the situation in Afghanistan.

Several very senior, very pro-defense Democrats and Republicans

were saying: We have got to get out of Afghanistan now, we got to

get out of there, we got to get out of there now, you cannot stay,

do not make a commitment.

Now, that seems to me to be incredibly at odds, that message,

with the one the President sent when he said we will not have any

troops on the ground. I think he was dicing that a little bit because

I think he knows we are going to have troops on the ground for

at least 18 months or longer. But we cannot be part of a multinational force.

So thoughtful people say, Bill: All right, you are going to go in

and take down Saddam, which I am all for. Now, does any thoughtful person in the world think we can take down Saddam Hussein

and walk away? I do not know a single thoughtful voice in the

world that thinks that can be done without us staying in Baghdad,

staying in Iraq, staying there for—I do not mean forever, but for

at least the next several years.

Speaking of epiphanies, Bill, I met with the Iraqi Liberation

Force again that came to see me, Mr. Chalabi. I have met with him

many times and he brought in representatives of each of the factions. They had a bit of an epiphany. You know what they are asking me to do? Would I encourage the administration to not only

commit to them that they may have to use air power and may have

to use American forces, but will they start to teach us now, train

us. I thought they were going to say to fight. No. Train us how to

run a country, how to run an oil industry, begin to train us right

now and commit to us that they will stay in Baghdad for the foreseeable future, because, quite frankly, Senator Biden, we cannot do

it.

So again, the point here is how do we, as General Joulwan said,

match our requirements with the resources and to reconcile previously enunciated principles with these newly enunciated principles that are at odds with themselves, coming out of the same

man’s voice.

Now, the President suffers from and benefits from one thing. It

is one of his greatest strengths and all of our strengths are also our

weaknesses. His greatest strength is he is straightforward and simplistic. His greatest weakness in this area as he is viewed as

straightforward and simplistic.

30

I do not mean, to make it clear to the press that is here, I do

not mean he is not a bright guy. But the criticism that people level

against us now at Werkunde and everywhere else, Bill, is this simplistic notion. What did you hear Vedrine saying today, which you

might expect, Vedrine in the New York Times saying? It is a simplistic plan, because there is no enunciation, and there has been

none even back channel at this point, I have gotten confirmed by

this administration, about what this larger vision is, how are we

going to do it, how are we going to stay the course, are we committed, will we keep, General Joulwan, will we keep two, three,

four, five, ten, 20,000 Americans on the ground for the foreseeable

future, meaning the next 1, 3, 4, 5 years, when you have a President saying, let us get the devil out of the Balkans, let us get the

devil out of Afghanistan now that we routed these guys?

So my question is this: Is there a way that you all, if we left you

to your own devices, locked you in a room, could you guys come up

with, do you think, because you all know one another, do you think

you could agree on not just broad principles, but do you think there

is a possibility that—I am not going to ask you what it is—a possibility you could agree on a way to do this that allayed the most

dire fears of our allies in the region and in Europe and at the same

time allowed us—nothing is without risk—allowed us a more reasonable prospect of doing this, ‘‘this’’ meaning getting rid of Saddam by whatever means, and still having the help of the rest of

the world in what will really be the hard job and that is stabilizing

Iraq?

Because, Bill, I agree with you, every one of the positive things

you said would flow, could flow and would flow if it were stabilized,

but if it were not I think it is a raw, unmitigated disaster for U.S.

interests.

At any rate, that is my question.

Senator HELMS. Why do you not ask him to repeat it.

Mr. BERGER. Mr. Chairman, let me respond in several ways.

First of all, I think all three of us are advocating active American

engagement in the world and believe that America has to lead in

this era. I think, however, that we should not—there are some, I

think, disagreements here. No. 1, I do not think that we should underestimate the continued virulence of al-Qaeda. There may not be

controversy about it, but I think that Director Tenet yesterday gave

us in a sense the second wakeup call that you ask for from the

hotel receptionist.

He said that they are still there, they are still a threat, they still

have the capacity to reconstitute, they are reconstituting. We have

got to keep our focus on that. It may not be controversial, but it

is hard. To the extent that we now in a very active way expand

this war, I do think that it deflects and diverts attention from

something which I consider to be a continuing clear and present

and immediate threat to the American people, No. 1.

No. 2, I agree with Bill that no one wants to go back to the status quo ante, or at least I do not want to go back to the status quo

ante. History marches forward here. But we should not underestimate the difficulties of doing Iraq, and we can talk about those. I

think we agree that the Afghan template does not work particularly well in Iraq. Saddam Hussein is stronger, the opposition is

31

weaker. We are talking about perhaps being largely by ourselves

and therefore we are talking about large numbers of American

troops.

We have to look at whether we have the will to do that and it

seems to me we have not prepared the groundwork, not only in

terms of public opinion, but we have not prepared the groundwork

in terms of getting the focus back on Saddam Hussein, not on

Washington.

I thought the President was very smart about a month ago when

he said let us go back and talk about inspectors, not because inspectors are going to find anything, but because putting the focus

back on inspectors puts the focus back on weapons of mass destruction and on Saddam Hussein. Let us go to the smart sanctions so

we take out of his hand the martyr card. Let us support the opposition, but not rely too heavily on them. Let us operate to

delegitimize Saddam.

There is, it seems to me, both a sequence to this as well as a

strategy here that takes account of the fact that this is something

of great difficulty and great risk, risk to regimes in the area. We

would like to do this, I would think, if we did it, with support from

others. We do not have that today.

So I guess I sum up by saying three things. No. 1, we should not

go back to the status quo ante; America has to lead. No. 2, let us

keep our eye on what is still a very dangerous ball. That does not

mean that we cannot do other things in the world at the same

time, but it means that this is not over with al-Qaeda. No. 3, we

need a strategy with respect to Iraq, not simply a label.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

General.

General JOULWAN. Senator, I guess I have been around too long.

I remember when we got ready for Bosnia I got poked in the chest

and said: No American ground troops in Bosnia. That is what I was

told, but that is when I started preparing for American ground

troops in Bosnia. I did so after the 1994 shelling of Sarajevo and

my assessment that UNPROFOR was not capable of carrying out

its mission. In my view political decisions always come late and the

military commander, if I can use an old Pennsylvania term, ‘‘has

got to have cahungoes’’ here to really give clear military advice before sometimes our political masters think they need it. I did so in

Bosnia. And we need to do so on the war on terror.

The President’s statement on the ‘‘axis of evil’’ allows the military leadership to come back and say to our political masters what

are the resources required to do it.

Mr. Chairman, we have half the Army today that we had in

1990, half, and we are going to face in this ‘‘axis of evil’’ large tank

threats. Half the Army, half the Navy, spare parts and repair parts

lacking in our Air Force. Clarity here of what is going to be required, not that we should shy away from the mission, but clarity

of what is going to be required, matching resources with requirements. We are much better off in some respects. We have better

sealift and airlift than we did 10 years ago. But we have to be clear

in the military advice we give to the President and the Secretary

of Defense.

32

The best thing the President said in this war on terror, is that

all options are on the table. You remember on Kosovo we did not

say that. This President has said it. What does that mean? Does

that mean the III Corps down in Fort Hood gets ready? You bet

it does.

We have to understand that you are not just going to do mission

A, but if you need to you have another card to play. If the bombing

does not work to get rid of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, then what do

you do? You have to have the clarity of mission. And our military

leadership has to stand up and be counted and say we may have

to put the III Corps in if it is going to take that to accomplish the

mission. It is not over in Afghanistan. If we want to include Iran,

Iraq and North Korea fine. But we need to give clear military advice. That is what the Constitution says and that is what we swear

to uphold. Clarity is needed on what you want to do.

I would urge that as we look at what has to be done next that

the military voice be heard here, and it is very difficult. I remember in Bosnia, trying to get access across Austria, Hungary, and

others—they are sovereign states—how to get access to ports and

airfields. Our allies can help us here, and we have to consult not

just inform. We can act unilaterally, but we are much stronger acting together.

That includes Russia. I think we have a great opportunity with

Russia. The political debate is important, but the military response

to this is equally important, if not more important. I would urge

that take place. We have to be very, very careful of what we commit to, given the resources that we have. If bombing and Special

Forces does not work, what is next? We must think about that.

The CHAIRMAN. That is right. That is the point I was trying to

make about it is very important what the details of this are, very

important.

Bill, did you want to respond, and then I will yield to the Senator.

Mr. KRISTOL. I think you commented that the President may be

out ahead a bit of his own administration and I think of the political system in general, the Congress and our allies. I think most

good Presidents at key times do get out ahead. It is the only way

to jolt the system.

The CHAIRMAN. I was not being critical. I was just making an observation.

Mr. KRISTOL. And I am agreeing. I think the Secretary of State

has done a very good job this week in his testimony of filling in

some of the details, and obviously the State Department and the

Defense Department are going to work now on precisely what you

correctly say needs to be done, which is to go beyond the label of

regime change or of confronting Saddam and figuring out exactly

how to do what the military assets need to be and how quickly we

can get them there and all the diplomatic efforts that need to be

engaged in.

On the other hand, to be fair to the President, I think he has

been about as specific as he can be. Imagine the reaction among

the French if the President had said: I have a very specific vision

for Iraq, here is how we are going to arrange it. The INC is going

33

to come in and control this part, we are going to base military

forces in the north——

The CHAIRMAN. That is not what I am talking about. But if he

just says that we guarantee that at the end of the day there will

be a united Iraq and America will in fact ensure that if need be,

which means that if a Kurdistan is attempted to be established we

will take on the Kurds, if it means that the Shia decide that they

are going to decide they are part of Iran that we will see that—

that is all I mean.

Mr. KRISTOL. Well, I think he has made it clear that we prefer

a united Iraq, but I would say this. Look, obviously this needs to

be debated and there will be increasing specificity. On the other

hand, one lesson of Afghanistan is it is very hard to know ahead

of time exactly. The commitment has to be, as General Joulwan

says, to be engaged and to keep your options on the table and to

work out those options in a serious way.

Planning does not mean figuring out ahead of time exactly how

it is going to work out. I do not know a lot of people who knew that

Mr. Karzai was going to be the person to head Afghanistan when

we began this enterprise, but we were engaged in a serious way,

and I think we would have to be in Iraq and I think we will be

in Iraq.

I agree with the implications of your statement that there is

some leftover Republican and conservative doctrine, some hostility

to nation-building, some hostility to peacekeeping, which I myself

have never agreed with and I think the President is gradually jettisoning. He might have jettisoned it a little faster when approached

by Mr. Karzai with the request for participation in the peacekeeping forces. But the truth, is we are engaged in Afghanistan in

a major diplomatic and economic way and I think that is appropriate. To the degree that there was some sniping, some partisan

sniping, at the Clinton administration on the peacekeeping and nation-building efforts, I think that is pre-September 11 and I think

he has moved on and I think probably most Republicans have

moved on from that.

The final point I would make is just, is it better if we have a

united Iraq than a partly disunited Iraq? Sure. Is it better if we

can manage it incredibly smoothly than if it is a messy chaos?

Sure. I would still say that my own judgment is that the disasters,

as you called them, or the problems of even a very messy situation

post-Saddam in Iraq, with potential decentralizing forces, with unrest in the Kurdish area, with unrest in Saudi Arabia, is still less,

the danger of that in my view is still less than letting the status

quo continue.

But again, that is a debate we should have: What is the up side

of going in and how dangerous exactly is the down side. But I have

debated this many times and people have these cliches and we all

use them, of course, ‘‘the cure would be worse than the disease.’’

I really do not think that is the case here. I think the current ‘‘disease’’ is sufficiently grave that, even if Iraq is a mess and even if

the region is something of a mess, that I think is manageable by

an engaged and powerful United States, and I think the disease of

letting Saddam continue to develop weapons of mass destruction is

34

worse than almost any outcome resulting from removing Saddam

from power.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Helms.

Senator HELMS. I missed the meeting yesterday morning because

I had a little engagement with a doctor.

The CHAIRMAN. I knew that. That is why I said necessarily absent. I did not want to mention it.

Senator HELMS. It was one of the first meetings I have ever

missed. But I met with some of the Senators and a staff member

who were there. There apparently was a debate about Afghanistan’s request for military assistance, and what that would mean

for the United States and others. And the assumption was that

there was going to be a role for the U.S. military, but not the role

of the United States alone.

The President, I think has been very clear. He has said to me

in discussions that we will play a key role in rebuilding Afghanistan, but we are not going to do it alone, and we cannot do it alone.

But in any case, let me move on to something else. Mr. Berger,

there have been statements in the media and political circles that

the previous administration was presented an opportunity to take

bin Laden into custody and the offer was declined. Do you feel comfortable commenting on that?

Mr. BERGER. Yes. Not true.

Senator HELMS. Not true.

Mr. BERGER. I can elaborate, but that is the short answer.

Senator HELMS. I thought that it must not be true or it would

not have been handled in a hushed manner.

I was a little troubled that the United States did not strongly

protest Syria’s rotation onto the United Nations Security Council

last year. As a matter of fact, I was just dumbfounded, and I feel

it is ironic that the United States is fighting terrorism and at the

same time we are sitting next to a terrorist state at the United Nations.

Now, the President of Syria promised the Secretary of State that

Syria’s illegal trading partnership with Iraq would end, notwithstanding that Syria is now the No. 1 illegal trader with Iraq. Now,

I wish you three gentlemen would tell me how you think the

United States ought to handle this matter involving the Security

Council of the United Nations? Mr. Berger, maybe you want to go

first.

Mr. BERGER. Well, as you know, Senator, the Security Council

selects these rotating members on a regional basis and it is often

difficult to block what country the region designates for the Security Council. I do not know whether this administration sought to

block that. But in general, I think we have to continue to be concerned about Syria’s support and hosting of terrorist organizations.

I have not yet seen a great deal of evidence that the new President Assad is prepared to change direction fundamentally from his

father. Although, I think there is some recognition there that Syria

is falling farther and farther behind in the world and perhaps some

opportunity to at least have some economic activities with Syria.

But I think they remain a country that we have got to be very concerned about.

35

Senator HELMS. General, do you have any opinion on this?

General JOULWAN. It is really a political question, Senator, but

all I could say is I think we need to be very careful with the United

Nations on what they can and cannot do. If we are ever going to

get them involved in a peacekeeping mission, if you want to call

it that, like we saw in Bosnia and elsewhere, then I think the

United States has to get involved in a leadership way to make sure

they do it right.

We have not done that, and benign neglect is not going to help

us with the U.N. I think they need leadership. They need to change

their organization. But I think we need to assist and help them do

that. The U.N. has a role to play. If we do not help them then I

think they are going to go in a different direction.

What we see with Syria is a case in point. We just have to understand what are the limitations of the U.N. when you have nearly

200 nations involved, but what is it that they can do and what are

we willing to provide the leadership for them to do. If we are not

willing to do nation-building or peacekeeping, and the U.N. is going

to do it then we have to help them develop the tools and the resolve and the organization to do it. I think that can be done.

Senator HELMS. Mr. Kristol.

Mr. KRISTOL. I think it does suggest that one can be a good

multilateralist and be for working with allies, friends, or other

countries in the world and that that does not always mean deferring to the U.N. or choosing the United Nations as the instrument

of multilateralism. Some of the most successful peacekeeping and

even nation-building efforts around the world today are not in fact

United Nations efforts, and I think that is maybe not an accident.

The fact that Syria is on the Security Council suggests some of the

problems with the United Nations, though again there are times

when it is obviously useful to use that international body.

In terms of Syria, I do think it is the case, and this is truly a

bipartisan statement, that for the last 20 years administrations of

both parties and Congresses controlled by both parties have put

other items in our international agenda pretty far ahead of terrorism as weightier items to deal with, whether it is the Middle

East peace process, whether it was certainly in the eighties fighting the Soviet Union, whether there were other issues in the nineties.

I do think that has changed now, again on a bipartisan basis,

after September 11 and that does I think change one’s attitude toward a nation like Syria, should change one’s attitude toward a nation like Syria and toward that nexus of terror-friendly and terrorsponsoring states in the Middle East. How one goes about, what

order one addresses those states in, what the interrelationships

among them are, is complicated.

But basically I think the President’s sense, and I very much

agree with this, is that whereas in the past there have been fancy

geopolitical arguments about going after one state would strengthen another one and we have to have a balance of power, I think

in fact that going after terrorist sponsorship against one state in

the neighborhood will teach a lesson to the other states in the

neighborhood that the sponsorship of terror is generally not a good

business to be in.

36

I am for pushing on all fronts as much as you can, but I think

we need to get out of the mind set that somehow we can create a

sort of balance of power somehow among different terror-sponsoring states. I think that really is—well, we see what the consequence of that view is, I think.

Senator HELMS. Let me address another subject, Mr. Chairman,

that bothers me. I hear so many statements indicating that if, as,

and when we get rid of Saddam Hussein, there will be no one there

to take over and run the country. I can understand why people are

reluctant to take a public stand. We have people coming over here,

and I know you have met with them in your previous capacity.

These people are not only gifted, they are pleading for help in getting freedom for their country. Yet they have to be so careful, because the slightest bit of information and you will have a gun

pointed in your ear and the trigger pulled.

We all know the story of the member of Saddam’s cabinet, who

gassed many of his own people, the Kurds, simply because he did

not agree with them. It is a matter of public record, at a cabinet

meeting—I call it that, I do not know what he calls it—that one

of Saddam’s cabinet members who began to question him was

asked to step outside to discuss the disputed issue. They stepped

out in the hall, and he put a pistol to the guy’s head and blew his

brains out. Now, this is the kind of fellow who Saddam Hussein is.

It is a matter of record. So, no wonder they are careful about when

they come over here. But, there are plenty of fighters in Iraq who

will stand up with the United States and Great Britain and other

countries, which I am confident will help if, as, and when we can

get rid of this guy.

I see my time is up and I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Feingold.

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This is a very good hearing and I want to thank you also for your

testimony. I certainly share the concern of many of my colleagues

that we have to act decisively to limit the access of terrorist organizations to weapons of mass destruction. But I also think, and I am

trying to in my role on the committee emphasize that, we also have

to act to address some of the less obvious dangers posed by what

you might call weak or failed states around the world.

As we know, failed states and the criminal networks within them

can and have already provided a safe haven for terrorist networks.

I have the pleasure of being the chairman of the African Affairs

Subcommittee and one of the things I am doing is to hold a series

of hearings in the subcommittee over the next few months to consider the manifestations and risks involved in these failed states.

We held one yesterday that I felt was just very, very helpful on Somalia, which is one that is very much on people’s minds.

These situations include problems posed by piracy, illicit air

transport networks, trafficking in arms and drugs and gems and

people. Another example that I have encountered and have visited

last year, of course, is Sierra Leone and, having read the accounts

of what relationship those diamond fields may have had to the financing of al-Qaeda is another example.

These are attributes that we find a lot in Africa, but these are

weaknesses that are encountered in other regions as well. I think

37

that we all agree that these pose a very real threat to our national

security.

But given your expertise, I would like each of you to comment

on how serious you think these situations are. How would you compare these shadow threats to some of the more open threats that

we have been talking about, and what steps can we take to begin

to address these threats more consistently in different regions? Mr.

Berger.

Mr. BERGER. Senator, I think you are absolutely right in drawing

attention to this. We have focused, for good reason, on the military

dimension of the war against al-Qaeda. That I will say again has

to be in my judgment getting al-Qaeda, destroying it, ripping up

that network. It is not done. It has to be finished. That has to be

our overriding focus.

But I said in my statement that there is a political dimension to

phase two as well as a military dimension. The political dimension

involves our diplomacy in the Middle East. It involves our diplomacy in South Asia, and I believe, Senator, that it involves not

only exercising our power, but exercising our moral authority so

that the world understands that our power is not only for self-protection, but also serves a larger purpose.

Since this hearing began about an hour and a half ago, 500 people have died in Africa of AIDS. That is a problem that is not simply a health problem, not simply a moral problem; it is a problem

of creating failed states which will, if we did not even think about

it as a moral and health problem but as a security matter, will

come back. We will reap that whirlwind.

So I think that we have to stay focused on the immediate terrorist threat, but we have to recognize that our engagement here

in the world cannot only be manifest in terms of what we destroy,

but what we build, and that we have to be deeply engaged in each

of the problems that you have pointed out.

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you very much.

General.

General JOULWAN. Senator, beside my role as NATO Supreme

Allied Commander, as the U.S. commander in Europe I had great

responsibility for much of Africa and the Middle East as well as

Europe. Let me try to respond to your question on the weak or

failed states, particularly in Africa, in this way. One of the challenges I gave my staff was how to make the military which is the

strongest organization in these countries part of the solution, not

the problem. How to engage in, in a way, not nation-building, but

security-building, how to engage in a way with our troops that provide an example for the evolution we want in the military of these

nations.

I did so in Latin America to a great degree when I was there,

with I thought very good results. What we have done in Europe

with 46 nations now in the Partnership for Peace, with the military

to military contacts that have been—I think the outcome has been

very good. We have seen the military establish the framework or

the foundation on which political dialog could take place.

I really think this to me, if we had the resources—and again it

is an issue of priorities, and Africa unfortunately is on a lower priority than many other areas for our military—that this military to

38

military contact, not just training how to fight, but also the proper

role of the military in a democratic political system.

So I would say that we need to try to figure out how to engage

across the spectrum, political, diplomatic, economic, and military in

these countries, but to make the military part of the solution, not

the problem.

Senator FEINGOLD. I appreciate that answer because it is something I am very concerned about with regard to the African countries, that it is an exciting prospect, but, just as on the other subjects you are discussing, it is essential that there is follow-through,

not that we simply train or work military to military, but that

there is accountability for human rights and a long-term commitment on our part to make sure that that training is not used in

a way that would be problematic. But obviously your comments

suggest a genuine commitment to that.

General JOULWAN. Senator, if I could just add, you may be interested and maybe you know, here at our National Defense University we have a Center for African Studies that brings particularly

the military and other leaders back here and we have this interchange. We have the center, the Marshall Center in Garmish, that

does this same thing. We have the Nimitz Center. We have one

now for the Near East and we have another one for Latin America.

This is the positive side of engagement, and many civilians are

involved, not just the military. So I think, given your interest, I

think that this newly established center over here at Fort McNair

can be of great interest to you.

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, General.

Mr. Kristol.

Mr. KRISTOL. It seems that these international terrorist networks

like al-Qaeda can find homes in two kinds of states: either rogue

regimes, which are sometimes strong states, I guess you would say,

but which are friendly to terror, or obviously in failed states, which

are so weak that they cannot resist these organizations or cannot

adequately police their own land. Or in the case of Afghanistan you

had sort of the next twist on this, which is you had a failed state

which then the terrorist organization went in and basically took

over and created basically or supported a government there.

So I very much agree that it is important, it is in our national

interest. There are some places, obviously, where there are limits

of what we can do, other places we can do more. It seems to me

I think you are right to mention Somalia, in this way. It has now

become conventional wisdom that pulling out as we did of Afghanistan so abruptly and completely, I guess in 1989, was a mistake

and we paid a horrible price for that many years later.

One really needs to look back at Somalia, too, and ask the same

question, because obviously I think we were right to go in in late

1992. Maybe the mission got a little confused and overextended in

1993. I am not entirely convinced of that, but we then suffered casualties in, was it, early October 1993 and pulled out, not as quickly

as people think in retrospect, but we did pull out over the next several months and there was bipartisan support for that, obviously.

But we paid a huge price for that. We should not kid ourselves.

Bin Laden personally was inspired by that, for one thing. Rwanda

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tarian, in numbers I think the greatest disaster of the nineties.

And God knows in general what message people around the world

took about America’s willingness to intervene and to take casualties around the world.

So I think you are absolutely right that one cannot sort of take

a part of the world and say, well, that does not matter, it is not

of strategic importance, we are not going to worry about failed

states there, because it turns out in this day and age, even if that

ever was legitimate, in this day and age terrorist networks can find

havens in those states and they can attack us and our allies in different parts of the world.

Senator FEINGOLD. I appreciate that comment on Somalia. To be

candid with you, I supported our getting out of there militarily,

given the American people certainly had been not prepared for

what came to be known as the mission creep in that situation. But

what we were presented with rather starkly yesterday at our hearing was we did not just pull out militarily; apparently we severed

almost any kind of contact whatsoever with any aspect of Somalia

at any part of our government, is the way it was presented. Perhaps that is an exaggeration.

But there is a distinction sometimes between the military role,

which sometimes is needed, sometimes is not, and then a complete

disengagement. So I think that is a helpful remark.

Mr. Berger.

Mr. BERGER. I just remember, as I suspect Senator Biden probably is the only one who was at the meeting at the White House

in October in which the President pleaded to stay in Somalia, and

we had very little support in that room. He said: We cannot, because we have suffered casualties, leave. We have got to learn from

what went wrong, but it would send a terrible message. There were

very few folks in that room who thought we should not leave immediately.

The CHAIRMAN. You are generous saying ‘‘very few.’’ You are generous when you say ‘‘very few.’’ Mr. BERGER. I am trying to be generous in all of my dealings

these days.

We had negotiated with the Congress for a 3-month phaseout,

and I think it was a mistake. But this is not just—let us go back

a little farther in history. In 1983, 243 marines were killed in the

second largest terrorist attack against the United States, and what

did we do? We did not bomb Lebanon, we did not bomb Syria. We

withdrew.

So I just want to broaden out here the span of time. We have

been engaged in many episodes, but I think that we in some cases

have been too quick to disengage.

The CHAIRMAN. Now is not the time to go back and talk about

who in my view. But some day the books will be written and people

will be surprised, who were at those meetings hollering the loudest

to get out.

Senator Allen.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing.

I want to thank all three of these gentlemen for their insight. I

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sistency in a mission statement here. Some of the particulars may

differ in some of the aspects. In Mr. Berger’s view, of course—and

I think I agree with—all the risks that we face here, we have to

differentiate between different nations. But also I see you agree

very much with Mr. Kristol that in the rebuilding we have to rebuild these countries based on our values.

The general’s comments again echo what the President says, reinforces: This is going to be a long struggle, this is not going to be

something quick. The efforts of coordinating law enforcement and

the military, this is very important. Also, making sure that we recognize while we are all coming up with these mission statements,

let us make sure that the military can get this job done in safety

for those in uniform. I think some of us are admiring, as we always

do, those who serve our country in the military, and we think that

with the new technology, which is great and gives us a lot of advantages, especially in the air and also in the seas, let us remember it will be a different target this time and make sure we are prepared in it.

Then through it all, we are talking about all these borders. You

think of Afghanistan, and in one of the earlier hearings you had

in this committee, Mr. Chairman, we said we need a modern day

George Mason or a modern day James Madison, trying to get a confederation together in Afghanistan. That has been done before.

When the Central European countries became free from the Soviets, they had to create their governments.

All of that when you start talking about borders gets into a lot

of military matters, because I suppose you have to say you want

the post-Saddam Iraq to be a single country the same way. But you

have to go back through history and wonder why do they have borders like this, why is Afghanistan a country, that not even

logistically, by mountain ranges and geography and differences of

languages and religions and all sorts of ethnic differences, and

some of those go back to colonial days. But we have to be considerate, obviously, of Turkey.

Now, when I read Bill Kristol—I read your comments before you

expressed them, Bill, and this is an absolutely fantastically wellwritten, thoughtful, logical statement. It is consistent with not only

our quest for security, but also for the expansion of the values of

individual freedom. Countries that have individual freedom do not

have these problems or these threats to our country. They may be

competitors economically. We may bicker with the European countries, but nevertheless they are not a threat. They are competitors,

they have a slightly different point of view, but that is fine, just

like we have different points of view here.

Now, as we go forward in talking about Iraq, I almost wonder is

this really the place to do it, publicly, about here is what we are

going to want to do and it is going to be this action after this action

after this action. I wonder how much credibility that gives us when

we are trying to build allies and they are saying, well, the United

States wants to do this anyway, and so all of these things that we

are making or stating are provocations for action, because the

United States does not usually act without provocation.

41

I think the President has tried to start building the case for provocation and why we do need to act proactively, not just sit back and

wait until there is provocation.

But as we go forward with Iraq, which I think the President laid

out as well as with, not just Iraq, but Iran, Hezbollah and other

terrorist groups and those who sponsor them, there are those who

say that absent evidence of its involvement in the September 11

terrorist attacks, we cannot be taking action against them. Now, to

me this is nothing but a red herring. The President made clear

that the war on terrorism is not about revenge, it is about prevention.

Now, I think Saddam Hussein has figured out the President

Bush means business and he is serious and this country is serious

and behind him, and you see that from the reflection of support

from his speech, not just the State of the Union but before, and the

State of the Union put a finer touch on it. I think Saddam is undoubtedly trying to buy time. Now he wants to negotiate with the

United Nations.

Now, I would like to ask all three of you gentlemen: Do we want

to negotiate again with Saddam Hussein or do you believe, as a

previous witness to this committee said, the former U.N. weapons

inspector, Richard Butler, told this committee that as long as Saddam is in power he will seek weapons of mass destruction? So how

do we handle this latest ploy to buy time by Saddam?

Mr. BERGER. Let me start, Senator. I do not think negotiations

with Saddam are fruitful. Before Desert Fox, at the last minute he

invited the Secretary General to Baghdad for negotiations. But I do

think that we have to prepare the ground here, and let me just expand on that for 1 minute. No. 1, again, I will say again, I think

we have to remember that we have to tear up this al-Qaeda network and we cannot in my judgment do things at this point that

divert and deflect us from that principal goal.

That said, it seems to me there are a number of steps here with

respect to Iraq. No. 1, put the focus back on Saddam Hussein, not

on Washington. I think the President was smart to talk about inspectors and weapons of mass destruction, not because I think that

Saddam Hussein will allow inspectors back in, but because it raises

the question in the minds of the world, what is he hiding.

No. 2, I think we ought to revise the sanctions, as Secretary Powell has suggested so that they are tighter and that he does not have

the martyr card to play.

No. 3, I think we need to work with the external opposition, such

as the INC, and strengthen it, but I do not think we should have

an illusion that they are a panacea or that they are the Northern

Alliance, because they are not. This is going to take, if we do this,

it is going to take largely American men and women.

I think that we ought to continue to delegitimize Saddam. I think

that there is no reason why he should be recognized as the voice

of Iraq. There was an ‘‘indict Saddam’’ campaign. I am not sure exactly where it stands. But I think again we need to try, in my judgment, to build acceptance from most nations in the world and support from some and prepare the ground. There is a covert action

piece of this. Saddam is capable of making mistakes, as he did

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pare the ground here. We have to have a strategy. We have to take

account of the potential consequences—Scud missiles that are

launched, what the impact of this is on Turkey, what the impact

of this is on Pakistan and other countries in the region.

So I think the objective in my judgment is there, but I do not

see this, I suppose, on the same timetable necessarily as perhaps

my friend Mr. Kristol does.

Senator ALLEN. General.

General JOULWAN. Senator, I think as we look at Iraq and Saddam Hussein, I do not think we want to negotiate either. But I

would look at it from a little different angle since I was responsible

for Northern Watch, which was northern Iraq, during my time in

Europe. I think we have to say what has he learned in the last 10

years about us? He has an integrated air defense. I understand

that the assessment may be he is not as strong. I think we need

a good analysis there. What lessons did he learn from the gulf war,

that he waited? What may he do now?

I think we need to look at all of that and I think we have to understand that we may not want to negotiate with him. I think we

have to build the case, as has been mentioned, against him and

also try to build a coalition to try to help us. Bases in Turkey are

critical for this and I think Turkey needs to be part of that solution. Access to ports, very important.

We need to give clarity to our military that has been mentioned

here several times. What are our goals? Do we think we can do it

with air and Special Forces again? Perhaps, but the clarity I want

here is, if that does not work, what other cards do you have in your

hand to play, and we need to understand that. Do we occupy it?

Do we occupy, as the chairman mentioned, Baghdad? What does all

that mean? We need to have that debate and that clarity beforehand.

I would recommend that we use all tools in the toolkit—economic, political, diplomatic, as well as military—in this fight. I

think all of those can be used very effectively and blended into a

coherent strategy. The important thing here is keep the American

people behind us by providing this information on exactly what it

is we want to do. There will be covert operations, but I think much

of it can be made public in building this solid case for what we

need to do next.

Mr. KRISTOL. Governor Allen, Senator Allen—I guess I still think

of you as Governor Allen, as a citizen of Virginia. I think there is

bipartisan agreement on not negotiating with Saddam. The question, as a practical matter, will be: do we feel we need to give him

an ultimatum or use the U.N. Security Council, and presumably

the 6-month rollover of the sanctions as an occasion, to give him

an ultimatum for letting inspectors back in? Do we do that through

the Security Council or do we simply do that with a few allies or

unilaterally?

I think the danger of negotiations is not that any American

President or representative is going to negotiate with Saddam, it

is that we end up negotiating with our allies and with the United

Nations and that Saddam uses whatever splits there are on the

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nately had to deal with an awful lot, and we could end up in the

attempt to sort of be nicer to and more considerate of other nations

and the United Nations, could end up producing more mess actually than a more straightforward, I think, United States ultimatum

of some sort or other.

The truth is from a real military point of view, of course, there

is a case for preemption and for not giving a whole lot of notice to

Saddam about when we are coming and how and when, though getting so many troops in the area is going to make it not a true preemption and not a true surprise. Still, I would not want to—I do

not think it would be appropriate—I would be wary of doing what

we did in the gulf war, which was a real in effect telling him when

we were coming. That is very dangerous. Saddam has had a lot of

time to plan for this and one thing any prudent war-planner and

the President obviously will have to think through is all the things

he could do over the next months to cause death and destruction

and chaos in the area. Obviously, I am sure the President is discussing this today and there are a lot of military and diplomatic

and covert things that will have to be done.

I do think we need to have a public debate, within the appropriate limits of what can be made public, about all this. I would

say this that I think the President by, as the chairman said, getting out a little ahead of perhaps his own administration and the

political debate in general, has now forced this debate in a healthy

way. My own personal view, for example, is that, though some of

my ‘‘allies,’’ if I can call them that, who are hawkish on Saddam

think it can be an Afghanistan model, Special Forces and air

power, I myself am a little dubious about that and think you would

at least as a precaution have to be ready to go with serious ground

troops.

You hear numbers like 200,000, presumably out of Kuwait and

Turkey in particular. That is the kind of thing that needs to be

hashed out within the Pentagon and the State Department, above

all in the NSC, but also to some degree in public. If the President

is going to send 200,000 troops over there, I assume that at some

point the Congress will have to——

The CHAIRMAN. A lot of Presidents do not assume that, Democrat

and Republican.

Mr. KRISTOL. Well, I think that the President will have to come

to Congress and get authorization to go ahead. That would be a

good thing. I was for that in the gulf war when I was in the first

Bush White House and there were others who were against coming

to Congress at all. I think it will be important to have the country

behind this effort.

So I do believe we could do it at the same time as we are prosecuting the rest of the war against al-Qaeda. I take Sandy Berger’s

point that—you know, I have been in government, too—you tend to

lose focus. You cannot do too many things at once. On the other

hand, I do think it would be a mistake to—I am not saying this

is Sandy Berger’s view, but it would be a mistake to think that you

have to wait until you have mopped up every al-Qaeda cell around

the world or that there are not 600 Special Forces troops deployed

somewhere in the Philippines, Indonesia or Somalia before you

could begin serious military preparations for Iraq.

44

If time really is not on our side, I think Iraq is a matter of

months, let me put it that way, rather than years.

Mr. BERGER. Senator, can I add just one thing very quickly?

Senator ALLEN. Sure.

Mr. BERGER. I think that we have to be very clear about the

costs and consequences of doing this largely by ourselves. What

worries me a bit is that we have gone from what a friend of mine

described as a posture of ‘‘together if possible, alone if necessary as

a country’’ to ‘‘alone if possible, together if necessary.’’ We proceed with a quarter of a million soldiers marching into

Baghdad by ourselves or largely by ourselves at a very heavy price.

I think that there is an awful lot of careful thought, discussion, debate that needs to go into a decision of that kind of magnitude.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, the time is not on our side. There is

no more time left on the vote. But go ahead.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you all for your comments. I do think the

President in his State of the Union laid out this mission statement,

and obviously one gives a State of the Union and it is not dispositive of the issue. But it is the road map and the principles and the

theory and reasons where we are going to be going forward.

I do think the Bush administration does want to work together

with others. I do not think they want to go on their own. There is

a practical reason for that as well, and that is the debate on the

nation-building and after the war has been won what is going to

be done, and how long are the U.S. troops going to be staying in

Afghanistan. There are certain things the United States is preeminent on and that is air power, sea power, military strength. As

far as the nation-building and having folks in there, keeping the

combatants or factions together, whether it is in Bosnia or whether

it is in Afghanistan, other countries, European countries, Japan

and others, are capable of doing that, and to have that support

long-term for the legitimacy of whatever government follows, it is

important I think to have other nations saying, this is a just cause,

a reasonable cause, this affects us, and we want to be helpful. Then

you get the logistics aspects as far as the bases and airfields as

well.

General JOULWAN. One caution. You mention that an Iraq option

would require 200,000 to 250,000 troops. We have 10 divisions in

the Army. That is the total. Probably we could free about 150,000,

at the max about 180,000. Thus you are going to use every division

in the Army for an Iraq option—and that means the troops now in

Afghanistan. Remember we have half the force we had in 1990.

So I think we have to be clear here on what it is going to take.

That is what I meant earlier about clear military advice.

The CHAIRMAN. And we ain’t even mentioned Korea yet.

General JOULWAN. Right.

The CHAIRMAN. We have not even mentioned Korea.

General JOULWAN. For 250,000 troops in an Iraq option means

we take them out of Korea.

The CHAIRMAN. Look, gentlemen, I really appreciate your testimony. I wish we had more time. As you all three know, I am going

to take advantage of your advice as we go forward here. But you

know that old expression, big nations cannot bluff, and I promise

you—I have only been doing this 30 years and you guys have been

45

doing it in different ways than I have been doing it, but the whole

world is watching to see whether we finish the job in Afghanistan

and what kind of commitment we are really willing to make. They

will judge what we are likely to be willing to do other places based

on how well we finish this one.

I thank you all. It was great testimony. I hope you do not mind

if we do publish it to our colleagues, and I would ask you each individually to be willing to maybe, even in an informal setting, get together with some of my Democrat and Republican colleagues in an

office and really hash some of this stuff out.

I was not talking about laying out operational plans for going

into Iraq. I was talking about the broader principles of what is our

vision of what the region should look like at the end of the day,

and that is a pretty important point I think.

Anyway, thank you all very, very much. We are adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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