FINAL

[LC]

FROM TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES INTERNATIONAL.
Available by Special Arrangement Only.

For retransmission, please contact Gabe Gutierrez in Los Angeles.

Phone: 213-237-7903 or e-mail: gabe.gutierrez@latsi.com

HENRY KISSINGER -- BONUS

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE TILL MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2003

(Editors: This piece, sent earlier, is not for use before
Monday, February 3.)

KISSINGER: IRAQ AND KOREA, TWO HUGE THREATS HAPPENING SIMULTANEOUSLY

EDITORS, CAUTION: The following article is strictly embargoed. Its use is authorized only by subscribers of the HENRY KISSINGER column. With the exception of these paid subscribers, its contents must not under any circumstance be quoted, excerpted, summarized, paraphrased or in any way published, in whole or in part. Precautions should be taken to prevent the disclosure of the contents of this material to third parties prior to publication.

(This interview with Henry Kissinger was conducted in New York by Renaud Girard of Le Figaro on Jan. 7.)

RENAUD GIRARD: When one is America, why wage a war on this small country, Iraq?

HENRY KISSINGER: Well, of course, you cannot talk of America as a unit in a case like this. I think the question is why is the administration convinced that we should go to war if necessary.

Sept. 11 was a traumatic experience for America, it was not simply that it was an attack on the United States; Pearl Harbor was also an attack on the United States, but Pearl Harbor came from an adversary of which we were aware. This came from an enemy we did not know we had. And it therefore has had a profound impact on the American psyche.

When America deals with a problem -- this may be somewhat different from Europe -- it wants to solve it definitively. It fights a war to end all wars, like World War I. And so the determination is to end terrorism.

And I believe that President Bush thinks that this problem is almost an act of destiny that he is required to help solve. For about 10 years, America had dealt with terrorism as if it were a criminal event. That is, one waited until something happened, and then one tried to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. The difficulty with this approach is that the perpetrators often committed suicide in doing it and, in any event, were low-level people.

[L]

America did not understand, through the 1990s, that we were at war. The terrorism as it evolved did not particularly attempt to inflict individual damage; it tried to convey the notion that the West was a rotten system capable of being attacked.

So after Sept. 11 it began to be understood that we were dealing with a new form of warfare. And in such conditions what some Europeans say is, ``We Europeans have experienced a lot of problems, and we have lived through them, and we have to live through this one.''

It is a policy where one is passively waiting, living through it, in the meantime the political cohesion would disintegrate. So the analysis that thoughtful people are making is this: The soldiers of terrorism are really private groups. And it is a war conducted by private groups on the territory of national states.

The groups themselves have nothing to defend and nothing to protect except themselves. As a result, the lessons of the past have limited applicability. Deterrence does not work against groups that have nothing to lose. And diplomacy does not work with groups that have no program as such and certainly do not believe in compromise. Even if we wanted to negotiate with the terrorists, we wouldn't even know how to identify an interlocutor.

So the strategy that was evolved was to drain the swamp, to prevent the terrorists from having bases, and to keep them on the defensive. One has to make them fugitives and one has to make supporting them more painful than tolerating them.

**GIRARD:** But terrorists who committed the Sept. 11 attacks came from several countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia and many countries the governments of which have very good relations with the United States. Not one terrorist was from Iraq. And now America is waging a war against a regime that has never been linked to Islamic terrorism, never.

**KISSINGER:** But it has been linked to terrorism.

**GIRARD:** To terrorism, but not to Islamic terrorism. Vaguely, yes. Less, much less than Syria, much less than other states, much less than Iran, only to Abu Nidal. And Iraq has a regime that was founded by Christians, and whose No. 2, Tariq Aziz, is a Christian. When you attack Iraq you are attacking one of the rare secular states of the Muslim-Arab world.

**KISSINGER:** Of course, Iraq has a history of dealing with America, and there are many, including me, who believe that the 1991 war was ended prematurely. I believe that the quest for weapons of mass destruction, even in a secular state, contains the danger of the merging of the weapons of mass destruction with the terrorists, even if the weapons of mass destruction are initially in the hands of a secular state.

The very existence -- continued existence -- of a defiant state like this proves that the West cannot protect its interests. I think that is the basic rationale for trying to deprive Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

[1c]

GIRARD: So you agree with President Bush when he said that Saddam Hussein was a threat to his neighbors and to America's allies in the region? So it was a reason for America to eliminate this threat?

KISSINGER: Yes, I basically agree with the Bush strategy.

GIRARD: Maybe Iraq is a threat. We don't really know. What we know is that North Korea is a real threat to important American allies Japan and South Korea. Yet Bush leaves the solution to this problem to the diplomats.

KISSINGER: I believe that nuclear weapons in North Korea are absolutely intolerable and cannot be accepted. And the combination in North Korea of this type of government and nuclear weapons will create a nightmarish situation. Never mind how we can handle this immediate threat. It's unfortunate that these two events are coming together.

There are two huge problems in the world today: terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And proliferation has become the more immediate problem. But the terrorism campaign has its own momentum, and you cannot just stop it and say, ``Now we'll go and deal with North Korea for a while.''

But once the issue of North Korea is fully analyzed, all these discussions of ``let's have a dialogue'' will be seen to be very dangerous. If you have a dialogue and they gain something from their nuclear threat, then every time they want something we'll see a nuclear threat.

GIRARD: But does America have its priorities right? You have a real threat -- North Korea. Everybody agrees on that. On Iraq, for the moment, nothing is clear.

KISSINGER: I think they're different kinds of threats. The threat from Iraq is political and psychological and will be military only two, three years down the road.

The threat from North Korea is strategic and will change the whole balance in Asia because it will lead to the nuclearization of Japan and perhaps a redisposition of American deployments in Korea.

So there are two huge threats happening simultaneously. It would be nice to be able to say we do one and we won't do the other, and we now will suspend the Iraqi thing.

GIRARD: But why not do that? Why not put Iraq in the second position after North Korea?

KISSINGER: We no longer have that choice.

GIRARD: Why?

KISSINGER: I think Iraq now has to go on the route it was sent at the U.N. Security Council. And, in any event, there are only two or three things that can happen with Iraq.

One, there could be a coup before a final American decision. Then we would have to decide whether to accept the coup and how to treat the successors of Saddam Hussein.

The second possibility is there could be a surrender by Saddam in which he says, ``Okay, take all my weapons.'' Those are conceivable policy choices.

[Lc]

Finally, there is the option of war. It cannot really end anymore, in my view, with the continued rule of Saddam. I'm speaking of what you French call ``the logic of events.''

**GIRARD:** So, do you think that now America must succeed in changing the Iraqi regime?

**KISSINGER:** Theoretically, and in terms of the U.N. resolution, if Saddam came to us tomorrow and said, ``Tell me the place where I should deposit the weapons of mass destruction,'' we would probably have to accept it. And we probably would accept it. But if you then imagine that sanctions are lifted, and in two years Saddam has the resources of Saudi Arabia, what has been achieved?

**GIRARD:** What about a war's aftermath?

**KISSINGER:** I don't speak for the administration, and I'm not saying I would necessarily have pursued all these steps. I'm uneasy about the possibility of democratizing Iraq by occupation.

**GIRARD:** You don't believe in this kind of 18-month American military pro-consulate in Iraq?

**KISSINGER:** Some members of the Bush administration compare the success of Germany's occupation after 1945 to the case of Iraq. I don't see the relationship. They are two different scenarios. I wish the administration well; if it could be done, it would be a historic event. I don't disagree with the objective. I don't think it's an 18-month job.

**GIRARD:** It's a much longer job?

**KISSINGER:** Yes, and it may not be doable at all, but in the immediate phase, there is no choice.

**GIRARD:** Before launching a war with incalculable consequences, isn't it reasonable for America to give a little more time?

**KISSINGER:** At this stage, we cannot stop the train, and we should not.

**GIRARD:** Why?

**KISSINGER:** Because that would be perceived by the world as a retreat of a huge magnitude. Nor would it be correct because the analysis with respect to terrorism is right.

We are now suddenly confronted with a new problem, in Korea. We will have to integrate the North Korean problem into the Iraqi crisis. That will require great thought.

**GIRARD:** Are your priorities right in America? In the Middle East you have several problems: No. 1 is fundamentalist Islamism in places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia. It's a problem because they attacked Americans here.

The second problem is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And maybe only a third priority is to have Iraq back in the international community. Why do you emphasize this third-level priority?

**KISSINGER:** No, the problem posed by Iraq is much more important than you believe. That has to be the outcome. You cannot have a permanent occupation of a traditional Islamic capital by Christian nations in the midst of such turmoil.

[c]

So at some relatively brief period of time, Iraq must be
back in the community of nations.

GIRARD: But don't you think that before dealing with Iraq,
the administration should have, No. 1, settled the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, and, No. 2, dealt with the roots of
the attacks of Sept. 11 which are the fundamentalist Islamic
teachings in Saudi schools and the Saudi and Emirates'
financing of international Islamic terrorism. Aren't these
the roots of this attack? We know that Saddam is not at all
in the root of this attack. So your priorities are not
right.

KISSINGER: No, no, the solution to the problem of the
schools is a long-term problem; the solution to the Arab-
Israeli conflict is that there is no solution, only an
amelioration. You cannot fight an immediate enemy by saying
I'll do something that in 10 years may or may not alleviate
the situation. Especially with respect to the Palestinian
problem, the key test of the effectiveness of our policy, is
whether we will find ourselves having created an alibi for
terrorists to keep up the pressure on a global basis. So we
first have to establish the principle that, if you attack
the United States or its allies, you suffer consequences so
dramatic that it destroys all your other possibilities.

Secondly, once that is accomplished relatively quickly,
then we need to deal from that base with some of the causes.
There will inevitably have to be a major Palestinian
initiative upon the conclusion of the Iraqi military
operation.

And thirdly, there will have to be enormous pressure on
these religious groups supporting the schools, which is not
easy within democracies because these religious groups are
undermining our own societies, too. It's not just in the
Muslim world. But this has to happen. So we are facing
something where there is a difference between an
intellectual priority and an operational priority.

GIRARD: And that would be?

KISSINGER: The immediate necessity is to destroy the
momentum of the jihad, even if Iraq is not itself part of
the jihad.

GIRARD: If I understand you, Iraq constitutes a potential
menace not against the United States but against Israel?

KISSINGER: The question is not that they are attacking
Israel. The question is that they are building weapons of
mass destruction in the middle of an area that is financing
terrorism and where terrorism more or less originated. And
even if there is no immediate connection today, it is this
combination of defiance of the West on a secular basis plus
weapons of mass destruction in an environment that defies
the West for religious reasons that makes it necessary to
act.

(c) 2003, Tribune Media Services International.

For release Monday, February 3, 2003

END

[c]

ATTENTION HENRY KISSINGER SUBSCRIBERS

The interview with Henry Kissinger, IRAQ AND KOREA, TWO HUGE THREATS HAPPENING SIMULTANEOUSLY, is embargoed for release till Monday, February 3, 2003.

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FINAL FRENCH
VERSION

Theresa Cimino

From: renaud girard [rgirard@lefigaro.fr]

Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 1:44 PM

To: tcimino@kmaglobal.com

Subject: Interview Kissinger, with Renaud Girard's best regards.

{Signature}Propos recueillis par Renaud Girard

LE FIGARO. – Quand on est l'Amérique, pourquoi vouloir faire la guerre à un petit pays comme l'Irak ?

HENRY KISSINGER. – Dans un cas comme celui-là, vous ne pouvez pas à l'évidence parler de l'Amérique comme d'une seule entité. La question est de savoir ce que fait et doit faire l'administration Bush. Et pourquoi cette administration est aujourd'hui convaincue que nous devrions aller à la guerre, si la nécessité s'impose.

Le 11 septembre a été une expérience traumatisante pour l'Amérique. Voyez-vous, pour nous, ce ne fut pas seulement une attaque contre les États-Unis. Pearl Harbor était également une attaque contre les États-Unis, mais elle venait d'un adversaire que nous connaissions bien. Le 11 septembre est venu d'un ennemi que nous ignorions avoir. Voilà pourquoi elle a eu un impact profond sur le psychisme des Américains.

Lorsque l'Amérique s'empare d'un problème, elle veut le résoudre définitivement – en cela, elle est parfois différente de l'Europe. Lorsque l'Amérique fait la guerre c'est pour terminer toutes les guerres : souvenez-vous de la Première Guerre mondiale et des théories du président Wilson. Aujourd'hui, l'Amérique a la détermination de mettre fin au terrorisme. Personnellement, je crois que le président Bush estime que c'est le destin qui l'a placé là pour résoudre ce problème.

Pendant environ dix ans, l'Amérique a traité le terrorisme comme s'il s'agissait d'un phénomène de criminalité. C'est-à-dire que l'on attendait que quelque chose arrivât et, ensuite, on essayait de trouver les coupables pour les livrer à la justice. La difficulté avec cette approche était double : les terroristes se suident souvent tout en accomplissant leurs acte et, à chaque fois, ce ne sont des lampistes.

Tout au cours de la décennie des années 90, l'Amérique n'a pas compris que nous étions en guerre avec un système. Le but final du terrorisme n'était pas de provoquer des dommages individuels ; l'objectif du terrorisme était de convaincre le monde que le système occidental étant pourri, il était possible de l'attaquer. Après le 11 septembre, nous avons commencé à comprendre que nous avions affaire à un nouveau type de guerre. La réponse de certains Européens à cette nouvelle donne fut : «Nous, les Européens, nous avons enduré beaucoup d'épreuves, nous les avons traversées, et celle-là, nous parviendrons aussi à la traverser». Cette politique de passivité, qui a la faveur de très nombreux Européens, peut mener à une désintégration de la cohésion sociale.

L'analyse que font les gens réfléchis est différente. Elle est la suivante : les armées du terrorisme sont en réalité des groupes privés. On a affaire à une guerre conduite par des groupes privés, basés sur le territoire national d'États existants. Ces groupes n'ont rien à défendre et rien à protéger, hormis eux-mêmes. En conséquence, les leçons qu'on peut tirer du passé n'ont pas grande utilité. La dissusion ne marche pas contre des groupes qui n'ont rien à perdre. Et la diplomatie ne marche pas face à des groupes qui n'ont pas de programme national en tant que tel et qui, à coup sûr, ne croient pas aux vertus du compromis. Même si nous voulions négocier avec les terroristes, nous ne saurions même pas comment identifier chez eux un interlocuteur valable.

La stratégie qui est née de la nécessité de lutter contre cette nouvelle guerre du terrorisme a été la suivante :

nous devons assécher le marais, nous devons empêcher les terroristes de bénéficier de sanctuaires, nous devons les pousser à la défensive, nous devons en faire des fugitifs permanents.

Les terroristes qui ont commis les attentats du 11 septembre venaient de différents pays – Égypte, Arabie Saoudite, etc. – dont les gouvernements entretiennent d'excellentes relations avec les États-Unis. En revanche, aucun de ces terroristes ne venaient d'Irak...

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Par le passé, l'Irak a été lié au terrorisme.

Oui mais c'était un terrorisme d'origine palestinienne et non un terrorisme islamisme. L'Irak a un régime laïque. Son parti unique, le Baas a été fondé par un chrétien et le numéro deux du régime, Tarek Aziz, est un chrétien. En vous attaquant à l'Irak, vous vous attaquez à un des très rares États laïques du monde arabo-musulman...

Vous oubliez que l'Irak a un vieux contentieux avec l'Amérique et il y a beaucoup de gens, moi inclus, qui pense que la guerre de 1991 a été terminée trop tôt. Je crois que la volonté de se doter d'armes de destruction massive, même au sein d'un État laïque, alimente le danger d'une passerelle entre ce type d'armes et les groupes terroristes. La prolongation de l'existence d'un État en rupture de ban avec les règles internationales démontre par elle-même que l'Occident ne sait pas protéger ses intérêts.

Etes-vous êtes d'accord avec le président Bush lorsqu'il dit que Saddam Hussein constitue une menace pour ses voisins et pour les alliés de l'Amérique au Proche-orient et que l'Amérique doit donc éliminer cette menace ?

Oui. Fondamentalement, je suis d'accord avec la stratégie du président Bush.

L'Irak continue-t-il à être une menace ? Aujourd'hui, concrètement, nous n'en savons rien. En revanche, nous savons que la Corée du Nord constitue une menace avérée, visant d'importants alliés américains, comme le Japon ou la Corée-du-Sud. Or le président Bush a confié la solution de ce problème aux diplomates...

Je pense que la présence d'armes nucléaires en Corée du Nord est absolument intolérable et ne serait être acceptée. La combinaison en Corée du Nord d'armes nucléaires et d'un gouvernement de type stalinien va créer une situation cauchemardesque. Mais la question n'est pas de savoir comment nous allons procéder avec cette menace immédiate. Il est regrettable que ces deux problèmes - l'Irak et la corée du Nord - se posent en même temps.

Le monde d'aujourd'hui doit faire face à deux immenses menaces : le terrorisme et la prolifération des armes de destruction massive. La prolifération est certes devenue le problème le plus immédiat. Mais la campagne contre le terrorisme a son propre rythme et vous ne pouvez pas l'arrêter brutalement et dire : « Maintenant, nous allons faire une pose et nous occuper provisoirement de la Corée du Nord. »

Mais une fois que le problème de la Corée du Nord aura été bien analysé, on s'apercevra que la théorie du « dialoguons d'abord » est très dangereuse. Si vous entamez un dialogue avec les Nord-Coréens et qu'ils gagnent quelque chose de leur menace nucléaire, alors chaque fois qu'ils voudront obtenir autre chose, ils utiliseront à nouveau la menace nucléaire.

L'Amérique a-t-elle vraiment mis de l'ordre dans ses priorités ? Vous convenez que vous êtes confrontés à une menace réelle qui est la Corée du Nord, or c'est l'Irak – menace pour le moment non avérée – que vous vous apprêtez à attaquer...

Je pense qu'on a affaire, là, à différents types de menace. La menace irakienne est politique et psychologique et, c'est vrai, ne pourrait se révéler une menace militaire que dans deux ou trois ans. La menace provenant de la Corée du Nord est stratégique. Elle risque de modifier tout l'équilibre régional en Asie parce qu'elle pourrait conduire à une nucléarisation du Japon et à une modification du déploiement militaire américain dans la péninsule coréenne. Ce serait évidemment très facile si l'on pouvait dire aujourd'hui qu'on allait s'occuper de la Corée du Nord et mettre la question irakienne entre parenthèses.

Mais pourquoi ne le faites-vous pas ? Pourquoi ne mettez-vous pas l'Irak en deuxième position, après la Corée-du-Nord ?

Nous n'avons plus le choix.

Pourquoi ?

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Je pense que la résolution de la question irakienne doit suivre son chemin, tel qu'il a été dessiné par la résolution 1441 du Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU. En Irak, seulement deux ou trois choses peuvent arriver. D'abord, on pourrait avoir un coup d'État intervenant avant l'heure de la décision américaine finale. Dans ce cas, nous aurons à décider si nous acceptons ce coup d'État et si nous traitons avec les successeurs de Saddam Hussein.

Deuxième hypothèse, il pourrait y avoir une capitulation de Saddam où il dirait : «OK voilà toutes mes armes, prenez-les...» Troisièmement, il y a l'option de la guerre. Mais, en tout état de cause, cette histoire ne peut pas s'achever sur la continuation du régime de Saddam Hussein. C'est ce que vous, les Français, vous appelez : «la logique des événements».

Donc, vous pensez que l'Amérique doit réussir à changer le régime irakien...

Écoutez, théoriquement, et selon les termes de la résolution des Nations unies, si Saddam venait nous voir demain et nous disait : «dites-moi l'endroit où je dois déposer toutes mes armes et je le ferai immédiatement», nous aurions probablement à l'accepter. Mais, dans cette hypothèse, si vous imaginez que les sanctions commerciales seront levées et que, dans deux ans, Saddam se trouvera à la tête de ressources équivalentes à celles de l'Arabie Saoudite, qu'est-ce qui aura été réalisé ? Nous avons là un vrai problème.

Et quid de l'après-guerre?

Voyez-vous, je ne parle pas pour l'administration Bush, dont je suis proche mais à laquelle je n'appartiens pas. Et je ne dis pas que j'aurais nécessairement suivi le même cheminement qu'elle. Personnellement, je ne me sens pas très à l'aise avec l'idée de démocratiser l'Irak par le biais de son occupation militaire.

Vous ne croyez pas à la viabilité d'un proconsulat militaire américain de dix-huit mois en Irak?

Certains membres de l'administration Bush ont évoqué le succès de l'occupation de l'Allemagne après 1945, pour le comparer avec le cas irakien. Je pense que ce sont deux scénarios totalement différents. Je fais des vœux pour que l'administration Bush réussisse. Si son objectif de la démocratisation de l'Irak peut être réussi, ce serait un succès historique. Je n'ai aucun désaccord avec l'objectif poursuivi mais je ne pense pas que ce soit un travail de dix-huit mois.

C'est un travail beaucoup plus long?

Oui. Et ce sera peut-être un travail infaisable. Mais aujourd'hui, de toute façon, on n'a plus le choix.

Avant de lancer une guerre aux conséquences incalculables, ne serait-il pas raisonnable pour l'Amérique de se donner un peu plus de temps ?

Mais, là où nous en sommes, nous ne pouvons plus arrêter le train et, d'ailleurs, nous ne devrions pas tenter de l'arrêter.

Pourquoi ?

Parce que ce serait perçu dans le monde entier comme un immense recul. Et parce que l'analyse que nous faisons de la guerre contre le terrorisme est la bonne. Et parce que la séquence que nous avons respectée est la bonne. C'est vrai que nous sommes soudainement confrontés à un nouveau problème, qui est celui de la Corée. Nous allons devoir intégrer ce problème dans notre approche de la crise irakienne. Et ça va nous demander beaucoup, beaucoup de réflexion!

Au Proche-Orient, l'Occident a trois grandes priorités : désamorcer les tentations islamistes au sein des populations, résoudre le conflit israélo-palestinien et, seulement en troisième position, ramener l'Irak au sein de la communauté internationale. Pourquoi s'en prendre, sur le champ, à cette priorité de troisième rang?

Le problème que pose l'Irak est plus important que vous ne le croyez. Certes, on ne peut pas envisager l'occupation permanente d'une capitale importante du monde musulman par des nations chrétiennes, au milieu

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d'une région aussi turbulente. Il faut obtenir que l'Irak, doté de son propre gouvernement, revienne très rapidement dans la communauté internationale.

Mais ne pensez-vous pas que l'administration Bush aurait d'abord dû régler le conflit israélo-palestinien, ou s'attaquer sérieusement aux racines des attentats du 11 septembre, lesquelles prennent naissance dans le type d'enseignement «coranique» en vigueur en Arabie Saoudite et dans les pays du Golfe?

Non. Car la solution au problème des enseignements anti-occidentaux dans le monde arabe est une solution à long terme.

Quant au conflit israélo-arabe, il n'y a pas de solution toute trouvée possible. On ne peut envisager qu'une amélioration progressive. Le règlement final ne se dessine qu'à un horizon très, très lointain. Ce qui est important, dans l'immédiat, c'est de montrer au monde que si vous attaquez les États-Unis ou ses alliés, vous subirez des conséquences telles que vous n'aurez pas envie de recommencer.

Bien sûr, une fois l'affaire irakienne terminée, il devra y avoir une initiative américaine majeure pour régler la question palestinienne. Enfin nous exercerons une pression énorme sur ces écoles religieuses véhiculant un esprit anti-occidental. Ce ne sera d'ailleurs pas une tâche facile car nous vivons en démocratie. Le problème de ces écoles ne se pose pas que dans le monde arabo-musulman. Et, même chez nous, certaines de ces écoles tentent de déstabiliser notre société. Pour me résumer, nous sommes confrontés à la différence qu'il peut y avoir entre une priorité intellectuelle et une priorité opérationnelle.

## Qu'est-ce à dire ?

La priorité immédiate est de détruire la force d'impulsion du djihad, même si l'Irak lui-même ne contribue pas à ce djihad.

## La guerre serait-elle lancée parce que l'Irak constituerait une menace potentielle, non contre les États-Unis mais contre Israël ?

La question n'est pas que les Irakiens puissent s'en prendre à Israël. La question est qu'ils sont en train de construire des armes de destruction massive en plein milieu d'une région qui finance le terrorisme islamiste et où ce terrorisme trouve ses origines.

Même si, aujourd'hui, il n'y a pas de connexion immédiate entre l'Irak et les groupes terroristes islamistes, le danger vient du mélange détonnant de trois composants par eux-mêmes inertes: 1) un Etat défiant - certes sur des bases laïques - l'Occident depuis 12 ans; 2) la présence d'armes de destruction massive; 3) un environnement régional où se sont développés la haine religieuse de l'Occident et le financement du terrorisme.

1/28/2003

1/9/03 FINAL

Transcript of Dr. Henry Kissinger's interview
with Mr. Renaud Girard of Le Figaro

Tuesday, January 7, 2003

New York

G: When one is America, why waging a war to this small country, Iraq?

K: Well, of course, you cannot talk of America as a unit in a case like this. I think the question is, what does the Administration, why is the Administration convinced that we should go to war if necessary. The September 11th was a traumatic experience for America, it was not simply that it was an attack on the United States; Pearl Harbor was also an attack on the United States, but Pearl Harbor came from an adversary of which we were aware. This came from an enemy we did not know we had. And it therefore has had a profound impact on the American psyche. When America deals with a problem - this may be

[y]

somewhat different from Europe - it wants to solve it definitively. It
fights a war to end all wars, like World War I. And so the
determination was to end terrorism. And I believe that President Bush
thinks that this was almost an act of destiny that required him to help
solve the problem. For about ten years, America had dealt with
terrorism as if it were a criminal event. That is, one waited until
something happened and then one tried to find the perpetrators and
bring them to justice. The difficulty with this approach was that the
perpetrators often committed suicide in doing it and, in any event
were low-level people. America did not understand, through the
1990s, that we were at war with the system. The terrorism as it
evolved did not particularly attempt to inflict individual damage; it
tried to convey the notion that the West was a rotten system capable
of being attacked. So after September 11th it began to be understood
that we were dealing with a new form of warfare. And in such

2

[Y]

conditions what some Europeans say is, "We Europeans have experienced a lot of problems, and we have lived through them, and we have to live through this one". It is a policy where one of passively waiting, living through it, the political cohesion would disintegrate. So the analysis that thoughtful people are making is this: the soldiers of terrorism are really private groups. And it is a war conducted by private groups based on the national territory of national states. The groups themselves have nothing to defend and nothing to protect except themselves. As a result, the lessons of the past have limited applicability. Deterrence does not work against groups that have nothing to lose. And diplomacy does not work with groups that have no program as such and certainly do not believe in compromise. Even if we wanted to negotiate with the terrorists, we wouldn't even know how to identify an interlocutor.

3

[Y]

So the strategy that was evolved was that one has to drain the swamp, one has to prevent the terrorists from having bases of territories, and one has to keep them on the defensive; one has to make them fugitives and one has to make supporting them more painful than tolerating them.

G: I understand but...

K: That is the basic strategy...

G: The basic strategy, but we understand that terrorists came from several countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and many countries the governments of which have very good relations with the United States.

What we notice is that not one terrorist was from Iraq and, number two, that they are Islamists, okay, they are waging a jihad, they are...they tell us, "Who are the enemies?" The enemies are the Christians and the Jews. Okay? They tell us. And now America is

4

[y]

waging a war against a regime who has never been linked to Islamic terrorism, never. And was well...

K: But it has been linked to terrorism.

G: But not to Islamist terrorism, to terrorism, but not to Islamic terrorism. Yes to terrorism. Vaguely, yes. Less, less, much less than Syria, much less than other states, much less than Iran, only Abu Nidal. Abu Nidal is the only example. And who as a regime which has been founded by Christians, as a matter of fact, ______ okay, and whose vice number two is a Christian ______. So, yes, I make an attack but you are getting back to a country which is a secular, one of the rare secular, secular states of the Iraq Muslim-Arab war.

K: Well, let's get to the second point. Of course Iraq has a history of dealing with America, and there are many, including me, who believe that the 1991 war was ended prematurely. I believe that - that the quest for weapons of mass destruction, even in a secular state,

5

[4]

contains the danger of the merging of the weapons of mass
destruction with the terrorists, even if the weapons of mass
destruction are initially in the hands of a secular state. The very
existence - continued existence - of a defiant state like this proves that
the West cannot protect its interests. I think that is the basic rationale
for trying to deprive Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

G: So you agree with President Bush when he said very recently that
Saddam Hussein was a threat to his neighbors and to America's allies
in the region? So it was a reason for America to eliminate this threat?

K: Yes.

G: But ...

K: I basically agree with the Bush strategy.

G: But, yes, maybe, maybe, maybe Iraq is a threat. We don't really
know. What we know is that Northern Korea is a real threat and you
said that in his recent speech, President Bush did not mention that Kim

6

M

Jong Il is a threat to American allies, ______ is allies South Korea, Japan. I mean...

K: I believe that nuclear weapons in North Korea are absolutely intolerable and cannot be accepted. And the combination in North Korea of this type of government and nuclear weapons will create a nightmarish situation. Never mind how we can handle this immediate threat. It's unfortunate that these two events are coming together.

There are two huge problems in the world today: terrorism and proliferation. And proliferation has become the more immediate problem. But the terrorism campaign has its own momentum, and you cannot just stop it and say, "Now we'll go and deal with North Korea for a while." But once the issue of North Korea is fully analyzed, all these discussions of "let's have a dialogue" will be seen to be very dangerous. If you have a dialogue and they gain something from their

7

[Y]

G: But aren't you, your, your, I mean are your priorities right? I mean, you have a real threat - Northern Korea. Everybody agrees on that. On, on Iraq, for the moment, nothing is clear. There is a threat.

K: I think they're different kinds of threats. The threat from Iraq is political and psychological and will be military only two, three years down the road. The threat from North Korea is strategic and will change the whole balance in Asia because it will lead to the nuclearization of Japan, may lead to a redisposition of American deployments in Korea. So there are two huge threats happening simultaneously. It would be nice to be able to say we do one and we won't do the other but we now will suspend the Iraqi thing.

8

Y

G: Should you start by Northern Korea or you don't do it because it's not as easy there? Should you start by North Korea? That's the question. Start by North Korea and then put Iraq in second position.

K: We no longer have that choice.

G: Why?

K: I think Iraq now has to go its route on which it was sent at the UN Security Council. And, in any event, there are only two or three things that can happen with Iraq. One, there could be a coup before a final American decision. Then we would have to decide whether to accept the coup or treat with the successors. Then, there could be a war or there could be a surrender by Saddam in which he says, "Okay, take all my weapons". Those are conceivable policy choices. Finally, there is the option of war. It cannot really end anymore, in my view, with the continued rule of Saddam. I'm speaking of what you French call "the logic of events".

9

M

G: So do you think that now America must succeed in changing the
Iraqi regime?

K: Look, theoretically, and in terms of the UN Resolution, if Saddam
came to us tomorrow and said, "Tell me the place where I should
deposit the weapons of mass destruction", we would probably have to
accept it. And we probably would accept it. But, if you then imagine
that sanctions are lifted and in two years Saddam has the resources of
Saudi Arabia, what has been achieved?

G: You started this interview...

K: But I'm, you see, I don't speak for the Administration. And I'm not
saying I would necessarily have pursued all these steps. I'm uneasy
about the possibility of democratizing Iraq by occupation.

G: You don't believe in this kind of eighteen-month American pro-
consulate [?] in Iraq?

10

Y

K: I don't see the relationship between the occupation of Germany and the occupation of Iraq. They are two different scenarios. I wish the administration well; if it could be done, it would be a historic event. I don't disagree with the objective. I don't think it's an eighteen-month job.

G: It's a much longer job?

K: Yes, and it may not be doable at all.

G: You think there is a ...

K: But in the immediate phase, there is no choice.

G: You think there is a risk of, remember Israel coming to South
____ in 1982 being greeted by Shiite population with flowers?

Remember that also, and then six months later you have hezbollah in
____? Don't you think that the same thing can happen to the

Americans, that you have a kind of jihad, a united Shiite front against

11

Y

Americans? Shiites from Iran and shiites, of course, from the south of
Iraq.

K: I would certainly, in our plan, provide for that ______. Tell me,
when will this be published? About when? Next week, two weeks?

G: No, it will be published around - it will be sold - around 25th of
January. Before Blix's ...there is a long time, it is a luxury thing.

[UNDISCERNABLE]

K: But at this stage, we cannot stop what is in train, and we should
not, because that would be a retreat of a huge magnitude and an
admission. Nor would it be correct because the analysis with respect
to terrorism is right. And the sequence with respect to it is right. We
are now suddenly confronted with a new problem, in Korea. We will
have to integrate the North Korean problem into the Iraqi crisis. That
will require great thought.

12

M

G: Are your priorities right in America because if you rate the region _______. In Middle East you have several problems. Number one problem today is Islamism - Egypt, Saudi Arabia. It's a problem because they attacked Americans here. Then the second problem, which is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and maybe there is a third priority, which is not as big. It is to have this country, Iran, back in the international community.

H: No, that is a deeper ______ that has to be the outcome. You cannot have a permanent occupation of a traditional Islamic capital by Christian nations in the midst of such turmoil. So at some relatively brief period of time, Iraq must be back in the community of nations.

G: But, don't you think that before dealing with Iraq, the Administration should have, number one, settled the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and, number two, dealt with the roots of this attack on New York which are the teachings in Saudi schools and Saudi universities,

13

[Y]

which are the Saudi and Emirates' financing of international Islamic terrorism, the roots of this attack? We know that Saddam is not at all in the root of this attack. So your priorities are not right.

K: No, no, no—the priorities could be, the solution to the problem of the schools is a long-term problem; the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is that there is no solution, only an amelioration possible, and a solution is a long-term problem. You cannot fight an immediate enemy by saying I'll do something that in ten years may or may not alleviate the situation. Especially with respect to the Palestinian problem, the key test of the effectiveness of our policy, we will find ourselves having created an alibi for terrorists to keep up the pressure on a global basis. So we first have to establish the principle that, if you attack the United States or its allies, you'd suffer consequences that are so dramatic that it destroys all your other possibilities.

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