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NEWSMAKER SATURDAY (CNN) - December 16, 1990

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CHARLES BIERBAUER: Can Saddam Husein duck George Bush's deadline for face to face talks? Has the release of the hostages weakened Bush's case for using force? Will Christmas in the desert erode public support for the president? Welcome to "Newsmaker Saturday." In Washington, I'm Charles Bierbauer. Those questions and more for two former secretaries of state: George Shultz who served in the Reagan administration, and Henry Kissinger who was also Richard Nixon's national security adviser. Both today on "Newsmaker Saturday."

MR. BIERBAUER (on tape): President Bush thinks he is being stiffed by Saddam Hussein.

PRESIDENT BUSH (Friday afternoon): Saddam Hussein is not too busy to see on short notice Kurt Waldheim, Willy Brandt, Muhammed Ali, Ted Heath, John Connolly, Ramsey Clark and many, many others on very short notice.

MR. BIERBAUER: In part, the president has himself to blame. He offered to send Secretary of State Baker to Baghdad any time, up to January 15th, the U.N. deadline for an Iraqi withdrawal form Kuwait. Iraq accepted, proposing January 12th. That is now not soon enough for the Bush administration, and there is the risk the talks between the U.S. and Iraq might not take place.

PRESIDENT BUSH (Friday afternoon): I don't like to draw deadlines in the sand here. But there'd have to be come compelling reason for me to change it.

MR. BIERBAUER: Saddam Hussein has met one U.N. demand, releasing those hostages and human shields who wanted to leave Iraq and Kuwait. U.S. diplomats left the beleaguered embassy in Kuwait City technically still open but unattended.

AMBASSADOR NATHANIEL HOWELL (returning U.S. ambassador to Kuwait): The only industry in Kuwait today is war and military occupation. I left them building bunkers along the sea coast and around our embassy. I saw no indication that they planned to leave.

MR. BIERBAUER: Meanwhile at the United Nations, the U.S. sought to fend off attempts to link the Persian Gulf crisis to the broader Mideast problem centered on Israel and the Palestinians. President Bush met for the first time in over a year with Israel Prime Minister Shamir.

PRIME MINISTER YITZHAK SHAMIR: I trust the president, what he said. He said it several times, and he said it to me now again, that there will not be any deal at the expense of Israel.

MR. BIERBAUER: Our guests today are two men who have faced the frustrations of trying to bring peace to the Middle East. We will hear from them both after this break. Stay with us.

(Announcements)

MR. BIERBAUER: CNN Correspondent Greg Lefevre spoke late Friday with former Secretary

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of State George Shultz in his office at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

MR. LEFEVRE: Mr. Secretary, thank you for speaking with us this weekend. With all of the rhetoric we've been hearing over the last five or six days, do you think the world is headed for war or headed for peace in the Middle East?

MR. SHULTZ: Everybody hopes for peace. But I think it's increasingly clear that in order to have peace, not only now, but in the future we have to deal firmly with this Iraqi aggression against Kuwait, and the reason for the aggression, namely, the large imbalance of power that Iraq has in the region, particularly underscored by its possession of chemical weapons, its demonstrated willingness to use them, its aspiration to have nuclear weapons--how close, I don't know--and probably other weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons.

So that's a big set of problems that has to be cured, and peace will come when we cure them.

MR. LEFEVRE: Saddam is making some motions about releasing hostages, U.S. hostages, citizens of other countries. Has he not removed one of the cards from Mr. Bush's deck?

MR. SHULTZ: No. On the contrary, I think that the hostage matter is very instructive in how to deal with him. As I see it, he took these hostages, he took them in an act that violates war crimes provisions. It's a war crime to take hostages, to put them in harm's way as he was doing. And he was met with great firmness, with a very strong U.S. response, and with the United Nations resolution condemning that action, identifying those as war crimes, calling on the countries to keep track of them so that after this is over there will be accountability, let alone accountability for the huge amount of thievery in Iraq.

Beyond that, I think the president did very right in saying hostages are something that I grieve about as president, but the fact that they're there is not going to alter our policy or change in any way the way we behave if we get in a fight. So what he did by that was to lower the value of the hostages to Saddam Hussein and increasingly through all of the actions of the U.N. and our own strength the cost of having them has risen, and so they became a wasting asset, and he let them go.

MR. LEFEVRE: Did not Saddam Hussein, if you will, inject a factor here that might weaken the resolve of the American people on this matter by returning the hostages?

MR. SHULTZ: Not if they see it clearly. Obviously they're outraged by the hostages, and I think, as one American, I'm still outraged by the seizing of the hostages and putting them in harm's way. It just shows you what you're dealing with.

MR. LEFEVRE: A moment ago, you talked about the chemical weapons capability, the nuclear potential in Iraq. Is simply withdrawing from Kuwait enough?

MR. SHULTZ: No. It certainly isn't enough. Because if he withdraws from Kuwait, and the former government returns, and that's all, we leave, what have we left? We've left the same imbalance of power that got this going in the first place, and that power will wind up causing Kuwait to make concessions. It will wind up causing the other states in the region to be fearful of what he might do, and perhaps will precipitate another invasion. So we'll be right back where we started from.

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The time to stop him is now, and you have to deal with the underlying cause of all this, namely this military strength, and the willingness to use weapons that very few other states would use.

**MR. LEFEVRE:** We've seen a lot of shake ups in the inner circles in Iraq in the past couple of months. The defense minister was replaced just in this past week. What is that telling us about Saddam's own resolve?

**MR. SHULTZ:** Well, I think maybe it tells us that there is some opposition in Iraq. On the other hand, he fought a bloody war against Iran for a long period, and the same sort of thing happened. So, his readiness to use repressive means, and his ability to stay in control, in spite of the resentments that must be there to that is demonstrated. But nevertheless it shows that there is a certain underlying uneasiness which wouldn't be surprising. He's about to get his country into very serious trouble.

**MR. LEFEVRE:** Opposition within Iraq.

**MR. SHULTZ:** I should think so.

**MR. LEFEVRE:** How would that manifest itself in--what we see here?

**MR. SHULTZ:** Well, one would hope it would manifest itself in some sort of a coup, but I don't want, in saying that, to say that that's something we can rely on. We can't. We have to assume that he's going to stay in power, and I think that's by all odds the likely outcome until he faces up to the reality of the force that's arrayed against him.

**MR. LEFEVRE:** Saddam has raised the issue of the Palestinian state attempting to seize the initiative on that. Has he?

**MR. SHULTZ:** The questions involving Israel and the Palestinians and the other Arabs and the West Bank and Gaza have absolutely nothing to do with his thievery and invasion of Kuwait. There is no connection between those two things whatever.

**MR. LEFEVRE:** What about an international peace conference on the subject of the Palestinians and the Palestine state? What would the U.S. role be in that? What should Israel do?

**MR. SHULTZ:** Well, I think that the only way you're really going to make progress, and I hope and pray that progress can be made. It just cries out for progress. But the only way you're really going to get it is to get the people who are directly concerned to sit down opposite each other and start arguing and negotiating and trying to find a solution to the problems. An international conference, if it's useful at all, is useful only as a procedural step to get to direct negotiations. As a substantive matter, to think that people can sit in New York and decide the fate and prescribe for this complicated dispute is totally unrealistic.

**MR. LEFEVRE:** So you're saying it should not be the U.N., but perhaps between Israel and the Arabs?

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MR. SHULTZ: You have to get the people who are directly concerned to negotiate. There's Israel, and there are Palestinians, on the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. They should talk together. Actually, there was a very interesting proposal made by Prime Minister Shamir about a year and a half ago for elections. He promised he would deal with those who were elected. He identified a process which might bring successful negotiations. That wasn't picked up on, and by the time it was picked up on, he seemed to be starting to withdraw it.

But at any rate, that's one pair that need to talk. Obviously the Israelis and the Jordanians need to talk, because they have a long border with each other. At some point there's Syria and Israel, and then there's our old friends in Lebanon. So those are the states immediately around Israel, and, of course, there are many other Arab states who are influential and important, most particularly Saudi Arabia.

MR. LEFEVRE: If I may return for just a moment to the gulf situation. This has created some strange political bedfellows for the U.S., not the least of which is Syria.

MR. SHULTZ: Let's hope they're not bedfellows with us.

MR. LEFEVRE: What do you make of these new alliances?

MR. SHULTZ: Well, I don't know that I'd call it an alliance. I think that it has been judged important to have it clear that there is Arab support for what the United Nations, with U.S. leadership, is doing in this Iraqi thievery of Kuwait situation. And so a number of Arab countries have sent forces, some more than others, and Syria is one of them. But it's an uneasy relationship at best.

MR. LEFEVRE: If you were to receive a call from Camp David this weekend, what would you tell the president?

MR. SHULTZ: I'd tell him to watch this interview on CNN and he'll see my feelings, which are that this is a pivotal moment in the affairs of the world. Oil is important, and we don't want Saddam Hussein to get a hold of a huge proportion of the world's oil. But that's not the main thing that's at stake here. What's at stake is the kind of precedents that will be set for the way the world behaves in the light of aggression. This is the most naked aggression anyone could imagine. The United Nations has voted an array of sanctions and views about it beyond anything that anybody has seen before. And we've taken very strong positions.

Now, we must succeed. And if we don't, who's going to take us seriously again? If we don't, who's going to take a United Nations vote seriously. So we must succeed, and that means that we have to make it very clear to Saddam Hussein that force is very much in the picture, and probably very soon if he doesn't do what United Nations resolutions call for, and if he isn't to get physical force used against the chemical and nuclear weapons capabilities, those have to be taken out.

Let's not forget the war crimes that have been committed, and the thievery that has gone on, and there must be accountability for the war crimes, and there must be reparations for the thievery.

MR. LEFEVRE: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for joining us this weekend.

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MR. SHULTZ: Thank you.

MR. BIERBAUER: When we return, we'll take up the issue with the originator of Mideast shuttle diplomacy--former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Stay with us please.

(Announcements)

MR. BIERBAUER: Joining us now from our New York bureau, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Dr. Kissinger, thank you. The president sounds frustrated with his inability to get these talks going. As I recall, you had some misgivings about it in the first place. Would Mr. Bush be better off to back away from the whole idea?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I think now that these talks have been announced and proposed, I think we should go through with them. We have nothing to gain now by canceling them.

MR. BIERBAUER: Well, has Saddam Hussein anything to gain by prolonging this process?

DR. KISSINGER: Oh, yes. Saddam Hussein has everything to gain by prolonging the process, because the longer he can delay it, the more the military option will become difficult, and I think he must believe that if he can get it into March, then Ramadan, which is the month of fasting starts, he will be in a much stronger position to resist the pressures that might come from a military option.

MR. BIERBAUER: But President Bush seemed to suggest that there is a point where he will say enough is enough.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I fundamentally agree with President Bush's point of view. I think that the negotiations will be more effective if Iraq believes that there is a terminal point to our patience.

MR. BIERBAUER: If these meetings do come about, can President Bush effectively and convincingly deny that there are negotiations?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I have believed from the beginning that the distinction between negotiations and discussions will prove extremely elusive. And I'm convinced that it will be Saddam Hussein's strategy to confront us with a proposition which will leave unsettled only an issue that seems relatively so small that the ability to get congressional and public support for military pressure will become much more difficult.

MR. BIERBAUER: What do you mean by an issue that seems so small?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, for example, if he said he's willing to withdraw from Kuwait except for the two islands that are at the entrance to the Shatt-al-Arab, or to these oil fields in the north; or if he said that he agrees to the principle of total withdrawal, but he would like a negotiation with us first about our withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, and that he would phase his withdrawal to coincide with

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ours, all of which would produce a rather extended negotiation, and waste the time that he wants to
waste.

MR. BIERBAUER: Well, hasn't the Bush administration already pretty much given a wink and a nod to the islands, or something of that sort, by accepting the premise of Iraqi-Kuwaiti negotiation?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, it is true that in the negotiation with ourselves that seems to take place every Sunday on the talk shows, we have already agreed that Saddam Hussein will come out no worse than the way he came in, namely, with the status quo ante; secondly, that there would be no military attack if he withdrew; and, third, that he could negotiate with Kuwait. When one remembers that of the 850,000 Kuwaiti citizens, only 80,000 are left in Kuwait, and the rest is a whole mixture of other people, that he has looted the whole country and killed a great many people, it's a very unequal negotiation if his military capacity remains unimpaired.

MR. BIERBAUER: Secretary Shultz in our earlier conversation seemed to suggest that status quo ante is not good enough, that Saddam Hussein deserves to pay some punishment. Do you agree?

DR. KISSINGER: I agree with Secretary Shultz.

MR. BIERBAUER: To what extent?

DR. KISSINGER: I agree with him completely, if that's what he has said. I agree that it is--that if at the end of this process Saddam Hussein's military capacity is unimpaired, and if then the United States leaves with most of its forces, then two things will have happened. It will have been demonstrated that you can engage in this outrageous conduct without penalty, and, secondly, that the balance of power which required 450,000 Americans to redress is tilted again towards Iraq with the departure of the Americans. So I think Saddam Hussein will have come out ahead if that is the outcome.

MR. BIERBAUER: Dr. Kissinger, we need to take a break. We'll be back in just a moment.

(Announcements)

MR. BIERBAUER: Dr. Kissinger, let me ask you about the other element of the Mideast. Prime Minister Shamir was in town this week, met with President Bush, came out of the White House saying he'd been reassured that nothing would be done to put Israel at risk as a result of the Persian Gulf solution, whatever it might be. At the same time, at the U.N., the U.S. seems to be fighting off resolutions that would incur some displeasure for the Israelis. Does that undermine the U.S. position with the Arabs?

DR. KISSINGER: There are two separate problems. One is should there be eventually peace negotiations between Israel and the Arabs, especially including the Palestinian question. I think

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absolutely that is inevitable and desirable. Should it be linked to the gulf settlement? That is what the administration seems to me to be resisting, because they do not want Saddam Hussein to be able to claim that he made progress on an issue that has proved very resistant, as a result of his illegal activities in Kuwait. If we come out ahead in the gulf, it is say we achieve our principle objectives, there is no question but then together with the moderate Arab states we will, and we should move towards a negotiation on the Arab-Israeli issue.

And if we link it, however, directly, and make it a concession to Hussein, or make it part of the Kuwait settlement, then we will not support the cause of moderation, but really the cause of aggression in the Middle East.

MR. BIERBAUER: But progress on the Mideast in general may inevitably be deferred, but does it have to be deferred simply to avoid this impression of linkage?

DR. KISSINGER: I think it will have to be deferred until the gulf crisis is settled, and I think the gulf crisis will be settled one way or the other within the next three or four months. So it isn't--we're not talking about a huge delay.

MR. BIERBAUER: Secretary Cheney, in testimony on Capitol Hill this week seemed to suggest that in fact there is so much attention to the short range problem that there is no long range plan at this point within the Bush administration. Do you similarly see it that way?

DR. KISSINGER: I hope there's a long range plan about the military balance in the gulf, because I think that it's at least as important as rectifying the Iraqi aggression in Kuwait. Secondly, we must have a long range plan, and we will either develop one quickly on the Arab-Israeli issue, or we will be driven to it by circumstances.

MR. BIERBAUER: We've got just a few seconds. Do you see the Bush administration as amiss in not having developed one until now?

DR. KISSINGER: If they haven't, I think it would be a mistake, but it's also possible that they have one and don't want to surface it while the gulf crisis is going on.

MR. BIERBAUER: All right, Dr. Kissinger, thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate your coming in.

DR. KISSINGER: Glad to be here.

MR. BIERBAUER: Thank you all for being with us on "Newsmaker Saturday." In Washington, I'm Charles Bierbauer.