Theresa Cimino

From: Managing Editor's Temp - The Times [manedtemp@thetimes.co.uk]
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 5:45 AM
To: tcimino@kmaglobal.com
Cc: Renner, Denise
Subject: Re: Correction to Kissinger Piece

on behalf of the Assistant Managing Editor

Our Ref: C/GEN/C

Dear Ms Cimino

Thank you for your email of yesterday's date to my colleague Denise Renner.

I am sorry to hear of Dr Kissinger's concerns. In accordance with our usual procedures, I am putting
what Dr Kissinger said in the interview to the writer, Andrew Billen. Thereafter, I shall be in touch
with you again as soon as possible.

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Message

Theresa Cimino

From: Theresa Cimino [tcimino@kmaglobal.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 11:03 AM
To: 'Denise.renner@TheTimes.co.uk'
Subject: Correction to Kissinger piece

Dear Ms. Renner:

As we discussed, Dr. Kissinger would like *The Times* to print a correction to Andrew Billen's piece that ran on Tuesday, as his view about Laos was misstated. His view was that they should cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail by ground action, thereby reducing the necessity for bombing. Below is the section from the transcript where this was discussed:

Billen: How could you have won?

Kissinger: Well, this would get us into an endless discussion. You have the strange situation that all supplies to Vietnam were coming through Laos over essentially uninhabited territory. It was assigned to Laos in the 19th century for essentially colonial reasons. There were sanctuaries along the Cambodian border from which four Vietnamese divisions were killing American soldiers, yet the attempt to destroy these sanctuaries is usually listed among the moral disabilities of the Nixon administration. And nobody, until it was too late, attempted to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail which would have made bombing unnecessary because it would have stopped supplies, or forced a battle. Our dilemma in Vietnam was that our adversaries could use the guerrilla forces to distract our main forces, and then their main forces could operate. Or vice versa. So we could never apply the historic American strategy of attrition because the enemy fought only when it wanted to. This would not have been true in Laos. Now I did not advocate that at the time.

Thank you for your assistance in passing Dr. Kissinger's message along to Messrs. Thomson and Hopkinson.

10/21/2004

Page 1 of 5

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October 19, 2004

Neocons are wrong, but we can't drop
Bush now

THE ANDREW BILLEN INTERVIEW

Veteran statesman Henry Kissinger says the election of John Kerry would not bring more European military support to Iraq, and changing the Administration in the middle of a war would be a fateful decision

::nobreak::

HENRY KISSINGER refuses to answer only two of my questions. The latter, asked, naturally, towards the end of our interview is about his reputation at the height of his fame in the Nixon administration as America's number one playboy. His old enemy the journalist Christopher Hitchens later accused him of, in fact, sleeping in a single bed, Kissinger's dirty little secret being that there was no dirty little secret. "I don't comment on that," Dr Kissinger grunts, and it is ambiguous as to whether he is referring to his sex life or to Hitchens. The playboy image "was unimaginable when it started and amusing while it lasted" is all he'll say.

My other unanswered question regards the potential dangers of a John Kerry presidency. "Can we stop here a minute?" he asks to my surprise and, with the tape off, he explains why he will not criticise Kerry in the current circumstances. "I was in office during the Vietnam War," he explains when we resume, "so I will not knowingly contribute to creating another set of divisions like that."

Yet as Richard Nixon's National Security Adviser (the Condoleezza Rice job) and then his Secretary of State (Colin Powell's), Kissinger is one of the authors of the divisions he recalls. For allegedly prolonging the war and the bombing of neighbouring Cambodia, the Nobel Peace Prize winner is castigated by some as a war criminal.

But Kissinger was also the architect of détente with both China and Russia, broking the international power balance with extraordinary skill. In the last two decades he has explained himself in three memoirs, a brilliant history of diplomacy, a book on Vietnam and, published within days of 9/11, *Does America Need A Foreign Policy?* He is a regular pundit on CNN and Fox News, who treat him reverently. As I say: he is a man who divides.

We meet in New York at Kissinger Associates, his consultancy. Twenty six floors above Park Avenue, his female staff toil with Trappist concentration, their silence broken only by him. "Get me Nancy!" he barks at one point, Nancy being his wife. Married to him for 30 years, she features in a wispily romantic portrait that hangs

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10/19/2004

behind his desk, dwarfing the photographs of potentates that line his
office. Kissinger lacks any obvious social skills when it comes to
someone like me ("What is your name?" he inquires in his still heavily
accented English), but when he is introduced to our photographer's
assistant he wobbles on the edge of flirtation. "And what," he purrs,
"is it that you do?" Despite a heart attack four years ago and a minor
operation in January, he looks fit, less ashen than the last time we
met. His expensive suit no longer looks about to burst.

He is 81, so this is the 17th presidential election he has witnessed
since he arrived, aged 15, in New York from Germany. He considers
it a vital one: "Changing an administration in the middle of a war is a
fateful decision."

It is the war that I want to discuss. He is "almost certain" that Richard
Nixon would have taken the same decision as Bush to invade Iraq.
The 9/11 attack, like those leading up to it, was intended to
demonstrate that the US was incapable of, and unwilling to, defend its
interests. A decisive refutation was necessary. "Iraq was not a state
that was actively involved in the specific 9/11 operation, though it had
intelligence contact with al-Qaeda, but it was a state that contributed
to the atmosphere out of which the hostility to America was being fed.
It had the largest army in the region. It had violated the ceasefire with
the United States of 1991 I think 17 times, certified by the United
Nations. It had used weapons of mass destruction and it was believed
to possess weapons of mass destruction."

"Believed" is the word. Could he have imagined the intelligence being
so far off the mark? "No, I couldn't. And nor did the President."

He attended a Pentagon briefing given by Colin Powell a few weeks
before he presented America's case on WMDs to the United Nations.
The chiefs of staff, the intelligence officers, and the Democrat and
Republican cabinet members from previous administrations voiced no
dissent.

And Powell looked confident? "For those of us who have some
experience in government, you can tell when the bureaucracy is
uneasy by a combination of body language or the sort of interjections
like 'I wouldn't quite phrase that this way,' that shows you there's
some doubts. Nothing like that happened." But Kissinger's reasoning
that a potentially belligerent and dissident state needed to be
quashed, differs from the idealistic agenda of neoconservatives, the
moral crusaders who backed the war in the belief that it was
America's destiny to reshape the region in democratic form.

"Yes. I don't agree with that if it relies on the use of force," Kissinger says. "I believe that America has to stand for human values and democracy because this is an essential part of the American experience. But I do not think that we can appoint ourselves as the moral guardian or as the immediate transformer of every government by pressure. I would leave something more to history."

To time? "I would leave something more to time. I think the
neoconservative view is very similar to the Trotskyite view, in the
sense that many of them believe that foreign policy problems are
really problems in the domestic structures and, if you can change
those, the foreign policy problems will solve themselves

10/19/2004

Page 3 of 5

automatically. I don't believe that. I believe one has to be more
modest and that one has to take into account the history, the culture
and often the dignity of the country that's involved."

Although the vice president, Dick Cheney, was a signatory to the
1997 neocon manifesto, the *New American Century Statement of
Principles*, Kissinger regards him as traditional, nationalist
conservative. The deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, might fit
the neocon description more closely.

"But the major issue is not one of personalities. The challenge that Bush will face, after re-election, is whether he can help create, as America did in the late 1940s, an international system that is relevant to the challenges of this period. It can't be dealt with in slogans and you cannot have a peaceful order which is not supported by a significant number of the key countries because, otherwise, you're engaged in an indefinite police action and no country can sustain hegemony psychologically for an indefinite period."

Wouldn't the easiest way for America to win a fresh start with Europe
be to elect Kerry? "I didn't want to get into personalities, but I can
make a safe comment. It is absolutely out of the question that Kerry
will get significant additional military support from Europe and the
attempt to get it will involve such a bitter controversy that,
paradoxically, in order to heal the alleged rift, or the supposed rift,
one would re-create it. He cannot achieve this without raising the
question of whether he is presenting a plan for winning or an alibi for
withdrawing." A year before the invasion, Kissinger publicly
questioned the value of moral crusades because "looking at it as an
American, they will eventually go beyond our capacity". I wonder,
considering the continuing anarchy in Iraq, the loss of American life,
the huge debt incurred, the increase in oil prices, if the limit of the
American public's tolerance has not not already been reached.

"All of this may be true to some extent," he interrupts, "but we cannot
afford in Iraq to repeat the experience of Vietnam of tearing ourselves
apart. Because the conflict will not stop at the borders of Iraq and the
issues that drew us in will continue.

"The impact of a radical fundamentalist victory in Iraq on the Muslim
world would be catastrophic from Indonesia to Morocco — including
countries like India. The impetus it would give to radical challenges to
advanced societies would be enormous."

But isn't Iraq beginning to look like Vietnam — a venture that has
assailed America's moral authority and left it looking military weaker
than a superpower should look? "But I have the unfashionable view
that we did not need to lose in Vietnam."

How could America have won? "Well, this would get us into an
endless discussion," he begins but, in fact, his argument seems to be
that America should have bombed the supply lines through Laos
earlier. He tried to do so in 1971. "But by that time we had withdrawn
American combat forces in Vietnam and there were congressional
inhibitions against using airpower outside of the territorial limits of
Vietnam."

"Congressional inhibitions" is a classic Kissinger euphemism,

10/19/2004

Page 4 of 5

covering in this case the huge outrage caused by the Cambodian bombing. For liberals such as John Kerry, newly back from service in Vietnam, it eroded the US's claims to a higher morality. As the decade continued, the country's reputation fell further as it smiled upon the Pinochet coup in Chile and the military junta in Argentina. In an essay last year in *Presidential Studies Quarterly*, Professor John Kane wrote that under Kissinger and Nixon the American exceptionalist myth pioneered by Woodrow Wilson (that a country as good and powerful as America had a duty to intervene internationally) "congealed into politically inflexible anti-communism": "One consequence was that tin-pot dictators around the world would be assured of US backing so long as they declared themselves firmly anti-communist and opened up their economies to American capital."

It is Kissinger's support for such dictators, rather than his successes with détente, that have returned to haunt his last decades, resulting in court cases against him in the US, France and Latin America. "One reads constantly about cases," he grumbles. "One never reads when they are dismissed." Have they been dismissed? "All the American cases have been dismissed. And all the foreign cases — which were not really cases but requests for information — have been satisfied in the sense that the American Government provided the answers these judges have asked for and that no new questions have been asked."

Kissinger, as I would expect, does not use Tony Blair's retrospective rationalisation for invading Iraq, that the world is a better place for the removal of a tyrant. Yet the idea that human rights do not register at all on Kissinger's radar is self-evidently false. It was, he says, the Nixon administration that introduced the concept of human rights to American foreign policy. In 1969 it quietly let the Russians know that if they were to allow more Jewish emigration, the US would regard this as an attempt to improve relations. The same approach was taken in Latin America. Indeed, in Chile in 1976, he made a coolly received speech calling human rights "the very essence of a meaningful life". "I then spoke to Pinochet and to the Argentine leaders in the language of diplomacy, which was, 'It is in your self-interest to improve your human rights performance, because otherwise it will be difficult for us to help you as we want to help you. And we genuinely do not want to overthrow you' — which implied the cut-off of aid."

The release this year of declassified documents from the Nixon-Ford era has thrown up snippets of Kissinger memos and conversations suggesting, however, a more cynical cast of mind. Days after Salvador Allende's election in Chile in 1970, he appeared to advocate regime change on the grounds that "a successful elected Marxist government" could have "precedent value" in the rest of the world (he has always denied backing the subsequent Pinochet coup). In another he assured the Argentine foreign minister that America wouldn't cause his regime "unnecessary difficulties" if there were "things" that had to be done.

When such headlines appear, does he fret for his posthumous reputation? "It's not my posthumous reputation that I fret about, it's the day-to-day newspaper coverage," he almost jokes. "You ought to remember this: I made available 30,000 telephone conversations. Only maybe less than ten of those produced controversy, even though I'm not short of traducers who are searching eagerly through them. If you analyse what they find, it is exactly what I've described

10/19/2004

here, that my approach to human rights depended on diplomacy and
was attempted to be built into the geopolitics of the period."

I bet in office he never imagined that, 30 years on, people would be
demanding his imprisonment. "A tiny minority. I'm not complaining. I
had an opportunity to practise my hobby as my profession."

Judge a statesman by his intellect and Kissinger ranks as high as any
of the past century. Judge him by the company he kept, and the
record becomes questionable: Pinochet, Nixon, even Lord Black of
Crossharbour, the recently disgraced former Telegraph group owner
on whose board he lucratively sat. ("I never give up friends," he says
of Black, "but I am disappointed in many things I have learnt and
saddened by them.

) History will decide whether Kissinger has this time chosen wisely in befriending Bush in the critical hour. "The way the American system works," he says, a change in administration "would mean substantial paralysis for three months in Washington and another period of reorganisation as the new administration established itself, and as foreign leaders descended on Washington to attempt to establish their priority. So I support Bush on merit, but it is also an extremely awkward period for the transition."

In awkward times, Americans might counter, it is all the more
important that they exercise their right to choose the best leader
available. But it is hard to dismiss Kissinger's chilly pragmatism. It
must always have been.

* Next week — the Rev Al Sharpton: If I was white I could have been a contender

Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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10/19/2004

DR HENRY KISSINGER

1

October 15, 2004 FINAL

THE TIMES - DR HENRY KISSINGER MEETS ANDREW BILLEN

6/10/04

Billen: Do you regard this as one of the most important Presidential elections of your lifetime?

Kissinger: My lifetime has gotten to be so long!

Billen: I was working it out. I think you've seen about 14 of them.

Kissinger: Well, if you've worked it out, it must be that. I think it's a very important election, and I think also that changing an administration in the middle of a war is a fateful decision. The way the American system works it will mean substantial paralysis for three months in Washington and another period of reorganisation as the new administration establishes itself, and as foreign leaders descend on Washington to attempt to establish their priority. I support Bush on merit, but it is also an extremely awkward period for a transition.

Billen: Apart from that period of transition, what are the dangers of a Kerry Presidency in your view?

Kissinger: Can we stop here a minute.

cut

Billen: That's patriotic of you.

Kissinger: I was in office during the Vietnam War so I will not knowingly contribute to creating another set of divisions like that.

Billen: I want to get on to the divisions in America a bit later. Could you restate your reasons for supporting the Iraq war?

Kissinger: 9/11 was an attack on the state system as it had existed more or less intact since the Treaty of Westphalia. It was an attack by private groups, based on state territory for purposes that were unique to these private groups, so this represented a combination of private and state security threats. One of the purposes of these attacks, which had been escalating for a decade, was to demonstrate that the United States was incapable and unwilling to defend its interests. It was therefore necessary to demonstrate that an attack on the United States, or its friends, would have consequences of such magnitude that every state would have an interest in separating, to the greatest extent possible, from these terrorist groups and thereby gradually

DR HENRY KISSINGER

reduce them to criminal bands. That was my view from the beginning. It is not an post
facto analysis.

Billen: More or less on 9/11 you were thinking this?

Kissinger: Yes, I was thinking like that from 9/11 on. Iraq was not a state that was actively involved in the specific 9/11 operation, though it had intelligence contact with al Qaeda. But it contributed to the atmosphere out of which the hostility to America was being fed. It had the largest army in the region. It had violated the ceasefire with the United States of 1991 I think 17 times, certified by the United Nations. It had used weapons of mass destruction, and it was believed to possess weapons of mass destruction. These realities were not an invention of President Bush to justify what he intended to do. After all, President Clinton in 1998, in announcing the four-day aerial attack on Iraq, listed specific quantities of weapons of mass destruction which the administration he headed believed existed in Iraq. So, for all of these reasons, I thought there was a strategic reason to disarm Iraq and to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Billen: Did you have any conception of the intelligence upon which Clinton, as well as Bush, drew the inference that there were weapons of mass destruction being built could be so wrong? Did you imagine intelligence could be so far off the mark?

Kissinger: No, I couldn't. And nor did the President. I happened to be present, about two weeks before Powell testified before the UN, at a meeting at the Pentagon of all Intelligence people and all Chiefs of Staff, plus four Cabinet members of previous administrations, including two Democratic ones. Secretary Powell presented essentially what he was going to present to the United Nations and there was not a single dissenting view.

Billen: And he wasn't uneasy about it, Powell?

Kissinger: He had no reason to be uneasy about it, and for those of us who have some
experience in government, you can tell when the bureaucracy is uneasy by a
combination of body language or the sort of interjections like 'I wouldn't quite phrase
that this way,' that shows you there are some doubts. But nothing like that happened.

Billen: I'm just wondering whether you and President Nixon, with your forensic
intelligences, could have seen through some of this data.

Kissinger: I doubt that we would have come to a different conclusion. After all, every
report, including the British Butler Report, agrees that they were working on these
weapons and that Saddam had given strict instructions to speed up the production of

DR HENRY KISSINGER

3

weapons of mass destruction as soon as sanctions were lifted. In any event, to me, weapons of mass destruction would not have been the principal objective.

Billen: And you and Nixon would have done the same thing as Bush and Blair?

Kissinger: I would say almost certainly.

Billen: The problem is, because of the —

Kissinger: - I say 'almost' only because it's very hard to put oneself into the exact circumstances.

Billen: I know you said that President Nixon was a cautious man but completely ruthless when he made a decision.

Kissinger: Yes. Ruthless - Determined.

Billen: The problem is that now that these reports are coming out that there simply weren't these weapons the election's become a problem of faith and trust in the Presidency, hasn't it?

Kissinger: The question really is, did the President knowingly present that there were weapons of mass destruction there and, while being in doubt about this, proceeded anyway? And I am convinced that he sincerely believed that there were weapons there, nor did he have any reason to question it on the basis of anything that I have seen of intelligence estimates.

Billen: Obviously there were ancillary reasons given for removing Saddam, including his spectacular abuse of human rights. Was that any business of ours or America's?

Kissinger: I do not, as a general rule, believe that military intervention is justified if the only justification is abuse of human rights — though there is a limit beyond which I would support intervention.

Billen: Such as?

Kissinger: I thought that in Rwanda we should have stopped the killing.

Billen: That's very interesting.

Kissinger: Because that was mass murder, resisting had no huge international implications.

Billen: And yet Clinton did nothing.

Kissinger: For very understandable reasons. It is a major decision whether you will go around the world as the policeman of human rights by military force.

Billen: I don't want to misrepresent you on human rights —

Kissinger: - but I would not have advocated it, nor did I ever advocate it, in Iraq on those grounds, but rather on the strategic grounds I discussed earlier.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

4

Billen: A friend of mine who wrote a book about human rights pointed out to me that you'd said in Santiago in 1976, 'Human rights are the very essence of a meaningful life and human dignity the ultimate purpose of government. A government that tramples on the rights of its citizens denies the purpose of its existence.' Which sort of surprised me because you're not really known for standing up for human rights, unless it's in negotiation with the Russians.

Kissinger: Until the Nixon administration, human rights was not an aspect of American foreign policy. It was generally believed that was beyond the reach of diplomacy, and if you look at the American administrations since World War II, before the 1970s, there isn't one that conducted an active human rights policy in the present sense. Administrations of both parties considered the communist adversary too implacable and the emerging states too fragile to be appropriate targets for what emerged as human rights policies in the 1970s. The Nixon administration represented a transition. It believed that we should stand for human rights but also that we had other objectives and that human rights could not be our sole objective. Finally, it believed that our most effective way of dealing with human rights was to use the attraction of better relations with the United States as a means of influencing these governments. This was the approach when, starting in 1969, we promoted Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. We never made any public claim for that. We never took any credit for it in the elections that were taking place. We raised the emigration from 900 to 40,000, or close to 40,000 a year. Then it became a political issue and emigration declined.

Billen: And that wasn't just in order to upset the Russians, a stick to beat them with. It was something you felt strongly about.

Kissinger: It was the opposite. It was to give the Russians an avenue to improve relations with us and enter the international system. We didn't threaten the Russians. What we said to the Russians, almost verbatim was, 'This is not something which we claim as a right to do. It is something, however, which we will notice and from which we will draw conclusions.'

Billen: Part of détente?

Kissinger: Yes. This remained our attitude. Now, every once in a while, they publish some comment I made about Latin American violations of human rights. But you will find that it followed the same pattern. I made a public speech asserting our interest in human rights.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

5

Billen: As in Santiago?

Kissinger: Santiago.

Billen: In '76.

Kissinger: Yes, Santiago. That was preceded by a speech in the Dominican Republic where I said similar things and followed by another speech in the fall, so this was not an isolated incident. I then spoke to the Chilean and the Argentine leaders in the language of diplomacy, which was 'it is in your self interest to improve your human rights performance, because otherwise it will be difficult for us to help you as we want to help you. And we do not want to overthrow you' - which implied the cut-off of aid. We thought the alternative to those governments was not democracy, but some radical terrorist or communist force. That was our strategy, and we pursued it quite consistently. By these methods we achieved the breakthrough to majority rule in Rhodesia, even though it then took three years to implement it. It was also the basis for Basket III - the human rights provision of the European Security Conference. I don't place any value judgement on this. It became very controversial because others wanted to achieve progress through the public retreat and, if necessary, humiliation of the leaders we were seeking to influence.

Billen: This is very different from the neocon idea of a moral crusade transforming a region into a democratic vision.

Kissinger: Yes. I don't agree with that if it relies on the use of force.

Billen: You don't agree with that? It strikes me, well, not only strikes me, strikes many people, it's a strange sort of Wilsonian exceptionalist doctrine being taken over by the right.

Kissinger: I believe that America has to stand for human values and democracy because this is an essential part of the American experience. But we should not appoint ourselves as the moral guardian or as the immediate transformer of every government by military pressure. We must leave something to history.

Billen: Time?

Kissinger: We should leave something more to time, and I think this aspect of the neoconservative view is very similar to the Trotskyite view, in the sense that many of them believe that foreign policy problems are really problems in the domestic structures, and if you can change those, the foreign policy problems will solve themselves automatically.

Billen: You believe in regional interests?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

6

[cc]

Kissinger: I believe one has to be more modest and that one has to take into account
the history, the culture and often the dignity of the country that's involved.

Billen: Which is the lesson of Vietnam.

Kissinger: That's a lesson, yes. Although Vietnam really didn't start as a crusade.

What happened in Vietnam was that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, which
placed 550,000 Americans there, attempted to apply the principles we had learned in
Europe of containment to circumstances that were radically different. They thought
South Vietnam was like central Europe and that a line could be drawn which could
then be defended, and we got ourselves into a guerrilla war and that overstrained our
domestic consensus.

Billen: How tight a grip on the American government do the neocons have now? How
influential are the Dick Cheneys and so on? The New American Century people.

Kissinger: Dick Cheney's not a neocon.

Billen: He signed the New American Century petition in the 90s.

Kissinger: Yes, but he's not basically a neocon. He is a conservative. The
distinguishing feature of neocon philosophy is that you can transform foreign policy
into a moral crusade and if you have achieved the requisite moral impetus, that this
will sweep foreign policy problems before them. I don't think that's exactly Cheney's
views. He would be more on the traditional conservative, nationalist wavelength.

Billen: Anybody else up there, Wolfowitz?

Kissinger: Wolfowitz is closer to the neoconservative view, but the major issue is not
one of personalities. The challenge that Bush will face, after re-election, is whether he
can help create, as America did in the late 1940s, an international system that is
relevant to the challenges of this period. It can't be dealt with in slogans, and you
cannot have a peaceful order which is not supported by a significant number of the
key countries because, otherwise, you're engaged in an indefinite police action, and
no country can sustain hegemony psychologically for an indefinite period.

Billen: And you said, well before the war, in April 2002, 'I question the value of
universal crusades because I think looking at it as an American they'll eventually go
beyond our capacity.' And it looks like Iraq already - it's threatening to look like that.
You've got a huge debt, you've got no go areas in the country, oil production is down
by two million barrels a day.

Kissinger: All of this may be true to some extent, but we cannot afford in Iraq to
repeat the experience of Vietnam of tearing ourselves apart. Because the conflict will

DR HENRY KISSINGER

7

not stop at the borders of Iraq, and the issues that drew us in will continue. The impact of a radical fundamentalist victory in Iraq on the Moslem world which would be catastrophic from Indonesia to Morocco - including countries like India. The impetus it would give to radical challenges to advanced societies would be enormous. And I think in their hearts most European leaders understand this and, until fairly recently, most European leaders thought we would prevail in some fashion without them and that they could participate in the second phase.

Billen: They're less sure now.

Kissinger: Less sure now, yes.

Billen: The problem is it's like Vietnam, isn't it? It's a double blow for America. It assails its moral leadership and it looks weaker than a super power should look.

Kissinger: But I have the unfashionable view that we did not need to lose in Vietnam.

Billen: Why not?

Kissinger: That's a very interesting question. The Nixon administration finally did try to do it in 1971, but by that time we had withdrawn American ground combat forces in Vietnam, and there were Congressional inhibitions against using airpower outside of the territorial limits of Vietnam -

Billen: Cambodia and so on?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

8

Kissinger: - so that it did not succeed, though it reduced the impact of the North Vietnamese offensive the following year. The South Vietnamese were not strong enough to do it by themselves.

Billen: So the lessons we learnt is, don't lose in Iraq? Don't lose this second war in Iraq now.

Kissinger: Yes, that is essential.

Billen: Even if it makes America unpopular still?

Kissinger: Well, I would think that after the election everybody can take another look, and we should then initiate a dialogue about the political evolution of Iraq rather than the question of military deployment and see what efforts can be shared in that enterprise. That can lead later on to a re-examination of the security question.

Billen: Do you think they can get these elections taking place in January?

Kissinger: They almost have to take place.

Billen: It's very hard to see how they're going to get ballot boxes in places they can't even get soldiers right now.

Kissinger: I'm assuming that there is some strategy for repeating what happened in Samara, in the other sanctuary cities.

Billen: I'm sorry, I'm just smiling because there doesn't seem to be much strategy for this peace, so called.

Kissinger: Well, we need it obviously. I think there now is a strategy.

Billen: The tragedy of it really, from the European perspective, is that President Bush failed to get a coalition beyond the willing. I think you've been involved in a group looking at how to repair European American relations.

Kissinger: Yes, I was the Chairman of a study group on repairing European-American relations.

Billen: Have you reported?

Kissinger: Yes, we've reported. It was, I believe, a constructive and conciliatory report, and it was also significant from the American point of view because about half of the group was sort of Clintonite Democrats and the other half were Republican, and we achieved a unanimous report while the rest of the country was very divided.

Billen: That's remarkable for these times.

Kissinger: And so I believe that something like this can and must be attempted after the election in relations with Europe.

Billen: A new institution of some sort?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

9

Kissinger: Some dialogue in which we restate the issues focusing on the political evolution of Iraq. If what I have said is correct, then, in the end, Europe will also be profoundly affected by the radicalisation of the Islamic world, in fact Europe will be more immediately affected, having a greater percentage of Moslems. And so I think that we should not be obsessed now with the debates of the moment concentrating on popularity. It is not true that all of Europe was opposed. Eastern Europe was not opposed to us, and many in western Europe participated. So when we talk about the dispute, we're talking about Germany, France, Belgium and a few other countries. Moreover, there is no resentment of that type in our relations with Russia, China, India, Japan. Over three-quarters of the human population. And the reason for the reaction in Europe is that many countries in Europe are in the process of giving up the concept of the state. And so here is the United States acting like a 19th century European state, which is what some of our European allies are trying to overcome. So that rings all the alarm bells. On the other hand, Europe can offer no clear-cut alternative yet as Europe.

Billen: So America's the new Germany or the new France.

Kissinger: Europe is torn between its past which it's trying to overcome and the future it hasn't built yet. So what you call unpopularity is not just caused by American statements; there are deeper reasons for it.

Billen: As always, you see a geo-political cause beneath the obvious.

Kissinger: There is a geopolitical, historical evolution. This is one of the great upheavals of history.

Billen: The easier thing is to say elect Kerry and then America has a fresh start in getting on with France and Germany.

Kissinger: It is absolutely out of the question that Kerry will get significant additional military support from Europe, and the attempt to get it will involve such a bitter controversy that paradoxically, in order to heal the supposed rift, one would recreate it. So he cannot achieve this raising the question whether he is presenting a plan for winning or an alibi for withdrawing. And, as I pointed out earlier, in the process of transition, so many new questions would be raised independent of his qualities, that this is not the right period for change in my view.

Billen: The President has not proved a brilliant diplomat though has he on the international stage?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

10

Kissinger: The President has an opportunity to emerge like Truman did in second term, and he has many of the qualities of Truman. So I think the opportunity exists. I even believe, based on some conversations with the President, that he understands this opportunity. Now can we implement it? Can we distil a common sense of direction from a dialogue between American impetuosity and European weariness? That is the question we'll have to settle. We can't do it alone.

Billen: You don't know him personally?

Kissinger: I know him, yes, not quite well. I have met him a few times.

Billen: He seems a persuasive man in talking to the American public through television. I just don't know whether he's any good one to one as a negotiator with other nations.

Kissinger: Presidents are not needed as negotiators. Presidents are needed to set objectives and to enable other countries to feel that these objectives are at least compatible, and hopefully more than that, with their own. Now this President is in a much stronger position to accomplish this. One of the weaknesses of our system is the process of transition because 5,000 jobs change hands.

Billen: Unlike in Britain.

Kissinger: There are months of security clearances as a practical matter. The Under Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries will not be in place fully until July, August. That's an irritant. So this President came in in 2001. By the time he had his team in place, he was immediately faced with an emergency that was unprecedented and traumatic. And it was bound to be felt more by Americans than by foreigners, however close, who could not understand the shock for Americans to realise that there were people so hostile that they were willing to commit suicide to do damage at great distances.

Billen: More understandable for Europe.

Kissinger: In Europe people have experienced hostility before. So all of this has to be understood in assessing the American reaction.

Billen: And assessing the President.

Kissinger: And in assessing the President.

Billen: Do you think, as some people now think, that unilateralism, American unilateralism is dead? I know you don't think it is unilateral entirely.

Kissinger: How does unilateralism arise? It emerges when a country feels that its fundamental national interest in some way cannot get support. Then it has to decide

DR HENRY KISSINGER

11

whether it prizes obtaining support so much that it will act against its own best
judgement and risks its security. But in the long term, if one created a vital
international system, such situations should not arise in that manner. If one reaches a
point where one says, for the sake of multilateralism we must deny ourselves our
security, the system will collapse. So, therefore, the question is can one give
multilateralism a definition that satisfies the basic requirements of the key countries?
Billen: Can you?

Kissinger: Well, look at the Cold War. If the principle that is now being advertised,
that you must have unanimity of the Security Council, had been applied in the Cold
War, no crisis would have been successfully dealt with. The only war that had United
Nations approval until the end of the Cold War was the Korean War, and that by a
fluke, because the Russian Ambassador was boycotting the Security Council over the
issue of Chinese admittance to the UN and nothing to do with this. So, is unilateralism
dead? I don't like unilateralism as a preferred course, but multilateralism can also turn
into an alibi for doing nothing. That's why the real debate should be about the content
of multilateralism.

Billen: Can I just ask you just three very quick questions slightly off subject.

Kissinger: I don't know if it's possible for me to give quick answers.

Billen: Are you still friends with and a supporter of Conrad Black, despite his recent
troubles?

Kissinger: I never give up friends. I am disappointed in many things I have learned
and saddened by them, but I consider my relations with Conrad Black friendly.

Billen: Are you still on the board of Hollinger?

Kissinger: I'm on the board because one has an obligation to help clean up the
situation. But that's independent of friendship.

Billen: You were pretty shocked by what happened?

Kissinger: I was surprised, yes.

Billen: Secondly, one reads all these stories about Chilean judges after you. Does this
ever restrict your movement internationally?

Kissinger: No. It hasn't. One reads constantly about cases. One never reads when they
are dismissed.

Billen: Have the been dismissed?

Kissinger: All the American cases have been dismissed.

Billen: Have they?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

12

Kissinger: And all the foreign cases - which were really not cases but requests for information - have been satisfied in the sense that the American government provided the answers these judges have asked for and that no new questions have been asked.

Billen: There were new papers released this year about South America. Do you fret about your posthumous reputation?

Kissinger: It's not my posthumous reputation that I fret about, it's the day to day coverage. You ought to remember this. I made available 30,000 telephone conversations. Only maybe less than ten of those produced controversy, even though I'm not short of traducers who are searching eagerly through them. If you analyse what they find, it is exactly what I've described here, that my approach to human rights relied on diplomacy and was attempted to be built into the geopolitics of the period. It was not a separate, frontal assault.

Billen: But was still there.

Kissinger: That was my approach. Now we can debate whether the right balance was always struck. But that's the essence, and it is totally unhistorical to pick one sentence out of office conversations and then not look at the other things that went on. And, at the time of these conversations, what had gone on was the occupation of Indochina and the taking over of Angola by Cuban troops within the previous twelve months, so that concern with stability in Latin America has to be seen in that context.

Billen: I bet you never thought at the time, 20, 30 years on people would be demanding your imprisonment.

Kissinger: A tiny minority. I'm not complaining. I had an opportunity to practice my hobby as my profession.

Billen: And you became the most famous man in the world.

Kissinger: I have no complaint, and I don't feel I'm being persecuted.

Billen: Don't you?

Kissinger: No.

Billen: You're on CNN and Fox and MSNBC all the time, aren't you? It's not as if you're a kind of pariah. You're still obviously highly respected.

Kissinger: I have no complaints. I mean, I have no basic complaints, there'd be plenty of minor complaints, but not for this interview.

Billen: At the height of your power and fame did you play up the kind of playboy image? Was it foisted on you by the press?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

13

Kissinger: It was unimaginable when it started, and it was sort of amusing while it lasted.

Billen: Was there a grain of truth in it?

Kissinger: Eventually somebody will write a biography and put everything into context.

Billen: Yes, I wonder who that will be?

Kissinger: I think Niall Ferguson is trying to do it.

Billen: I remember your old detractor Christopher Hitchens saying on the sex life stuff, the dirty little secret is that there wasn't one.

Kissinger: Who said this?

Billen: Christopher Hitchens.

Kissinger: I don't comment on that.

Billen: Well thank you very much indeed. I haven't heard explained so clearly your approach to human rights before. Grateful for it. And you'll be voting, but you won't say for whom.

Kissinger: I will vote for Bush.

Billen: But without saying anything to detract from his opponent

Kissinger: Since my voting residence is New York.

Billen: It wouldn't make much difference.

Kissinger: It will not be decisive.

Billen: Thank you very much indeed. What I can do is get a transcript of this, the whole thing and I could send it to you.

Kissinger: I would appreciate that. Would you let me tighten it up a little bit and if I wanted to add a sentence – and it will appear a week from Tuesday?

Billen: Yeah, I think probably a week on Tuesday. Howard Dean is the first one, next Tuesday.

Kissinger: How was he?

Billen: Strange, he now works from a small officer in Berlington, Vermont with about five helpers, three volunteers and he's clearly waiting to see what happens and I got the impression he might well be interested in having another go.

Kissinger: He won't get it. If Kerry doesn't make it, I think Hilary will.

Billen: He was a very strange politician, he kept saying I don't know or I haven't thought about that issue to me.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

14

Kissinger: But now are you going to use most of this or just the human rights part?

Billen: I'll use as much as I can to reflect the balance of the conversation.

Kissinger: That's what I would appreciate.

Billen: You look very well though. I read about your heart attack a few years ago and you seem fine.

Kissinger: Yes we were lucky we caught it at an early stage so there wasn't any significant damage to the heart.

(end of tape and interview)

Message

Theresa Cimino

**From:** Andrew Billen [andrew.billen@virgin.net]
**Sent:** Friday, October 15, 2004 10:34 AM
**To:** 'Theresa Cimino'
**Subject:** RE: Addition to Kissinger transcript

Dear Theresa

Thank you very much for this. I confirm receipt.

Andrew

-----Original Message-----

**From:** Theresa Cimino [mailto:tcimino@kmaglobal.com]
**Sent:** Friday, October 15, 2004 03:14
**To:** andrew.billen@thetimes.co.uk
**Cc:** andrew.billen@virgin.net
**Subject:** Addition to Kissinger transcript

Dear Mr. Billen:

As we discussed, below is the sentence that Dr. Kissinger would like to add, along with a few lines of the paragraph where it should go. This section was on page 12 of the edited transcript:

Billen: But was still there.

Kissinger: That was my approach. Now we can debate whether the right balance was always struck. But that's the essence, and it is totally unhistorical to pick one sentence out of office conversations and then not look at the other things that went on. INSERT: And, at the time of these conversations, what had gone on was the occupation of Indochina and the taking over of Angola by Cuban troops within the previous twelve months, so that concern with stability in Latin America has to be seen in that context.

Once again, I would greatly appreciate your confirming receipt of this message.

With many thanks for your assistance,
Sincerely,
Theresa Cimino
212/759-7919

10/15/2004

DR HENRY KISSINGER

With addition to p.12 HAK ¹
Called in in morning on 15th.

October 14, 2004

15

6/10/04

cut

DR HENRY KISSINGER

2

CJD

DR HENRY KISSINGER

3

Billen: Such as?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

4

Billen: Part of détente?

Kissinger: Yes. This remained our attitude. Now, every once in a while, they publish some comment I made about say Latin American violations of human rights. But you will find that it followed the same pattern. I made a public speech asserting our interest in human rights.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

5

Billen: As in Santiago?

Kissinger: Santiago.

Billen: In '76.

Billen: Time?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

6

CJ

DR HENRY KISSINGER

7

not stop at the borders of Iraq, and the issues that drew us in will continue. The impact
of a radical fundamentalist victory in Iraq on the Moslem world which would be
catastrophic from Indonesia to Morocco – including countries like India. The impetus
it would give to radical challenges to advanced societies would be enormous. And I
think in their hearts most European leaders understand this and, until fairly recently,
most European leaders thought we would prevail in some fashion without them and
that they could participate in the second phase.

Billen: Why not?

Kissinger: That's a very interesting question. The Nixon administration finally did try
to do it in 1971, but by that time we had withdrawn American ground combat forces
in Vietnam, and there were Congressional inhibitions against using airpower outside
of the territorial limits of Vietnam –

Billen: Cambodia and so on?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

8

Billen: Have you reported?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

9

[v]

DR HENRY KISSINGER

10

CYJ

Billen: Unlike in Britain.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

11

Billen: Can you?

Billen: Have they?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

12

Billen: But was still there.

Billen: Don't you?

Kissinger: No.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

13

Kissinger: Who said this?

Billen: Christopher Hitchens.

Kissinger: How was he?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

1

October 14, 2004

6/10/04

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DR HENRY KISSINGER

2

DR HENRY KISSINGER

3

Billen: Such as?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

4

Billen: Part of détente?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

5

Billen: As in Santiago?

Kissinger: Santiago.

Billen: In '76.

Billen: Time?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

6

DR HENRY KISSINGER

7

Billen: Why not?

Billen: Cambodia and so on?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

8

Billen: Have you reported?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

9

Billen: The President has not proved a brilliant diplomat though he has on the international stage?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

10

Billen: Unlike in Britain.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

11

Billen: Have they?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

12

[cc]

Billen: But was still there.

Billen: Don't you?

Kissinger: No.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

13

Kissinger: Who said this?

Billen: Christopher Hitchens.

Kissinger: I would appreciate that. Would you let me tighten it up a little bit and if I wanted to add a sentence - and it will appear a week from Tuesday?

Kissinger: How was he?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

October 13, 2004

6/10/04

Kissinger: Well, if you've worked it out, it must be that. I think it's a very important election and I think that also changing an administration in the middle of a war is a fateful decision. If you consider how the American system works it will mean substantial paralysis for three months in Washington and another period of reorganisation as the new administration establishes itself, and as foreign leaders descend on Washington to attempt to establish their priority. I support Bush on merit, but it is also an extremely awkward period for a transition.

cut

Kissinger: 9/11 was an attack on the state system as it had existed more or less intact since the Treaty of Westphalia. It was an attack by private groups, based on state territory for purposes that were unique to these private groups, so this represented a combination of private and state security threats. One of the purposes of these attacks, which have been escalating for a decade, was to demonstrate that the United States was incapable and unwilling to defend its interests. It was therefore necessary to demonstrate that an attack on the United States, or its friends, would have consequences of such magnitude that every state would have an interest in separating, to the greatest extent possible, from these terrorist groups and thereby gradually

DR HENRY KISSINGER

Kissinger: Yes, I was thinking like that from 9/11 on. Iraq was not a state that was actively involved in the specific 9/11 operation, but it was a state that contributed to the atmosphere out of which the hostility to America was being fed. It had the largest army in the region. It had violated the ceasefire with the United States of 1991 I think 17 times, certified by the United Nations. It had used weapons of mass destruction, and it was believed to possess weapons of mass destruction. These realities were not an invention of President Bush to justify what he intended to do. After all, President Clinton in 1998, in announcing the four-day aerial attack on Iraq, listed specific quantities of weapons of mass destruction which the administration he headed believed existed in Iraq. So, for all of these reasons, I thought there was a strategic reason to disarm Iraq and to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Kissinger: He had no reason to be uneasy about it, and for those of us who have some
experience in government, you can tell when the bureaucracy is uneasy by a
combination of body language or the sort of interjections like 'I wouldn't quite phrase
that this way,' that shows you there [are] some doubts. But nothing like that
happened.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

3

weapons of mass destruction as soon as sanctions were lifted. So, to me, weapons of mass destruction would not have been the principal objective.

Billen: The problem is, because of the –

Kissinger: I do not, as a general rule, believe that military intervention is justified if the only justification is abuse of human rights – though there is a limit beyond which I would support intervention.

Billen: Such as?

Kissinger: Because that was mass murder, resisting had no huge international consequences

Billen: I don't want to misrepresent you on human rights –

DR HENRY KISSINGER

Kissinger: Until the Nixon administration, human rights was not an aspect of American foreign policy. It was generally believed that was beyond the reach of diplomacy, and if you look at the American administrations since World War II, before the 1970s, there isn't one that conducted an active human rights policy in the present sense. Administrations of both parties considered the communist adversary too implacable and the emerging states too fragile to be appropriate targets for what emerged as human rights policies in the 1970s. As far as we were concerned in the Nixon administration, we believed that we should stand for human rights, but we also believed that we had other objectives and that that could not be our sole objective. Finally, we believed that our most effective way of dealing with human rights was to use the attraction of better relations with the United States as a means of influencing these governments. This was the approach when, starting in 1969, we promoted Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. We never made any public claim for that. We never took any credit for it in the elections that were taking place. We raised the emigration from 900 to 40,000, or close to 40,000 a year. Then it became a political issue and emigration declined.

Kissinger: It was the opposite. It was to give the Russians an avenue to improve relations with us. We didn't threaten the Russians. What we said to the Russians, almost verbatim, 'This is not something which we claim as a right to do. It is something, however, which we will notice and from which we will draw conclusions.'

Billen: Part of détente?

Kissinger: Yes. This remained our attitude. Now, every once in a while, they published some comment I made about say Latin American violations of human rights. But you will find that it followed the same pattern. I made a public speech asserting our interest in human rights.

Billen: As in Santiago?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

5

Kissinger: Santiago.

Billen: In '76.

Kissinger: Yes, Santiago. That was preceded by a speech in the Dominican Republic where I said similar things and followed by another speech in the fall, so this was not an isolated incident. I then spoke to the Chilean and the Argentine leaders in the language of diplomacy, which was 'it is in your self interest to improve your human rights performance, because otherwise it will be difficult for us to help you as we want to help you. And we do not want to overthrow you' - which implied the cut-off of aid. We thought the alternative to those governments was not democracy, but some radical terrorist or communist force. That was our strategy, and we pursued it quite consistently. By these methods we achieved the breakthrough to majority rule in Rhodesia, even though it then took three years to implement it. It was also the basis for Basket III - the human rights provision of the European Security Conference. I don't place any value judgement on this, I can only tell you that you should not be surprised [that] it was a part of our policy. It became very controversial because others wanted to achieve progress through the public retreat and, if necessary, humiliation of the leaders we were seeking to influence.

Kissinger: Yes. I don't agree with that.

Kissinger: I believe that America has to stand for human values and democracy because this is an essential part of the American experience. And I also do not think that we can appoint ourselves as the moral guardian or as the immediate transformer of every government by military pressure, so I would leave something more to history.

Billen: Time?

Kissinger: I would leave something more to time, and I think the neoconservative view is very similar to the Trotskyite view, in the sense that many of them believe that foreign policy problems are really problems in the domestic structures, and if you can change those, the foreign policy problems will solve themselves automatically.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

6

Kissinger: Yes, but he's not basically a neocon. He is a conservative. The neocon
philosophy is that you can transform foreign policy into a moral crusade and if you
have achieved the requisite moral impetus, that this will sweep away foreign
policy problems before them. I don't think that's exactly Cheney's views. He would
be more on the traditional conservative, nationalist wavelength.

Kissinger: Wolfowitz is closer to the neo-conservative view, but the major issue is not
one of personalities. The challenge that Bush will face, after re-election, is whether he
can help create, as we did in the late 1940s, an international system that is relevant to
this period. It can't be dealt with in slogans, and you cannot have a peaceful order
which is not supported by a significant number of the key countries because,
otherwise, you're engaged in an indefinite police action and no country can sustain
that psychologically.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

7

not stop at the borders of Iraq, and the issues that drew us in will continue. The impact of a radical fundamentalist victory in Iraq on the Middle world which would be catastrophic from Indonesia to Morocco. The impetus it would give - including countries like India - to radical challenges to advanced societies would be enormous. And I think in their hearts most European leaders understand this and, until fairly recently, most European leaders thought we would prevail in some fashion without them and that they could participate in the second phase.

Billen: Why not?

Kissinger: That's a very interesting question. The Nixon administration finally did try to do it in 1971, but by that time we had withdrawn American ground combat forces in Vietnam, and there were such Congressional inhibitions against using airpower outside of the territorial limits of Vietnam -

Billen: Cambodia and so on?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

8

Kissinger: Well, I would think that after the election everybody can take another look, and we should then initiate a dialogue about the political evolution of Iraq and the question of military deployment and see what efforts can be shared in that enterprise. That can lead later on to a re-examination of the security question.

Billen: Have you reported?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

9

Kissinger: Some dialogue in which we restate the questions focusing on the political evolution of Iraq. If what I have said is correct, then, in the end, Europe will also be profoundly affected by the radicalisation of the Islamic world, in fact Europe will be more immediately affected, having a greater percentage of Moslems. And so I think that we should not be obsessed now with the debates of the moment concentrating on popularity. It is not true that all of Europe was opposed. Eastern Europe was not opposed to us, and many in western Europe participated. So when we talk about the dispute, we're talking about Germany, France, Belgium and a few other countries.
Moreover, there is no resentment of that type in our relations with Russia, China, India, Japan. Over three-quarters of the human population. And the reason for the reaction in Europe is that many countries in Europe are in the process of giving up the concept of the state. And so here is the United States acting like a 19th century European state, which is what our allies are trying to overcome. So that rings all the alarm bells. On the other hand, Europe can offer no clear-cut alternative yet as Europe.

Kissinger: It is absolutely out of the question that Kerry will get significant additional military support from Europe, and the attempt to get it will involve such a bitter controversy that paradoxically, in order to heal the supposed rift, one would recreate it. So whatever Kerry [WORD MISSING], he cannot achieve this raising the question [WORD MISSING] whether he is presenting a plan for winning or an alibi for withdrawing. And, as I pointed out earlier, in the process of transition, so many new questions would be raised independent of his qualities, that this is not the right period for change in my view.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

Kissinger: The President has an opportunity to emerge like Truman did in second term, and he has many of the qualities of Truman, though Truman had concerned ~~himself more with history.~~ So I think the opportunity exists. I even believe, based on some conversations with the President, that he understands this opportunity. Now can we implement it? That is the question we'll have to settle. We can't do it alone.

Billen: Unlike in Britain.

Kissinger: How does unilateralism arise? It emerges when a country feels that its fundamental national interest in some way cannot get support. Then it has to decide whether it prizes obtaining support so much that it will act against its own best

DR HENRY KISSINGER

11

Billen: Can you?

Kissinger: Well, look at the Cold War. If the principle that is now being advertised, that you must have unanimity of the Security Council, had been applied in the Cold War, no crisis would have been successfully dealt with. The only war that had United Nations approval until the end of the Cold War was the Korean War, and that by a fluke, because the Russian Ambassador was boycotting the Security Council over the issue of Chinese admittance to the UN and nothing to do with this. So, is unilateralism dead? I don't like unilateralism as a principle and as a preferred course, but multilateralism can also turn into an alibi for doing nothing. That's why the real debate should be about the content of multilateralism.

Kissinger: I don't know if it's possible for me to [give] quick answers.

Billen: Have they?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

12

Kissinger: It's not my posthumous reputation that I fret about, it's the day to day newspaper coverage. You ought to remember this. I made available 30,000 telephone conversations. Only maybe less than ten of those produced controversy, even though I'm not short of traducers who are searching eagerly through them. If you analyse what they find, it is exactly what I've described here, that my approach to human rights relied on diplomacy and was attempted to be built into the geopolitics of the period. It was not a separate, frontal assault.

Billen: But was still there.

Kissinger: That was my approach. Now we can debate whether the right balance was always struck. But that's the essence, and it is a totally unhistorical approach to pick one sentence out of office conversations and then not look at the other things that went on.

Billen: Don't you?

Kissinger: No.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

13

Kissinger: Who said this?

Billen: Christopher Hitchins.

Kissinger: How was he?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

1

October 13, 2004

6/10/04

cut

DR HENRY KISSINGER

2

DR HENRY KISSINGER

3

Billen: Such as?

Kissinger: Because that was mass murder, resisting had no huge international consequences.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

4

[cc]

Kissinger: Until the Nixon administration, human rights was not an aspect of American foreign policy. It was generally believed that was beyond the reach of diplomacy, and if you look at the American administrations since World War II, before the 1970s, there isn't one that conducted an active human rights policy in the present sense. Administrations of both parties considered the communist adversary too implacable and the emerging states too fragile to be appropriate targets for what emerged as human rights policies in the 1970s. As far as we were concerned in the Nixon administration, I believed that we should stand for human rights. I also believed that we had other objectives and that that could not be our sole objective.

Finally, I believed that our most effective way of dealing with human rights was to use the attraction of better relations with the United States as a means of influencing these governments. This was the approach when, starting in 1969, we promoted Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. We never made any public claim for that. We never took any credit for it in the elections that were taking place. We raised the emigration from 900 to 40,000, or close to 40,000 a year. Then it became a political issue and emigration declined.

Kissinger: It was the opposite. It was to give the Russians an avenue to improve relations with us. We didn't threaten the Russians. What we said to the Russians, almost verbatim was, 'This is not something which we claim as a right to do. It is something, however, which we will notice and from which we will draw conclusions.'

Billen: Part of détente?

Billen: As in Santiago?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

5

Kissinger: Santiago.

Billen: In '76.

Billen: Time?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

6

Kissinger: Yes, but he's not basically a neocon. He is a conservative. The neocon
philosophy is that you can transform foreign policy into a moral crusade and if you
have achieved the requisite moral impetus, that this will sweep what appear as foreign
policy problems before them. I don't think that's exactly Cheney's views. He would
be more on the traditional conservative, nationalist wavelength.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

7

not stop at the borders of Iraq, and the issues that drew us in will continue. The impact
of a radical fundamentalist victory in Iraq on the Moslem world which would be
catastrophic from Indonesia to Morocco. The impetus it would give - including
countries like India - to radical challenges to advanced societies would be enormous.
And I think in their hearts most European leaders understand this and, until fairly
recently, most European leaders thought we would prevail in some fashion without
them and that they could participate in the second phase.

Kissinger: Well, this would get us into an endless discussion. You have the strange
situation that all supplies to Vietnam were coming through Laos over essentially
uninhabited territory. It was assigned to Laos in the 19th century for essentially
colonial reasons. There were sanctuaries along the Cambodian border from which
four Vietnamese divisions were killing American soldiers, yet the attempt to destroy
these sanctuaries is usually listed among the moral disabilities of the Nixon
administration. And nobody, until it was too late, attempted to cut the Ho Chi Minh
trail which would have made bombing unnecessary because it would have stopped
supplies, or forced a battle. Our dilemma in Vietnam was that our adversaries could
use the guerrilla forces to distract our main forces, and then their main forces could
operate. Or vice versa. So we could never apply the historic American strategy of
attrition because the enemy fought only when [it] wanted to. This would not have
been true in Laos. Now I did not advocate that at the time.

Billen: Why not?

Billen: Cambodia and so on?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

8

Kissinger: Well, I would think that after the election everybody can take another look, and we should then initiate a dialogue about the political evolution of Iraq and avoid the question of military deployment and see what efforts can be shared in that enterprise. That can lead later on to a re-examination of the security question.

Billen: Have you reported?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

9

Kissinger: It is absolutely out of the question that Kerry will get significant additional military support from Europe, and the attempt to get it will involve such a bitter controversy that paradoxically, in order to heal the supposed rift, one would recreate it. So whatever Kerry [WORD MISSING], he cannot achieve this raising the question [of] whether he is presenting a plan for winning or an alibi for withdrawing. And, as I pointed out earlier, in the process of transition, so many new questions would be raised independent of his qualities, that this is not the right period for change in my view.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

10

Kissinger: The President has an opportunity to emerge like Truman did in second term, and he has many of the qualities of Truman, though Truman had concerned himself more with history. So I think the opportunity exists. I even believe, based on some conversations with the President, that he understands this opportunity. Now can we implement it? That is the question we'll have to settle. We can't do it alone.

Billen: Unlike in Britain.

Kissinger: There are months of security clearances as a practical matter. The Under Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries will not be in place fully until July, August. That's an irritant. So this President came in in 2001. By the time he had his team in place, he was immediately faced with an emergency that was unprecedented and traumatic. And it was bound to be felt more by Americans than by foreigners, however close, who could not understand the shock for Americans to realise that there were people so hostile that they were willing to commit suicide. To do damage at great distances.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

11

Billen: Can you?

Billen: Have they?

DR HENRY KISSINGER

12

Billen: But was still there.

Billen: Don't you?

Kissinger: No.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

13

Kissinger: Who said this?

Billen: Christopher Hitchins.

Kissinger: How was he?

OCT-11-2004 14:15

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THE TIMES DR HENRY KISSINGER MEETSANDREW BILLEN

6/10/04

Kissinger: Well, if you've worked it out, it must be that. I think it's a very important election and I think that also changing an administration in the middle of a war is a fateful decision. If you consider how the American system works it will mean substantial paralysis for three months in Washington and another period of reorganisation as the new administration establishes itself, and as foreign leaders descend on Washington to attempt to establish their priority. So I support Bush on merit, but it is also an extremely awkward period for the transition.

cut

Kissinger: I have been in office during the Vietnam War so I will not knowingly contribute to creating another set of divisions like that.

Kissinger: 9/11 was an attack on the state system as it had existed more or less intact since the Treaty of Westphalia. It was an attack by private groups, based on state territory for purposes that were unique to these private groups, so this represented a combination of private and state security threats. One of the purposes of these attacks, which have been escalating for a decade, was to demonstrate that the United States was incapable and unwilling to defend its interests. It was therefore necessary to demonstrate that an attack on the United States, or its friends, would have consequences of such magnitude that every state would have an interest in separating, to the greatest extent possible, from these terrorist groups and thereby gradually reduce them to criminal bands. That was my view from the beginning. It is not an post facto analysis.

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2

Kissinger: No, I was thinking like that from 9/11 on. Iraq was not a state that was actively involved in the specific 9/11 operation, but it was a state that contributed to the atmosphere out of which the hostility to America was being fed. It was a country that had the largest army in the region. It had violated the ceasefire with the United States I think 17 times, certified by the United Nations. It had used weapons of mass destruction and it was believed to possess weapons of mass destruction, and that was not an invention of President Bush to justify what he indicated what he intended to do. After all President Clinton in 1998, in announcing the four or five-day attack on Iraq listed specific quantities of weapons of mass destruction which he then or the administration he headed, believed existed in Iraq. So for all of these reasons I thought there was a strategic reason to disarm Iraq and to overthrow this administration.

Kissinger: No, I couldn't. And nor did the President. I happened to be present about a month or six weeks before - no, more than that, two weeks before Powell testified. There was a meeting at the Pentagon of all Intelligence people and all Chiefs of Staff, plus four Cabinet members of previous administrations, including two Democratic ones, and Secretary Powell presented essentially what he was going to present to the United Nations and there was not a single dissenting view.

Kissinger: No, He had no reason to be uneasy about it, and for those of us who have some experience in government, you can tell when the bureaucracy is uneasy by a combination of body language or the sort of interjections like 'I wouldn't quite phrase that this way,' that shows you there's some doubts but nothing like that happened.

Kissinger: You see I'm not sure I would have come to a different conclusion even if there had been no stock piles. After all every report including the British Butler Report agrees that they were working on these weapons and that whatever the continuation of the Key Report, as it's called, pointed out that Saddam had given strict instructions to speed up the production of weapons of mass destruction as soon as sanctions were lifted. So to me that would not have been the principle goal, but it

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3

don't know what conclusions we would have come to had we had to monitor this from the beginning.

Kissinger: What one has to remember is the question really is, did the President knowingly present that there were weapons of mass destruction there and while being in doubt about this proceeded anyway? And I have no doubt about the fact that he sincerely believed that there were weapons there, nor did he have any reason to question it on the basis of anything that I have seen of intelligence estimates,

am conversely, admittedly probably incomplete what I have seen

Billen: Obviously there were ancillary reasons given for removing Saddam, including, his spectacular abuse of human rights. Was that any business of ours or America's?

Kissinger: I do not, as a general rule, believe that military intervention is justified if the only justification is abuse of human rights - though there is a limit beyond which I would support an intervention.

Billen: Such as?

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4

Kissinger: - but I would not have advocated it, nor did I ever advocate it, in Iraq on those grounds. But that was not the strategy I followed. I described earlier, Billen: A friend of mine who wrote a book about human rights pointed out to me that you'd said in Santiago in 1976, 'Human rights are the very essence of a meaningful life and human dignity the ultimate purpose of government. A government that tramples on the rights of its citizens denies the purpose of its existence.' Which sort of surprised me because you're not really known for standing up for human rights; unless it's in negotiation with the Russians.

Kissinger: Until the Nixon administration, human rights was not an aspect of American foreign policy. It was generally believed by many that, that was beyond the reach of diplomacy, and if you look at the American administrations since World War Two, there isn't one that conducted an active human rights policy. As far as we were concerned, in the Nixon administration, I believed that we should stand for human rights. I also believed that we had other objectives and that that could not be our sole objective. Finally I believed that our most effective way of dealing with human rights was to deal with the government and use the attraction of better relations with the United States as a means of influencing these governments, and therefore we started in 1969 to promote Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. We never made any public claim for that. We never took any credit for it in the elections that were taking place. We raised the emigration from 900 to 40,000, or close to 40,000. Then it became a political issue and went into the public arena. In 1972, in the present sense. Land was being stiled. This was the approach we took. We raised the emigration a year ago. And now the question is, what was something you felt strongly about. We also negotiated.

Kissinger: No, it was the opposite. It was to give the Russians an avenue to improve relations with us. We didn't threaten the Russians. What we said to the Russians, almost verbatim was, 'This is not something which we claim as a right to do. It is something, however, which we will notice and from which we will draw conclusions.'

Billen: Part of détente?

Kissinger: Yes. Now this remained our attitude. Now every once in a while they published some comment I made about say Latin American violations of human rights. But you will find that it followed the same pattern. I made a public speech asserting our interest in human rights.

Billen: As in Santiago?

Kissinger: Santiago.

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Billen: In '76.

Kissinger: Yes, Santiago. That was preceded by a speech in the Dominican Republic where I said similar things and followed by another speech in the Fall so this was not an isolated incident. I then spoke to Dinochet and to the Argentine leaders in the language of diplomacy, which was 'it is in your self interest to do this, because otherwise it will be difficult for us to help you as we want to help you. And we genuinely do not want to overthrow you, because we thought the alternative to those governments was not democracy, but some radical terrorist or communist force. That was our strategy and we pursued it quite consistently. We achieved the breakthrough to majority rule in Rhodesia, it then took three years to implement it, but we got in Smith but we always did it without what is now the standard method of the NGOs. I don't place any value judgement on this, I can only tell you that it was not surprising that it was a part of our policy, though it became very controversial because others wanted us to put it at the forefront of our concerns and achieve it through the public retreat and if necessary humiliation of the people we were seeking to influence.

Kissinger: I believe that America has to stand for human values and democracy because this is an essential part of the American experience. And I also do not think that we can appoint ourselves as the moral guardian of - I don't want to say moral guardian - as the immediate transformer of every government by pressure, so I would leave something more to history.

Billen: Time?

Kissinger: I would leave something more to time and I think the neoconservative view is very similar to the Trotskyite view, in the sense that many of them believe there are no real foreign policy problems. There are problems in the domestic structures and if you can change those the foreign policy problems will solve themselves automatically.

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6

Kissinger: I don't believe that. I believe one has to be more modest and that one has to take into account the history, the culture and often the dignity of the country that's involved.

Kissinger: That's a lesson, yes. Although in Vietnam, what happened in Vietnam really didn't start as a crusade. What happened in Vietnam was that we attempted to apply the principles we had learned in Europe of containment to circumstances that were radically different and that we thought South Vietnam was like central Europe and that a line could be drawn which could then be defended and we got ourselves into a peoples' war. Into a guerrilla war and that overstrained our domestic consensus.

Kissinger: Yes, but he's not basically a neocon. He is a conservative. The neocon philosophy is that you can transform foreign policy into a moral crusade and if you have achieved the requisite moral impetus, that this will sweep what appear as foreign policy problems before them. I don't think that's exactly Cheney's views: He would be more on the traditional conservative, nationalist wavelength.

Kissinger: Wolfowitz is closer to the neo-conservative view but the major issues is that they have demonised a number of people and think that they are a pernicious influence. The challenge that Bush will face, after re-election, is whether he can help create, as we did in the late 40s, a system that is relevant to this period. It can't be dealt with in slogans and you cannot have a peaceful order which is not supported by a significant number of the key countries, because otherwise you're engaged in an indefinite police action and no country can sustain that psychologically.

Kissinger: All of this may be true to some extent but we cannot afford in Iraq to repeat the experience of Vietnam of tearing ourselves apart. Because the conflict will not

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DR HENRY KISSINGER

7

stop at the borders of Iraq and the issues that drew us in will continue, the impact of a
radical fundamentalist victory in Iraq on the Moslem world which would be
catastrophic from Indonesia to Morocco. The impetus it would give - including
countries like India - the impetus it would give to radical challenges to advanced
societies would be enormous. And I think in their hearts most European leaders
understand this and until fairly recently most European leaders thought we would
prevail in some fashion without them and that they could participate in the second
phase.

Kissinger: Well this would get us into an endless discussion. You have the strange
situation that all supplies to Vietnam were coming through Laos over essentially
uninhabited territory. It was assigned to Laos in the 19th century for essentially
colonial reasons. There were sanctuaries along the Cambodian border from which
four Vietnamese divisions were killing American soldiers, yet the attempt to destroy
these sanctuaries is usually listed among the moral disabilities of the Nixon
administration. And nobody, until it was too late, attempted to cut the Ho Chi-Minh
trail which would have made bombing unnecessary because it would have stopped
supplies, or forced a battle. Our dilemma in Vietnam was that they could use the
guerrilla forces to distract our main forces and then their main forces could operate.
Or vice versa. So we could never apply the American strategy, historical strategy of
attrition because they fought only when they wanted to. This would not have been true
in Laos. Now I did not advocate that at the time.

Billen: Why not?

Kissinger: That's a very interesting question. We finally did try to do it in 1971, but by
that time we no longer had American ground combat forces in Vietnam and there
were such Congressional inhibitions against using airpower outside of the territorial
limits of Vietnam -

Billen: Cambodia and so on?

OCT-11-2004

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DR HENRY KISSINGER

Kissinger: So that it did not succeed. The South Vietnamese were not strong enough to do it, but conceptually it would be hard to argue that it would not have succeeded.

Kissinger: Well, I would think that after the election everybody can take another look and we should then have a dialogue about the political evolution of Iraq and avoid the question of military deployment and see what efforts can be shared in that enterprise, and then that can lead later on to a re-examination of the security question.

Kissinger: Well, they almost have to take place over there.

Kissinger: Well, I'm assuming that they must have some strategy for repeating what happened in Samara, in the other cities.

Kissinger: Well, we need it obviously. I think they now have a strategy.

Billen: Have you reported?

Kissinger: Yes, we've reported, and I can give you a copy, and it was, I believe, a constructive report and a conciliatory report and it was also significant from the American point of view because about half of the group was sort of Clintonite Democrats and the other half more or less they were Republican and we achieved a unanimous report, while the rest of the country was very divided.

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Kissinger: Some dialogue in which we restate the question don't ask support for military operations, but rather learn how allies view the political evolution of Iraq. If what I have said is correct, then in the end Europe will also be profoundly affected by the radicalisation of the Islamic world, in fact Europe will be more immediately affected, having more Moslem citizens, a greater percentage of Moslems. And so I think that we should not be obsessed now with the debates of the moment. We also not true that all of Europe was opposed. Eastern Europe was not opposed to us and many in western Europe participated to the limits of their abilities that were not infinite. So when we talk about the dispute we're talking about Germany, France, Belgium and a few other countries, that are very important and we would far prefer their respect. And that's another thing to be considered. The problem is, in western Europe, there is no resentment of that type in our relations with Russia, China, India, Japan. Over three quarters of the human population. And the reason, there are many reasons, but Europe, or many countries in Europe, are in the process of giving up the concept of the state. And so here is the United States acting like a 19th century European state which is what they're trying to overcome. So that rings all the alarm bells. On the other hand Europe can offer no clear cut alternative yet as Europe.

Kissinger: Because it is torn between its past which it's trying to overcome and the future it hasn't built yet. So this is not just caused by American statements, there are deeper reasons for it.

Kissinger: I think there is a geopolitical, historical evolution. This is one of the great upheavals of history.

Kissinger: I didn't want to get into personalities, but I can make a safe comment. It is absolutely out of the question that Kerry will get significant additional military support from Europe and the attempt to get it will involve such a bitter controversy that paradoxically, in order to heal the alleged rift, or the supposed rift, one would recreate it. So whatever Kerry may or may not achieve he cannot achieve this. And as I pointed out earlier in the process of transition, so many new questions would be raised independent of his qualities, that this is not the right period for change in my view.

Word missing?

OCT-11-2004

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Kissinger: The President has an opportunity to ~~I~~ would say a necessity, but certainly an opportunity ~~to~~ to emerge like Truman did in second term and he has many of the qualities of Truman, though Truman had concerned himself more with history. So I think the opportunity exists. I even believe, based on some conversations ~~that~~ were the realises this opportunity. Now can we implement it? That is the question we'll have to settle. We can't do it alone.

Billen: Has he the skills to do it?

Kissinger: No, he hasn't. I mean I'm an outsider.

Kissinger: I know him, yes, I know him quite well. Not quite well, I see him a few times.

Kissinger: Presidents are not needed as negotiators. Negotiators compose [222] differences. Presidents are needed to set objectives and to enable other countries to feel that these objectives are at least compatible, and hopefully more than that, with their own. Now this President, they have to keep well, one of the weaknesses of our system is the process of transition because 5,000 jobs change hands.

Billen: Unlike in Britain.

Kissinger: There are months of security clearances as a practical matter. The Under Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries will not be in place fully until July, August. That's an irritant. So this President came in in 2001. By the time he had his team in place he was immediately faced with an emergency that was absolutely unprecedented and traumatic. And it was bound to be felt more by Americans than by foreigners, however close, and especially foreigners could not understand the shock for Americans to realise that there were people so hostile that they were willing to commit suicide. To do damage at great distances.

OCT-11-2004

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Kissinger: We have to bring this to a conclusion.

Billen: I'd beg you another five minutes for me if possible.

Kissinger: I don't accept this distinction between unilateralism and multilateralism. How does unilateralism arise? It emerges when a country feels that its fundamental national interest is in some way alone and it cannot get support. Then it has to decide whether it prizes the value whether it prizes obtaining support so much that it will act against its own best judgement and risks its security. But in the long term, if one created a vital international system such situations should not arise in that manner. If one reaches a point where one says, for the sake of multilateralism we must deny ourselves our security it will collapse, the system will collapse. So therefore the question is can one give multilateralism a definition that satisfies the basic requirements of the key countries?

Billen: Can you?

Kissinger: Well, look at the Cold War. If the principle that is now being advertised, that you must have unanimity of the Security Council had been applied in the Cold War, no crisis would have been dealt with. The only war that had United Nations approval until the end of the Cold War was the Korean War, and that by a fluke, because the Russian Ambassador was boycotting the Security Council over the issue of Chinese admittance to the U.N. and nothing to do with this. So is unilateralism dead? I don't like unilateralism as a principle and as a preferred course, but only the real debate multilateralism can also turn into an alibi for doing nothing, and that's what we should try to give content to.

Kissinger: I don't know if it's possible for me to be quick answers.

Kissinger: Well, I'm on the board because one has an obligation to help clean up the situation. But that's independent of friendship.

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Kissinger: No. It hasn't. One reads constantly about cases abroad: One never reads when they are dismissed.

Billen: Have they?

Kissinger: And all the other cases have been satisfied in the sense that the American government provided the answers these judges have asked for and that no new questions have been asked.

Kissinger: It's not my posthumous reputation that I fret about, it's the day to day newspaper coverage. You ought to remember this. I made available 30,000 telephone conversations. Only maybe less than ten of those produced controversy even though I'm not short of traducers who are searching eagerly through them. If you analyse what they find it is exactly what I've described here. That my approach to human rights depended on diplomacy and was attempted to be built into the diplomacy and geopolitics. It was not a separate, frontal assault.

Billen: But was still there.

Kissinger: That was my approach. Now we can debate this, but that's the essence, and if you read it from this point of view it is a totally unhistorical approach to pick office conversations and pick one sentence out of that conversation and then not look at the speeches that have been made at the other things that went on, so I'm relaxed about this.

Kissinger: Yes, but I'm not complaining. I had an opportunity to practice my hobby as my profession.

Kissinger: I have no complaint and I don't feel I'm being persecuted.

Billen: Don't you?

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Kissinger: No.

Kissinger: I'm being treated respectfully. I have no complaints. I mean I have no basic complaints, there'd be plenty of minor complaints, but not for this interview.

Kissinger: It was unimaginable when it started and it was sort of amusing while it lasted.

Kissinger: I think Neil Ferguson has tried to do it.

Billen: I remember your old detractor Christopher Hitchin saying on the sex life stuff, the dirty little secret is that there wasn't one.

Kissinger: Who said this?

Billen: Christopher Hitchins.

Kissinger: Well no, I vote for Bush.

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Kissinger: How was he?

Billen: Strange, he now works from a small officer in Berlington Vermont with about five helpers, three volunteers and he's clearly waiting to see what happens and I got the impression he might well be interested in having another go.

Kissinger: He won't get it. If Kerry doesn't make it I think Hilary will.

(end of tape and interview)

DR HENRY KISSINGER

6/10/04

Kissinger: Well, if you've worked it out, it must be that. I think it's a very important election and I think that also changing an administration in the middle of a war is a fateful decision. If you consider how the American system works it will mean substantial paralysis for three months in Washington and another period of reorganisation as the new administration establishes itself, and as foreign leaders descend on Washington to attempt to establish their priority. So it is – I support Bush on merit, but it is also an extremely awkward period for the transition.

cut

Kissinger: I have been – I was in office during the Vietnam War so I will not knowingly contribute to creating another set of divisions like that.

DR HENRY KISSINGER

2

Kissinger: No, I was thinking like that from 9/11 on. Iraq was not a state that was actively involved in the specific 9/11 operation, but it was a state that contributed to the atmosphere out of which the hostility to America was being fed. It was a country that had the largest army in the region. It had violated the ceasefire with the United States I think 17 times, certified by the United Nations. It had used weapons of mass destruction and it was believed to possess weapons of mass destruction, and that was not an invention of President Bush to justify what he indicated what he intended to do.
After all President Clinton in 1998, in announcing the four or five-day attack on Iraq listed specific quantities of weapons of mass destruction which he then, or the administration he headed, believed existed in Iraq. So for all of these reasons I thought there was a strategic reason to disarm Iraq and to overthrow this adversary.

Kissinger: No, I couldn't. And nor did the President. I happened to be present about a month or six weeks before – no, more than that – two weeks before Powell testified.

Kissinger: No. He had no reason to be uneasy about it, and for those of us who have some experience in government, you can tell when the bureaucracy is uneasy by a combination of body language or the sort of interjections like 'I wouldn't quite phrase that this way,' that shows you there's some doubts, but nothing like that happened.

Kissinger: You see I'm not sure I would have come to a different conclusion even if there had been no stock piles. After all every report including the British Butler Report agrees that they were working on these weapons and that whatever the continuation of the Kay Report, as it's called, pointed out that Saddam had given strict instructions to speed up the production of weapons of mass destruction as soon as sanctions were lifted. So to me that would not have been the principle goal, but I