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Full-text: November 16 1997

This Week
with Sam Donaldson
& Cokie Roberts

The Iraq Situation

ABC News, This Week
(Sunday, November 16 1997, 11:30am EST)

Hosts:  Cokie Roberts, Sam Donaldson

Guest:  William S. Cohen (U.S. Secretary of Defense)

 

Cokie Roberts: Welcome, Secretary of Defense William Cohen.

William Cohen: Pleasure to be here.

Cokie Roberts: And joining us, as always, in the questioning, George Will.

Secretary Cohen, we just heard Jack McWethy talk about a window opening for U-2 flights to go over Iraq starting this evening.

Will they?

William Cohen: Well, that’s up to the UN, of course. This is a UN flight, not a U.S. flight. It’s a U.S. aircraft but flying under a UN banner.

And so the United Nations’ UNSCOM, the UN special inspection team as such and the special commission, will make that determination.

But that certainly is the time frame in which the U-2 could fly and should fly.

Cokie Roberts: Should fly because with the inspectors out, what could he be doing?

William Cohen: It becomes all the more important now that the inspectors on the ground have been evicted as such to have some oversight capability from the air. The U-2 provides that capability.

For example, I can show a number of slides here to indicate what has taken place following the Persian Gulf War when Iraq was driven out of Kuwait.

The United Nations decided that he must get rid of all of his biological and chemical weapons.

Now we discovered — the United Nations discovered — that he had immense amounts on hand.

We discovered, for example, that this is a facility that was producing — that was, in fact, producing — biological and chemical weapons that had evaded the initial discovery by the inspectors.

Now once that was discovered with the help of overhead capability—

Cokie Roberts: And this was just last year?

William Cohen: This was back in 1996 in which this was destroyed.

So, that facility that went undetected initially has been destroyed.

They have destroyed enormous amounts of chemical and biological weapons.

It’s important when we talk about weapons of mass destruction that we translate into something that the American people, and hopefully, the world community can understand.

For example, when we talk about Anthrax—

Anthrax—

If you took a five-pound bag of sugar and accept—

Call this Anthrax.

This amount of Anthrax could be spread over a city—

Let’s say the size of Washington.

It would destroy at least half the population of that city.

If you had even more amounts—

Sam Donaldson: Am I correct—

William Cohen: If you had more amounts of Anthrax—

Let me just get to this point—

One of the things we found with Anthrax is that one breath and you are likely to face death within five days.

One small particle of Anthrax would produce death within five days.

VX is a nerve agent.

One drop from this particular thimble as such—

One single drop will kill you within a few minutes.

Cokie Roberts: Would you put that bag down please.

William Cohen: Now I want to point out — I will spill it on the table — point out that he has had enormous amounts—

And I’d like to go to some of the lies that have been told about this.

Because originally—

If we could look at this particular chart, the original declaration of Iraq, he said he had small quantities of nerve agent for research.

We found almost four tons of VX — that little vial I just showed you — four tons of it.

He said he had no—

Cokie Roberts: Could wipe out populations of whole countries.

William Cohen: Millions, millions, if it were properly dispersed and through aerosol mechanisms and so forth.

He said he had no offensive biological weapons program.

We found 2,100 gallons of anthrax — that little pound of sugar here that I showed you — had 2,100 gallons of that.

He said he had only 49 combat-ready missiles.

We found at least triple that number.

Sam Donaldson: But what are—

William Cohen: These are things that we have had to contend with—

Sam Donaldson: What I was going to ask you was:

Tariq Aziz, their foreign minister, says if they have these things, they were manufactured before the Gulf War {1991}.

True?

William Cohen: Well, they were manufactured before the Gulf War.

And we want to—

Sam Donaldson: But his point seemed to be that after the Gulf War, they had stopped their manufacture.

William Cohen: Well, there’s only one, very important point to make in response to this.

Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, defected — it was a very prudent thing for him to do — back in 1995, revealing that they were successful in hiding the facilities that were in fact producing these types of — the anthrax and VX and sarin gas.

He made that very imprudent mistake of going back to Iraq, and he was of course executed there by his father-in-law.

So I think what we’re seeing here is—

Because the UN team has been on the ground inspecting these facilities, we are inhibiting his ability to reconstitute the manufacture of these deadly gases and weapons.

George Will: You just showed a picture of those shiny vials — tubs, I guess.

It looks like a brewery for weapons of mass destruction.

Suppose we bombed that—

How do you bomb a situation like that without creating a hideous catastrophe in the country?

William Cohen: Well, in fact, that was destroyed.

That facility was in fact destroyed by UNSCOM in a way that minimized any possible damage to innocent people—

George Will: That’s one thing, to destroy it on the ground in controlled circumstances.

But is this not an inhibition on our use of air power to destroy such weapons?

William Cohen: Well, of course, I wouldn’t discuss what range of targets might be used in the future if military power ever became necessary to exercise.

As you’ve heard from your lead-in stories, we’re seeking every way we can to solve this diplomatically, and that means the objective is to get people back on the ground so they can inspect these and destroy these as they come across them.

Sam Donaldson: But you and the president have both, I think, made the point rather forcefully that if it can’t be solved diplomatically, we do intend to solve it.

We do intend require him to comply.

William Cohen: We are going to seek to solve this problem diplomatically.

We’ve not ruled any option in or out.

But if we have to—

Cokie Roberts: What would be a diplomatic solution?

William Cohen: A diplomatic solution would be if all of our allies, all of the members of the United Nations, including all the key members of the Security Council, were to isolate Saddam Hussein and say you must comply, otherwise there will be additional sanctions, there will be additional pressures to bear, you will not ever achieve the keys to economic liberation, as long as you bar these inspectors from your soil.

So I think there are additional pressures that can be brought, provided there is—

(crosstalk)

Sam Donaldson: Let him finish his sentence about what if in fact — no, no, that’s fine.

But what if in fact you can’t solve it diplomatically.

At what point down the road do we have to take action?

William Cohen: Well, I think that the president has indicated that we will — intend to be flexible in terms of patient in trying to achieve this.

But patience, as I’ve indicated, is a virtue, but it’s not infinite.

Sam Donaldson: If I may, Mr. Secretary, I was looking over the record, and it surprised me — a lot of things surprise me.

But since the end of the Gulf War in 1991, we have delivered firepower against Saddam Hussein eight times.

I thought it would be two or three.

And after eight times, he hasn’t gotten the message.

He shrugs it off.

Bombing him, clearly, doesn’t do any good.

William Cohen: Well, but the fact of the matter is that each time there has been a military response, he has gotten back further into the box that he currently is in.

We’ve extended the no-fly zone by way of example.

We have really contained him.

And that has been our policy, to contain his ability, number one, to threaten his neighbors, and number two, to destroy any remnants of the offensive biological-chemical weapons capability that he has.

And you can only do that by constant monitoring, searching on the ground.

The satellites, the U-2s, all can be helpful into providing complementary types of monitoring, but you have to have people on the ground.

George Will: It is our position, I gather, that we do not need additional UN authorization to use force, that we already have that.

Now, Kuwait, for example, has said this is a dispute between Iraq and the Security Council. Kuwait has nothing to do with it.

With that coming from, one would have thought, the most wary of the nations in the region, what are the chances of us having any other support?

Deal particularly with Turkey and Saudi Arabia—

William Cohen: Well, they—

George Will: —with their support.

William Cohen: First of all, all of his neighbors, to the extent that Saddam Hussein enjoys any celebrityhood — and that’s questionable — it is a product of fear and not of love.

All of his neighbors in the region, I think, are fearful of what Saddam Hussein has done in the past and apprehensive of what he might do in the future.

We intend to intensify that apprehension on their part by showing it’s not invasion of Kuwait, it’s not invasion of Saudi Arabia that’s on the horizon.

What is on the horizon is anthrax, VX, sarin, and other types of weapons of mass destruction.

I have been in contact with my counterparts in that region, and in Europe as well, and I have found very strong support, notwithstanding any statements that you have just reported.

I have found strong support for our actions in the Gulf.

George Will: There’s a sense that a flash point might be if he tried to shoot down the U-2.

The sense, I gather, is that U-2s fly too high for his missiles to get to.

Will there be—

William Cohen: Not necessarily

George Will: Well, good. Point one.

Second, will be there U.S. fighters accompanying the U-2 flying at a lower altitude?

William Cohen: Well, again, that’s an operational detail I wouldn’t care to discuss in a public forum.

We believe that the U-2 can fly in a manner that is reasonably safe.

No one can assure the absolute safety of the pilot or that aircraft.

What I have said and what we mean is that any attempt on the part of Saddam Hussein to attack that aircraft or that pilot will be met with a very substantial response.

Cokie Roberts: Mr. Secretary, given how dangerous you’ve painted this picture, and the fact that having inspectors on the ground is so important, was it wise for the UN to withdraw all those inspectors when the United States inspectors were evicted?

William Cohen: Absolutely.

I probably need not to quote from Martin Niemöller, who pointed out back during the past that in Germany

First, it will be kick the Americans out. Then he’ll be unsatisfied or dissatisfied with the British. Then he doesn’t like the Australians. Then it will be the Swedes or the Swiss or whatever one of 40 countries might be involved.

He, being a parolee, is not in a position to determine who his probation officers are going to be and what their composition is.

He is on parole.

The probation officer’s determined by the United Nations — not by Saddam Hussein.

Cokie Roberts: We’re going to stop here for just a minute, Mr. Secretary, and take a little break. But then we’ll be back with the secretary of defense.

(Commercial Break)

Sam Donaldson: We’re back, with Defense Secretary William Cohen.

Mr. Secretary, during the Gulf War we prevailed on Israel not to make a unilateral response, and Israel didn’t although Scuds hit Israel.

Saddam Hussein is thought to have, what? 20 Scuds? 50 Scuds?

William Cohen: He has a number of Scuds. The precise number is yet undetermined because he’s been successful in hiding some of them.

Sam Donaldson: Well, I assume the assumption is that if he decides to loose them with the Anthrax, with the other chemical agents you’ve talked about—

William Cohen: We’ve discovered, as a matter of fact, that he did have Anthrax in the warheads of the Scud missiles. UNSCOM inspectors did discover that. So this is not something that just—

Sam Donaldson: You mean in 1991?

William Cohen: After 1991 with the UN inspectors going in, they discovered that he had warheads that did contain Anthrax and was prepared obviously to use them if he thought it necessary to do so.

Sam Donaldson: Well, I’m coming now to the present time.

William Cohen: Right.

Sam Donaldson: If he looses Scuds, it would probably be against Israel with these awful weapons.

William Cohen: Well, not necessarily because we also found after 1991 that he was trying to acquire a capability of launching a missile that had a range of 3,000 kilometers, which can run all the way from Baghdad to Paris.

Now I assume that he was trying to extend the range even further and possibly hit parts of the United States.

So it’s not simply confined.

And what I’m trying to make the point is, it’s not confined to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, that part of the world.

This is a global threat, potentially, that he is seeking to generate.

Sam Donaldson: Trying to extend the range—

Do we have any intelligence estimate which says that he may have perfected some sort of missile, however crude, that could reach the United States?

William Cohen: What I indicated is we found that he was trying to develop a missile and would have, if not impeded from doing so, had a missile with a 3,000-kilometer range.

Sam Donaldson: Before I turn it over, George, I just want to finish this line of questioning.

Have we said to Israel, “please do not respond”?

Or isn’t likely that if Israel is hit, Israel’s going to respond with a massive retaliation.

Some people have even suggested perhaps using nuclear weapons.

William Cohen: I don’t think we should make any kind of assumption whatsoever.

We’re going to pursue the diplomatic strategy as long as we can.

We will continue to seek a peaceful resolution, and I don’t think we should speculate on who is going to be in any kind of a conflict.

I think it’s way premature.

George Will: Critics of our policy say we’re not giving the Iraqis any incentive to change because we’re insisting affect on the suicide of the regime.

Is it our policy to contain Saddam Hussein or remove him?

William Cohen: It is our policy to contain Saddam Hussein, to prevent him from threatening his neighbors by moving South into Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, from developing these weapons of mass destruction.

And that is the purpose of the sanctions, not to remove him.

George Will: Secretary Albright has said he has a ticket out of the sanctions, which have cost him a $100,000 billion in lost revenues, and he won’t take that ticket.

Now, what does that tell you?

He’s allowed his conventional forces to be degraded.

That tells us he’s willing to sacrifice anything for these weapons.

William Cohen: It tells you that he has very little regard for the welfare of his people, that he has virtually no compassion.

If he had any, he would not be either encouraging them or allowing them to start occupying his palatial residences.

So I think it’s clear from his past conduct that he has no compunction above the welfare of his citizens.

George Will: There was a published report this week that a third of the Iraqi army is AWOL, and 17 percent of the Republican Guards are AWOL, indicating a comprehensive degeneration of his forces.

First of all, are those reports plausible?

William Cohen: I really don’t have anyway of verifying those reports.

They could be plausible, but again, I tried to point out Saddam Hussein rules by fear and not be loyalty or—

George Will: But if — if he is putting all his eggs in this basket of mass destruction, who’s the enemy he’s arming against?

William Cohen: I think there’s no way to define who the enemy is.

He has picked out Kuwait as an enemy in the past.

Obviously, Saudi Arabia could be potential target.

Israel could be on the list.

Anyone who would oppose his particular attempt to dominate the region.

Iran has been a source of friction and a source of conflict in the past.

I would say that he has not ruled out attacking anyone.

He set over 500 oil wells and fields on fire, threatening to pollute the atmosphere.

So I don’t think that you could say that there’s one enemy.

George Will: When the inspectors say — and I’m sure they’re right — that they have destroyed more weapons than were destroyed by the bombing during the Gulf War, there’s a down side to that.

It indicates that 88,000 thousand tons of bombs over 43 days didn’t destroy that much.

Does that indicate that there are severe limits that he’s aware of as to what we can do without inspectors?

William Cohen: There are always limitations upon air power as such, but I might point out, we try to be as discreet as possible even though the bombing was substantial.

We tried to minimize what we call collateral damage to innocent people, and so you cannot accomplish everything by air.

That’s the reason why we’re trying to get the inspectors on the ground.

George Will: With the matter of this collateral damage and being discreet, will human shields work?

That is, if he puts human beings around targets, will we say they’re off limits?

William Cohen: Well, I tried to indicate before, I thought it was really inhumane of him to allow any of his women and children and civilians to occupy positions that might expose him to those harmful toxins.

George Will: It’s inhumane, but is it effective?

William Cohen: I wouldn’t rule out any discussion of any target.

I think one of the maxims is that you never disclose what you’re willing to do in face of an adversary and you won’t disclose what your unwilling to do.

Cokie Roberts: Let me just ask this, though.

You said if he shot down U-2, we’d respond.

William Cohen: Yes.

Cokie Roberts: Now you have Tariq Aziz saying in an interview with Time Magazine that there might be sympathetic to Baghdad terrorists operating in the United States and committing acts of terrorism.

And the official newspaper in Iraq calling on Iraqis and other sympathizers to attack U.S. and British facilities.

If that happens, what’s the response?

William Cohen: Well, first of all, the best way to ensure that terrorism will continue will be to have a policy of appeasement.

I think that the message will be to Baghdad — as it has been in the past — any support of terrorist actions against U.S. citizens will be met with rather overwhelming response.

There have been words like this in the past.

To the extent they’re carried out, there will be a penalty that will have to be paid.

Cokie Roberts: But that question of overwhelming response, which George was getting at—

We keep talking about going in with air power and more air power and maybe more air power.

But at some point, does it require people going in on the ground to really get these weapons? Or alternatively, get Saddam?

William Cohen: I don’t think we have to face that particular option at this point.

I think we’re going to continue to pursue the diplomatic option and see if we can’t exhaust all diplomatic possibilities and then we can face up to what needs to be done.

Sam Donaldson: But how far does this take us?

And I mean by that, is there a time limit?

Does Saddam simply thumb his nose at the collective world forever?

William Cohen: There shouldn’t be any artificial time limit or countdown as such.

I think it’s very clear from what I discussed today that days may go by without posing a threat immediately, but weeks or months, and then he’s able to reconstitute his capacity to develop large amounts of chemical and biological weapons.

And I think we have to take that into account.

So there is no artificial deadline, but I think we’re well aware of the ticking of the clock.

Sam Donaldson: Well, I assume when you say that if he were to try to shoot down a U-2, or shoot down a U-2, that we would have a response.

And I assume that would be an immediate response as opposed to one down the road.

William Cohen: That’s correct.

Sam Donaldson: But then, you also are saying to us, if I judge your words correctly, that we’re not going to allow him to reconstitute his ability.

And so, at some point, we’re going to have to do something about it.

William Cohen: We, the United Nations, those in the Security Council, those of our allies who would be in support of this.

We have to remember, this is not Saddam against the United States.

This is Saddam against the United Nations and the world.

That’s what we have to keep remembering and reminding people of — not allow him to turn this into, let’s just kick the U.S. out and everything will be OK.

This is really a threat that is global in nature and not confined to the United States.

Sam Donaldson: I understand, Mr. Secretary.

But you’re a keen student of American politics, also.

At the moment, there seems to be overwhelming support for not allowing Saddam to get away with this.

William Cohen: Right.

Sam Donaldson: In fact, one Newsweek poll says, that if he shot down one of our U-2s, 82 percent of the public would want to response.

But if it drags on, at some point, isn’t the public likely to say, the Clinton administration is a paper tiger?

William Cohen: First of all, we shouldn’t formulate either foreign or defense policy based upon public opinion polls.

They tend to shift rather radically from time to time depending upon the circumstances.

I might point out that had we depended upon public opinion polls back in 1991, President Bush might not have had the ability to go in and do what had to be done to evict Iraqis out of Kuwait.

I think it’s important that we have American public support for action, if it becomes necessary.

But we shouldn’t allow the public opinion polls to drive whatever decision the president is going to make.

George Will: Knowing what we know now, was it a mistake to stop when we did in 1991 instead of going to Baghdad?

William Cohen: I think it’s always easier to go back and try to recalculate that.

But remember, under those circumstances, we only had a mandate from the United Nations to evict him.

And we only had the solidarity, support to do that.

We did that.

I think the president made the right decision under those circumstances.

Sam Donaldson: Secretary Cohen, thank you very much for coming in.

William Cohen: My pleasure.

Sam Donaldson: It’s been most enlightening, and I hope you’ll come back.

And we’ll be back with our weekly roundtable.

(Commercial Break)

Content and programming copyright © 1997 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior permission. For further information please contact ABC’s Office of the General Counsel. Transcribed by Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. under license from American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

• Referred to during this Senate hearing: Efforts to Determine the Status of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction and Related Programs (U.S. Congress 108-2, Senate Hearing S. Hrg. 108-678, January 28 2004, Senate Armed Services Committee) {SuDoc: Y 4.AR 5/3:S.HRG.108-678, LCCN: 2005414430, OCLC: 57070686, GPOCat, LL: paper, microfiche, DL, WorldCat, November 26 2004} (concealed from the internet by the committee, or by others in the U.S. government), John W. Warner (chairman), Carl Levin (ranking minority member) {11kb html}, witness: David Kay (Head, CIA Iraq Survey Group, June 11 2003-2004 Jan. 23), C-Span video (request) {2:44:45, schedule, 538473821, 180284-1}, broadcast video: part-1 {2:04:09, source}, part-2 {37:49}, transcripts {Lexis}: FDCH transcript {178kb html, copy, source}, FNS transcript {130kb.pdf, copy}.

Copyright © 1997 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., and copied here as fair use in the report of a legislative proceeding, so that readers can find context and elaboration and dispel uncertainty, whether referrences to this document during the Senate hearing, and comments about it, are accurate and not misleading. Additionally, the words of U.S. government officials speaking in the course of their duties are not copyrightable, and I submit it’s fair use to copy the questions so that the non-copyrightable answers can be understood and fairly evaluated in context.

Charles Judson Harwood Jr.

Posted Feb. 18 2004. Updated August 6 2008.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/abc-cohen-19971116.html