MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: DAN McKIVERGAN, Deputy Director

SUBJECT: War on Terrorism and American Statecraft

I want to call your attention to three recent pieces. The first is written by American Enterprise Institute fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht ("A Necessary War: Unless Saddam Hussein is Removed, the War on Terrorism Will Fail," Weekly Standard, October 21, 2002); the second is by Project Chairman William Kristol ("From Truth to Deception," Washington Post, October 12, 2002); the third is by Max Boot ("Doctrine of the 'Big Enchilada'," Washington Post, October 14, 2002), a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In the Standard, Gerecht responds to critics who say that confronting Saddam Hussein now would "damage ... America's prospects to winning the war against terrorism," as former Vice President Gore remarked in his September 23 speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. In fact, Gerecht argues just the opposite - that regime change in Iraq will "reinforce, not weaken, whatever collective spirit has developed among intelligence and security agencies working against Islamic radicals." Indeed, should Saddam Hussein's regime stay in power, "it is likely that counterterrorist efforts of 'allied' intelligence and security services in the Muslim world will diminish, if not end entirely."

Regarding Saddam's disposal, Kristol counsels that after six weeks of skillfully building support for confronting Iraq the President must now transition from "war mobilizer" to "war leader" and set the stage to achieve tactical surprise by keeping Saddam "off balance, wishful, and confused." Finally, Max Boot argues that the administration's recently released National Security Strategy cannot be successfully implemented without increasing defense spending far beyond what the administration is currently proposing.