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MEMORANDUM
TO:
OPINION LEADERS FROM:
GARY SCHMITT SUBJECT: Richard Perle on Iraq On February 13, AEI Senior Fellow Richard Perle spoke before a large gathering in New York about U.S. policy toward Iraq. After opening with brief a comment on the UN, the inspection process and German and French diplomatic activities, Perle responded to a series of questions put forward by those attending the event. Highlights of his remarks follow: United Nations Perle: "I'm not going to try to make the argument for military action to enforce UN resolutions; let me just state that if we fail to do so, if we go from a 17th to an 18th resolution and then a 19th resolution, the UN will continue to dismantle itself, not brick-by-brick, but resolution-by-resolution. At some point, if resolutions are not enforced, they become meaningless, and I'm tempted to suggest that we're already past that point and what's needed now is an urgent rescue of the honor and integrity of the United Nations itself…. "At the end of the day, the United Nations, in Article 51, recognizes the inherent right of self-defense. It doesn't confer that right. That's not the UN's to confer. It recognizes that we all have the right of self-defense and we may from time to time have to act without the approbation of the UN. I think the French went into the Ivory Coast without the United Nations. We and some our allies went into Kosovo without the United Nations. It's not without precedent to act without the United Nations. But if we ever get to the point where we can't defend ourselves because we can't get the other four members of the Security Council to agree, then I think the president will have relinquished his responsibility under the Constitution to provide for the common defense. So we want support in the UN, we want the approbation of the UN, but no American government can allow the defense of this country to depend on a show of hands at the United Nations or anywhere else. "If that sounds unilateralist, so be it. I think at the end of the day that would be the attitude of France or German or China if they felt that they were threatened in the way that we now consider we are threatened. The fabric of the UN, of the international community, is just not strong enough now that we would be ready to abandon our sovereign right of self-defense in the hope that some other structure is going to protect us." Inspections Perle: "In my view, the right thing for Hans Blix to have said and done when, on December 7th, Saddam's regime handed over a false declaration about Iraqi holdings of weapons of mass destruction, was to proclaim that there was no appropriate mission for the inspectors and, therefore, the inspections would not begin until Saddam had done what he is obliged to do under UN resolution 1441, which is account for the differences between an inventory of weapons of mass destruction that had been compiled by the previous UN inspectors and what Saddam claimed to have on hand on December 7th. "Unfortunately, Hans Blix chose, rather than clarify this point at the outset, to send inspection teams on a fruitless goose chase, returning to sites that had been inspected previously before the expulsion of the inspectors and because they, understandably, returned without having found anything, this created the impression that perhaps there was nothing to be found. "Let me suggest to you that the inspectors will find nothing of consequence, nothing that Saddam doesn't wish them to find because he controls the territory absolutely, because everything of interest has been hidden and some things of particular interest have even been made mobile so that even if we knew the location, that information would be valid only at the instant at which it was achieved and, therefore, inspections will not produce results, not now, not a month from now, not a year from now, not with the hundred inspectors he now has, not with a thousand inspectors. "The suggestion that the United Nations can acquit itself and act on its repeated resolutions by granting more time or increasing the number of inspectors -- it is simply a dilatory tactic. It is a tactic for delay, it is a tactic for shirking the responsibilities that the United Nations itself previously accepted." Germany and France Perle: "I think it's important to distinguish between German policy and French policy…. "In the German case, there is strong evidence that the Chancellor, in his bid for reelection, tried hard to improve his standing in a group within the German electorate where he was falling below the anticipated numbers. The group, as I understand it, was women in the 25 to 40 age category. The Germans, like us, now conduct their elections with extensive polling. That's the antithesis of leadership and I'm sorry to say we all do it…. So they hit on appealing to the antiwar sentiment, the pacifist sentiment if you will, that was present in that group in the population and more broadly to be fair and there was a little surge in the polls and it was repeated and there was a further surge in the polls and it became the chancellor's policy to elicit the strongest possible constituency among people who were alarmed at the prospect of war, frightened at the prospect of war, opposed to military action to deal with Saddam Hussein, and he painted himself into a corner, a corner so extreme that it became the chancellor's policy that Germany would not participate in a military action against Saddam Hussein even if the United Nations mandated such a doctrine. It was precisely the sort of unilateralism of which the United States is frequently accused: separating himself completely from any possible international consensus. "Now, the French motivations, I think, are different. Let's be candid about it. France has found a way of dealing with Saddam Hussein that simply wouldn't work for the United States because it entails a degree of cooperation that is not acceptable for us. The commercial relationship between France and Saddam's regime is on hold owing to the sanctions but I think it's clear that the moment the sanctions are removed there is a pipeline of contracts that would be promulgated and they're important for France. We shouldn't kid ourselves, they're important for France. It's my understanding that the Total contract with Saddam is worth $40 billion to $60 billion…. So there are commercial interests and for those people who accuse the United States in being interested in oil in this matter, I submit to you that our interest in oil is in purchasing it on the world market. That could best be accomplished by lifting the sanctions, hardly by going to war against Saddam Hussein. The French interest in the promulgation of contracts that will only go forward with this regime is perfectly obvious. "But there's a second French attitude that I think we have to come to grips with and understand and that is the desire on the part of France to build the European Union as a counterweight to the United States. Counterweight is the term most frequently employed by the French, by Chris Patten in Brussels and by others. For a long time the United States and France have been allies. Good allies. Vital to each other's security at many times in our history and never in the period in which we were allies who supported one another did either of us think of describing the other as a counterweight. A relationship that can be described by the term counterweight is not a relationship of alliance." Anti-war Sentiment in Europe Perle: "I recognize that there is very substantial sentiment against war and there always will be and we should be grateful for that. You know, if in any of our democracies we are ever eager to go to war, that would be a tragedy. The argument has to be made. The balancing of risks has to be sustainable and understandable…. "If the German government does not explain to the German people what is at issue, it's not unreasonable to assume that antiwar sentiment will prevail. In the absence of a serious debate, the default position is opposition to war, of course. But I don't believe that there has been a serious, balanced discussion in Germany about the risks posed by Saddam Hussein…. "It is to the credit of Prime Minister Blair that despite that antiwar sentiment, he is leading in the direction that he believes is right for his country, and this president is leading the United States in the direction that he believes is right for this country. The lesson of history is if leaders don't lead and if they simply follow sentiment, terrible mistakes can be made. The sentiment in the United Kingdom before the last war was so hostile to military action that it even became hostile to military preparations and we saw the result of that. So I make no apology for the fact that public opinion is not solidly behind the thinking of the American president or the British Prime Minister, or [Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio] Berlusconi or [Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria] Aznar and others. There is leadership in Europe and there is a failure of leadership in Europe, if I could put it that way…. "There's one other element here and I think we need to recognize that Americans and American leaders feel threatened and recognize the threat we face in a way quite different from others who may not feel or judge the threat in quite the same way, and that's perfectly understandable…. "I would be surprised if someone over coffee and apple cake in Oslo would feel similarly threatened. So we shouldn't expect our European friends and allies to share the sense of apprehension that we have as a result of September 11th. September 11th did something of enormous importance for the sensibility of American policymakers and this President in particular. The lesson of September 11th in my view was that it is possible to wait too long to deal with a known threat. On September 10th we knew what was going on in Afghanistan. We may not have known that Mohammed Atta had already bought a ticket and arrived in this country for the purpose of flying an airplane into the World Trade Center, but we knew that there were thousands of people in camps in Afghanistan being trained for terrorist action against us. We knew that they had carried out terrorist acts in the past. We observed them from space. We heard their conversations. We knew there was a threat and we didn't act….I promise you if we had gone to the world, to our European allies, to say, 'We want to carry out a preventive attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan,' the polls would have been as opposed to that as they are opposed to taking action against Iraq. We would have never had a political consensus in favor of it. So it wasn't even considered. We can no longer tolerate the risks involved in watching threats develop and failing to take action against them, and that's the lesson of September 11th." Why Now? Perle: "Well, I don't think we have the luxury of changing priorities from one day to the next. There was a review of Iraq policy underway on September 11th and the administration hadn't decided at that point what to do, but one thing was very clear: the consensus behind the sanctions which had become the central element of western United Nations strategy for dealing with Saddam Hussein was crumbling. France and Russia had already indicated they were opposed to continuing the sanctions. The French wanted to weaken the sanctions regime. The so-called smart sanctions policy of the United States was really a response to the eroding support for those sanctions and it was very clear that if something wasn't done that Saddam was going to emerge the survivor who had outlasted the United Nations….So it was urgent to deal with Iraq, and we set on a course of dealing with Iraq. "Sometimes the question is put: Why now with Iraq? I think the answer in part is that we're late and we should have done this a long time ago and the fact that we didn't do it a long time ago, the fact that we tolerated the expulsion of the inspectors, was a tribute to weak leadership at the time that that took place…. The Clinton administration chose not to respond or not to respond in a substantial way. That was a terrible mistake…. "[As for the other members of the 'axis of evil'] we have to deal with all three and we'll deal with each in its own way. In the case of Iran, I think that place is going to fall apart because the mullahs are so unpopular. It may take a little while but it's going to happen. In the case of North Korea, we've got an obviously very delicate situation because of the damage that the North Koreans could inflict instantaneously on South Koreans. So we have to be sensitive to South Korean concerns as we deal with it and we have to do things, sometimes, one at a time." Preemption Perle: "Let me
say a word about what you call the new strategy of preemption. There's
nothing new about preemption. If you know that you are about to be attacked,
it is certainly sensible if you can act first and avoid that attack to
do so. I don't think anybody would dispute that. So then the question
is how imminent must the attack be to justify the preemptive response.
Here, we need to think more carefully about the concept of imminence.
In 1981, the Israelis, after a long and, I gather, a heated cabinet debate,
decided to destroy the reactor that Chirac had sent to Osirak, not because
it was about to produce nuclear weapons. It wasn't. It was about to produce
plutonium and it was under IAEA safeguards so the Iraqis would have had
to siphon off small, undetectable quantities of plutonium and it would
have taken them time to build a nuclear weapon based on what they would
get from the Osirak reactor. But, nevertheless, the Israelis decided to
strike some years in advance of the production of the nuclear weapon that
they were concerned about. Terrorism and American Power Perle: "I don't think so. I think the one thing that would encourage further acts of terror against the United States would be a withdrawal by the United States at this point. If we were to fail to carry forward on the things we've said, we would appear to be what Osama bin Laden says we are and what Saddam Hussein has said we are, which is weak and blustery, a bully. So we have to carry this forward….Weakness is fatal in these matters. We're dealing with people who understand strength and have only contempt for weakness. "As for the unpopularity of the United States, it's a real problem and it undoubtedly diminishes our ability to do the things that we think are important. I think that's bad for the world because if the United States, as the leader it has always been, has its authority and standing diminished, that can't be good for the Swiss or the Italians or the Germans. But I don't know how you deal with that problem…. "I'm not going to tell you that we get every policy right. We don't. We make lots of mistakes. But by and large I believe that this country expresses as well as you can expect the government in a democracy to express the interests and values of other free societies, and we're in this together. If we're unpopular because we're powerful, I don't know how to avoid that except by becoming less powerful and I can't believe that that's going to help us in the long run…. "We're bound, I think, to be unpopular simply by virtue of the strength of our position. We didn't ask for it that way, but that's the hand history has dealt us and we can't give the cards back."
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