17 September 2001
Transcript: Wolfowitz PBS Interview on Response to Terror Attacks
(Previous counter-terror policies don't work, he says) (2500)
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz says that "what we saw on
Tuesday [September 11] completely transforms the problem" of
international terrorism.
Speaking on PBS television's "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer" September
14, Wolfowitz said, "The policies of the last 20 years, whether you
think they were carried out effectively or ineffectively, obviously
don't work."
Concerning the possibility of a military response to the perpetrators
of the destruction of September 11, Wolfowitz said both civilian and
military advisers at the Pentagon "are really thinking ... outside the
box...." The possibilities of using larger forces, accepting
casualties, and conducting a sustained campaign are all examples of
such thinking, he added.
Using the full resources of the nation -- including military,
intelligence, economic, and diplomatic assets -- will be necessary,
Wolfowitz said. The scale of the attack -- in which more Americans
were killed on U.S. soil than on any other single day since the Civil
War -- is the reason such a comprehensive response is needed, he said.
Wolfowitz said he thought the attackers misread America as a society
that "can't take blood-letting, can't carry out a sustained
operation." In calculating America's response, he noted, "regimes that
support terrorism against us support terrorism against their own
people, basically. They rule by terror." He asserted that the regimes
that support terror would be the U.S. targets, but not their people,
who will often be America's ally.
Continuing in that vein, Wolfowitz differentiated between the religion
of Islam and the attacks of September 11. "This is not an Islamic act
that was conducted," he said. Noting that condemnation of the attack
was nearly universal, he stressed, "Every religion has its extremists.
And these are religious extremists that we're dealing with. But one of
our greatest allies in that struggle has got to be the hundreds of
millions of Muslims who do not believe that that's the face of Islam."
Following is the transcript of Wolfowitz's interview:
(begin transcript)
NEWS TRANSCRIPT
from the United States Department of Defense
DoD News Briefing
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
September 14, 2001 -- 6:00 p.m. EDT
(Interview with Margaret Warner, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS TV)
Warner: Mr. Wolfowitz is the number two man at the Pentagon. He also
served in the Defense Department during the first Bush administration
and played a major role in planning the Gulf war. Welcome, Mr.
Secretary.
Wolfowitz: It's nice to be here.
Q: First, our condolences on your losses at the Pentagon.
A: Appreciate that. It's pretty grim.
Q: Let's start with the news today, the president authorizing the
Pentagon to call up up to 50,000 reservists for homeland defense, he
said. What are they needed for?
A: A variety of things. Perhaps the most important and I think in
greatest of numbers is mobilizing Air National Guard units so that we
can maintain air defense protection over the country, and particularly
over crucial locations, major cities. We're going to have, I think, a
significant draw on the National Guard and Reserve in helping to deal
with the colossal tragedy in New York City, everything from mortuary
services to helping the New York authorities in various municipal
functions. That's basically the kind of thing we're talking about.
Q: How many U.S. cities -- there've been conflicting reports on this
-- are being protected, essentially, by this stepped-up surveillance?
A: I don't want to give a number. But the fact is we have capability
to respond very quickly if there were another incident reported. We
responded awfully quickly, I might say, on Tuesday, and, in fact, we
were already tracking in on that plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. I
think it was the heroism of the passengers on board that brought it
down. But the Air Force was in a position to do so if we had had to.
Q: What were the rules of -- would the rules of engagement, would they
have allowed the Air Force to shoot down a civilian jetliner if it had
appeared headed for a target?
A: I think -- again, I don't want to get into rules of engagement. But
I think it was pretty clear at that point that that airliner was not
under the pilot's control and that it was heading to do major damage.
And ultimately it's the president's decision on whether to take an
action as fateful as that. But, thankfully -- I mean we really have to
say what an incredible thing. And there's been so many great Americans
doing great things, and the people on that plane are clearly among
them.
Q: Does the U.S. government have reason to believe that some terrorist
members of perhaps this same group, or affiliated with them, are still
in the United States and they're still intending violent acts against
Americans?
A: I think we have to operate on the assumption that there may still
be people from that group in this country. And I think we have to
operate on the assumption that we haven't seen the end of this kind of
terrorism. But we also have to, I think, understand that what we saw
on Tuesday completely transforms the problem. We've got to think anew
about this. The policies of the last 20 years, whether you think they
were carried out effectively or ineffectively, obviously don't work.
This is not going to be a problem solved by locking somebody up and
putting them in jail. It's not going to be solved by some limited
military action. It's going to take, as the president has said and
Secretary Rumsfeld has said, a broad and sustained campaign against
the terrorist networks and the states that support those terrorist
networks.
Q: Secretary Rumsfeld and the president have both used essentially the
same term, the 21st Century battlefield, a war of the 21st Century.
From where you sit, the military side of that, what is that war going
to look like?
A: Well, first of all, it has to involve more than the military. And
when we talk about the full resources of the nation, we mean obviously
our military resources, which are awesome and can be made even more
awesome. We're talking about our intelligence capabilities, which are
impressive and could be made more impressive. But we're also talking
about our economic strength. We're talking about our diplomatic
strength. I think the most important weapon we have is the political
will of this country. And I think we'll find once again, as has
happened before in history, that evil people, because of the way they
think, misread our system as one that's weak, that can't take
casualties, can't take blood-letting, can't carry out a sustained
operation. Hitler made that mistake. The Japanese made that mistake.
It looks like the people on Tuesday made that mistake.
Q: Of course, many in the public, and even on Capitol Hill and in the
military, have up till now also thought the United States people
wouldn't accept casualties. Are you saying that the way you read it
there is really a new mood in the country now?
A: Well, first of all, I reject the idea that we don't accept
casualties. We went into the Gulf war ten years ago ready to take
significant casualties. The fact that it was miraculously low I bless.
But the American people were ready for it. But, obviously, there's a
different mood. And, obviously, there's an understanding. I mean,
let's understand, just at the Pentagon alone, more Americans were
killed last Tuesday than in the Gulf war itself. And that's a pale
shadow of what happened in New York. We think when the numbers come in
we'll find that more Americans were killed on Tuesday than any single
day in American history since the American Civil War, worse than any
single day of World War I, any single day of World War II. It's
massive. And I think that focuses the mind. It makes you think in a
different way. It makes you think anew. And if it doesn't do that,
then people also ought to think that given some of the weapons, kinds
of weapons these terrorists are after, what we saw on September 11th
could be just the beginning. We've got to put an end to it.
Q: So go back, though, to the military side. And I take your point
about the economic and the diplomatic side, as well, and Secretary
Powell was here last night and talked about some of that. But from the
military side, give us an idea.
A: Well, first of all, I'll tell what isn't going to work. I mean we
had two embassies blown up a few years ago, and we responded with some
cruise missiles that took out some targets of questionable value.
Obviously, it did nothing to prevent the problem. I think the
president is the one who's ultimately got to decide what are the
military options that make sense. I can tell you that at the Defense
Department, both his senior civilian advisers and his senior military
advisers are really thinking -- I hate to use Pentagon jargon -- but
thinking outside the box, recognizing that the assumptions that went
into military plans on September 10th just don't apply any more, and
that one has to think about, if necessary, larger forces. One has to
think about accepting casualties. One has to think about sustained
campaigns. One has to think about broad possibilities. And we're
trying to present that full range of possibilities to the president.
He's the one -- and I must say I've been very impressed in the
discussions I've heard him in just in the last few days at his grasp
of the breadth of the effort that's required.
Q: When you speak about broad possibilities, you were known at least
at the Pentagon during the Gulf war as an advocate for having gone
further, not quitting, not stopping the war when we did, perhaps going
all the way to Baghdad. Are you talking about going so far as
occupying a foreign country?
A: Well, I mean if we want to get into history, I never thought we
needed to occupy Baghdad. I do think, and I think former President
Bush himself has said that if he had known Saddam Hussein was going to
survive that massive defeat, he might have kept the war going a bit
longer. I think his people were on the verge of overthrowing him. And
that's something to remember, in general, that most of the regimes
that support terrorism against us support terrorism against their own
people, basically. They rule by terror. And one of our greatest allies
against them, whether it's in Iraq or many other parts of the world,
are going to be their own people. And as we develop strategies, our
target is not the people. Our targets are the regimes, and the people
very often are going to be our ally.
Q: So if I were a leader of a country that -- well, I don't want to
put it that way. Where on the continuum of supporting terrorists,
which certainly we would all agree Afghanistan does, to harboring
them, to maybe tolerating them: where on that continuum does a foreign
country now have to be concerned about perhaps not just diplomatic and
economic action by the U.S., but military action?
A: Oh, well, let me put this way. As you point out correctly, I think
every country in the world is examining where they are on that
continuum today. And if they tolerate it or are not sufficiently
cooperative in police work, I'm sure they're thinking about what the
Americans are come in asking and what the FBI and Justice Department
are going to be looking for. If they're over at the other end where
they have been actively financing and training and providing
logistics, intelligence support to these terrorist networks, I would
hope every one of them is thinking about getting out of the business
and getting out quickly. And that's what a strategy has to look at.
The objective, I think, has got to be very ambitious. And I think the
president has stated it as an ambitious objective. And as Winston
Churchill commented the day after Pearl Harbor that dictators
underestimate American strength, but America is like a great boiler,
and once it gets fired up, the energy that it generates is enormous.
And when we commit ourselves to an ambitious goal, we can achieve it.
But that doesn't mean there is a single solution for each one of these
pieces.
Q: How careful does the United States have to be to not provoke a
backlash, particularly in the Muslim world? I mean, isn't it possible
that Osama bin Laden on some level wanted to provoke the United
States. They don't seem to have covered their tracks very well. It
seems that whoever the perpetrators were, they've already been -- many
of them, at least -- identified on the planes. Is there a danger for
the United States that it might take actions that just inflame
anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world?
A: Well, I think there's a danger of that. I think they'd like nothing
more than to provoke us into an attack that proves totally
ineffective, as, unfortunately, most of our responses over the last 20
years have been. And these people have thought a lot. I think we have
to think about the fact that they've painted such bright targets in
certain respects. Maybe they want us to hit them; maybe they don't
want us to hit one that isn't painted quite as bright as that.
But on the broader point, I think it is very important. We had a
number of memorial services at the Pentagon today, and one of them was
by our Muslim employees. This is not an Islamic act that was
conducted. If I'm not wrong, there are only two significant figures in
the Muslim world who've praised this attack, Saddam Hussein being one
and the leader of Hamas being another. Even Yasser Arafat, even the
Syrians, I think even Qadhafi has distanced himself from it. I'm not
sure. But I was the U.S. Ambassador to the Indonesia. It's the largest
Muslim population in the world. I know every Indonesian that I know
has got to be shocked at people claiming that this is justified by the
Muslim religion. Every religion has its extremists. And these are
religious extremists that we're dealing with. But one of our greatest
allies in that struggle has got to be the hundreds of millions of
Muslims who do not believe that that's the face of Islam.
Q: All right, Mr. Secretary, thanks very much.
A: Thank you.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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