27 September 2002
Powell, Kissinger Show Agreement on Many Facets of U.S. Iraq Policy
(Secretary, former secretary give views to Senate panel September 26) (900) By Joseph E. Scolavino Washington File Staff Writer Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gave the Senate Foreign Relations Committee their views on how the United States should deal with the problem of Iraq and international terrorism September 26, and at the end of the day-long hearings it was clear that there were many parallels in their assessments. In his opening statement, Powell talked about the "new reality" that exists in the post 9/11 era. "As a consequence of the terrorist attacks on that day and of the war on terrorism that those attacks made necessary, a new reality was born," said Powell. "The world had to recognize that the potential connection between terrorists and weapons of mass destruction moved terrorism to a new level of threat. In fact, that nexus became the overriding security concern of our nation. It still is and it will continue to be our overriding concern for some years to come." Several hours earlier Kissinger made very similar remarks in his appearance before the committee: "For on September 11th, 2001, the world entered a new period in which private, non-state organizations undertook to threaten national and international security by stealth attacks, he said." Both Powell and Kissinger emphasized that the traditional route of deterrence is an ineffective way of dealing with terrorists. "Having no territory to defend, the terrorists are not subject to the deterrent threats of the Cold War", Kissinger said, "having as their aim the destruction of social cohesion, they are not interested in the conciliating procedures and compromises of traditional diplomacy." Later in the afternoon, Powell reiterated Kissinger's comments. "There is a threat that doesn't respond the way older threats did to deterrence, that does not respond to theories of containment. These are terrorists. These are people who are willing to ignore what's going to happen to them. They are suicidal. They believe in evil concepts. And they're going to come at us." Justifying the use of preemption, Powell added: "And as we look at the tools available to us to deal with this threat, one of the tools that we have to be able to use are preemptive tools, preventive tools, when, if we see this kind of an attack coming at us then the act of preemption or taking preemptive action should be something we consider, and perhaps consider more readily than we might have in the past." Kissinger, calling preemption "inherent" in the nature of the terrorist challenge, warned that "if the world is not to turn into a doomsday machine, a way must be found to prevent proliferation - especially to rogue states whose governments have no restraint on the exercise of their power." Although some critics claim the case is not strong enough to warrant a military attack on Iraq, both Powell and Kissinger felt otherwise. Powell went through Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction, his repeated violations of United Nations resolutions, his abysmal human rights record, and perhaps the administrations worst fear, that terrorists will acquire some of Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. "We now see a proven menace like Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destructions who could empower a few terrorists with those weapons to threaten millions of innocent people," Powell told the committee. Kissinger expressed similar concerns: "The existence and, even more, the growth of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq poses a threat to international peace and stability...It's policy is implacably hostile to the United States, to neighboring countries, and to established rules that govern relations among nations...By it's defiance of the U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring it to give up WMD, Iraq has in effect asserted the determination to possess weapons whose very existence compounds the terrorist threat immeasurably." When members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked if there was a peaceful solution, particularly a way to achieve such thorough weapons inspections, Powell argued that "We must not believe that inspectors going in on the same conditions and under the same terms that they went in on so many occasions earlier will be acceptable now. We won't fall for that." Kissinger, as a former Secretary of State, favors a strong U.N. resolution calling for stringent weapons inspections, but Kissinger expressed the same skepticism about inspections as Powell. "It should be backed by standby authority and perhaps a standby force to remove any obstacle to transparency," he said. "Moreover, any system of inspection must be measured against the decline in vigilance that accompanied the previously flawed system's operation." Senators also expressed concern that a war with Iraq would detract from the war on terrorism. Kissinger disagreed, arguing, "The opposite is more likely to be true. Eliminating such weapons in Iraq is an important aspect of the second phase of the anti-terrorism campaign. It demonstrates American determination to get at the root causes and some of the ultimate capabilities of what is, in essence, a crusade against free values." When confronted with the same questions, Powell reacted similarly: "I don't see why there is a suggestion that somehow, if we had to undertake this mission, it would be at the expense of the campaign against terrorism. Would it require a surge? Yes. Would it require a lot of our energy? Yes. But the suggestion that we weren't going to be able to continue the campaign against terrorism if we moved in this direction I don't think is an accurate assessment." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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