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18 October 2002

Wolfowitz Analyzes Risks Associated With Action Against Iraq

(Deputy defense secretary speaks Oct. 16 at Fletcher Conference)
(6780)
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz says that to wait until
Iraq poses an imminent threat to the United States "assumes that we
will know when it is imminent," and historically that has been a
highly risky method for making national security policy.
"That was not even true in 1962 with the very obvious threat of Soviet
missiles in Cuba," Wolfowitz said. Quoting the late President John
Kennedy, Wolfowitz said "the United States cannot tolerate deliberate
deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or
small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of
weapons represents sufficient challenge to a nation's security to
constitute maximum peril."
Illustrating that type of threat, Wolfowitz asked who knew in August
2001 that there was an imminent threat of an attack on the United
States that would kill 3,000 people on September 11 in less than a
hour.
Wolfowitz delivered the keynote address October 16 at the 33rd
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis-Fletcher Conference in
Washington, which focused on the subject of U.S. national security
strategy and policy.
"We cannot afford to wait until Saddam Hussein or some terrorist
supplied by him attacks us with a chemical or biological or, worst of
all, a nuclear weapon, to recognize the danger that we face," he said.
The decision the United States faces with regard to the current Iraqi
regime involves weighing the risks of taking action against the risks
of inaction, he said. However, he emphasized several times that
President Bush has not made any decision to use force and, to the
contrary, he is pursuing a concerted effort to try to find a peaceful
resolution to this threat that would allow the United States and its
allies to avoid the use of force.
"Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror,
the instruments of mass death and destruction, and he cannot be
trusted," Wolfowitz said. "The risk is simply too great that he will
use them or provide them to a terror network."
Expressing his own view, Wolfowitz said the only hope of achieving
"the peaceful disarmament of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is by
having a credible threat of force behind our diplomacy. To be
effective, the two must be part of a single policy."
If peaceful disarmament of Iraq is not achievable, the deputy defense
secretary said, the United States will not act unilaterally. "Indeed,
we have already begun to assemble an impressive coalition," he said,
with some nations indicating that "they will be with us, with or
without a U.N. resolution, and many others will surely join once there
is one."
Following is the text of Wolfowitz's remarks, as delivered. In the
text, "billion" means one thousand million:
(begin text)
U.S. Department of Defense 
On Iraq 
Remarks by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
Fletcher Conference, Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade
Center
Washington, D.C.
October 16, 2002
Thank you, Bob [Pfalzgraff, President of the Institute of Foreign
Policy Analysis], for that nice introduction. And thank you for
compromising on my entrance here. Some of you who were at the Fletcher
Conference last year, which was co-sponsored with the Army, may know
that I arrived here to be told that my entrance that night would be
down those stairs, as though this were an Oscar presentation.
[Laughter] I found that all a bit embarrassing. But it was suggested
that to top it off this year, I could come in on a Harley Davidson.
[Laughter] I said that's really a little too embarrassing. Then the
suggestion came forward, well, why don't you just rappel down the side
there. Then I knew it was the Marines who were sponsoring this
conference. [Laughter]
Actually I have a terrific military assistant who's a Marine colonel,
who made the astute comment back a little while ago when an impressive
senior Marine got himself in a little bit of trouble on the podium at
the press briefing by saying a bit prematurely, although presciently,
that the Taliban had been eviscerated. And my colonel said, "We
Marines may not know exactly what 'eviscerated' means, but we know how
to do it." [Laughter]
Let me just mention one fact about the [Marine Corps] Commandant
[General James Jones]. I first met him in Iraq, in Northern Iraq, when
he was commanding the 24th MEU [Marine Expeditionary Unit] as part of
Operation Provide Comfort, an incredibly important event historically,
and one from which we are still drawing lessons. In that capacity,
with, I believe, Army troops under his command as well, after the war
ended when some [one] million Kurdish refugees were huddled freezing
in the mountains on the Turkish border, the Turks were afraid to let
them in their country and we didn't want to let them starve. President
Bush ordered U.S. troops to go back into Iraq to create a haven for
the Kurds.
Jim Jones and his Marines faced the Iraqi Army and, without firing a
shot, were able to move them out of the northern third of their
country and to create a sanctuary that is still largely observed to
this day. That event and many others convinced me that Marines not
only know about evisceration but they know about the peaceful use of
power.
Working with people like General Jones, people who know how to do
things and do them well, I can't think of a more inspiring time to be
part of the country's national security team. It's been a distinct
pleasure to serve with members of our Joint Chiefs, including the
Chairman, General [Richard] Myers, and the Vice Chairman, who, as we
all know is also a Marine, General Pete Pace, with President Bush,
with Vice President Cheney, with Secretary [of State Colin] Powell,
with [National Security Advisor] Condi Rice, with my old partner
[Deputy Secretary of State] Rich Armitage, and of course with our
Secretary of Defense who's back to try to get it right the second
time, Donald Rumsfeld. He says I'm back for the third time -- you can
editorialize from that.
Risks of Action versus Risks of Inaction
I want to talk to you today about an extremely important subject and a
complicated subject, which is the question: How do we weigh the risks
of a possible use of force against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq?
Let me underscore at the outset that word "possible." The President
has not made any decision to use force and, to the contrary, he is
exercising strenuous efforts to try to find a peaceful resolution to
this serious threat that would allow us to avoid the use of force. But
that possibility is in front of us. It's being debated. It was
obviously debated vigorously when the Congress passed its important
resolution last week. So I'd like to share some of my thinking with
you. And since it is a complicated subject, and since some of you at
least are from Fletcher and you're used to 50-minute segments, this
may be a little long. Be patient.
Let me go back to December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl
Harbor. Winston Churchill wrote that day in his memoirs, with great
relief, that now "the United States was in the war," as he put it, "up
to the neck and in to the death." He recalled words that British
Foreign Minister Earl Grey had spoken to him nearly a quarter of a
century before as the United States entered World War I. "The United
States," Grey said, "is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is
lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate."
I witnessed a quiet but awesome display of that power some 12 years
ago this month when I accompanied Secretary of State [James] Baker on
a trip to the Persian Gulf. As part of that trip Secretary Baker paid
a visit to the 1st Cavalry Division, and a brigade of the division
assembled in the desert to greet him. The sight of all those young
American men and women standing in the desert, ready to risk all for
their country, was truly awe-inspiring.
As they filed off in loose formation into a setting desert sun it was
impossible not to be moved by the willingness of these young men and
women to serve their country, to be moved by the recognition that
these were some of the smartest and best-trained soldiers that this
country has ever produced, or to be moved by the sobering thought that
the numbers before our eyes, roughly 3,000 human beings, represented
lives that might be lost if it came to using force to get Iraq out of
Kuwait.
During that visit and others, in informal conversations with both
officers and enlisted troops, I developed an informal, and admittedly
unscientific, survey of military attitudes. Although every one I
talked to made it clear that they would faithfully obey any orders
issued by their commander-in-chief, it seemed that those I talked to
who thought that we might go to war simply to enforce U.N. resolutions
or to restore the Kuwaiti government were most likely to be skeptics.
However, the clear majority of my sample seemed to believe, in the
words of one corporal, that if we don't do this job now, our buddies
will have to do it later and it will be much more difficult.
That simple but compelling logic was the fundamental reason for
undertaking a dangerous course 11 years ago -- a course of action
[whose] cost proved to be miraculously less than we had feared -- and
it is the same logic that confronts us today.
But since September 11th we face a grim new reality. As Secretary of
State Powell has put it, and I quote, "Since September 11th, 2001, the
world is a more dangerous place. As a consequence of the terrorist
attacks on that day a new reality was born. The world had to
recognize," Secretary Powell said, "that the potential connection
between terrorists and weapons of mass destruction moved terrorism to
a new level of threat, a threat that could not be deterred ... because
of this connection between states developing weapons of mass
destruction and terrorist organizations willing to use them without
any compunction and in an undeterrable fashion."
It is precisely that concern which now calls our attention to Baghdad.
The Iraqi regime's support for terrorism, within and outside its
borders, its appetite for the world's most dangerous weapons, and its
openly declared hostility to the United States form a combination that
needs to be understood in a new light since September 11th of last
year.
We cannot continue living safely with a regime, which as the president
said, "gathers the most serious dangers of our age in a single place."
President Bush has detailed Iraq's links to international terrorists,
its training of al-Qaeda members in bomb-making, poisons and deadly
gasses. The president spoke about Iraq's growing fleet of unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could disburse its arsenal of biological
and chemical weapons, and about the ominous fact that Iraq is
exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United
States. And, of course, as the president said, and I quote,
"Sophisticated delivery systems are not required for a chemical or
biological attack. All that might be required are a small container
and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it."
Secretary Rumsfeld recently said that within hours of the Iraqi
regime's offer to the Secretary General of the U.N., in their words,
"to allow the return of United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq
without conditions," Iraq was shooting at and trying to kill coalition
pilots. As the Secretary pointed out, it's a familiar routine of
playing the world and the media.
But the regime itself speaks more forthrightly on some occasions and
it tells deadly tales.
On the anniversary of the September attacks one of Iraq's state-owned
weeklies, one of many who had similar issues, featured on its cover
the burning World Trade Center with a two-word headline emblazoned in
red letters. It read, "Allah's punishment."
In July of last year, an Iraqi columnist wrote glowingly about Osama
bin Laden in a provincial newspaper. "Bin Laden," this columnist
wrote, "knows that causes pain to America and used the language of
dynamite and explosives in the [Saudi] city of Khobar and destroyed
two U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Now he continues to
smile and still think seriously," this columnist wrote, "with the
seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to
bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House.... To bin Laden I
say that revolution, the wings of the dove and the bullet are all but
one and the same thing in the heart of a believer."
That's not unique. In the 11 years since the end of the [Persian] Gulf
War, the state-controlled Iraqi media have been full of such
glorification of terrorists and threats of terrorism. Like the
editorialist who wrote 10 years ago in Babil, the newspaper of Saddam
Hussein's son Uday: "Does the United States," this editorial said,
"realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross
countries and cities?"
And some of this rhetoric comes from the mouth of Saddam Hussein
himself. He is the only world leader who openly glorified and
justified the attacks of September 11th. In his letter to Americans on
September 15th of last year, Saddam wrote, "Americans should feel the
pain they have inflicted on other peoples of the world so that when
they suffer, they will find the right solution and the right path."
In judging the nature of the threats we confront it is a classic
historic mistake to ignore what our enemies say as mere rhetoric, a
mistake that we make at our own peril.
We make a mistake if we depreciate the value of intelligence from open
sources, because those sources can be a useful indicator of
intentions.
But it is not merely the rhetoric of the Iraqi regime that concerns
us, but its actions. When we consider the actions of Iraq under the
leadership of the present regime, and particularly since the invasion
of Kuwait 12 years ago, there is no question that the Iraqi people are
in the grips of an evil regime, a regime that threatens us all --
inside and outside that country.
[Former U.N. weapons inspector] Scott Ritter, whom we know well, knows
well how evil that regime is. He recently described what he called
"the most horrific thing," although he said he did so reluctantly
because in his words "he is waging peace now." But he did describe a
prison in Baghdad whose stench was unreal, an amalgam of "urine,
feces, vomit and sweat," a hellhole where prisoners were "howling and
dying of thirst." In this prison, the oldest inmates were 12, the
youngest, mere toddlers. Their crime: being children of the regime's
political enemies. A children's prison: there can hardly be a more
grim symbol of a regime that rules by terror and that embraces terror
as a policy against those who oppose it both at home and abroad.
Few in this country at least would deny that the present Iraqi regime
is an evil and dangerous one. It would be difficult to find Americans
who would not agree that the world would be safer and the Iraqi people
would be vastly better off if this regime no longer ruled.
Where we differ is over the issue of what means are necessary and
appropriate to effect that kind of change. The real issue -- in my
mind, at least, the central issue -- comes down to how we weigh the
risks and costs of using force should we have to do so. And let me
emphasize what I said at the beginning: we are not yet at that point,
and we hope devoutly to be able to avoid it.
Those risks are very real, and no sensible person would lightly
undertake an operation that risks the lives of our marvelous men and
women in uniform.
President Bush has demonstrated over and over again that he takes
those risks extremely seriously. That is why the president has made it
so clear that he will do everything possible to achieve a peaceful
disarmament of Iraq that resolves this danger to our country and to
the world.
The debate in this country is not between those who desire peace and
those who desire war. The issue is how we can best achieve a peaceful
outcome that resolves the danger we face. There is a seeming paradox
at work here that takes some effort to grasp. Our only hope -- our
only hope in my view -- of achieving the peaceful disarmament of Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction is by having a credible threat of force
behind our diplomacy. To be effective, the two must be part of a
single policy.
We know from 11 years of stubborn defiance that Saddam Hussein will
not easily give up those horrible weapons that he has worked so hard
to develop and retain. Eleven years of defiance of U.N. resolutions
has cost his country -- and more important his regime, which he really
does care about -- dearly. He has sacrificed tens of billions, perhaps
even hundreds of [b]illions of dollars, in lost oil revenues in order
to retain the world's worst weapons. He has subjected his country to
regular bombing by coalition aircraft. He has caused enormous
suffering for his own people, which he turns and blames on the United
States
No one should be under any illusions that Saddam Hussein will give up
the weapons he is not supposed to have simply because the United
Nations passes another resolution. He will only do so if he believes
that doing so is a necessary price for his survival and the survival
of his regime.
That paradox was well understood by President Kennedy. When he began
negotiating with the Soviet Union for the removal of their missiles
from Cuba, he assembled a powerful force to demonstrate to Khrushchev
that, if the missiles were not removed peacefully, the United States
would force their removal. That action was unquestionably risky, but
without it, a peaceful resolution of the crisis would not have been
possible. As President Bush has said: "There is no easy or risk-free
course of action. Some have argued we should wait, and that's an
option. In my view, it's the riskiest of all options, because the
longer we wait," the president said," the stronger and bolder Saddam
Hussein will become. We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give
weapons to terrorists or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the
world. But I am convinced that is a hope against all evidence."
Over the last 12 months, the president and his advisers have been
weighing very carefully the risks of various courses of action. While
everything possible is being done to reduce risks, no one is
discounting them. The fundamental question is how to weigh the risks
of action against the risks of inaction, and to weigh the risks of
acting now against the risks of acting much later.
We must step up to our duty to balance the risks of action against the
risks of inaction, and, in doing so, we need to work hard to
comprehend the fundamental uncertainty that underlies the most
important judgments that we have to make.
That famous American philosopher and even more famous New York Yankee
catcher, Yogi Berra, once said, "It's dangerous to make predictions,
especially about the future." That is true even for the most ordinary
predictions. It is doubly true in trying to predict the future actions
of terrorists or terrorist regimes where we frequently have
difficultly knowing the past, much less predicting the future.
We are still assembling the picture of how al-Qaeda set about planning
the September 11th attacks, even though we know that they did it. We
are still assembling the picture, which we know is incomplete, of the
Iraqi relationship with al-Qaeda. If that is true about the past,
think how much more true it is about the future. We have to look at
the evidence as we have it and as it develops to make the best
judgments possible, but to recognize the underlying uncertainty.
Four years ago, then-President of the United States Bill Clinton,
speaking about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, declared, and I
quote, "Some day, some way I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."
Well, I personally believe that the combination of weapons of mass
destruction capabilities, declared hostility to the United States, and
close ties to terrorists make the former president's statement
ominously probable. I would not venture to guarantee the future.
However, and this is obviously what President Clinton meant in what he
said in a simpler way, I share his belief that the risk of the Iraqi
regime using those terrible weapons or giving them to terrorists is
unacceptably high.
Let me address what I think are some of the most important questions
that have been raised in this debate. And while the Congress has
acted, the debate continues, as it should continue. It is the great
strength of this country.
Some have asked whether an attack on Iraq would disrupt or distract
the United States from the global war on terror.
The answer to that, as Secretary Rumsfeld has said, is that Iraq is
part of the global war on terror. Stopping terrorist regimes from
acquiring weapons of mass destruction is a key objective of that war.
"We can fight all elements of this war," the Secretary said,
"simultaneously," and I would add we must do so.
Although the demand on our military resources will be significant if
it becomes necessary to use force against Iraq, we have a military
that is strong enough to take on that task. The war on terrorism is a
global war and one that must be pursued everywhere using all the
instruments of national power and every resource at our command.
It is hard to see how we can expect to be successful in the long run
if we leave Iraq as a sanctuary for terrorists and its murderous
dictator in defiant safety.
Saddam Hussein supports and conspires with our terrorist enemies. He
lends them both moral and material support. Disarming Saddam Hussein
and fighting the war on terror are not merely related, they are one
and the same.
If we can defeat a terrorist regime in Iraq it will be a defeat for
terrorists globally.
When we toppled the Taliban regime we sent a powerful message to
governments outside Afghanistan that were undecided before that about
where they stood in the war on terrorism, and cooperation increased
measurably.
When we got to safe houses in Afghanistan, we discovered documents and
captured terrorists who led us to break up plots in Southeast Asia and
North Africa and elsewhere around the globe. When we drove al-Qaeda
out of Afghanistan we were able to capture key terrorists like Abu
Zubaydah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh who no longer had a sanctuary. Similar
effects can be expected if there is a decent government in Baghdad
that can help us to uncover evidence, to capture terrorists, and to
deny them sanctuary.
Finally, Iraq is part of the global war on terrorism because Iraq
represents one of the first and best opportunities to begin building
what President Bush has referred to as a better world beyond the war
on terrorism. If Saddam Hussein is a danger and a support to
terrorists and an encouragement to terrorist regimes, conversely his
demise will open opportunities for governments and institutions to
emerge in the Muslim world that are respectful of fundamental human
dignity and freedom and that abhor the killing of innocents as an
instrument of national policy.
Some ask, why act now? Why not wait until the threat is imminent? 
In some ways the answer is very simple. As Senator Joseph Lieberman
put it recently, "I have felt for more than a decade now," the senator
said, "that every additional day that Saddam Hussein is in power in
Iraq is an additional day of danger for the Iraqi people, for his
neighbors in the region, particularly for the people and military of
the United States and indeed for the people of the world."
Indeed, the more time passes, the more time Saddam Hussein has to
develop his deadly weapons and to acquire more. The more time he has
to plant sleeper agents in the United States and other friendly
countries or to supply deadly weapons to terrorists he can then
disown, the greater the danger.
The notion that we can wait until the threat is imminent assumes that
we will know when it is imminent. That was not even true in 1962 with
the very obvious threat of Soviet missiles in Cuba. As President
Kennedy said then, "The United States cannot tolerate deliberate
deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or
small. We no longer live in a world," the late president said, "where
only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to
a nation's security to constitute maximum peril."
If that was true 40 years ago of a threat that was comparatively easy
to observe, how much more true is it today of threats developed by
evil people who use the freedoms of a democratic society to hide even
in our midst?
Who knew in August of last year that there was an imminent threat of
an attack that would kill 3,000 Americans? And had we known then, who
would have known that it was already too late to deal with that threat
by going to its roots in Afghanistan?
The principal hijackers had already arrived in the United States
nearly two years ago and the entire group had been assembled by the
middle of last year.
As Secretary Rumsfeld has pointed out, even when our intelligence
organizations are able to penetrate the veil of secrecy that surrounds
terrorist groups and terrorist states, and they often do so only with
great skill and ingenuity, it is sometimes, as the secretary has
pointed out, long after developments have actually occurred --
sometimes two, sometimes four, in one case -- as we discovered on the
Rumsfeld Commission looking at the ballistic missile threat -- once 13
years after dangerous developments had taken place.
We cannot afford to wait until Saddam Hussein or some terrorist
supplied by him attacks us with a chemical or biological or, worst of
all, a nuclear weapon, to recognize the danger that we face. If that
terrible event happens and we look back to examine why we weren't
warned, the answer will clearly be that we were. The dots are there
for all to see. We must not wait for some terrible event that connects
the dots for us.
Some people ask why run the risk of provoking Saddam Hussein? Doesn't
the only danger that he will use those weapons of mass destruction
come if we threaten his survival?
There is a serious concern here and we must certainly plan on the
assumption that a great moment of danger will come if Saddam Hussein
believes that his survival in power is at risk and that he has little
to lose by using his most terrible weapons. However it is important to
recognize how many dubious assumptions underlie the contention that
this is a danger we can avoid forever if we simply seek to contain
Saddam Hussein indefinitely.
First, it assumes that we can guarantee Saddam's survival, that his
survival will never be threatened by events beyond our control, such
as an internal revolution.
Second, more important I think, it assumes that we understand the way
his mind works and that he will always avoid actions that would
endanger his survival, even though there is an enormous body of
evidence that we do not understand the way his mind works and that he
has frequently taken actions that put him and his regime in grave
danger.
The evidence that we do have suggests an enormous thirst for revenge.
A thirst that was signaled in some of the regime's earliest rhetoric
at the end of the Persian Gulf War when Radio Baghdad announced, for
example, and I'm quoting, "What remains is for Bush," and he meant the
former President, "and his accomplices in crime," by which he clearly
meant the regimes of the Persian Gulf, "to understand that they are
personally responsible. The Iraqi people will pursue them for this
crime even if they leave office and disappear into oblivion. There is
no doubt that they will understand what they mean if they know what
revenge means to the Arabs."
Indeed, the true significance of the attempted assassination of former
President Bush in 1993 is what it tells us about Saddam Hussein's lust
for revenge. All rational consideration, at least as we would
understand the word "rational," would have argued against taking this
provocative step when there was a new administration in Washington
that had openly signaled its desire to come to peaceful terms with the
Iraqi regime. We will probably never know why Saddam Hussein went
ahead with that plot, but we must confront the fact that he did. We
must confront this enormous appetite for revenge and consider that
Saddam Hussein might have concluded from that event that he could
undertake an extraordinarily dangerous act and suffer only relatively
minor punishment.
The most dangerous assumption of all, however, is the assumption that
Saddam would not use terrorists as an instrument of revenge. That is
the very danger that Secretary Powell warned of so eloquently in the
quote I read you earlier: The use of terrorists as an undeterrable
instrument for delivering weapons of mass destruction.
As our president has said, SaddamHussein is harboring terrorists and
the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and
destruction, and he cannot be trusted. The risk is simply too great
that he will use them or provide them to a terror network.
Some ask why not wait until other crises in the world are resolved so
that we can deal more easily with this one?
The world isn't going to leave us alone. There will always be problems
with acting at any time, but one thing we can say with certainty. The
danger of acting grows with time because if military action does
become necessary -- and let me again repeat, I think for the third
time, the hypothetical nature of that comment -- the greatest danger
will come from his weapons of mass destruction. Those capabilities we
can be sure will be steadily increasing as well as the means to
deliver them.
Unless we mean to defer action forever and effectively acknowledge
that the Iraqi regime can successfully deter us, the longer we wait to
act the more dangerous it will be if we finally have to do so.
Some ask why act unilaterally? Why not assemble a coalition?
In fact the president has already made it clear that we do not plan to
act unilaterally. Indeed, we have already begun to assemble an
impressive coalition. Some countries have indicated they will be with
us, with or without a U.N. resolution, and many others will surely
join once there is one.
What is also true is that many countries, particularly those who feel
directly threatened by the Iraqi regime, those "accomplices in crime"
that Radio Baghdad referred to in the earlier quote, will not openly
support us this time until they are certain that we're going to act to
remove the regime that threatens them. That is why American resolve
and determination to act, not to be hamstrung by the waverings of the
weak or those who still hope to seek favors from the Baghdad regime,
is important to embolden others to join us.
Finally, and this is the last question I'll raise, many wonder whether
Iraq will be even more unstable and dangerous after Saddam Hussein is
gone.
In fact if I go back to my comment about the coalition, there will be
a coalition after Saddam is gone and there is little doubt that many
other countries will want to be with us when that evil regime is
removed from power. For the Iraqi nation is one of the most important
nations in the Arab world with some of the most talented people and
some of the richest natural resources of any country in the Middle
East.
If a moment of liberation comes, many countries and many individuals,
including some who now criticize us, will want to be part of that very
positive opportunity to build a more peaceful and just and
representative nation in this critically important Arab and Muslim
country.
Indeed, while there are many risks that would be associated with a
decision to use force to resolve this threat, the one risk that seems
frequently exaggerated is the risk that the removal of a Saddam
Hussein regime will be a cause of instability in the region.
Of course the caution about predicting the future applies here as
well, to both the optimists, of whom I am one, and the pessimists. But
it seems to me that the optimists have a better factual case. Unlike
the Balkans, Iraq's recent history is not one of bloody ethnic
conflict but rather one of bloody repression by the regime of all
ethnic groups.
In the northern part of Iraq, beyond the reach of Baghdad for a
decade, Iraqi Kurds have already demonstrated an impressive ability to
manage longstanding differences and even to develop relatively free
and prospering societies despite laboring under the same economic
sanctions that applied to the rest of Iraq.
The enormous talent pool of Iraqis, both in the country and among the
four million in exile, also bodes well for its future. And just as the
experience of decades of tyranny in Central Europe and the Soviet
Union seems to have engendered a deep resistance to going back to the
communist past, it is a reasonable hope that the experience of
Ba'athist tyranny will encourage powerful resistance to the emergence
of another harsh dictatorship.
The pessimists in this argument have a heavy burden. Do they really
believe that the only way to preserve what they call stability in this
important Arab country and in the Middle East more generally, the
stability that the once-tyrannized Poles used to call the "stability
of the graveyard," is by preserving indefinitely the rule of a
despotic tyranny? If so, and I sincerely doubt that many believe that,
then they would have to explain how this so-called stability is to be
preserved even after the eventual demise of Saddam Hussein. Do they
believe that his sons will successfully carry on his despotism after
him like the sons of Hafez al-Assad and Kim Il Sung? I doubt that.
In fact, for better or for worse, and I am convinced it will be for
far, far better, sooner or later the Middle East and the world will
have to cope with the reality of the demise of the Iraqi regime. For
the sake of the suffering Iraqi people, it would be far better for
that to happen sooner rather than later.
And in the interest of minimizing whatever risks there are to larger
regional stability, it would be far better for this admittedly
enormous change to take place when the eyes of the world are upon Iraq
and when the United States and a strong coalition are committed to
seeing it through to a successful conclusion -- in short, to take
place on the world's terms, not on Saddam's terms or on some fateful
throw of the dice.
Indeed, I'm surprised that so many people who know the Middle East
well and who admire the talents of the Arab people believe that the
demise of this despotic regime would be harmful to the Arab cause. To
the contrary, I believe there is actually an opportunity here to help
liberate one of the most talented populations in the Arab world with
positive effects throughout the Middle East and indeed throughout the
world's two billion Muslims. That also constitutes a huge strategic
advantage for us should it become necessary to use force.
The Future of Iraq
Because the Iraqi regime, like every other regime that supports
terrorism, rules by terror. We saw with the Taliban what a huge
weakness that is. There can be very few people in Iraq who want to be
the last to die for Saddam Hussein. Once their fear of Saddam is
removed, he will have to fear them.
In Saddam Hussein we have a despotic warden who in turning his country
into the most savage kind of prison has enslaved the talents and
resources of a richly endowed people, but as we've seen in
Afghanistan, when the yoke of terrorism is removed, people used their
newfound freedom to sing, to work, to learn, to build a better future
for themselves and their children. For there is no true way that the
fundamental desires for freedom, justice and prosperity can be
extinguished.
In his beautiful book, "Dream Palace of the Arabs," the great Middle
East scholar Fouad Ajami begins by telling the story of an Iraqi poet
who, like so many intellectuals, had fled the government of Iraq. When
this poet died in London in 1996 he symbolized for Ajami how people of
such intellectual and artistic bents have been alienated from their
cultural home by forces opposed to "secular enlightenment and
modernity."
In this poet who sought freedom of expression and desired political
change, we may see a metaphor for the people of Iraq, whose rich
history speaks of gifted people whose talents emerged from the very
cradle of civilization. And if we get the chance, we will serve
ourselves as well as the Iraqi people if we can assist them in putting
those gifts into building a future for Iraq that is stable and free
and prosperous.
For there is no question that doing all of this with the world's help
will remove yet another haven for terrorists. That will be a
significant step in helping remove some of the fetters to progress in
other parts of the Muslim world.
Success in Iraq would demoralize those who preach doctrines of hatred
and oppression and subjugation. It would encourage those who dream the
ancient dream, the ageless desire for freedom.
In the last half-century, those ideals of freedom and self-government
have been the most powerful engines of change in the world. They give
us hope for further development in the Muslim world, a development
that will benefit every nation throughout the world and bring us
important allies in the war against terrorism.
Back when America was getting started, our friends abroad watched us
closely. They sensed a fragile experiment underway. But they also
sensed that from the beginning our founders showed a bias toward
freedom that would not deter them from the effort and the sacrifices
and the risks that lay ahead. And when our nation underwent its moment
of greatest trial, when it seemed like our very fabric was tearing
apart, Abraham Lincoln knew that we would endure because we struggled
for something unique and extraordinary.
What our founding fathers struggled to found and what Lincoln
struggled to keep, as he wrote, "holds out a great promise for all the
people of the world for all time to come."
These are indeed difficult times. The prophet Jeremiah expressed our
present truth so long ago in these words, "We wait for peace to no
avail, for a time of healing, but terror comes instead." But in these
times of terror, men and women who cherish freedom and seek peace may
be strengthened by remembering also the words of the prophet Isaiah,
who spoke saying, "See upon the palms of my hands I have written your
name. Your walls are ever before me. Your builders will outstrip your
destroyers."
To those here who help build peace, who help us build, as the
president has said, "a better world beyond the war on terror," a great
mission lies ahead. But we will not be deterred from the truth. And
this truth we know: that the single greatest threat to peace and
freedom in our time is terrorism.
So this truth we must also affirm: that the future does not belong to
the terrorists. The future belongs to all those who dream the oldest
and noblest dream of all -- the dream of peace and freedom.
Thank you all for your attention. [Applause]
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)