Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=1-27-04

TYPE=INTERVIEW

NUMBER=3-859

TITLE=UN-IRAQ

BYLINE=DAVID BORGIDA

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

INTRODUCTION

The United Nations says it will evaluate the possibility of early elections in Iraq. Discussing the situation is Mr. Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. Mr. O'Hanlon is an expert in arms treaties, Asian security issues, civil warfare, European security issues, Homeland security, Iraq policy, military technology, missile defense, peacekeeping operations, U.S. defense strategy and budget.

MR. BORGIDA

Now joining us, in the relative safety here of our Washington studios, with us from the Brookings Institution, foreign policy analyst Michael O'Hanlon. Mr. O'Hanlon, thanks for being with us again. We appreciate your time.

Let's go first to that news headline -- the UN moving back to Iraq to try to work through this political future part of the story. What are your thoughts about that? Can they make progress?

MR. O'HANLON

I think they better make progress. I think we're in a quandary. We're in quite a pickle here. Because the Iraqis clearly don't like our plan. Our plan is very complicated. It makes it look as if this is the United States trying to install a puppet regime. There's enough cynicism already about our motives.

But even if we Americans realize that's not the case, we have to worry about the perception in Iraq. And I think we absolutely need the UN's help. Its expertise is quite good in areas of elections, and I believe they can be both more expert and more impartial in this matter. I think we need some kind of a new system that finds a different way to protect minority rights, as opposed to this caucus approach, which is so obscure and so opaque and so difficult to understand that it looks as if we're just trying to engineer a puppet regime.

MR. BORGIDA

Clearly it's a work in progress, Mr. O'Hanlon. You have to give some praise, I suppose, to all parties here, because there's a level of flexibility that everyone is exhibiting. That's a promising part of this equation, isn't it?

MR. O'HANLON

Yes, I think you're right. And I do commend the U.S. administration for that approach as well. But I also think time is short. And good intentions aren't good enough at this point. We need a plan that people can rally behind.

And I think, for example, you have to consider some kind of an approach that would say, if you're going to have any new legislation in Iraq, you need a supermajority. So the Shia cannot railroad through some kind of a provision that works only to their advantage based on a majority vote. Or perhaps you need some kind of a two-chamber system, where there is a check and balance. And some kind of a body like the U.S. Senate that represents each province equally is a way to check the potential dominance of the Shia majority. I think these sorts of approaches are much simpler, easier to understand, and achieve the same sort of result we were trying to achieve with the caucus system. And so that's where I hope we can perhaps move with this UN delegation.

MR. BORGIDA

President Bush today, Mr. O'Hanlon, was put in a position during a White House meeting with the visiting President of Poland of defending the capabilities of U.S. intelligence agencies; this because David Kay, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, was quoted as saying the U.S. intelligence agencies failed the United States, all this as the rationale for going to war in Iraq. Your thoughts about this particular dilemma and issue?

MR. O'HANLON

Well, I agree with Mr. Kay on one thing, and I disagree with him on something else. I certainly think Mr. Kay is right to say we were all wrong about Saddam's chemical and biological weapons. Whether it's a Democrat or a Republican, an American or a European, U.S. Government or UN, we all thought he had chemical and biological agents that he had not yet destroyed and not allowed us to verify as well.

On the other hand, when David Kay says that the U.S. intelligence community is to blame, and President Bush was somehow the victim, I think that's just badly wrong on the issue of nuclear weapons capability. If you follow this debate, the U.S. Government, and the Bush administration, took the little tidbits of information provided to it by U.S. and British intelligence and manufactured the specter of an imminent Iraqi nuclear threat to justify the case for war. I think that was a deliberate effort by the Bush administration at spin control. I don't think it was necessarily a lie, but I think it was definitely an exaggeration, trying to dramatize a potential threat.

And I understand why we wanted to dramatize a potential threat, but we should have said so. We should have said that's what we were doing. We were worried about Iraq's long-term potential capability to develop a nuclear arsenal as opposed to any imminent Iraqi nuclear capability. And the Bush administration knew very well what it was doing on these issues. It knew very well the nature of the intelligence and how fragmentary it was. I knew the nature of that intelligence from the outside just reading the unclassified reports. So I do not accept Mr. Kay's rationalization for the Bush administration and blaming just U.S. intelligence for this mistake.

MR. BORGIDA

Well, this clearly is, to some degree, a charged discussion, politically to some degree. And there will be those I'm sure who will agree and disagree with your thoughts, Mr. O'Hanlon. Thanks so much for your candor. It has to be said, too, that the President, to be fair, is making it clear that, right or wrong I guess in terms of the weapons program, that he views the world as a much safer place without Saddam Hussein. And all that is to be argued in many places, including our program.

The views of analyst Michael O'Hanlon. Thanks so much for being our guest today on NewsLine. We appreciate your time.

MR. O'HANLON

Thank you, sir.

(End of interview.)

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