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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (39968)	3/19/2004 10:57:01 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

does the Iraq War make America more or less secure? ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: On balance, I would have to say, and with genuine sadness, less secure. I think we have increased the number of enemies. The global antagonism towards the United States is much higher than before. International mistrust of the United States is at unprecedented heights. And the United States is more isolated internationally than probably at any point in its history. ... Is the world safer without Saddam Hussein? ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I have no regrets that Saddam Hussein is gone. I'm not sure the world is necessarily safer because, in fact, he wasn't such a threat. But the world is better off without him because he was a very ugly dictator. And I suppose American power is more respected, and that is, to some extent, a good thing. Maybe such things as the breakthrough with Libya was accelerated by what we did. But then you have to count against that, first of all, the loss of life. More than five hundred, seven hundred Americans and friends killed. Probably up to 10,000 Iraqis killed -- continued costs -- they're escalating, both in blood and money. But above all else, the loss of American credibility, both at home and abroad, is something that's very serious. The fact that president of the United States is no longer trusted and his word is not taken to be America's bond is a serious development. It detracts from our power. But then, beyond that, there is the proliferation of terrorist groups; that is a serious problem. And the connection between terrorism and Iraq, which the president tried to establish today in his anniversary speech, is to put it very mildly, extremely tenuous. MARGARET WARNER: How do you see that issue, Walter Mead, the connection between terrorism in Iraq? The president is saying it's always been part of the same war on terror. Others, including Zbigniew Brzezinski just now, seem to be suggesting that, in fact, the Iraq War helped generate a proliferation of terror cells. How do you see it? WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Well, I think we were in the process of proliferating terror before the Iraq War. There are ways in which the connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorist organizations wasn't that Saddam Hussein himself was funding them. For example, U.S. troops had to stay in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War on a permanent basis because Saddam Hussein violated his cease-fire agreement and was a threat to Saudi Arabia. It was because U.S. troops were permanently stationed in Saudi Arabia that Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaida. So people thought that containing Iraq was a kind of a cost-free policy -- I actually think it was a high-cost policy and those costs were mounting with time. So this is one reason I feel we kind of had to lance the boil at some point. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> My comment to Mead. Given how weak Saddam was, that was no excuse to keep bases in Saudi Arabia, and if we hadn't been there, there would be no Al Qaeda. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Are you saying that this has a permanent effect on America's ability to lead now in the future? ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Permanent is probably too strong a word but an enduring one, yes. You cannot be leading if you are misleading. And that is just a fact of life. Democracy is based on trust, on the covenant between the people and the president. An international alliance of democracies is based on trust. When President Kennedy sent Dean Acheson to Paris to alert De Gaulle that there were Soviet missiles aimed at the United States and that the United States would remove them, and when Acheson finished briefing De Gaulle and said to De Gaulle, "I now want to show you the evidence," De Gaulle responded, "I don't want to see the evidence. I believe the president of the United States. France stands with the United States." Would this happen today? I doubt it very much. The fact is that our credibility has been hurt. And our ability to discuss terrorism seriously is also weakened because we now generalize about terrorism. We talk about it as if it was a single phenomenon. Yesterday in the New York Times, there was a very interesting article which talks explicitly about the spread of new groups since the war in Iraq, incidentally, and that the IISS, The Institute of International Strategic Studies in London, is reporting that the recruitment -- global recruitment -- for anti-American Jihad is rising since the war against Iraq. And last but not least, we celebrate today the first anniversary of the war against Iraq and we gain a link to terrorism even though there is no more evidence for that than there was for the weapons of mass destruction. This is hurting us. There is terrorism. There is a problem, but we are not going to combat it effectively if people don't trust us. ... from pbs.org lurqer