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CNN Live Today
Discussion with Kenneth Pollack
Aired October 15, 2002 - 10:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The Bush administration may be pushing hard to get rid of Saddam Hussein but the Iraqis who live in Iraq are overwhelming in their support of him, apparently. In a national referendum today in which the Iraqi leader was the only presidential candidate, some of the voters marked their ballots with their own blood. Even before the polls opened, it was a foregone conclusion that Saddam Hussein would remain in power. But the only real question is, what would happen if any of those people had dared to vote against him?
Now, that referendum in Iraq is a simple yes or no choice for some 12 million Iraqis. The decision in the U.S. and the United Nations whether to wage war against Iraq, though, that one is not so black and white. The threatening storm, the case for invading Iraq, explains the justification for a full-scale military assault on Baghdad. The author is Kenneth Pollack, who has served as an Iraq expert at the CIA and was a member of President Clinton's National Security Council. He is now director of research at the center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute in Washington.
Thank you for taking time to talk with us. Glad to have you with us.
KENNETH POLLACK, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: Absolutely. Thank you, Leon.
I didn't get a chance to read this entire book. It's only about 500 pages. I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing last night. But it did strike me in what I was able to get flew, in that the case you make, and you have been a hawk about Iraq for quite some time, as has this administration, but it seems as though the case that you make is a lot more thorough and articulate.
What would you make of the differences between the case you make here and the case that President Bush has been making?
POLLACK: Firstly, thanks for the compliment. I greatly appreciate it. I think there is a very strong case to be made for going to war with Iraq at some point in the next few years. The basic problem that we have with Saddam Hussein is he is absolutely determined to acquire...
HARRIS: Ken, can you hold on for a quick second? We've got some breaking news we have to get to right now.
POLLACK: Sure, go ahead.
(INTERRUPTED BY BREAKING NEWS)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Now back to our conversation with Kenneth Pollack, who was the author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq."
Kenneth, we thank you for bearing with us this morning.
POLLACK: In print, you don't have to deal with the clock like we do. We want to get back to the conversation. I want to move on to another point. We were about to get into the case that President bush made versus the one you make in the book. You make a very strong case here, but others, who have been critics of the Bush administration's plan says his plan will radicalize the Arab world and cause a bigger problem down the road.
With what we've seen with the spate of recent bombings, Bali being the latest, and we've also seen the hardliners in Pakistan make surprisingly strong showings in the elections there. Is that not proof of the radicalization of the Muslim world?
POLLACK: It demonstrates there is clearly a problem out there, but we shouldn't make all kinds of assumptions. People have predicted in the past that the Arab street (ph) would rise up if the U.S. took this action or that action. They predicted as a result of the Gulf War. They predicted it prior to Afghanistan.
What it really gets to are two things. First, there's always going to be the margins out there, the fringe groups who simply hate the United States, and they're going to want to attack us under any circumstances. And whether we go into Iraq or don't go into Iraq is not going to have any impact on people who join groups like Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
But for the vast majority of Arabs in the Middle East, there is a great deal of anti-Americanism there, in large part because they blame the United States for enabling the dictatorial regimes of the region to basically keep them politically disenfranchised and poor and impoverished.
And one of the things that they're waiting to see is for the United States to put their money where their mouth is and support them. I think they're most likely react to how we handle the reconstruction of Iraq once Saddam is gone. If we handle Iraq the way we handled Afghanistan and walk away, I think that will radicalize the region. On the other hand, if we take a long-term approach to rebuilding a stable, prosperous Iraq, I think we'll make a lot of headway.
HARRIS: Quickly, we only have a few seconds here. What do you make of what you've seen and heard so far about what kind of regime the U.S. would try to build there in Iraq afterwards. A post-Iraq, in many people's views, could just end up being a U.S. puppet government, which would cause, again, more problems than we want at this particular point. POLLACK: Absolutely. This is a huge problem. It's one of the reasons why I think we need to get the international community involved. We need to handle Iraq the way we've handled Bosnia, the way that we've handled East Timor, with the United States and other multinational forces taking responsibility for security, but leaving it up to the U.N. and the nongovernmental organizations, which are better at the job and much more neutral to build democracy over the long term, and let the Iraqis choose their leaders for themselves.
QUESTION: Kenneth Pollack, author of "The Threatening Storm," thank you for trying to squeeze as much information as you can into two minutes. Nice job. And a nice job on the book. A very interesting book that swayed at least one skeptic I know. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. Good luck to you.
POLLACK: Thanks, Leon. You, too.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 15, 2002 - 10:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The Bush administration may be pushing hard to get rid of Saddam Hussein but the Iraqis who live in Iraq are overwhelming in their support of him, apparently. In a national referendum today in which the Iraqi leader was the only presidential candidate, some of the voters marked their ballots with their own blood. Even before the polls opened, it was a foregone conclusion that Saddam Hussein would remain in power. But the only real question is, what would happen if any of those people had dared to vote against him?
Now, that referendum in Iraq is a simple yes or no choice for some 12 million Iraqis. The decision in the U.S. and the United Nations whether to wage war against Iraq, though, that one is not so black and white. The threatening storm, the case for invading Iraq, explains the justification for a full-scale military assault on Baghdad. The author is Kenneth Pollack, who has served as an Iraq expert at the CIA and was a member of President Clinton's National Security Council. He is now director of research at the center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute in Washington.
Thank you for taking time to talk with us. Glad to have you with us.
KENNETH POLLACK, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: Absolutely. Thank you, Leon.
I didn't get a chance to read this entire book. It's only about 500 pages. I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing last night. But it did strike me in what I was able to get flew, in that the case you make, and you have been a hawk about Iraq for quite some time, as has this administration, but it seems as though the case that you make is a lot more thorough and articulate.
What would you make of the differences between the case you make here and the case that President Bush has been making?
POLLACK: Firstly, thanks for the compliment. I greatly appreciate it. I think there is a very strong case to be made for going to war with Iraq at some point in the next few years. The basic problem that we have with Saddam Hussein is he is absolutely determined to acquire...
HARRIS: Ken, can you hold on for a quick second? We've got some breaking news we have to get to right now.
POLLACK: Sure, go ahead.
(INTERRUPTED BY BREAKING NEWS)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Now back to our conversation with Kenneth Pollack, who was the author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq."
Kenneth, we thank you for bearing with us this morning.
POLLACK: In print, you don't have to deal with the clock like we do. We want to get back to the conversation. I want to move on to another point. We were about to get into the case that President bush made versus the one you make in the book. You make a very strong case here, but others, who have been critics of the Bush administration's plan says his plan will radicalize the Arab world and cause a bigger problem down the road.
With what we've seen with the spate of recent bombings, Bali being the latest, and we've also seen the hardliners in Pakistan make surprisingly strong showings in the elections there. Is that not proof of the radicalization of the Muslim world?
POLLACK: It demonstrates there is clearly a problem out there, but we shouldn't make all kinds of assumptions. People have predicted in the past that the Arab street (ph) would rise up if the U.S. took this action or that action. They predicted as a result of the Gulf War. They predicted it prior to Afghanistan.
What it really gets to are two things. First, there's always going to be the margins out there, the fringe groups who simply hate the United States, and they're going to want to attack us under any circumstances. And whether we go into Iraq or don't go into Iraq is not going to have any impact on people who join groups like Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
But for the vast majority of Arabs in the Middle East, there is a great deal of anti-Americanism there, in large part because they blame the United States for enabling the dictatorial regimes of the region to basically keep them politically disenfranchised and poor and impoverished.
And one of the things that they're waiting to see is for the United States to put their money where their mouth is and support them. I think they're most likely react to how we handle the reconstruction of Iraq once Saddam is gone. If we handle Iraq the way we handled Afghanistan and walk away, I think that will radicalize the region. On the other hand, if we take a long-term approach to rebuilding a stable, prosperous Iraq, I think we'll make a lot of headway.
HARRIS: Quickly, we only have a few seconds here. What do you make of what you've seen and heard so far about what kind of regime the U.S. would try to build there in Iraq afterwards. A post-Iraq, in many people's views, could just end up being a U.S. puppet government, which would cause, again, more problems than we want at this particular point. POLLACK: Absolutely. This is a huge problem. It's one of the reasons why I think we need to get the international community involved. We need to handle Iraq the way we've handled Bosnia, the way that we've handled East Timor, with the United States and other multinational forces taking responsibility for security, but leaving it up to the U.N. and the nongovernmental organizations, which are better at the job and much more neutral to build democracy over the long term, and let the Iraqis choose their leaders for themselves.
QUESTION: Kenneth Pollack, author of "The Threatening Storm," thank you for trying to squeeze as much information as you can into two minutes. Nice job. And a nice job on the book. A very interesting book that swayed at least one skeptic I know. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. Good luck to you.
POLLACK: Thanks, Leon. You, too.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
