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Weapons Inspections Continue in Iraq; Interview With Fouad Ajami
Aired January 01, 2003 - 08:03 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: We're going to get back to the threat of Iraq. U.N. weapons inspectors began the new year at work there, hunting for weapons of mass destruction throughout the country. Today, they checked on a Baghdad truck repair shop and a missile maintenance facility north of the city.
Let's get more on this now from Rym Brahimi. She's standing by in Baghdad -- hello and happy new year, Rym.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Leon.
Happy new year to you, too.
Well, as you mentioned, the inspectors are at work today despite this being New Year's Day. At least two teams we know of went out, Leon, one of them, as you mentioned, it's a car vehicle repair shop. It's a workshop that actually mainly deals with cooling and freezing equipment.
Another team headed up north of Baghdad to a very, very wide complex. It's a huge complex called Al-Taji (ph). It's been known to previous inspectors. The inspectors on this round of inspections have already visited it more than once. It seems that this time they were interested in the part of that complex that deals with missile equipment and maintenance of those missile engines.
Now, there was talk yesterday because of a discussion between the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate and the U.N. weapons inspectors of the U.N. weapons inspectors possibly using a helicopter to go on some of their visits today. That didn't happen. We understand it may have finally been dropped for technical reasons, although it seems when the foreign ministry here heard about that, they weren't too happy and said that they were very surprised at the timing of this request to use a helicopter, coming on New Year's Day when it's an official holiday not just in Iraq, but around the world -- Leon.
HARRIS: All right, thank you very much, Rym.
And, again, happy new year to you.
We'll see you soon.
Now, the question this morning is, is war with Iraq inevitable and should the U.S. even try to avoid it? Fouad Ajami is professor of Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University and he's also written a major piece on Iraq for "Foreign Affairs" magazine.
And Fouad Ajami joins us right here in our studios here in New York this morning.
FOUAD AJAMI, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Thank you.
Thank you, Leon.
Happy to...
HARRIS: Happy new year to you.
AJAMI: Same to you.
HARRIS: First of all, you're saying right off the bat that you think that war is not only inevitable, it's absolutely necessary.
AJAMI: Well, I think we've crossed the Rubicon, Leon, on this issue. I think we have, this is, it's reckoning time for Saddam Hussein. We have to get him or forget him because we have come to this point in this story. The man has mocked American power. The man is a threat to our interests. And though he may not have been directly implicated in September 11 -- that's what I say in this piece in "Foreign Affairs" -- his example in the region is radicalizing. So it's time to really resolve this.
HARRIS: But you're saying that the reason for going forward with war right now is to basically transform the region. What guarantee is there that moving, that removing Saddam Hussein out of that region and out of the formula for that, whatever is happening there, will definitely end with the modernization of the Arab world?
AJAMI: Well, that's a good question. I mean I'm a child, ancestrally, of the lands of the Middle East. I'm a child of bleb. I saw the, we witnessed the marines go to Lebanon in the aftermath of the 1982 war and we witnessed what happened to the American position there.
So I understand that basically the Middle East is burning grounds in many ways. There is no guarantee that we can create the city on the hill in Iraq and that this will be a showcase of American primacy and a showcase of American benevolence.
But it is, nevertheless, an important example and our president is on record as saying, in fact, that we really believe that democracy can come to the Arab world and the Muslim world. Because the malignancies of the Arab world have come to visit us, and they visited us in a very tragic way and a very dramatic way on September 11, 2001. So we have no choice.
HARRIS: Why is it then that any transformation of that world would have to be born from aggression, would have to be born from war? Why not diplomatic approaches, and not just going for Iraq? Say, for instance, many people criticized Saudi Arabian society as being much more closed and much more recalcitrant in perhaps holding back from any progress, more so than Iraq has ever been.
AJAMI: Well, I think we've tended to fear, in fact, we've tended to fear democracy -- let's be honest -- in the Muslim world. We've tended to think that if there is any, if there are any elections in the Muslim world it would mean one man, one vote, one time, someone said, that the Islamists would come to power.
So we've tended to really be dubious about democracy in the Arab and Muslim world. And the time has come -- and this is the argument, part of the argument of this piece, is that we have to think about the Middle East in a new way. And we shouldn't shy about the exercise of American power and the exercise of the American example.
People talk about Japan after 1945. We were in Japan for nearly a decade. We transformed and modernized Japan. We did the same in Italy and the same thing in Germany. And if these examples are too forbidding, even Bosnia, we went into Bosnia in 1995 and the case has been somewhat positive.
HARRIS: But, see, it strikes me as being the hope of the world to avoid having to relive those same experiences in Bosnia or in WWII...
AJAMI: Yes.
HARRIS: ... and being able to create democracy, or at least the platforms from which democracy can develop without having the use of war to do it.
AJAMI: Well, the ideal, in a way, that would be the ideal. But the fact of the matter is we have this man in his bunker in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein. We have a man who has invaded two of his neighbors, who has used weapons of mass destruction and we for ourselves in the United States have the example and the shattering surprise of September 11. I truly believe that without September 11, 2001 we could live with Saddam and our leaders would have just, in fact, said, look, containment works.
I mean that's the case of Secretary of State Powell, is why rush to war, we can live with Saddam, we've lived with him for more than a decade and so be it. But I think after September 11 we've come to a different conclusion about the urgency of removing Saddam and robbing the Arabs of his radicalizing example.
HARRIS: All right, let me ask you then, we're hearing in the last few hours President Bush making this delineation between what is happening in North Korea and Iraq.
AJAMI: Sure, yes.
HARRIS: And now that North Korea has come out and has established that they not only have nuclear weapons, that they are going to go ahead and kick out U.N. weapons inspectors to guarantee that they're able to build even more, and there has been the question raised about why doesn't, why is it, then, that in capitals like Washington that North Korea is not seen as more of a threat than Iraq is at this particular point.
Does that not present a threat to American credibility on this issue?
AJAMI: Well, that's a good question because, in fact, if you say that there's an axis of evil out there, there's Iran, Iraq and North Korea, then someone will say why Iraq? Why Iraq at the head of the cue, if you will?
HARRIS: Well, because there hasn't been anything proven yet in Iraq. We haven't seen proof that there actually are weapons of mass destruction programs in effect. But we're seeing proof of that right now in North Korea and North Korea, we're being told that's not that big of a deal.
AJAMI: Well, there is in Iraq, if you will, the danger has always been that maybe Saddam is not Hitler, but the Wizard of Oz, that maybe he has nothing. But the fact of the matter is American intelligence is, has the goods on Saddam Hussein. This will play out. These U.N. inspections will not work. We're never going to come to a point where these inspectors, about 100 and some people scouring the country and finding Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
He has weapons of mass destruction plus he is in a very critical region. Let's use the word. We shouldn't be shy about it. People use it when they go out and fill up their SUVs -- oil. That this man is in a region that's vital to American interests and North Korea isn't. And anyway, and I think the administration is right on this, North Korea has powerful neighbors. It has Japan and so on, I mean there's China nearby. In the Persian Gulf there's American power or chaos and that's the difference between North Korea and Iraq.
HARRIS: But those neighbors aren't all on the same page right now. But that's...
AJAMI: You're right, they are not on the same page. But they will be on the same page if and when America makes a decision to use its power. For example, people say are the Saudis with us or are they not? Are the Turks with us or are they not? They will be with us if we resolve this. But if they continue to hear that there's a fight in Washington between the hawks and the doves and that Secretary Powell doesn't want war or Secretary Rumsfeld wants war, they will simply duck and wait for us to make that decision.
Once we make that decision, we will transform that landscape.
HARRIS: Well, you know, it may be a new year, but there's no new easy solutions available to us.
AJAMI: Yes.
HARRIS: We can tell that right now.
Fouad Ajami, thank you very much for coming in. A pleasure to meet you.
AJAMI: Thank you, Leon.
HARRIS: Happy new year to you.
AJAMI: The same.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Ajami>
Aired January 1, 2003 - 08:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to get back to the threat of Iraq. U.N. weapons inspectors began the new year at work there, hunting for weapons of mass destruction throughout the country. Today, they checked on a Baghdad truck repair shop and a missile maintenance facility north of the city.
Let's get more on this now from Rym Brahimi. She's standing by in Baghdad -- hello and happy new year, Rym.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Leon.
Happy new year to you, too.
Well, as you mentioned, the inspectors are at work today despite this being New Year's Day. At least two teams we know of went out, Leon, one of them, as you mentioned, it's a car vehicle repair shop. It's a workshop that actually mainly deals with cooling and freezing equipment.
Another team headed up north of Baghdad to a very, very wide complex. It's a huge complex called Al-Taji (ph). It's been known to previous inspectors. The inspectors on this round of inspections have already visited it more than once. It seems that this time they were interested in the part of that complex that deals with missile equipment and maintenance of those missile engines.
Now, there was talk yesterday because of a discussion between the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate and the U.N. weapons inspectors of the U.N. weapons inspectors possibly using a helicopter to go on some of their visits today. That didn't happen. We understand it may have finally been dropped for technical reasons, although it seems when the foreign ministry here heard about that, they weren't too happy and said that they were very surprised at the timing of this request to use a helicopter, coming on New Year's Day when it's an official holiday not just in Iraq, but around the world -- Leon.
HARRIS: All right, thank you very much, Rym.
And, again, happy new year to you.
We'll see you soon.
Now, the question this morning is, is war with Iraq inevitable and should the U.S. even try to avoid it? Fouad Ajami is professor of Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University and he's also written a major piece on Iraq for "Foreign Affairs" magazine.
And Fouad Ajami joins us right here in our studios here in New York this morning.
FOUAD AJAMI, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Thank you.
Thank you, Leon.
Happy to...
HARRIS: Happy new year to you.
AJAMI: Same to you.
HARRIS: First of all, you're saying right off the bat that you think that war is not only inevitable, it's absolutely necessary.
AJAMI: Well, I think we've crossed the Rubicon, Leon, on this issue. I think we have, this is, it's reckoning time for Saddam Hussein. We have to get him or forget him because we have come to this point in this story. The man has mocked American power. The man is a threat to our interests. And though he may not have been directly implicated in September 11 -- that's what I say in this piece in "Foreign Affairs" -- his example in the region is radicalizing. So it's time to really resolve this.
HARRIS: But you're saying that the reason for going forward with war right now is to basically transform the region. What guarantee is there that moving, that removing Saddam Hussein out of that region and out of the formula for that, whatever is happening there, will definitely end with the modernization of the Arab world?
AJAMI: Well, that's a good question. I mean I'm a child, ancestrally, of the lands of the Middle East. I'm a child of bleb. I saw the, we witnessed the marines go to Lebanon in the aftermath of the 1982 war and we witnessed what happened to the American position there.
So I understand that basically the Middle East is burning grounds in many ways. There is no guarantee that we can create the city on the hill in Iraq and that this will be a showcase of American primacy and a showcase of American benevolence.
But it is, nevertheless, an important example and our president is on record as saying, in fact, that we really believe that democracy can come to the Arab world and the Muslim world. Because the malignancies of the Arab world have come to visit us, and they visited us in a very tragic way and a very dramatic way on September 11, 2001. So we have no choice.
HARRIS: Why is it then that any transformation of that world would have to be born from aggression, would have to be born from war? Why not diplomatic approaches, and not just going for Iraq? Say, for instance, many people criticized Saudi Arabian society as being much more closed and much more recalcitrant in perhaps holding back from any progress, more so than Iraq has ever been.
AJAMI: Well, I think we've tended to fear, in fact, we've tended to fear democracy -- let's be honest -- in the Muslim world. We've tended to think that if there is any, if there are any elections in the Muslim world it would mean one man, one vote, one time, someone said, that the Islamists would come to power.
So we've tended to really be dubious about democracy in the Arab and Muslim world. And the time has come -- and this is the argument, part of the argument of this piece, is that we have to think about the Middle East in a new way. And we shouldn't shy about the exercise of American power and the exercise of the American example.
People talk about Japan after 1945. We were in Japan for nearly a decade. We transformed and modernized Japan. We did the same in Italy and the same thing in Germany. And if these examples are too forbidding, even Bosnia, we went into Bosnia in 1995 and the case has been somewhat positive.
HARRIS: But, see, it strikes me as being the hope of the world to avoid having to relive those same experiences in Bosnia or in WWII...
AJAMI: Yes.
HARRIS: ... and being able to create democracy, or at least the platforms from which democracy can develop without having the use of war to do it.
AJAMI: Well, the ideal, in a way, that would be the ideal. But the fact of the matter is we have this man in his bunker in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein. We have a man who has invaded two of his neighbors, who has used weapons of mass destruction and we for ourselves in the United States have the example and the shattering surprise of September 11. I truly believe that without September 11, 2001 we could live with Saddam and our leaders would have just, in fact, said, look, containment works.
I mean that's the case of Secretary of State Powell, is why rush to war, we can live with Saddam, we've lived with him for more than a decade and so be it. But I think after September 11 we've come to a different conclusion about the urgency of removing Saddam and robbing the Arabs of his radicalizing example.
HARRIS: All right, let me ask you then, we're hearing in the last few hours President Bush making this delineation between what is happening in North Korea and Iraq.
AJAMI: Sure, yes.
HARRIS: And now that North Korea has come out and has established that they not only have nuclear weapons, that they are going to go ahead and kick out U.N. weapons inspectors to guarantee that they're able to build even more, and there has been the question raised about why doesn't, why is it, then, that in capitals like Washington that North Korea is not seen as more of a threat than Iraq is at this particular point.
Does that not present a threat to American credibility on this issue?
AJAMI: Well, that's a good question because, in fact, if you say that there's an axis of evil out there, there's Iran, Iraq and North Korea, then someone will say why Iraq? Why Iraq at the head of the cue, if you will?
HARRIS: Well, because there hasn't been anything proven yet in Iraq. We haven't seen proof that there actually are weapons of mass destruction programs in effect. But we're seeing proof of that right now in North Korea and North Korea, we're being told that's not that big of a deal.
AJAMI: Well, there is in Iraq, if you will, the danger has always been that maybe Saddam is not Hitler, but the Wizard of Oz, that maybe he has nothing. But the fact of the matter is American intelligence is, has the goods on Saddam Hussein. This will play out. These U.N. inspections will not work. We're never going to come to a point where these inspectors, about 100 and some people scouring the country and finding Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
He has weapons of mass destruction plus he is in a very critical region. Let's use the word. We shouldn't be shy about it. People use it when they go out and fill up their SUVs -- oil. That this man is in a region that's vital to American interests and North Korea isn't. And anyway, and I think the administration is right on this, North Korea has powerful neighbors. It has Japan and so on, I mean there's China nearby. In the Persian Gulf there's American power or chaos and that's the difference between North Korea and Iraq.
HARRIS: But those neighbors aren't all on the same page right now. But that's...
AJAMI: You're right, they are not on the same page. But they will be on the same page if and when America makes a decision to use its power. For example, people say are the Saudis with us or are they not? Are the Turks with us or are they not? They will be with us if we resolve this. But if they continue to hear that there's a fight in Washington between the hawks and the doves and that Secretary Powell doesn't want war or Secretary Rumsfeld wants war, they will simply duck and wait for us to make that decision.
Once we make that decision, we will transform that landscape.
HARRIS: Well, you know, it may be a new year, but there's no new easy solutions available to us.
AJAMI: Yes.
HARRIS: We can tell that right now.
Fouad Ajami, thank you very much for coming in. A pleasure to meet you.
AJAMI: Thank you, Leon.
HARRIS: Happy new year to you.
AJAMI: The same.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Ajami>
