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American Morning

When Will U.S. Leave Iraq?

Aired April 14, 2003 - 09:44   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, the issue of when or if U.S. forces will leave Iraq seems to raise as many questions as answers today. Jeff Greenfield, our CNN analyst, has been looking into this issue. Nice to see you in person again.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Welcome home.

HEMMER: Well, thank you. It appears to be a different argument this time, but how is it shaking down in terms of that argument?

GREENFIELD: Well, in past conflicts, the pressure of a quick withdrawal has come from the home front. I mean, after Word War II, for example, enormous pressure on the government to bring the boys home, and in Vietnam it was home front pressure to stop the war and bring the boys home, get the POWs out. Here, it's really about what kind of Iraq the United States wants to see happen, and the world should want to see happen, and how does the timeline affect that? In other words, how a quick withdrawal or a long stay will change that.

HEMMER: I have to think there could be dangers, though, in a quick withdrawal, and how do you avoid those if at all?

GREENFIELD: Well, we should first -- if I may, if you look at why there is pressure for a quick withdrawal, it is the whole idea of not looking like a colonial occupying power, and it's very interesting that the guy the Pentagon has picked as the leader, Ahmad Chalabi, has recently said as much. He said in an interview -- in a letter, he said Iraqis must control Iraq at all times. We don't need a U.S. general or U.N. bureaucrat to run it, and he is trying to position himself as a nationalist, and the way you do that, I think, if you are an Iraqi, is to say we don't want any foreign occupiers. That's the appeal of a quick withdrawal.

HEMMER: So, if the Iraqis who are heading up the leadership that will assume control at some point, whether that is six months or a year, remains an open question, but there has to be some sort of danger inherent in there. If you get out too soon, and things are just not prepped, ready.

GREENFIELD: If the civil institutions aren't put in place, you are going to lose the war in the biggest sense. That sounds dramatic, but it's true. By that I mean the obvious, get the water running, get the electricity going, get some kind of civil authority, and then begin to build the political institutions. If you pull out in a year and say, OK, now we are going to have elections, you are going to have what Fareed Zakaria, a very smart foreign affairs writer, calls "illiberal democracy." You may well elect the most extreme, unstabilizing elements in the region who will turn right around and crush everybody who disagrees with them. So that's the danger of a quick withdrawal.

HEMMER: Win the war, lose the peace. I got to think, also, Jeff, on another front here, there are a lot of world capitals right now watching what happens here. When these two cultures, these two civilizations, one from Iraq, and one from the U.S. and British military come together in Iraq, the Iraqis need the U.S. to help them get back on a firm footing, and the U.S. need the Iraqis to cooperate to make sure they can show the world that they did it right.

GREENFIELD: And if you just want to pile dilemma upon dilemma, even if that were to happen, and let's say within five years, that's, by the way, the line that most people think is realistic. There is a fellow who ran a lot of reconstruction efforts, says five years is kind of a minimum. We were in Japan for seven years. But if they build a stable, let's say, democratic in the real sense, with liberty and constitutional protection and a favorable view toward United States, who surrounds them? Syria, Iran, countries that aren't necessarily disposed to that, and we've seen what happens when United States becomes the protector of a country like that. We're in South Korea, 30,000, I think, troops. That's 50 years after the armistice. We are still in Germany. And so the question then becomes whether or not, in an effort to then protect the state we build, we have to remain in Iraq, not for two years or five years, but for decades, whereupon we create another flash point. It's a real dilemma.

HEMMER: So long as the Iraqis accept the U.S. presence there, it might work. It's a huge experiment, but the upside is enormous.

GREENFIELD: And lastly, we might create a democratic government that then says, as the Philippines did to the United States, thank you very much. Now, please get your bases the heck out of here.

HEMMER: Easier said and done in those cases. Thank you, Jeff. Nice to chat with you.

GREENFIELD: OK.

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 April 14, 2003 - 09:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, the issue of when or if U.S. forces will leave Iraq seems to raise as many questions as answers today. Jeff Greenfield, our CNN analyst, has been looking into this issue. Nice to see you in person again.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Welcome home.

HEMMER: Well, thank you. It appears to be a different argument this time, but how is it shaking down in terms of that argument?

GREENFIELD: Well, in past conflicts, the pressure of a quick withdrawal has come from the home front. I mean, after Word War II, for example, enormous pressure on the government to bring the boys home, and in Vietnam it was home front pressure to stop the war and bring the boys home, get the POWs out. Here, it's really about what kind of Iraq the United States wants to see happen, and the world should want to see happen, and how does the timeline affect that? In other words, how a quick withdrawal or a long stay will change that.

HEMMER: I have to think there could be dangers, though, in a quick withdrawal, and how do you avoid those if at all?

GREENFIELD: Well, we should first -- if I may, if you look at why there is pressure for a quick withdrawal, it is the whole idea of not looking like a colonial occupying power, and it's very interesting that the guy the Pentagon has picked as the leader, Ahmad Chalabi, has recently said as much. He said in an interview -- in a letter, he said Iraqis must control Iraq at all times. We don't need a U.S. general or U.N. bureaucrat to run it, and he is trying to position himself as a nationalist, and the way you do that, I think, if you are an Iraqi, is to say we don't want any foreign occupiers. That's the appeal of a quick withdrawal.

HEMMER: So, if the Iraqis who are heading up the leadership that will assume control at some point, whether that is six months or a year, remains an open question, but there has to be some sort of danger inherent in there. If you get out too soon, and things are just not prepped, ready.

GREENFIELD: If the civil institutions aren't put in place, you are going to lose the war in the biggest sense. That sounds dramatic, but it's true. By that I mean the obvious, get the water running, get the electricity going, get some kind of civil authority, and then begin to build the political institutions. If you pull out in a year and say, OK, now we are going to have elections, you are going to have what Fareed Zakaria, a very smart foreign affairs writer, calls "illiberal democracy." You may well elect the most extreme, unstabilizing elements in the region who will turn right around and crush everybody who disagrees with them. So that's the danger of a quick withdrawal.

HEMMER: Win the war, lose the peace. I got to think, also, Jeff, on another front here, there are a lot of world capitals right now watching what happens here. When these two cultures, these two civilizations, one from Iraq, and one from the U.S. and British military come together in Iraq, the Iraqis need the U.S. to help them get back on a firm footing, and the U.S. need the Iraqis to cooperate to make sure they can show the world that they did it right.

GREENFIELD: And if you just want to pile dilemma upon dilemma, even if that were to happen, and let's say within five years, that's, by the way, the line that most people think is realistic. There is a fellow who ran a lot of reconstruction efforts, says five years is kind of a minimum. We were in Japan for seven years. But if they build a stable, let's say, democratic in the real sense, with liberty and constitutional protection and a favorable view toward United States, who surrounds them? Syria, Iran, countries that aren't necessarily disposed to that, and we've seen what happens when United States becomes the protector of a country like that. We're in South Korea, 30,000, I think, troops. That's 50 years after the armistice. We are still in Germany. And so the question then becomes whether or not, in an effort to then protect the state we build, we have to remain in Iraq, not for two years or five years, but for decades, whereupon we create another flash point. It's a real dilemma.

HEMMER: So long as the Iraqis accept the U.S. presence there, it might work. It's a huge experiment, but the upside is enormous.

GREENFIELD: And lastly, we might create a democratic government that then says, as the Philippines did to the United States, thank you very much. Now, please get your bases the heck out of here.

HEMMER: Easier said and done in those cases. Thank you, Jeff. Nice to chat with you.

GREENFIELD: OK.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com