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American Morning

Interview of Seymour Hersh, "The New Yorker"

Aired March 04, 2002 - 09:05   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: On to the issue of Iraq. Is Iraq the next target in the war on terror? Well, the question, it seems, may no longer be "if," but "when" the U.S. will attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

In the current issue of "The New Yorker," investigative reporter Seymour Hersh says the timeline for an Iraqi invasion is the subject of intense debate within the Bush administration, and Seymour Hersh joins us now from Washington. Welcome back, good to see you again, Seymour.

SEYMOUR HERSH, "THE NEW YORKER": Good morning.

ZAHN: So help us understand the split that is going on between the Pentagon and some administration officials?

HERSH: It's a split about everything. When to go, how many forces would be needed, do we need a lot of forces or a few? There are people in the Pentagon who think we can move very quickly with 5,000 or so Americans training some Iraqi dissidents and go and claim some land in the south. We don't have to go to Baghdad right away because once we get in there, the theory is that the army will revolt, the people will revolt, everybody will welcome us with open arms.

And this is a terribly bitter fight inside the government right now with, basically, the State Department, most notably Colin Powell and Richard Armitage, his deputy, in sort of, almost, a personal war with some people in the Pentagon who -- it has gotten to the point of almost name calling, really.

ZAHN: So, as they try to reconcile these enormous differences, you have learned from your sources, meanwhile, that there's an actual potential time line for possible military action against Saddam Hussein. When is the soonest the U.S. could attack?

Well, there are people in the Pentagon who believe some of the civilians, led by Mr. Wolfowitz, the deputy, Mr. Rumsfeld's deputy, who believe early we can go very early in the spring before it gets too hot. The State Department, basically, is saying my God, no, we need at least a major force, you know, 150, 200,000 men. We have to train them, we have to get our allies aboard. We have to try diplomacy first. They are talking about fall. Presumably sometime before the election which, of course, is very interesting to everybody. And it's a pit war. The problem is that one side -- both sides are accusing the other side of not -- almost -- it's almost sort of childish in a way. One side is accusing the other side of -- they are confusing disagreement with disloyalty. And there is a litmus test in the Pentagon, in particular. The civilians there who, just simply, as I understand it, won't even read opposition papers. It's pretty heated.

ZAHN: Now, we should also talk about the role Israel might play in all of this. It certainly will be a key part of the equation, and a senior Israeli official actually told you that if Iraq was to target Israel in response to an American attack, like it did during the Gulf War, Israel would fire back. That official says, and we are going to put this up on the screen now for everybody to see it, "the United States should assume, in its considerations, that if Israel is to be hit, Israel will hit back. Our message is clear. If a Scud hit Tel Aviv with a dirty warhead, and you have dozens of people killed, does anyone -- does anyone really expect Israel to sit there? Will they dare ask us not to respond?"

And so, how does this threat enter into this debate that's going on between the Pentagon and the State Department?

HERSH: Well, of course, what happened is a month ago, Mr. Sharon, the prime minister of Israel, was here, and publicly, the meeting was about, of course, Arafat and the Palestinian question, which is obviously a huge issue. But there was a second agenda, which was we were trying to convince the Israelis to take a Scud or two.

The theory is, of course, once we do invade, whether we invade small or big, or when the president has to make that decision, I think he wants to do so by spring -- in any case, once we invade, Saddam is going to do everything he can, throw it all at Israel, because if he gets Israel into a war, then the United States is not only fighting terrorism, Islamic terrorism, we are also fighting the Arab world theoretically. So, of course, the issue was for us to convince Sharon to take one or two missiles. We can't be sure we are going to stop everything.

If you remember in 1991 in the Gulf War, 39 missiles, Scuds, got through. So, that was a key issue for us, and they are saying no, frankly, at this point, if the Israelis won't come along, this is a very serious impediment to our planning. We can't begin war against Saddam. And, by the way, there are many people in the government who say to me, as we can see from the news today, this was said last week to me, you know, we are not doing so well in the one war we're in right now, that's Afghanistan, why do we want to start another one?

So there is serious problems, but the Israeli thing is a real clincher. It is almost like a blackmail threat. Israel, by the way, my understanding is, would much rather see us go elsewhere than Iraq. They see Iran as more of a problem. And this could be their way of forcing our hand.

ZAHN: All right.

HERSH: There are a lot serious problems coming. ZAHN: It is known fact, too, that Israel has a nuclear bomb. Is anyone -- no one -- you can't tell me -- I mean, is anybody out there concerned they would actually use a nuclear weapon against Iraq if Iraq were to launch more Scud attacks into Israel?

HERSH: I -- you know, let me tell you, Sharon, you just can't tell. I it would be so crazy, but the problem is, that if the worst thing scenario happened, what would happen in the rest of the world? Would the Pakistanis feel it is time to do something themselves in response? Retaliation for their feather -- other Arabs in the world? It's a mess. It's just not as simple as it seems.

ZAHN: And as you piece comes out, it is interesting to note that William Sapphire in the "New York Times" today is talking about Saddam Hussein being up to his old tricks here, basically negotiating for time as he looks ahead to potential inspections, he's going to limit who can come on the team, and what they can look at. Final thought on that, and sort of his strategy at the moment?

HERSH: The big question this summer is going to be in June when the U.N. -- many of our allies in the U.N. are going to want more inspections before we start a war. And that is going to be the big issue. We are going to try and jack it up, so that any inspection regime is going to include the right to have us to send troops in with the inspectors, et cetera. We are going to try to do whatever we can to make Saddam say no, but if he says yes to more inspectors, we've got a real diplomatic problem.

And once again, you have to emphasize, right now it is a tough time for this administration. The war is not going in Afghanistan as well as it wants, and they have a lot of internessing (ph) warfare about the new one. So it is going to take an awful lot of leadership, and we will see what happens.

ZAHN: Seymour Hersh. Always good to have you with us. His piece, of course, is now out in "The New Yorker." Look forward to having you back, in about a month from now.

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