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American Morning

Interview With Peter Brookes

Aired November 26, 2003 - 07:36   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: What can the U.S. learn, if anything, from that tape and is it a good idea to reconstitute Iraq's army in an attempt to put down the insurgents in that country?
To answer those two questions, with us this morning from Washington is Peter Brookes, who's a former assistant secretary of defense and now a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation.

Nice to see you, Mr. Brookes.

Thanks for joining us.

PETER BROOKES, SENIOR FELLOW, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Good morning to you.

Let's begin with this videotape that is purportedly this damaged DHL plane, although obviously it is not confirmed that that's the case.

What do you think is the value of this tape?

We heard the secretary of defense basically dismissing it as propaganda.

Do you think it's worthy of being dismissed?

BROOKES: Well, I wouldn't dismiss it because ultimately all war is political and what the insurgents want to do, not only to go against the Iraqis who are working on changing, transitioning Iraq, and American forces and coalition forces there, but they also want to strike at the will in the United States.

Once again, we could go back to Vietnam, for instance, and even though we were winning on the battlefield, we were losing politically at home. So that's what they're trying to do.

It'll be interesting to see where this video shows up, as well. It was given to the French journalists, but it will be interesting to see if it shows up on any Arab television or somehow in Iraq. So we'll have to see.

But I think it was very poorly done, but obviously it is for propaganda purposes.

O'BRIEN: And you really have two different audiences there. Obviously, you have the Arab audience and then you have the Western audience.

Talk to me a little bit about the differences in those two audiences and whether this is a recruitment or a propaganda ploy.

BROOKES: Well, absolutely. Obviously for people in the United States or other coalition forces -- there are over 30 countries there -- this wants to depress their morale. And for the others, for the Arab audience, it perhaps wants to bring more jihadists to Iraq or encourage other Iraqis to join the insurgents.

It's -- we heard this recently, about how Al Jazeera and Al- Arabiyah appear to have these two television stations, Arab television stations, seem to have been involved with, you know, working with the insurgents. In fact, some of the videotape that we saw, it seems they knew when certain acts were going to take place, and that is obviously to exhort and encourage the insurgents in Iraq and other Arabs -- we know there are foreign fighters there -- to come into Iraq to oppose coalition forces.

O'BRIEN: The handing off of this tape to a French journalist, does that, in your mind, signal some kind of change in strategy?

BROOKES: Well, I think they wanted to get it out to the outside world, but it will be, like I said, it will be interesting to see where else it might play. Giving it -- who knew where she was, what she was going to do with it? Obviously, she shared it with CNN. We're seeing it here in the United States.

I'm not aware that it's being shown anywhere in the Arab world, although I suppose they may pick it up from your broadcasts and do it there. But it was interesting that they shared it with her as opposed to giving it to Al-Arabiyah or Al Jazeera.

O'BRIEN: All right, I want to ask you a little bit about something else that Donald Rumsfeld spoke about, which was reconstituting the Iraqi Army. Obviously, you worked in defense. There are up sides and down sides to this.

Discuss for me briefly what you think is the biggest up side and the biggest down side.

BROOKES: Well, of course, there's only about a thousand Iraqis in the Iraqi Army right now. Most people that may have been in the Iraqi Army have been put into the -- that are back in the security business, have been put into the police forces or other security services. But the Iraqi Army is very small.

And we know that as we move and transition here towards next summer and beyond into 2005, that there needs to be an Iraqi Army. Iraq has to be able to defend itself against its neighbors. It's got some pretty tough neighbors. It lives in a tough neighborhood. Iran on one side and it has Syria on the other side; there's Saudi Arabia and Turkey. So it's going to have to defend itself. And one of the most important things is obviously, is stability and security. So we're going to have to move forward with that. The down side, Soledad, is that we have to be careful about vetting these people. We don't want to give guns and weapons to people who may work at cross purposes to what we're doing in Iraq. We want -- so they're probably going to take lower level people who did not have the loyalty and did not -- were not as big a stakeholders in the Saddam regime as those, maybe the more junior officers, who were treated less privileged.

O'BRIEN: Peter Brookes joining us this morning.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for talking with us.

BROOKES: Thank you, Soledad.

Happy holidays.

O'BRIEN: Thank you and likewise.

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 November 26, 2003 - 07:36   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: What can the U.S. learn, if anything, from that tape and is it a good idea to reconstitute Iraq's army in an attempt to put down the insurgents in that country?
To answer those two questions, with us this morning from Washington is Peter Brookes, who's a former assistant secretary of defense and now a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation.

Nice to see you, Mr. Brookes.

Thanks for joining us.

PETER BROOKES, SENIOR FELLOW, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Good morning to you.

Let's begin with this videotape that is purportedly this damaged DHL plane, although obviously it is not confirmed that that's the case.

What do you think is the value of this tape?

We heard the secretary of defense basically dismissing it as propaganda.

Do you think it's worthy of being dismissed?

BROOKES: Well, I wouldn't dismiss it because ultimately all war is political and what the insurgents want to do, not only to go against the Iraqis who are working on changing, transitioning Iraq, and American forces and coalition forces there, but they also want to strike at the will in the United States.

Once again, we could go back to Vietnam, for instance, and even though we were winning on the battlefield, we were losing politically at home. So that's what they're trying to do.

It'll be interesting to see where this video shows up, as well. It was given to the French journalists, but it will be interesting to see if it shows up on any Arab television or somehow in Iraq. So we'll have to see.

But I think it was very poorly done, but obviously it is for propaganda purposes.

O'BRIEN: And you really have two different audiences there. Obviously, you have the Arab audience and then you have the Western audience.

Talk to me a little bit about the differences in those two audiences and whether this is a recruitment or a propaganda ploy.

BROOKES: Well, absolutely. Obviously for people in the United States or other coalition forces -- there are over 30 countries there -- this wants to depress their morale. And for the others, for the Arab audience, it perhaps wants to bring more jihadists to Iraq or encourage other Iraqis to join the insurgents.

It's -- we heard this recently, about how Al Jazeera and Al- Arabiyah appear to have these two television stations, Arab television stations, seem to have been involved with, you know, working with the insurgents. In fact, some of the videotape that we saw, it seems they knew when certain acts were going to take place, and that is obviously to exhort and encourage the insurgents in Iraq and other Arabs -- we know there are foreign fighters there -- to come into Iraq to oppose coalition forces.

O'BRIEN: The handing off of this tape to a French journalist, does that, in your mind, signal some kind of change in strategy?

BROOKES: Well, I think they wanted to get it out to the outside world, but it will be, like I said, it will be interesting to see where else it might play. Giving it -- who knew where she was, what she was going to do with it? Obviously, she shared it with CNN. We're seeing it here in the United States.

I'm not aware that it's being shown anywhere in the Arab world, although I suppose they may pick it up from your broadcasts and do it there. But it was interesting that they shared it with her as opposed to giving it to Al-Arabiyah or Al Jazeera.

O'BRIEN: All right, I want to ask you a little bit about something else that Donald Rumsfeld spoke about, which was reconstituting the Iraqi Army. Obviously, you worked in defense. There are up sides and down sides to this.

Discuss for me briefly what you think is the biggest up side and the biggest down side.

BROOKES: Well, of course, there's only about a thousand Iraqis in the Iraqi Army right now. Most people that may have been in the Iraqi Army have been put into the -- that are back in the security business, have been put into the police forces or other security services. But the Iraqi Army is very small.

And we know that as we move and transition here towards next summer and beyond into 2005, that there needs to be an Iraqi Army. Iraq has to be able to defend itself against its neighbors. It's got some pretty tough neighbors. It lives in a tough neighborhood. Iran on one side and it has Syria on the other side; there's Saudi Arabia and Turkey. So it's going to have to defend itself. And one of the most important things is obviously, is stability and security. So we're going to have to move forward with that. The down side, Soledad, is that we have to be careful about vetting these people. We don't want to give guns and weapons to people who may work at cross purposes to what we're doing in Iraq. We want -- so they're probably going to take lower level people who did not have the loyalty and did not -- were not as big a stakeholders in the Saddam regime as those, maybe the more junior officers, who were treated less privileged.

O'BRIEN: Peter Brookes joining us this morning.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for talking with us.

BROOKES: Thank you, Soledad.

Happy holidays.

O'BRIEN: Thank you and likewise.

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