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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Mark Thompson
Aired September 01, 2002 - 08:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: For more insight now into the Bush administrations battle for public support for a war against Iraq, Mark Thompson joins us from Washington. He is the national security correspondent for "TIME" magazine. Mr. Thompson, thanks for being with us early on a Sunday morning.
MARK THOMPSON, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, TIME MAGAZINE: Good morning.
SAN MIGUEL: I hope I'm not blindsiding you with this, but there is a report that's moving on Reuters that says that Secretary of State Colin Powell has said today that Washington wants the first step towards solving the Iraq crisis to be the return of weapons inspectors, to see about Saddam Hussein's arms capability. Now, last week we had Dick Cheney making that speech saying, it doesn't matter, arms inspectors or no arms inspectors, there needs to be a preemptive strike. What about the significance of this latest comment from Colin Powell?
THOMPSON: Well, the United States can win the war against Iraq unilaterally, but it can't win the peace against Iraq unilaterally, and to win the peace in a post-Saddam Iraq, the United States needs to bring its allies along for the war, and I think that's what Secretary Powell was pushing for today.
SAN MIGUEL: The idea, though, that Colin Powell and the rest of the administration don't seem to be working off the same page, and the effect that that's going to have with trying to get allied support, if indeed we do go to this, I mean, this latest, this latest comment now, what does that do to projecting a united front?
THOMPSON: Well, first of all, I think the administration has to win the support of the U.S. Congress. Bob Dole, the former majority leader, says in the "Washington Post" this morning that that's something the president must do. He believes that if they do that, our allies will come along with us. If you go back 11 years to the first Gulf War, that basically is what happened. Once the world was convinced that the United States was serious about going to war with Saddam Hussein, people sort of fell in behind America, and I think that's what the Bush administration will be betting on this time.
SAN MIGUEL: But, you know, you mentioned -- we talk about getting Congress' support, it was last week, early in the week, there was talk about that legally, the Bush administration does not have to do that, it can go ahead and do whatever it wants to in that case -- is there -- are you hearing of any kind of a split at all, about not going to Congress, not notifying the key members about any kind of action against Iraq?
THOMPSON: This is the old bugaboo about separation of powers.
SAN MIGUEL: Yes.
THOMPSON: No White House likes to be ordered to go to Congress, but politically it would be very stupid if they didn't. You cannot go into Iraq with a war, without the American people, without Congress, and without your allies behind you. It's possible to do it; it just seems politically stupid to a lot of observers on the outside.
SAN MIGUEL: Now, let's talk about some of those allies, in particular, the -- you know, any moderate Arab states that you may want to have in a coalition. The idea that they would be saying something for public consumption -- within their own countries, but that privately, they would be going to go along with this. Are you still hearing that that might be the case -- if indeed we do take the next step against Iraq?
THOMPSON: Yeah, that generally is true. While Saudi Arabia remains the big question mark, the more moderate Gulf states like Qatar, UAE and Oman are likely to be with us, according to people I'm talking to in the administration. The fact of the matter is, that they don't want to broadcast that now, well in advance of any conflict, and as a matter of fact, we might not learn until actual hostilities are under way who our allies really are in that part of the world.
SAN MIGUEL: And what about the European allies as well? You know, we can expect Tony Blair to be with the U.S. on this, as they have since September 11, but, you know, the idea of some of the other European allies, there's an awful lot of nay-saying going on there. Is that a concern to the administration at this point in time? It's still kind of early, as we know.
THOMPSON: Right. On September 11, Geoffrey Hoon, the British minister of defense, will actually be in Washington, meeting with Don Rumsfeld. That was announced this morning in London. The Brits are firmly with us. If the Brits are with us, the French will be with us, because they don't want to be left out.
Once you get those two big European powers with us, the other countries will tend to fall in behind them, although Germany and some others may sit this one out.
SAN MIGUEL: And then, finally, the idea here of any parallels between 41 -- Bush 41 and Bush 43? I seem to recall in 1991 that it took a while for -- to get the public behind any kind of action against Iraq for Desert Storm. Are you seeing anything, you know, that parallels that in the current situation now?
THOMPSON: Yes, I think if you do think back, you'll recall that prior to the elections in 1990, in November of 1990, the public was sort of blase about the prospect of going to war with Iraq, and in the wake of those elections, the first President Bush doubled our troop commitment to that region of the world, that Congress not very bracingly but somewhat slowly did come around to endorse the president's plan to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, and sort of a momentum built into early January when we finally went to war.
I think you're likely to see the same sort of thing replicated. Nobody wants to get on this bandwagon too soon until they're sure that it's going to happen.
SAN MIGUEL: It will be interesting to see what does happen. Mark Thompson, national security correspondent for "TIME" magazine, thanks for joining us on this Sunday morning.
THOMPSON: Sure.
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