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CNN Live Sunday
What Will Happen Next in Showdown With Iraq?
Aired March 16, 2003 - 16:18 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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: So what can we expect to happen next? For some insight, we turn to CNN analyst Ken Pollack from the Brookings Institute here in Washington. Ken, you said earlier that in response to what the vice president, Dick Cheney, warned today, namely that the Iraqis could surprise the U.S. military by launching a preemptive strike of their own against U.S. military troops. You said that probably would be good in the long run, because the Iraqis don't pose much of a threat to U.S. military troops and the U.S. would then have the diplomatic high ground, if you will. But if the Iraqis don't pose much of a military threat, what's the point of the war?
KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Well, obviously you have got to ask different people, and different people have different reasons. I mean, the Bush administration has laid out three different reasons for going to war. One is the weapons of mass destruction. And there the threat is, not so much an immediate one as it is a longer term one. That Saddam Hussein will continue to develop ever more lethal agents at some point in time, he will eventually require nuclear weapons and this will allow him to mount a much greater threat to the region than he currently poses. Another one out there is the humanitarian issue, which you hear the president increasingly playing upon. The fact of the matter is that the Iraqi people live under one of the most brutal tyrannies of the last 50 years.
And you've heard the Bush administration basically making the point that the United States owes it to the Iraqi people. It will be best for the Iraqi people to be rid of this awful regime. And then the final one, and probably the most controversial, is this question of Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorists. And no question Saddam Hussein is a state sponsor of terrorism. But the big issue out there is how closely tied is Iraq to al Qaeda? The administration has been making the case that they believe Saddam Hussein is becoming ever more closely tied to al Qaeda, and that there is an ever greater risk that Saddam Hussein, even if he doesn't use his weapons of mass destruction himself in the near term, might give them to al Qaeda or another terrorist group that would use them.
BLITZER: So those are all important issues, but they seem relatively long-term issues. What's the immediate threat, the imminent threat that would force the U.S. to delay even a week or two weeks, perhaps the 30 days that would force the U.S. right now to go to war?
POLLACK: Well, again, different people have very different views on this. What the administration is arguing is that the diplomatic clock has been played out. They've been waiting not just six months, but 12 years, plus six months to -- for the Security Council to get serious about Iraq. There is also the issue that U.S. forces are deployed out there. It is hard for us to maintain our troops deployed out in the desert. Really prepared. Waiting on the knife's edge, ready to go for a very long period of time.
And so I think the point that the administration is making is, given the fact that Saddam Hussein doesn't seem like he really is interested in complying, and given the fact the United Nations doesn't seem willing to take the actions necessary to force Saddam to comply, the time has come for the United States to go ahead and do what the administration feels has it has to do.
BLITZER: Ken, you spent a career - a career studying the Iraqi regime, Saddam Hussein. You have written a book on it, " The Gathering Storm," a best seller. What's going through the mind of the Iraqi leadership, Saddam Hussein in particular right now, as he braces to receive that first punch?
POLLACK: Well, it's a heck a question, Wolfe, and I wish I had the perfect answer. All I can do is give you my sense of what he is probably thinking. First, I think Saddam still does believe there is the possibility that he could derail this war altogether, that he could continue to stretch it out. We know that has been his game. We know he has said publicly that his whole game has been to just try to stretch this crisis out, stretch it out with little bits of compromises here and there to try to derail the war, prevent it from happening altogether.
But I think it is clear that the Iraqis are recognizing that the chance that will happen is really vanishing, and that the chance that they are going to war is increasing over the course of time. And you see the Iraqis finally now taking the kind of military moves, which I'll be honest with you, I expected to take months ago, to prepare themselves for an actual war. And now I think Saddam is kind of switching to his plan B, which is, winning the war and still in a political sense, but winning the war that he now, I think, realizes he is probably going to have to fight. And there it seems like his game is strategy, is he that he is basically going to give up on most of country and make a stand in Baghdad, and create the idea, the notion, the possibility, that he will be able to inflict horrific casualties on the United States in a fight for Baghdad.
He's learned from the Gulf War that he doesn't have the capacity to defeat the U.S. military out in the open in a pitched military battle. But what he still believes is that the United States public won't be willing to pay for a victory with hundreds or thousands of casualties. And so what he is hoping is, he can create the possibility that in a battle for Baghdad, we would suffer thousands of casualties in the hope that the United States won't be willing to pay that, and, therefore, we'll pull our punch when we get to Baghdad and negotiate an end to the war once we get there, and once we see or once we believe that we won't be able to take the city easily.
BLITZER: CNN analyst, Ken Pollack, thanks very much, Ken, for that insight. We will be speaking a lot in the coming days.
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 March 16, 2003 - 16:18 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: So what can we expect to happen next? For some insight, we turn to CNN analyst Ken Pollack from the Brookings Institute here in Washington. Ken, you said earlier that in response to what the vice president, Dick Cheney, warned today, namely that the Iraqis could surprise the U.S. military by launching a preemptive strike of their own against U.S. military troops. You said that probably would be good in the long run, because the Iraqis don't pose much of a threat to U.S. military troops and the U.S. would then have the diplomatic high ground, if you will. But if the Iraqis don't pose much of a military threat, what's the point of the war?
KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Well, obviously you have got to ask different people, and different people have different reasons. I mean, the Bush administration has laid out three different reasons for going to war. One is the weapons of mass destruction. And there the threat is, not so much an immediate one as it is a longer term one. That Saddam Hussein will continue to develop ever more lethal agents at some point in time, he will eventually require nuclear weapons and this will allow him to mount a much greater threat to the region than he currently poses. Another one out there is the humanitarian issue, which you hear the president increasingly playing upon. The fact of the matter is that the Iraqi people live under one of the most brutal tyrannies of the last 50 years.
And you've heard the Bush administration basically making the point that the United States owes it to the Iraqi people. It will be best for the Iraqi people to be rid of this awful regime. And then the final one, and probably the most controversial, is this question of Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorists. And no question Saddam Hussein is a state sponsor of terrorism. But the big issue out there is how closely tied is Iraq to al Qaeda? The administration has been making the case that they believe Saddam Hussein is becoming ever more closely tied to al Qaeda, and that there is an ever greater risk that Saddam Hussein, even if he doesn't use his weapons of mass destruction himself in the near term, might give them to al Qaeda or another terrorist group that would use them.
BLITZER: So those are all important issues, but they seem relatively long-term issues. What's the immediate threat, the imminent threat that would force the U.S. to delay even a week or two weeks, perhaps the 30 days that would force the U.S. right now to go to war?
POLLACK: Well, again, different people have very different views on this. What the administration is arguing is that the diplomatic clock has been played out. They've been waiting not just six months, but 12 years, plus six months to -- for the Security Council to get serious about Iraq. There is also the issue that U.S. forces are deployed out there. It is hard for us to maintain our troops deployed out in the desert. Really prepared. Waiting on the knife's edge, ready to go for a very long period of time.
And so I think the point that the administration is making is, given the fact that Saddam Hussein doesn't seem like he really is interested in complying, and given the fact the United Nations doesn't seem willing to take the actions necessary to force Saddam to comply, the time has come for the United States to go ahead and do what the administration feels has it has to do.
BLITZER: Ken, you spent a career - a career studying the Iraqi regime, Saddam Hussein. You have written a book on it, " The Gathering Storm," a best seller. What's going through the mind of the Iraqi leadership, Saddam Hussein in particular right now, as he braces to receive that first punch?
POLLACK: Well, it's a heck a question, Wolfe, and I wish I had the perfect answer. All I can do is give you my sense of what he is probably thinking. First, I think Saddam still does believe there is the possibility that he could derail this war altogether, that he could continue to stretch it out. We know that has been his game. We know he has said publicly that his whole game has been to just try to stretch this crisis out, stretch it out with little bits of compromises here and there to try to derail the war, prevent it from happening altogether.
But I think it is clear that the Iraqis are recognizing that the chance that will happen is really vanishing, and that the chance that they are going to war is increasing over the course of time. And you see the Iraqis finally now taking the kind of military moves, which I'll be honest with you, I expected to take months ago, to prepare themselves for an actual war. And now I think Saddam is kind of switching to his plan B, which is, winning the war and still in a political sense, but winning the war that he now, I think, realizes he is probably going to have to fight. And there it seems like his game is strategy, is he that he is basically going to give up on most of country and make a stand in Baghdad, and create the idea, the notion, the possibility, that he will be able to inflict horrific casualties on the United States in a fight for Baghdad.
He's learned from the Gulf War that he doesn't have the capacity to defeat the U.S. military out in the open in a pitched military battle. But what he still believes is that the United States public won't be willing to pay for a victory with hundreds or thousands of casualties. And so what he is hoping is, he can create the possibility that in a battle for Baghdad, we would suffer thousands of casualties in the hope that the United States won't be willing to pay that, and, therefore, we'll pull our punch when we get to Baghdad and negotiate an end to the war once we get there, and once we see or once we believe that we won't be able to take the city easily.
BLITZER: CNN analyst, Ken Pollack, thanks very much, Ken, for that insight. We will be speaking a lot in the coming days.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
