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William Cohen Weighs in on Ukrainian, Iraqi Elections
Aired November 30, 2004 - 12:36 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.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now to one of our regular contributors here on YOUR WORLD TODAY, the former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen.
Secretary Cohen, good to see you.
WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: You, too.
VERJEE: Let's start off with Ukraine. The opposition has withdrawn - - withdrawn from talks. There's also talk about holding fresh elections. Do you think that's the way out?
COHEN: Well, it's a possible way out. I think much will depend upon what the supreme court of Ukraine is going to rule. If the court were to rule that the elections were fraudulent in nature, they might recommend that Mr. Yushchenko be declared the winner. That's a possibility.
Absent that, then they may declare that new elections have to be held, although the law doesn't currently provide for them.
So it may be that Parliament has to come into session and declare a new law, or make a new law, that would set in motion an election. Perhaps between the two principal candidates or perhaps open it up to -- to every candidate.
So much is in a state of chaos right now.
VERJEE: Heightened tensions between Russia and the West over the crisis in Ukraine. A puff of Cold War air?
COHEN: Well, it was seen as sort of a reversal, where Secretary Powell used to be the velvet glove and President Bush the steel fist inside that. In recent days, there's been a role reversal, in the sense that Secretary Powell has been very tough in his rhetoric in terms of what it would mean to have Ukraine carried forward with fraudulent elections and have a winner declared based on the fraudulent elections.
President Bush has backed off somewhat with softer rhetoric, because I think he's concerned about his relationship with President Putin. He also needs Russia to continue to cooperate if it can and will with respect to Iran and North Korea.
So President Bush is trying to maintain that personal relationship, and it's causing him to walk a fairly tight line here in terms of whether to be tough on the rhetoric against Ukraine or not.
VERJEE: Iran, it's agreed to suspend its -- the -- suspend uranium enrichment. Now it's saying it's only going to be temporary and they could well start it in a few months.
COHEN: I think we're going to have to have a lot of cold showers along the way to resolving this issue. I think the Iranians feel very strongly that they have a right to conduct enrichment processes as far as uranium is concerned.
Under the law, they clearly do. But the E.U., the United States and others, feel that that is leaning toward the production of -- potentially of a nuclear weapon, which most are very much opposed to.
So we're likely to see the Iranians continue to go on and off again, trying to exact as much leverage as they can in order to prevent the E.U. or the United States from filing a claim in the Security Council to impose wider sanctions.
VERJEE: January 30, elections in Iraq. Do you think they should go ahead, or do you think, as many Sunni groups are calling for, that they should be postponed?
COHEN: I think they should go ahead, for two reasons: one political, one very practical.
On the political side, the United States so far has enjoyed the support of Ayatollah al-Sistani. To have the Shiite majority supporting the United States at this point is very important, in order to avoid a perfect storm with having both the Sunnis and the Shiites opposed to the United States' presence.
So as a political issue, that's very important that we maintain that support.
Secondly, the United States' point of view, in order to have successful elections, we're going to have to have a much larger presence, physical presence on the ground. Right now, there's a stop loss to prevent soldiers who are otherwise going to be returning to the United States from returning, and then to accelerate the deployment of those troops scheduled to go to Iraq, to accelerate that. Meaning you'd have a much bigger force in January.
To postpone the elections would remove that -- that practical force structure that would be there and present. And secondly, it's certainly no guarantee that delay would work to the advantage of bringing the Sunnis into the political process.
So I think for practical and political reasons, the elections are going to go forward, barring any total disintegration of Iraq, will go forward on January 30.
VERJEE: In Washington, former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen, thank you so much.
COHEN: Thank you, Zain.
END
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Aired November 30, 2004 - 12:36:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now to one of our regular contributors here on YOUR WORLD TODAY, the former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen.
Secretary Cohen, good to see you.
WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: You, too.
VERJEE: Let's start off with Ukraine. The opposition has withdrawn - - withdrawn from talks. There's also talk about holding fresh elections. Do you think that's the way out?
COHEN: Well, it's a possible way out. I think much will depend upon what the supreme court of Ukraine is going to rule. If the court were to rule that the elections were fraudulent in nature, they might recommend that Mr. Yushchenko be declared the winner. That's a possibility.
Absent that, then they may declare that new elections have to be held, although the law doesn't currently provide for them.
So it may be that Parliament has to come into session and declare a new law, or make a new law, that would set in motion an election. Perhaps between the two principal candidates or perhaps open it up to -- to every candidate.
So much is in a state of chaos right now.
VERJEE: Heightened tensions between Russia and the West over the crisis in Ukraine. A puff of Cold War air?
COHEN: Well, it was seen as sort of a reversal, where Secretary Powell used to be the velvet glove and President Bush the steel fist inside that. In recent days, there's been a role reversal, in the sense that Secretary Powell has been very tough in his rhetoric in terms of what it would mean to have Ukraine carried forward with fraudulent elections and have a winner declared based on the fraudulent elections.
President Bush has backed off somewhat with softer rhetoric, because I think he's concerned about his relationship with President Putin. He also needs Russia to continue to cooperate if it can and will with respect to Iran and North Korea.
So President Bush is trying to maintain that personal relationship, and it's causing him to walk a fairly tight line here in terms of whether to be tough on the rhetoric against Ukraine or not.
VERJEE: Iran, it's agreed to suspend its -- the -- suspend uranium enrichment. Now it's saying it's only going to be temporary and they could well start it in a few months.
COHEN: I think we're going to have to have a lot of cold showers along the way to resolving this issue. I think the Iranians feel very strongly that they have a right to conduct enrichment processes as far as uranium is concerned.
Under the law, they clearly do. But the E.U., the United States and others, feel that that is leaning toward the production of -- potentially of a nuclear weapon, which most are very much opposed to.
So we're likely to see the Iranians continue to go on and off again, trying to exact as much leverage as they can in order to prevent the E.U. or the United States from filing a claim in the Security Council to impose wider sanctions.
VERJEE: January 30, elections in Iraq. Do you think they should go ahead, or do you think, as many Sunni groups are calling for, that they should be postponed?
COHEN: I think they should go ahead, for two reasons: one political, one very practical.
On the political side, the United States so far has enjoyed the support of Ayatollah al-Sistani. To have the Shiite majority supporting the United States at this point is very important, in order to avoid a perfect storm with having both the Sunnis and the Shiites opposed to the United States' presence.
So as a political issue, that's very important that we maintain that support.
Secondly, the United States' point of view, in order to have successful elections, we're going to have to have a much larger presence, physical presence on the ground. Right now, there's a stop loss to prevent soldiers who are otherwise going to be returning to the United States from returning, and then to accelerate the deployment of those troops scheduled to go to Iraq, to accelerate that. Meaning you'd have a much bigger force in January.
To postpone the elections would remove that -- that practical force structure that would be there and present. And secondly, it's certainly no guarantee that delay would work to the advantage of bringing the Sunnis into the political process.
So I think for practical and political reasons, the elections are going to go forward, barring any total disintegration of Iraq, will go forward on January 30.
VERJEE: In Washington, former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen, thank you so much.
COHEN: Thank you, Zain.
END
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