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Former U.S. Defense Secretary: Saudi Arabia Needs to Change, Afghan President Must Deal with Warlords, Iraq Elections Will Take Place
Aired December 07, 2004 - 12:35 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: The inauguration of the Afghan president, the security situation in Saudi Arabia, upcoming elections in Iraq are all talking points for our regular weekly discussion with the former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen. He now heads the Cohen Group, an international business consulting firm, and he joins us now on the program.
Secretary Cohen, good to see you. First of all, the attack on the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, really showing no matter how well protected American installation is, it's still vulnerable.
WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: It does remain vulnerable, and that is true at virtually every facility. You can take so many precautions and wreck so many barriers, wall off access to the compound itself, but ultimately, it still remains vulnerable.
The important message here was it did not -- it was not successful in terms of carrying out the attack to its -- its obvious target. And that was to get inside and to kill as many people as possible. So it was successfully defeated, even though there was a loss of life.
But any time you make improvements of security, you're still going to have vulnerabilities. As a matter of fact, there's a major renovation project still underway on behalf of the U.S. consulates and embassies. It will take some 14 years. It will cost some 17-plus billion dollars in order to improve the security for those embassies and consulates operating worldwide.
VERJEE: What's your assessment of the degree of sophistication of the attack, and what does it reveal to you as you looked at it about the attackers and their organization?
COHEN: It reveals that al Qaeda cells operate in Saudi Arabia, that the Saudi government has certainly improved its intelligence and its police work in terms of tracking them down and trying to prevent these attacks from taking place.
But it's still a dangerous situation, where they are now looking for weak spots, as such, vulnerabilities, soft targets. If they can exploit opportunities to kill Americans or westerners or those who are supporting them, then they will intend to do so.
So it remains a concern, certainly, on the part of the Saudi officials but also every American that is serving there that might possibly become a target. Hopefully, the Saudis will continue to improve their security apparatus and crack down as hard as they can in the short term.
In the long term, they've got to require -- I think, a lot more fundamental change will have to come to Saudi Arabia if this issue is going to be confronted successfully.
VERJEE: Like what?
COHEN: Well, in terms of modernization. What you have in Saudi Arabia is a -- a -- several things are taking place at once. On the one hand, you have high unemployment. You have religious fundamentalism -- or I should say extremism -- that's also being cultivated. That along with the information age, globalization, a very potent cocktail for violence in the future.
And so there has to be change. It will have to come to Saudi Arabia to see how it's going to adjust to the modern world and reconcile these conflicting impulses that currently are there. It's going to take some time, and it will not be easy.
VERJEE: What do you say to an American who says it's too unsafe to work here anymore?
COHEN: Well, that's a choice that every American will have to make. They will have to take that into account. Frankly, there -- everyone is vulnerable throughout the world.
There are some places that are more dangerous than others, but you can travel to Bali and face the prospect of having a bomb destroy a hotel, killing some 200 Australians. You can travel the trains in Madrid and find that you're on a vacation in Madrid and find that that also is subject to attack.
So there are no safe places in the world by virtue of the spread of terrorism. What one has to take into account is what are the risks? How high are they? What responsibilities do I have to either my government or to my family? But that's an individual choice that people will have to make.
VERJEE: Hamid Karzai was inaugurated as president of Afghanistan today, facing major challenges now in the immediate future. Many saying the first is how is he going to reign in the warlords? The second, cracking down on the booming drug trade.
How do you think he should handle both?
COHEN: Well, first things first, he has to get a cabinet. And he'll have to try and reconcile how he puts those individuals in place who will have representation on the part of the -- by the warlords.
What sort of role will they play in that cabinet? How can he persuade them that they must extend this movement of democracy into the provinces, all of which happen to be engaged in the heroin trade?
And so getting control of the economy, trying to establish a -- a cabinet, having future elections and spreading democracy to the regions of Afghanistan which have never known it in the past, rebuilding that economy and taking away from the heroin based economy, some $2.8 billion in narcotics trade.
So he has major challenges ahead. It will require long-term commitment on the part of the United States and all of the world community in order to make this transformation, which is going to take years.
VERJEE: A CIA memo was leaked this morning that the security situation in Iraq was likely to get worse, anticipating a lot more violence, a lot more sectarian clashes unless the Iraqi government could build a police force, build the economy.
If that's the real face of the situation on the ground in Iraq, according to the CIA memo, how can Iraq have credible elections on the 30th of January?
COHEN: Well, the elections are going to take place, because the option of not having them certainly could lead to even greater violence because then you run the risk of the Shia majority then decide that there is no sense of pursuing electoral processes in Iraq and therefore engage in a full-scale civil war against the Sunnis who are resisting any attempt to transform the country.
So there is not a good option of extending it. And secondly, you have to have maximum security on the ground by January 30 with an increase in U.S. forces that will give at least some additional security for -- for the electoral process.
But this is a very tough issue. I think the report was quite bleak, but it's important that policymakers have access to the bad news as well as to any good news.
And secondly, it also raises this whole issue about intelligence reform taking place in the United States with the sharing of more information going across various agencies and institutions. We're likely to see even more dissemination of this kind of information, which comes from a detailed assessment.
So again, important for policymakers to have the bad news as well as any good news that's coming out of Iraq.
VERJEE: Former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen, speaking to us from Washington. Thank you.
END
TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 7, 2004 - 12:35:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The inauguration of the Afghan president, the security situation in Saudi Arabia, upcoming elections in Iraq are all talking points for our regular weekly discussion with the former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen. He now heads the Cohen Group, an international business consulting firm, and he joins us now on the program.
Secretary Cohen, good to see you. First of all, the attack on the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, really showing no matter how well protected American installation is, it's still vulnerable.
WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: It does remain vulnerable, and that is true at virtually every facility. You can take so many precautions and wreck so many barriers, wall off access to the compound itself, but ultimately, it still remains vulnerable.
The important message here was it did not -- it was not successful in terms of carrying out the attack to its -- its obvious target. And that was to get inside and to kill as many people as possible. So it was successfully defeated, even though there was a loss of life.
But any time you make improvements of security, you're still going to have vulnerabilities. As a matter of fact, there's a major renovation project still underway on behalf of the U.S. consulates and embassies. It will take some 14 years. It will cost some 17-plus billion dollars in order to improve the security for those embassies and consulates operating worldwide.
VERJEE: What's your assessment of the degree of sophistication of the attack, and what does it reveal to you as you looked at it about the attackers and their organization?
COHEN: It reveals that al Qaeda cells operate in Saudi Arabia, that the Saudi government has certainly improved its intelligence and its police work in terms of tracking them down and trying to prevent these attacks from taking place.
But it's still a dangerous situation, where they are now looking for weak spots, as such, vulnerabilities, soft targets. If they can exploit opportunities to kill Americans or westerners or those who are supporting them, then they will intend to do so.
So it remains a concern, certainly, on the part of the Saudi officials but also every American that is serving there that might possibly become a target. Hopefully, the Saudis will continue to improve their security apparatus and crack down as hard as they can in the short term.
In the long term, they've got to require -- I think, a lot more fundamental change will have to come to Saudi Arabia if this issue is going to be confronted successfully.
VERJEE: Like what?
COHEN: Well, in terms of modernization. What you have in Saudi Arabia is a -- a -- several things are taking place at once. On the one hand, you have high unemployment. You have religious fundamentalism -- or I should say extremism -- that's also being cultivated. That along with the information age, globalization, a very potent cocktail for violence in the future.
And so there has to be change. It will have to come to Saudi Arabia to see how it's going to adjust to the modern world and reconcile these conflicting impulses that currently are there. It's going to take some time, and it will not be easy.
VERJEE: What do you say to an American who says it's too unsafe to work here anymore?
COHEN: Well, that's a choice that every American will have to make. They will have to take that into account. Frankly, there -- everyone is vulnerable throughout the world.
There are some places that are more dangerous than others, but you can travel to Bali and face the prospect of having a bomb destroy a hotel, killing some 200 Australians. You can travel the trains in Madrid and find that you're on a vacation in Madrid and find that that also is subject to attack.
So there are no safe places in the world by virtue of the spread of terrorism. What one has to take into account is what are the risks? How high are they? What responsibilities do I have to either my government or to my family? But that's an individual choice that people will have to make.
VERJEE: Hamid Karzai was inaugurated as president of Afghanistan today, facing major challenges now in the immediate future. Many saying the first is how is he going to reign in the warlords? The second, cracking down on the booming drug trade.
How do you think he should handle both?
COHEN: Well, first things first, he has to get a cabinet. And he'll have to try and reconcile how he puts those individuals in place who will have representation on the part of the -- by the warlords.
What sort of role will they play in that cabinet? How can he persuade them that they must extend this movement of democracy into the provinces, all of which happen to be engaged in the heroin trade?
And so getting control of the economy, trying to establish a -- a cabinet, having future elections and spreading democracy to the regions of Afghanistan which have never known it in the past, rebuilding that economy and taking away from the heroin based economy, some $2.8 billion in narcotics trade.
So he has major challenges ahead. It will require long-term commitment on the part of the United States and all of the world community in order to make this transformation, which is going to take years.
VERJEE: A CIA memo was leaked this morning that the security situation in Iraq was likely to get worse, anticipating a lot more violence, a lot more sectarian clashes unless the Iraqi government could build a police force, build the economy.
If that's the real face of the situation on the ground in Iraq, according to the CIA memo, how can Iraq have credible elections on the 30th of January?
COHEN: Well, the elections are going to take place, because the option of not having them certainly could lead to even greater violence because then you run the risk of the Shia majority then decide that there is no sense of pursuing electoral processes in Iraq and therefore engage in a full-scale civil war against the Sunnis who are resisting any attempt to transform the country.
So there is not a good option of extending it. And secondly, you have to have maximum security on the ground by January 30 with an increase in U.S. forces that will give at least some additional security for -- for the electoral process.
But this is a very tough issue. I think the report was quite bleak, but it's important that policymakers have access to the bad news as well as to any good news.
And secondly, it also raises this whole issue about intelligence reform taking place in the United States with the sharing of more information going across various agencies and institutions. We're likely to see even more dissemination of this kind of information, which comes from a detailed assessment.
So again, important for policymakers to have the bad news as well as any good news that's coming out of Iraq.
VERJEE: Former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen, speaking to us from Washington. Thank you.
END
TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
