| Author | Message | | Guest | |  | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2002 10:03 am Post subject: Bush Says Other Countries Will Follow Assertive U.S. in War |
| washingtonpost.com
A Course of 'Confident Action'
Bush Says Other Countries Will Follow Assertive U.S. in War on Terrorism
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 19, 2002; Page A01
This report is adapted from an interview for the book, "Bush at War," an inside account of the debate within the Bush administration that led to U.S. military action in Afghanistan and the decision to confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Simon & Schuster ©2002 by Bob Woodward.
President Bush has outlined an expansive, even grandiose, view of the role the United States must play in combating terrorism and tyranny that suggests a tension in his own mind -- and the minds of his aides -- between the need for international cooperation and the belief that at times this country will have to act alone.
"We're never going to get people all in agreement about force and use of force," he said in an interview. "But action -- confident action that will yield positive results -- provides kind of a slipstream into which reluctant nations and leaders can get behind and show themselves that there has been -- you know, something positive has happened toward peace."
It is perhaps Bush's most direct statement on the need for unilateral action by the United States as the shaping force in the world. The interview took place Aug. 20, before the president adapted a more internationalist approach in the confrontation with Iraq by seeking -- and winning -- a United Nations resolution to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. At the time, he said, he had not made up his mind about what steps should be taken against Iraq.
"As we think through Iraq," he said, "we may or may not attack. I have no idea yet. But it will be for the objective of making the world more peaceful."
In the 21/2-hour interview at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., Bush, dressed informally in jeans, a short-sleeved shirt and cowboy boots, answered a variety of questions about the war on terrorism, his management style and the lessons he learned from his father's presidency.
Reflecting on his own personality, he described himself at various points as "fiery," "impatient," "a gut player" who liked to "provoke" people around him and someone who likes to talk -- perhaps too much -- in meetings. He admitted that first lady Laura Bush had told him to tone down the "tough guy" rhetoric on terrorism. And he said he had a clear idea of his own priorities.
"First of all," he said, "a president has got to be the calcium in the backbone. If I weaken, the whole team weakens. If I'm doubtful, I can assure you there will be a lot of doubt."
But it was his vision of the broad global role he says the United States must play that seemed to reflect a change in his thinking since the world -- and his presidency -- was transformed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"At this moment in history, if there is a world problem, we're expected to deal with it," the president said. "It's the price of power. It is the price of where the United States stands. We will."
The problems Bush believes the United States must confront are not just strategic, but also humanitarian.
"Let me see if I can articulate this," Bush said. "Yes, in some ways it is, that a person that thinks in terms of liberating a country, and at the same time fighting a war, is someone who also understands that we've got to deal with suffering."
It was for this reason, Bush said, that he had pressed Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to drop humanitarian aid into Afghanistan before the U.S. bombing campaign began.
"I was sensitive to this [accusation] that this was a religious war, and that somehow the United States would be the conqueror. And I wanted us to be viewed as the liberator," Bush said. Humanitarian concerns, he said, were also behind the necessity of confronting Iraq and North Korea.
"Clearly, there will be a strategic implication to a regime change in Iraq, if we go forward. But there's something beneath that, as far as I'm concerned -- and that is, there is immense suffering. Or North Korea. Let me talk about North Korea. I loathe Kim Jong II. I've got a visceral reaction to this guy because he is starving his people."
In Bush's view, Kim presents the U.S. with a clear and obvious choice. "They tell me, we don't need to move too fast [against Kim] because the financial burdens on people will be so immense if we try to -- if this guy were to topple. Who would take care of -- I just don't buy that. Either you believe in freedom, and want to -- and worry about the human condition, or you don't. I don't know if that gives you insight as to how I think."
Elaborating, he said that underlying his foreign policy "there is a value system that cannot be compromised, and that is the values that we praise. And if the values are good enough for our people, they ought to be good enough for others, not in a way to impose because these are God-given values. These aren't United States-created values. These are values of freedom and the human condition and mothers loving their children."
Yet simply proclaiming these values is not enough. "You can't talk your way to a solution to a problem," Bush said. "And the United States is in a unique position right now. We are the leader. And a leader must combine the ability to listen to others, along with action."
Any success the United States achieves on its own, Bush suggested, will strengthen its ability to build an international coalition, and he was dismissive of charges that the U.S. government acts unilaterally.
"If somebody wants to try to say something ugly about us, 'Bush is a unilateralist. America is unilateral.' You know, which I find amusing."
'The Vision Thing Matters'
Although Bush said a president deals with a myriad of tactical decisions and day-to-day battles, he sees his responsibilities as much larger. His father, President George H.W. Bush, derided with some regularity the notion of a "vision" or "vision thing." But his son made clear he disagrees.
"The job is -- the vision thing matters," Bush said. "That's another lesson I learned."
"See, I think my job is to stay ahead of the moment. A president, I guess, can get so bogged down in the moment that you're unable to be the strategic thinker that you're supposed to be, or at least provoke strategic thought. And I'm the kind of person that wants to make sure that all risk is assessed."
In commanding the war on terrorism, his aides have said Bush is a stickler for details on operational questions and tactics. But Bush sees his main role as constantly probing for signs of complacency and unclear thinking.
"I can only just go by my instincts," he said. "Listen, I am a product of the Vietnam world. There is a very fine line between micromanaging combat and setting the tactics" on one hand, and "to kind of make sure there is a sense of, not urgency, but sense of purpose and forward movement."
In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, he said, he worried that the United States had lost its edge. "My job is to make sure that that blade is sharp."
On Wednesday, Sept. 26, just two weeks after the terrorist attacks, Bush surprised his war cabinet, which had been debating when to begin the bombing of targets in Afghanistan, by declaring: "Anybody doubt that we should start this Monday or Tuesday?"
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld eventually convinced Bush that planning was incomplete and the bombing should not begin for another week. Bush said he was intentionally prodding his aides.
"One of my jobs is to be provocative," he said. "Seriously, to provoke people into -- to force decisions, and to make sure it's clear in everybody's mind where we're headed. There was a certain rhythm and flow to this, and I was beginning to get a little frustrated. . . . It was just not coming together as quickly as we had hoped. And I was trying to force the issue without compromising safety."
Did he ever explain what he was doing?
"Of course not," he said. "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
Later in the interview, he described how he sees his role another way. "I guess it's just I've tried to think a step ahead. A president must do that. And the other job of -- that I have is to ask questions to -- some of them may be the questions that aren't worth asking, but nevertheless, I'm not afraid to ask them. That's one of the things that I'm now very comfortable with. There is no such thing as a dumb question, by me or anybody else on our team."
Full of self-confidence himself, he said he wanted his aides to be just as convinced of what they are doing. "I don't need people around me who are not steady," he said.
Bush said he doesn't expect everyone in his war cabinet to have the same opinion. "I've grown very comfortable with them as human beings and as people that were capable of handling their responsibilities. And therefore I -- and when they give advice, I trust their judgment. Now sometimes the advice isn't always the same, in which case my job -- look, the job is to grind through these problems and grind through scenarios, and hopefully reach a consensus of six or seven smart people, which makes my job easy."
"Sometimes," he admitted, "I get in there and talk too much in these meetings, where I just kind of blow off steam. I say that because that is -- that is not a good habit at times. It is very important to create an environment in which people feel comfortable about speaking their mind."
Rice, who sat in on the interview, interjected that after Bush leaves a meeting, "then we butt heads a little."
"And that's good, by the way," Bush said. " It is -- if everybody had the same opinion and the same prejudices and the same belief structure, it would be a dull administration. I would not get the best advice."
But the media, he said, invariably had an effect on people. "I don't read the editorial pages. I don't -- the hyperventilation that tends to take place over those cables, and every expert and every former colonel, and all that, is just background noise."
He said he realized, however, that not everyone could tune it out. "We've got these very strong people on the National Security Council who do get affected by what people say about them in the press."
A lesson Bush said he learned from his father's presidency was how to organize his own White House. He said he had established a system so that five aides -- Rice, former communications director Karen Hughes, political aide Karl Rove, chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and press secretary Ari Fleischer -- could see him on the spur of the moment. "All power should not go through an individual at the Oval Office," he said.
He had learned this from observing his father's presidency, especially during the first three years when the chief of staff, John Sununu, controlled access with such an iron first that those with bad news often couldn't get through.
Bush added that he does not think access to the president should be confined to the senior staff, because "part of the job satisfaction of being a White House staffer is the capacity to talk to the president one-on-one."
His father's late political strategist, Lee Atwater, had told him, "Access is power." Bush said he learned this firsthand in 1988 when his father was running for president. "I can remember going to the vice president's house, and they'd be getting ready to have the campaign team come over. And I would be there about, you know, about 20 minutes before they arrived so they would see me with Dad.
"They didn't have any idea. We were probably talking about the pennant race or, you know, a brother or sister. They didn't know that. They knew that I had access to him, that it was just me and him alone. It was a very interesting lesson. I watched my stature grow the more that I had access to him."
'Tone It Down, Darling'
Toward the end of the interview, Bush was joined by his wife. He had just finished saying she had once told him that when talking about terrorists, " 'You need to make sure your rhetoric isn't quite as harsh about killing them.' And in other words, she was more concerned about kind of the West Texas . . . . tough guy."
"I didn't like the 'get them dead or alive,' " Laura Bush said.
"Why?" the president asked. "I just didn't," she said.
Why, the president persisted.
"It just didn't sound that appealing to me, really," she said. "I mean, I have -- I just said, 'Tone it down, darling.' "
Bush admitted he hadn't toned it down. And, said Laura Bush, "Every once in a while, I had to say it again."
Mark Malseed contributed to this report. | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2002 5:55 pm Post subject: AN OFFER SADDAM CAN'T REFUSE |
| AN OFFER SADDAM CAN'T REFUSE
By Eric S. Margolis
November 15 2002
A favorite terror technique of the Soviet secret police during the great purges of the 1930's was to arrest a suspect at 3am, and drag him into an interrogation room at the dreaded Lubyanka prison. A blank piece of paper and pencil were put on front of the trembling prisoner. 'Write down each and every one of your crimes, and names of all your fellow conspirators,' warned NKVD interrogators. 'We know everything you have done. If you omit even one crime in your confession, you and your entire family will be shot.'
The Bush Administration - behind the fig-leaf of UN inspectors - is using the same old Soviet technique on Iraq: 'list all your hidden weapons of mass destruction (wmd's) and scientists who made them. Leave off even one site or name and we will immediately go to war against you.'
Iraq is asked an impossible task: to prove a negative. Baghdad must show evidence it does not possess weapons of mass destruction. If the Bush Administration claims a particular site is used for wmd's, yet it does not appear on Baghdad's confession list, then Iraq, according to the US-written rules of this rigged game, has automatically committed a 'material breach' of the UN resolution, and the US will attack.
Baghdad December 2002 Presidential Bunker #27
'Oh Saddam, Light of the Euphrates, Sword of Islam, Lord of Babylon...'
'Yes, yes, what is it, Gen. Hamid?'
'The Americans are insisting Dairy Plant #12 is a nerve gas production facility. It's not on our confession list.'
'Is it a nerve gas factory? I thought we only made nerve gas in baby food plants?'
'No, Oh Radiance of the Tigris, it's just a milk plant. But if the Americans don't find poison gas there they will claim we are lying and then start the war.'
'We can't have that. Quick, general, get some machines over there and begin making poison gas so we can admit we are guilty so the Americans won't attack. Do this by dawn or you will be demoted to private third class in my glorious Suicide Commandos.'
Or,
Baghdad, May, 2003. US II Corps Commander Lt Gen Delmar Creech to Military Governor of Iraq, General Tommy Franks. 'Dear Franks of Mesopotamia (thought you'd like to know what the boys call you), we've searched this whole miserable little country high and low but can't find any weapons of mass destruction, except for a few old, rusted drums of stale mustard gas from the 1980's. My orders are to find wmd's. What should I do?
Franks to Creech. 'Delmar, you squirrel-brained dimwit, if you can't find any wmd's, then make some. The Commander-in-Chief says Saddam's got'em, you've got to prove him right, or you're on permanent latrine detail in Alaska. We invaded this camel farm because there were supposed to be wmd's hidden here. Do it like we use to make moonshine back home: just mix up some ol'chemicals that stink real bad - try floor wax remover, ammonia, anchovy paste and garlic powder - let'em marinate in the sun a few days, then call a press conference. Those dumb journalists won't know nerve gas from hair tonic.
Or....
'Oh Great Saddam, Second Saladin, Sword of the Arabs...' 'Yes, yes, what is it now?' 'Phone call from Carlyle Group in Washington.' 'Isn't that the company owned by the Bush's and their Pentagon business cronies? 'Yes, your sublime Iraqiness, it is.'
'Hello, President Saddam, this is Frank Carlucci, CEO of Carlyle Group. No, no, not Chief Espionage Officer, Chief Executive Officer. No, I'm not under federal indictment for stock fraud. No I'm not seeking asylum in Iraq.
'Listen, we've costed war against Iraq and it comes in around $200 billion. Now here's the deal. We'll buy you out of Iraq for $174 billion, half cash, half paper, with a $3 mil monthly retainer, use of our corporate jets, a Fifth Avenue coop apartment, fresh flowers daily, a secretarial staff, golf club memberships, and season tickets to the NY Mets.'
'I've checked with the White House. Take this deal and you'll be re-classified from Dangerous Dictator to Freedom-Loving Ally. You'll also get a genuine enameled American flag pin for your lapel to prove you're not an evil Muslim.'
'This is an offer you can't refuse, Mr. Saddam. As President Bush says, 'you're either with us or against us.'
'I spit on your $174 billion. Do you take me for the Father of Fools? The net present value of our oil reserves is $6.8 trillion dollars. And didn't I just see the bullying villain in Walt Disney's cartoon 'Beauty and Beast' use the same 'with us or against us' line?'
'So what. The president has a wide range of interests. How about your own TV talk show, 'Ask Saddam,' and a Miami Beach condo?'
'Now, you're talking. But who will run Iraq for you?
'We're hoping you will., as a senior consultant for Carlyle Group. After all, no one knows how to manage this crazy country better than you, Oh Light of the Fertile Crescent!'
'Throw in Kuwait, and you've got a deal!'
Copyright - Eric S. Margolis - 2002-11-18
Other Margolis articles worth reading and available through the above site :
Murder Inc. in Beirut 27/1/2002
Saddam speaks 21 July 2002 | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2002 12:16 pm Post subject: The blackmailing of America by Israel (for Iraq Attack)! |
| The blackmailing of America by Israel (for Iraq Attack)!
[The blackmailing of America! More American tax-payers funds needed to support a racist regime! ]
PM Sharon plans to ask U.S. for covert aid that could top $10 billion
Reported by: Amnon Barzilai and Natan Guttman
http://www.sabawoon.com/articles.asp?id=11308&view=detail
10/21/2002
(Ha`aretz, Israel):
An inter-ministerial team headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bureau chief, Dov Weisglass, is working on a proposal requesting American economic assistance that could top $10 billion.
The team includes representatives from the treasury, the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry.
A government source said the reason for the aid request stems from the United States' expected campaign against Iraq coupled with the American desire that Israel not interfere with Washington's plans or use IDF troops against Iraq.
Sources at the Prime Minister's Office said yesterday that American readiness to provide economic assistance has not been made in concrete terms.
However, a number of ideas have cropped up in Jerusalem over the type of aid Israel could use: cash, guarantees for low-interest bank loans from American banks, direct state-to-state loans from the U.S. treasury, and the conversion of some American defense aid into shekels.
Currently, Washington provides Israel $2.1 billion a year that must be spent in the United States on defense supplies. One proposal is for $2 billion to be converted to shekels and used to purchase defense equipment from Israeli manufacturers in the hope that it would invigorate the Israeli economy.
The final proposal will be worked out by the inter-ministerial committee and the White House.
Discussions about economic aid came up during the prime minister's recent trip to Washington, and, in particular, during talks between Weisglass and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
Weisglass said the aid was necessary to get the Israeli economy moving; U.S. President George W. Bush mentioned American confidence in Israel's economy during a White House press conference with Sharon after their meeting last week.
Other than the annual economic aid, Israel expects fulfillment of a July 2000 decision made by then-president Bill Clinton to then-premier Ehud Barak for a $800 million grant. Since then, the sum has dropped to $200 million, and discussions were frozen, for bureaucratic reasons, after Clinton left office, according to the Americans. But with help of pro-Israel congressmen, discussions are expected to resume at the beginning of the new year.
AMERICA'S DUPING WORLD RE INSPECTIONS ACCORDING TO BRIT MP
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/11/23/america-s-duping-world-re-inspections-according-to-brit-mp.php | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2002 5:10 am Post subject: Division in Past Bush White House Echoes in Current Struggle |
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November 24, 2002
Division in Past Bush White House Echoes in Current Struggles
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 — As Secretary of State Colin L. Powell recalls it, he and Vice President Dick Cheney had many friendly disagreements under the first President Bush. One dispute involved Secretary Powell's proposal to deactivate thousands of small, artillery-fired nuclear weapons in Europe and elsewhere.
Mr. Cheney, then the defense secretary, told Secretary Powell, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that not one of his civilian policy aides favored such a step. "That's because they're all right-wing nuts like you," Secretary Powell says he replied, jokingly.
The story, recounted in Secretary Powell's memoirs, illustrates that the philosophical discord that is becoming increasingly obvious in the current Bush administration has deep roots in the last.
Hawk versus dove, unilateralist versus multilateralist, whatever one calls these disagreements, few experts think they will go away. In fact, the divide in the administration is likely to affect not only future choices on Iraq but also on North Korea, Yasir Arafat and the Palestinians, and military issues like missile defense.
Whatever the debate, White House officials say, President Bush likes to hear conflicting opinions, though he expects them to remain private.
Administration officials describe the relationship between Secretary Powell and Mr. Cheney as cordial but sometimes uneasy. The two do not see each other socially as often as Mr. Cheney sees Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a friend since the 1970's.
Moreover, many diplomats passing through Washington maintain that to do business with the administration, they must check in with the vice president's office.
More internal disagreements are expected in coming weeks and months over Iraq. Mr. Cheney, who was highly skeptical of Secretary Powell's proposal to seek a Security Council resolution to send inspectors to Baghdad, will probably disagree again over whether to ask for Security Council approval before using military force, officials and diplomats predict.
"This a profound philosophical argument that may come up again and again," said a Western diplomat close to Secretary Powell. "At issue is whether the United States should continue to operate through the international system or go it alone. Powell is keeping the hard-liners at bay."
Another potential flashpoint internally could involve the Bush administration's stance that Iraqi firing on American planes enforcing the ban on flights is also a "material breach" of Security Council resolutions, and therefore grounds for military retaliation. Similarly, disagreements could flare over how to respond if Iraq submits a false list of its weapons sites to inspectors next month.
At a NATO conference in Europe with President Bush, Secretary Powell again warned last week that if the declaration of sites was "patently false" and if Iraq impeded inspectors, the president was "fully ready" to use military force. But unless Iraq does something egregious or provocative, like shooting down an American plane, diplomats and administration officials predict that Secretary Powell is likely to counsel patience and consultation with the United Nations first.
This week there was talk in Washington about whether a new book by Bob Woodward, "Bush at War," would weaken or strengthen Secretary Powell's standing. The book depicts the secretary as having won over the president with his plea to pursue diplomacy on Iraq and to seek war only as a last resort.
Some in the administration say Mr. Bush is uneasy with what he regards as self-promotion by his aides. He is known to refer to the secretary, with a teasing edge, as the world's greatest hero. This month, Mr. Bush joked in a private meeting with Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, that the United States could have paid up all its United Nations dues with the cost of 150 well-publicized telephone calls that Secretary Powell made while negotiating the recent resolution on Iraq.
The situation is eerily similar to the one of 1990. After Iraq invaded Kuwait, aides to the first President Bush disagreed over what sort of threat the invasion represented. General Powell was among those who reacted cautiously, opposing force to repel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Instead, he favored using troops to defend Saudi Arabia from attack, according to various memoirs and accounts.
Mr. Cheney, while initially cautious, quickly swung around to favor military force, showing impatience with General Powell for failing to present options for pushing Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.
Later, both Mr. Cheney and Brent Scowcroft, then the national security adviser, prodded General Powell and the military to be more creative in attacking Iraqi forces.
Another internal division occurred over diplomatic tactics in the last war. In 1990, Mr. Cheney opposed seeking authorization to use force from either Congress or the United Nations, fearing that failure to get a resolution would weaken the United States' standing. That position foreshadowed his stance this year.
Perhaps the most traumatic long-term effect of the war occurred over the inconclusive way it ended, with an ejection of Iraqis from Kuwait but with Saddam Hussein still in power.
General Powell opposed sending troops to Baghdad at the end of the war in 1991, not only because he feared an "annihilation" of Iraqi troops but also because he thought the "conquest and occupation" of Iraq would create instability in the region and be unlikely to be supported by Americans. These latter factors are still cited by many who oppose a war today, and some associates say they still are part of Secretary Powell's thinking.
Many conservatives in and out of the administration today regard the failure to move on Baghdad as the war's fatal error, which they hope can be corrected with a new invasion. In 1993, Paul D. Wolfowitz, who was an aide to Mr. Cheney in the Pentagon during the gulf war and is now deputy secretary of defense, wrote that it was a mistake to announce that American troops would not go to Baghdad before the war was over.
Although no one says so for quotation, some in the administration remain bitter about Secretary Powell and fear that his devotion to the United Nations has made a war impossible in the short term.
In his memoirs, Secretary Powell recalled that he took a "pounding" after Mr. Woodward's book "The Commanders" portrayed him as a "reluctant warrior." The first President Bush called to offer his support, he wrote, but "I heard nothing from my boss, Dick Cheney."
Part of him felt that Mr. Cheney wanted him to be "cut down to size," he wrote. Another part felt that Mr. Cheney believed that if "you get into trouble in this league, you get yourself out."
But for all the similarities between the arguments of 1990-91 and today, there are many enormous differences.
Mr. Cheney now has many allies in the administration, and Secretary Powell is said to have not quite so many, though the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, supported him on the United Nations, officials say.
The vice president has Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz. And President Bush, the younger, is also widely described as more sympathetic to their views than his father was.
By contrast, the secretary of state's most influential allies are outside the administration, particularly Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who favors a tough approach on Iraq but also strenuous diplomacy to try to avoid a war. Diplomats at the United Nations say they tried to broker a deal on a resolution this month in order to strengthen Secretary Powell's hand against his rivals in the administration.
Some experts say the biggest contrast between the situation now and in 1990-91 relates to the rationale for war. The first President Bush mobilized the world against Iraq by invoking the principle that nothing justifies one nation's invading another.
The current President Bush is trying to rally the world to act against Iraq, but around the principle that a pre-emptive invasion is sometimes justified — an admittedly hard sell for Secretary Powell.
"Colin Powell has defined for himself a very specific role as secretary of state," says a colleague from the first Bush administration. "That role will always be to press for diplomatic solutions. It's his mission. He won't change." | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
