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INTERVIEW: GENERAL ROBERT SCALES AND IVO DAALDER FROM THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION DISCUSS WHAT IT WOULD MEAN FOR THE UNITED STATES TO PREVAIL IN IRAQ
All Things Considered: March 8, 2003
Defining the Terms of Victory in Iraq
LYNN NEARY, host:
Over the past several weeks, US officials have expressed great confidence about what might happen in the event of war with Iraq. This week, General Tommy Franks spoke about his expectations if the US does go to war.
General TOMMY FRANKS: Our troops in the field are trained. They're ready. They are capable. And if the president of the United States decides to undertake military operations, there is no doubt we will prevail.
NEARY: We're joined now by Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at The Brookings Institution, and retired Major General Robert Scales, former commandant of the Army War College and author of "Certain Victory," the official Army account of the Gulf War.
Ivo Daalder, let's start with you. We just heard that piece of tape from General Tommy Franks saying that there's no doubt the US would prevail in a war against Iraq, but what exactly would have to happen for that to be the case? What constitutes a victory in this conflict?
Mr. IVO DAALDER (Brookings Institution): Well, actually three different things. On the first and most immediate level, the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. Secondly, it is to secure and then destroy all the weapons of mass destruction that leads Iraq to be the threat that it is today. And third, it is important for Iraq to remain after all of that is accomplished as a stable, secure, independent and hopefully democratic government. So those are the three things we need to accomplish in order to say that we have won.
NEARY: General Scales, if regime change is required to say the US has prevailed in a possible war with Iraq, what role would the military play in accomplishing that goal? How would the military go about doing that?
General ROBERT SCALES ("Certain Victory"): Well, there's an old saying in the military, a term used in the military, called the center of gravity. And the center of gravity is what the military forces focus on as they seek to achieve a victory. The military center of gravity in this case is Saddam Hussein and his ruling elite, which happens to be centered in Baghdad and in the area around Tikrit, but the problem is, of course, getting to the core of resistance. It's a long, long trip from Kuwait to the outskirts of Baghdad. So in terms of military terms, it means movement over great distances. You know, the distance that these units will travel is measured in hundreds of miles in order to close in, surround and control this geographical center of gravity.
NEARY: And surely US troops would encounter resistance on the ground.
Gen. SCALES: Sure. I mean, the question is: How much of a resistance? But, you know, oftentimes, in campaigns that are this sweeping, the greatest enemy isn't always the enemy. The enemy is time and distance and weather and terrain and the logistical problem of moving these large distances. So really in a way, the military will be sort of facing two enemies. One, whatever is left of the Iraqi military, and secondly, overcoming these environmental obstacles as they march towards Baghdad.
NEARY: Ivo Daalder, what about the removal of weapons of mass destruction? Is that the military's responsibility to track down those weapons, to find them and destroy them?
Mr. DAALDER: Absolutely. It's going to be our military forces that are going to have to find them, that are going to have to secure them and ultimately that will have to destroy them. And if you think that removing Saddam Hussein from power in a situation where he's in Baghdad is difficult, think about the weapons of mass destruction. We believe there are many tens of thousands of liters of biological weapons, tons of chemical weapons, missile warheads and all kinds of other production facilities all scattered around the country. We haven't been able to find them even with the best intelligence that we have. We're going to have to do this on the ground, and we're going to have to do this with an enemy that in part may well be wanting to cooperate, telling us where these weapons are, but there are going to be people who don't want to cooperate, who will want to take a liter or two of anthrax home either to sell or to maintain as a bargaining chip for later on to maintain power.
And it is in the chaos of war in which lots of things can go terribly, terribly wrong. That is weapons can all of a sudden disappear, scientists can move away and go underground. And the notion that somehow the removal of Saddam will immediately lead to the complete and total disarmament of Iraq, I think, is fallacious. This is going to take a lot of investment of military capability, of intelligence resources and of actually just walking around on the ground to find where these weapons are and the production facilities are, and it's going to take time.
NEARY: General Scales, how do you even begin to accomplish that goal militarily when you really aren't even sure where those weapons are and you're in hostile terrain?
Gen. SCALES: When you occupy a country and you control the instruments of power, then you have the leverage that you need in order to methodically root out and find these weapons of mass destruction. I do understand the concern that there could be some dissident scientist who escapes with a jar full of anthrax, and you have to be concerned about that. But in the greater scheme of things, I don't see the discovery or the destruction of weapons of mass destruction to be quite as large a task as Ivo does.
NEARY: Well, let me follow through with the scenario we're painting here. It seems to me you're both saying that, first, you take out Saddam Hussein. And then you begin looking for those weapons, but that's going on at the same time presumably as you're trying to accomplish that third goal, which is rebuilding Iraq and establishing a democracy there. Ivo, how difficult is that going to be to establish that kind of democracy that we've heard President Bush describe? He's described the situation where all the different factions of Iraq would be fairly represented, but I've also heard Iraq compared to Yugoslavia in the sense that you have a lot of competing interests and hostile ethnic groups, ethnic groups that are hostile toward each other. So what is that post-Saddam world going to look like that we're trying to do all these things in?
Mr. DAALDER: It's going to be messy. By definition, we have very different interests among a large Shiite population, the small Sunni population, a large Kurdish population which has never had it as good as they've had it in the last 10 years. They've been governing themselves. We have a devastated economy. We have a devastated moral infrastructure because of what has happened in the past quarter century in terms of the kind of repression we've had. It's not going to take months. In fact, it's not going to take years before we get this right. It's going to take decades. This is going to take a long, long, long time. It's going to cost a lot of money, and it's going to require a lot of effort. This is not easy to do. And we are taking on an immense responsibility, and the most important thing, we can't walk away from it.
NEARY: Thanks very much to both of you for joining us.
Gen. SCALES: Thank you.
Mr. DAALDER: Thank you.
NEARY: Ivo Daalder is a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, and retired Major General Robert Scales is a former commandant of the Army War College and author of "Certain Victory," the official Army account of the Gulf War.
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