The World According to Bob Inman
How should we change the U.N.? Why didn't we plan for the peace in Iraq? Where could the terrorists strike next? The intelligence and national security guru has the answers you're looking for— and a few choice words about that leak.
(Page 2 of 3)
I'm not a fan. Ad hoc only works for a period of time—the shorter the period, the better it works. There are too many things that can go wrong in trying to hold together an ad hoc arrangement. Look back at the Gulf War. President [George H.W.] Bush, Secretary [of State James] Baker, Secretary [of Defense Dick] Cheney, and particularly, National Security Adviser [Brent] Scowcroft did a terrific job of putting together a coalition to remove Iraq from Kuwait. They weren't sure they could sell it to the Congress, so they first went to the U.N. and got a mandate simply to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. And then they went to the Congress and barely got through the Senate. The conduct of the war itself was swift and successful and elegant, with minimal casualties, but it is clear that if we had decided to try to change the regime in Baghdad, the coalition would have fallen apart. There was no way you could have kept Syria, Egypt, and others on the team.
They get a lot of heat for not going to Baghdad, but they didn't have the option of going because of the nature of the ad hoc arrangements that had to be put in place. I don't buy the criticism today of the first Bush administration's not finishing the job, which in some people's minds made it necessary to go in again this time. The job that they set out to do they did, and they did it very effectively. Now, you can go back and quarrel with the original mandate that they asked for at the U.N., but that's what they could get—that's how they could put together a coalition.
You mentioned Rwanda a little while ago. Why didn't we do something about the genocide there?
It was too hard a problem. You had no command structure, no base structure, and nothing to let you respond swiftly and have a reasonable prospect of success. You surely don't want to plunge into a total unknown, where your troops could just get slaughtered.
What kind of a coalition could we have in place that would allow us to do something in such a situation?
I think, as you look at the world ahead of us, that the U.N. needs to be substantially restructured. At a minimum we have to change the Security Council—we probably have to bring in India, Brazil, and Japan, and maybe a couple of others. I'm not prepared to kick the French out, as much as they irritate me. You may need a supervoting majority in the process, to be able to make large decisions about critical issues, particularly those in which force might be involved. I would give up the veto—it's doubtful that the Americans would agree to it, or at least it would be a hard sell.
But I think we still need regional organizations. You have to ask, What's going to be the structure in the Middle East, Africa, Asia? I would also argue that we need collective security agreements, though we may or may not be a party to them; that depends on what we decide about the role we're going to play, because it governs how much we spend in the process and how broad the base of our intelligence is. Getting from here to there is a huge challenge.
Speaking of the U.N., how did you feel about our decision last year to go into Iraq?
In a general sense, I think the idea of the U.S. unilaterally using force all over the globe is a recipe for disaster. In a specific sense, I was vocal, sort of quietly, in being opposed to the war in Iraq. There was no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a very bad guy. No doubt that he had, at some point in time, chemical and biological weapons and delivery vehicles.
You say, "at some point in time."
At an earlier point in time, I'm certain that he had them. What he did with them—and if he'd gotten rid of them, why wouldn't he say so?—remains one of the great puzzles of the time. My objection was that I kept saying, "What are you going to do after you win?" and I never got an answer that gave me any sense of confidence.
Whom did you ask the question of?
Folks who have some influence on or involvement in setting policy. From them it was always, "Don't worry about it. [Iraq Governing Council member Ahmed] Chalabi's a wonderfully reliable guy. The exiles are going to be warmly welcomed back in. They're going to take over, set up a government, run it." I didn't believe it. Plus, I looked at Iraq as having a great potential for being like Yugoslavia. You've got Sunnis, Kurds, and Shiites. It could easily break apart on religious and ethnic grounds. It's going to take strong leadership from a strong central government to keep that from occurring.
Why do you think the administration didn't do more planning for the peace?
You have to understand the history that preceded the war. The original plan for military action for the purpose of regime change in Iraq was developed for President Clinton, but it was put on the shelf. One could debate whether Monica Lewinsky was the principal reason for deciding not to undertake it. Then, when the Bush administration came into office, there was a group in the Defense Department who was very committed to the idea and very articulate about it. [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz. [Former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard] Perle. To some degree the vice president and, to a lesser degree, [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld. And so they began to plan for it. That dramatically accelerated after 9/11, as the group at Defense wanted an assault on Iraq as an option for responding to the terrorist attacks. After listening to all sides, the president took a different tactic: a much larger commitment, not just to regime change but to a war on terror, to going right to the roots of terrorism by going after those who had precipitated the events of 9/11. That led us to Afghanistan. But the campaign was continuing inside Defense for regime change in Iraq, which fit into the broad framework of the war on terror. The argument was over priorities and timing.
Well, it was also over the question of whether there was a direct or even indirect link between Iraq and 9/11.
There was no tie between Iraq and 9/11, even though some people tried to postulate one. The issue of weapons of mass destruction got piled on to bring on yet another constituency, another community. Iraq did support terror in Israel, but I know of no instance in which Iraq funded direct, deliberate terrorist attacks on the U.S. By contrast, we know with certainty that Iran funded the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. So if you're looking for a country funding attacks on Americans, Iran would have been the next priority.
I'm very confident that the planning for the military operations in Iraq, the decision-making structure, and the operations themselves were all done superbly. If there's a criticism, it is that they were not sufficiently optimistic about how quickly we might win. My sense is that they expected somewhere between 35 and 45 days to take Baghdad, and we did it in 22. And those 10 or 20 days made a difference because of how unprepared we were for what came afterward. As best as I can track, the planners at Central Command and at the Joint Chiefs, along with the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, did not examine the prospects for peacetime Iraq in any detail until the last couple of months before the war started. Separately, the State Department had been looking at what would happen, but because of the bitter rivalries between Defense and State, the State group was excluded from the planning process. This was a real structural weakness.
Did you ever get over your initial objection and come around to supporting the war effort?
I have a strong view that when the president commits troops, the proper role for retired military is to either support the president or be quiet, because the people you're impacting, the soldiers, are in harm's way.
My Library
