came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand or support.'

I certainly feel that way. I guess you all feel that way. That's one of the reasons we're all here, to make sure we don't go half-cocked, half-baked here, and that the American people understand that when we go to war, we need them, and we need to be successful. But one of the lessons I did learn out of that war is what the British learned fighting guerrillas and terrorists in Malaya, now known as Malaysia, a simple axiom of fighting terrorists, and that is if the terrorist doesn't lose, he wins.

The fact that we haven't gotten Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cadre put us on orange alert 1 year later. So the terrorist still continues to win unless the terrorist loses.

Therefore, learning that lesson in Vietnam and seeing it played out here in the wake of September 11, 1 year later, it just reinforces my view that the number-one mission for our Nation, for our military, is to make the terrorists lose, make a specific terrorist group lose, namely the al Qaeda, which has penetrated some 60 nations and was able to use less than weapons of mass destruction, aircraft, against us and come in, in effect, under the radar, under our intelligence scheme, and do a lot of damage.

Gentlemen, does it seem to you that this is our number-one war? We're already in a war. We've already had a congressional resolution passed that authorized the President to take all necessary means to take this al Qaeda out. Is that our number-one military mission at this point?

General Shalikashvili.

General SHALIKASHVILI. It is my understanding, Senator, that the President was clear when he said that fighting this war against terrorism is our number-one priority. I've thought an awful lot about whether going after weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is an unnecessary detraction from that effort or whether it is, as the administration has claimed, part of the war against terrorism, an attempt to potentially deny terrorists those weapons of mass destruction that, otherwise, Saddam Hussein might make available to them. You can argue whether that's likely or not, but you cannot argue that it cannot happen.

I concluded that it really falls under the same umbrella as the overall war against terrorism. The war against terrorism isn't just al Qaeda, it isn't just the terrorist groups in the Phillippines and whatnot. It is also denying terrorists the means of getting to weapons of mass destruction that then could be used against us or against our friends and allies.

So your question to me is, for me, simple to answer. Yes, the war against terrorism is our number one priority. Considering using force to do away with the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a necessary part of that war.

Senator CLELAND. General Scowcroft has observed publicly that he didn't think Saddam Hussein was engaged in spreading his weapons of mass destruction to terrorists with a return address of Baghdad. I just thought I'd mention that.

General Clark, your observations?

General CLARK. I've been concerned that the attention on Iraq will distract us from what we're doing with respect to al Qaeda. I don't know all of the particulars today of how we distribute our resources around the world. These are details that are classified. They're handled by well-understood processes. But it's been my experience, from commanding in combat, that I would like every bit of intelligence I could get, and we used a lot going after only that small part of Europe which we were attacking in 1999 inside Yugoslavia and in Kosovo.

So I think, as a minimum, that when one opens up another campaign, there is a diversion of effort. The question is whether the diversion of effort is productive or counterproductive. There are forces operating in both directions at this point. You can make the argument that General Shalikashvili did, that you want to cut off all sources of supply. The problem with that argument is that Iran really has had closer linkages with the terrorists in the past, and still does today, apparently, than Iraq does. So that leads you to then ask, well, what will be the impact on Iran? That's uncertain. If you could take these weapons out quickly, then it would cut off that potential source of supply.

On the other hand, by lumping the two together, al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, it's also possible that we will have incentivized Saddam Hussein now, as a last-ditch defense, to do what he wouldn't have done before, which is, "Go find me the nearest members of al Qaeda. Here, take this sack and do something with it." So it's not clear which way this cuts right now.

But, at some point, we are going to have to deal with Saddam Hussein, we are going to have to work against the weapons of mass destruction, not only there, but also in the case of Iran. Whether this is the right way, the right time to do it depends, in large measure, on how we proceed. This is why I underscore again and again the importance of diplomacy first and going through the United Nations, because I think that gives us our best way of reaching out to achieve this objective with minimum adverse impact on the struggle against al Qaeda. The longer we can reasonably keep the focus on al Qaeda, the better that war is going to go, in my view. Senator CLELAND. If you took out Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party, the secularist party, don't the Sunnis and the Shiite Muslims make up the majority of the population in Iraq? Wouldn't that give Iran a strong hand there, and we'd ultimately end up creating a Muslim state, even under democratic institutions?

General CLARK. Yes, sir. I think that there's a substantial risk in the aftermath of the operation that we could end up with a problem which is more intractable than we have today. One thing we're pretty clear on is that Saddam has a very effective police-state apparatus. He doesn't allow challenges to his authority inside that state. When we go in there with a transitional government and a military occupation of some indefinite duration, it's also very likely that if there is still an effective al Qaeda, and there certainly will be an effective organization of extremists, they will pour into that country, because they must compete for their Iraqi people-the Wahabis with the Sunnis, the Shias from Iran, working with the Shia population. So it's not beyond consideration that we would

have a radicalized state, even under U.S. occupation in the aftermath.

Senator CLELAND. General Hugh Shelton was telling me about a week ago, in his great North Carolina accent, which I understand, that if Saddam Hussein were removed and the Ba'ath party ousted, that the Kurds, the Shiites, and the Sunnis would go at each other like banshee chickens.

General Hoar, what's our first priority, militarily? Is it al Qaeda? General HOAR. Our first priority has to be al Qaeda, and the reason, Senator, is that we are dependent on our European friends and the Arabs and the Muslims around the world. The successes we've had in Morocco, Yemen, Pakistan, and Germany have come as a result of the integrated intelligence of police work. These are the kinds of things that we need. At the end of the day, shutting down the money, using police to find these independent cells around the world will make the difference. We are absolutely dependent on the goodwill and cooperation of these other countries, some of whom have large populations that don't agree with American policies. So I think until we have this under control, we should give it our number-one attention.

With respect to Iraq and the question that you asked Wes a moment ago, in my time at CENTCOM, one of the major concerns was always the fragmentation of Iraq if there had been an internal breakup or it was done externally. Iraq is a creation of the Ottoman Empire and British colonialism. It was never a country of itself. As a result, it will always be susceptible to that problem. The borders were drawn artificially, and we live with that problem with Kuwait and Iraq today.

Senator CLELAND. Thank you, sir.

General McInerney.

General MCINERNEY. Senator, I clearly think that al Qaeda is our top priority. It's not our only priority. I think that people who think we can only handle this small operation miss what the issue is.

The issue is, does Iraq, as a terrorist state, get weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists, just like he's influenced the PLO? As soon as the President had this brilliant speech last Thursday, what happens in Israel on Tuesday? There is a direct connect between Saddam and other terrorist connections.

Now, it may not be as clear as we would like, because that's a problem of our intelligence system, and that's the ambiguity that I was talking about before. That is the concern that I have, his ability to get weapons of mass destruction. I'm not worried about ICBMs. I'm worried about Ryder trucks out here at North Capitol Street. That is the threat that is included with al Qaeda, Saddam, and weapons of mass destruction-terrorism, terrorist states, and weapons of mass destruction. There's a deep ambiguity there that no one can define accurately, and we must make some decisions, because you can't react after a nuclear weapon goes off in this country. It's too late. There are no fingerprints.

Senator CLELAND. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you Senator Cleland.
Senator Smith-do you want to speak, John?

Senator WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to wait until a later opportunity after my colleagues. I'll follow on. I appreciate the courtesy of Senator Smith.

Thank you.

Senator SMITH. Thank you, Senator Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, generals, and thank you all for your service to your country.

General Hoar, I was listening to your comments very carefully, and there was one chilling word that you used when you said you "think" we have the time. I think that really sums up the issue at hand, do we have the time or not? That's, of course, right on the President's desk. As President Truman said, "The buck stops here," and it does, and it's a tough call.

But I think if you go back to what General McInerney just said, does anybody here deny that Saddam Hussein has the capability to deliver some type of weapon of mass destruction of some typenot any type, necessarily, but of some type to the United States or to an ally? [No response.]

I assume no response means nobody differs with that.

So let me just go right to the heart of the issue, then. If it's trying to build a military coalition, there are some who say maybe a military coalition is not meaningful anymore, and I don't know if I'm there yet, but there are some ominous signs-what the Saudis are doing with restrictions on our bases, what the Saudis are doing with funding al Qaeda, and, perhaps even more troubling, the last few days of the election in Germany where Schroeder, who just won a very close election, said, "Bush wants to divert attention from his domestic problems. It's a classic tactic. It's one that Hitler also used." Those kinds of comments coming from a supposed ally in NATO are very troubling.

I guess the question is, how much hope do you have that we may not have to go it alone, so to speak? I realize there will be a few that will always be with us. Israel will be there. England will be there. I'm not quite sure, after that, who I would count on, but I think I would count on those two.

But what is your assessment? I know you've all been there. I know you're looking in now, but you were there. What is your assessment of how deep and how bad this is this time in terms of whether or not we're going to have the support of allies, both in the Middle East as well as in Europe? I'll just go down the table. General Shalikashvili, go ahead.

General SHALIKASHVILI. There's no doubt in my mind at all that coalitions are extraordinarily valuable and sometimes essential to get the job done. In a conventional operation, like potential conflict against Iraq, you'd talk about overflight rights, you'd talk about basing rights, they were talking about moving supplies, you're talking about intelligence sharing. All of those, when you look at the geography, are terribly important issues. While there are some work-arounds to be able to do that without allies, it sure as heck is extraordinarily useful to have them and, in some cases, essential.

Look at our war against terrorism. Please don't hold me to the number, but something in the back of my mind says that we have

some 90 nations that are assisting, in one form or another, in our war against terrorism.

Those people who say the days of alliances and coalitions are coming to an end, I think, don't look at the reality of it. This administration has relied very much on coalitions, much more so than, for instance, during Operation Desert Storm. During Operation Desert Storm-and General Hoar would know the number better-I think we had some 30 or 36 coalition partners. Look at the number of coalition partners we have today in the war against terrorism. Vastly greater.

Senator SMITH. I would agree with you that having a coalition would be obviously helpful and very important. I guess the question really is, though, can we count on it? If you looked at, especially, the Saudis. We know for a fact they're funding al Qaeda. They encouraged some of the terrorist acts by these martyr funds. You can't overlook that. This is not 1991. I guess that's really my question.

General Clark, you probably could comment best on the German situation, but it just seems to me that there's a little piling on here. I think some have said that Schroeder won the election because he piled on America a little bit, and maybe he did.

So, those are the concerns that I have, not that I don't want a coalition, but that I'm worried about whether or not there will be one if I could just editorialize a little bit and maybe just have the rest comment.

General SHALIKASHVILI. I agree with you, and I would tell you that we're going to have coalition partners in this. You mentioned some of them. I think there will be many more.

How many we have depends, to a large extent, on how successful we are in our diplomatic efforts to bring them onboard and how successful we are in getting our partners on the United Nations Security Council to go along with a strong resolution that ultimately authorizes the use of force to remove those weapons and the means to produce them, should we be unable to do so through inspection or other diplomatic means.

The answer is yes, we are going to have coalitions. We are going to have more than are apparent now, because many of them are probably reluctant to say anything now for internal political reasons, but they will be there. If we are successful in the United Nations, I think the number can be quite extensive.

Senator SMITH. I guess my time has expired. Could General Clark just respond?

General CLARK. I was in Germany last week, Senator. I met with a lot of people in Germany. There's a lot of embarrassment over the rhetoric in that election campaign. Nevertheless, domestic politics is domestic politics, I guess, and it certainly plays over there in a certain way based on a perception of the United States and its activities in the world.

But I'm convinced that, the election being over, when the United States needs help from its European allies, it will get that help. I would hope that we will go through the established mechanisms and use the consensus engine of NATO in an effective way to help us get a grip on the war on terror, to an extent we haven't done yet, and also to help us deal with the problem of Iraq. If we do