CONTINUE TO RECEIVE TESTIMONY ON U.S. POLICY ON IRAQ MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2002 U.S. SENATE, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:36 p.m. in room SH216, Senate Hart Office Building, Senator Carl Levin (chairman) presiding. Committee members present: Senators Levin, Kennedy, Cleland, Reed, Akaka, Bill Nelson, E. Benjamin Nelson, Dayton, Warner, Smith, Allard, Sessions, and Bunning. Committee staff members present: David S. Lyles, staff director, and June M. Borawski, printing and documents clerk. Majority staff members present: Richard D. DeBobes, counsel; Evelyn N. Farkas, professional staff member; and Richard W. Fieldhouse, professional staff member. Minority staff members present: Judith A. Ansley, Republican staff director; Charles W. Alsup, professional staff member; Edward H. Edens IV, professional staff member; Carolyn M. Hanna, professional staff member; Mary Alice A. Hayward, professional staff member; Patricia L. Lewis, professional staff member; Thomas L. MacKenzie, professional staff member; Joseph T. Sixeas, professional staff member; Carmen Leslie Stone, special assistant; and Scott W. Stucky, minority counsel. Staff assistants present: Leah C. Brewer, Thomas C. Moore, and Nicholas W. West. Committee members' assistants present: Brady King, assistant to Senator Kennedy; Frederick M. Downey, assistant to Senator Lieberman; Andrew Vanlandingham, assistant to Senator Cleland; Elizabeth King, assistant to Senator Reed; Davelyn Noelani Kalipi, assistant to Senator Akaka; Richard Kessler and Eric Pierce, assistants to Senator Ben Nelson; Benjamin L. Cassidy, assistant to Senator Warner; Ryan Carey, assistant to Senator Smith; John A. Bonsell, assistant to Senator Inhofe; George M. Bernier III, assistant to Senator Santorum; Robert Alan McCurry, assistant to Senator Roberts; Douglas Flanders, assistant to Senator Allard; James P. Dohoney, Jr., assistant to Senator Hutchinson; Arch Galloway II, assistant to Senator Sessions; Kristine Fauser, assistant to Senator Collins; and Derek Maurer, assistant to Senator Bunning. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN Chairman LEVIN. Good afternoon, everybody. The Armed Services Committee meets this afternoon to continue our hearings on (119) U.S. policy toward Iraq. Last week we received testimony from the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Acting Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Today we will hear from former senior military commanders, all of whom have significant experience planning and conducting military operations. Then this Wednesday we will hear from former national security officials. We welcome back to the committee this afternoon General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe; General Joseph Hoar, former Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command; and Lieutenant General Thomas G. McInerney, former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and before that, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, General Shalikashvili provided advice and exercised responsibility related to operations in the Balkans, Northern Iraq, and elsewhere. He also served as commander of Operation Provide Comfort in Northern Iraq in 1991. General Clark led the NATO-led Kosovo operation in 1999 as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and in his capacity as Commander in Chief, U.S. European Command, he oversaw Operation Northern Watch in Iraq. General Hoar, as Commander in Chief of Central Command, was responsible for military-to-military relationships with a range of states that comprise the Middle East and North Africa and for operations conducted in Somalia and Rwanda. Lieutenant General McInerney served as Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force and has considerable operational experience planning and executing missions in the European and Asian theaters of operation. As I stated last week, we begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the Middle East. It is clear that the international community must act to prevent his efforts to build and possess weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them. The question before this Nation now is, what response is likely to be most effective in achieving the goal of bringing Iraq into compliance with United Nations (U.N.) mandates, particularly destruction of its weapons of mass destruction, and what response on our part is likely to entail the least risk to Ú.S. national interests? We look to our witnesses today to share with us their thoughts on the administration's policy and to offer their assessment of the risks associated with an attack on Iraq, whether we attack with a U.N. mandate and with our friends and allies, whether we attack alone, whether we attack now or after we've exhausted other avenues for dealing with Saddam, including inspections; if we attack, the most effective way for our military forces to carry out their mission; and, after the successful conclusion of a military mission, how long U.S. forces will be required to remain in Iraq to ensure stability in the region. How and under what circumstances we commit our Armed Forces to an attack on Iraq could have far-reaching consequences for future peace and stability in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, for our interests throughout the world, and, indeed, for the international order. Each of our witnesses today knows well, personally, the awesome responsibility of committing our forces to combat, and so we look forward to their testimony. First I'll call on Senator Allard. After I call on him for an opening comment, we would then ask our witnesses if they have opening comments that they would like to make. Then after that I would recognize each of us in the early bird order for a 6-minute first round of questions. Senator Allard. Senator ALLARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to give Senator Warner's statement on his behalf. He's not going to be here at the start of the hearing. My understanding is he's going to show up a little bit later, but I'd like to make it plain that I associate my thoughts very closely with what he's going to have to say in this opening statement. So I'd like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I join you in welcoming these four distinguished former military officers before our committee. All four of these gentlemen served our Nation with great distinction. I applaud all of you for your contributions you are making to this important Iraq debate and for the service you continue to provide our Nation as knowledgeable observers of our national security challenges and needs. Over the past several weeks, our President has courageously focused world attention on the defiant, illegal conduct of this brutal, ruthless dictator, Saddam Hussein. On April 6, 1991, after having been expelled from Kuwait and decisively defeated, Saddam Hussein accepted U.N. terms for the suspension of military terms and promised he would comply with all relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, including disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and submitting to intrusive inspections to verify this disarmament. Eleven-and-a-half years later, we're still waiting for Saddam Hussein to comply with international mandates, as reflected in 16 United Nations Security Council resolutions. We have over a decade of experience with his deceit and defiance. The main thing Saddam Hussain has proved to the world in the past 12 years is that he cannot be trusted under any circumstances. I think General Clark had a very similar experience with a dictator in Serbia who is now rightfully behind bars. Anytime the use of force is contemplated, those of us with a role to play in making the decision to use force must proceed with caution. Resorting to the use of force should be the last step, but it is the step we must be willing to take, if necessary. It is also a step those who threaten us must understand that we are willing to take. As we contemplate our vulnerabilities and those of our allies in the post-September 11 war, it is clear that things have changed. The concept of deterrence that served us well in the 20th century has changed. Terrorists and terrorist states that hide behind surrogates who are not deterred by our overwhelming power, those who would commit suicide in their assaults on the free world, are not rational and are not deterred by rational concepts of deterrence. We are left with no choice but to hunt down such threats to our national security and destroy them. The threat posed to the United States, the region, and the entire world by Saddam Hussein is clear. We know he has weapons of mass destruction. He is manufacturing and attempting to acquire more. We know he has used these weapons before. We know he will use them again. We should not wait for a future attack before responding to this clear and growing danger. Saddam Hussein has defeated the international community long enough. He must be stopped. Again, thank you for your participation in this process as we develop a body of fact for an informed debate in the Senate and for an informed public debate on U.S. policy toward Iraq. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you very much, Senator Allard. General Shalikashvili, let us start with you. Again, thank you so much, not just for being here today, but-and this applies to all of you-for decades of service, patriotism, loyalty, dedication, and contributions to this Nation. General Shalikashvili. STATEMENT OF GEN. JOHN M. SHALIKASHVILI, USA (RET.), FORMER CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF General SHALIKASHVILI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Allard, and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear here before you today and for the opportunity to make a few opening comments. First, I must say that I'm not a stranger to war, for, I guess, in some sense, I am a child of war. Before I was 10 years old, I had lived through the brutal occupation of the country of my birth, the total destruction of my home town during the 1944 Warsaw uprising, and, together with my family, I joined the millions of refugees fleeing westward ahead of the advancing Soviet armies. Years later, like so many other young Americans, I participated in a very different kind of war in the rice paddies in the jungles of Vietnam. I participated again still later, when, at the end of Operation Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein, with unbelievable brutality, once again turned on his own people, the Kurds, killing thousands and chasing the rest into the mountains of Northern Iraq and Eastern Turkey. Without food, without water, without medication, without shelter, the very young and the very old were dying by the hundreds. To stop this misery and the dying, I was asked by General Powell and then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to organize a military operation to rush emergency airdrops to the Kurds, to remove Iraqi forces, if by force, when necessary, from the most northern part of Iraq, and to establish a safe zone there so some 700,000 Kurds could be returned to what was left of their destroyed villages and homes. They had to protect them with a no-fly zone, which, by the way, is still doing its job today. Since then, as NATO Supreme Allied Commander and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in one form or another, I have been involved in military operations in the Balkans, Haiti, Central Africa, and many other places. So I know something about war, and I have seen firsthand Saddam Hussein's brutality. That background has certainly shaped my views about war. We must be very careful about going to war, and do so only when all other attempts to resolve the threat to us have failed, and do so only with the support of the U.S. Congress and the American people. But if, in the end, war is the only way to deal with the threat, then we must to go into it united and with all necessary resolve. In the case of Iraq, there are, for me, three first-order questions. First, do weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein pose a grave danger to us and to our friends and allies, particularly those in the Middle East, but also in Europe? To me, the answer is clearly yes. Second, if, in the end, we are unable to eliminate these weapons of mass destruction and any and all means to produce more, if we are unable to do so through tough, unfettered inspections or other non-military means, would use of force to accomplish this be the right thing to do? Again, my answer is yes. Third, in my mind, has to do with timing. Since the threat posed by these weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein has existed for some time, what has changed to create this new sense of urgency? Here, I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld has it right. What has changed is September 11 and our new realization of just how vulnerable we are to terrorist attacks and the catastrophic damage terrorists with weapons of mass destruction could inflict on the United States. Now, since I believe that the urgency to move against Iraq is justified, it is essential that the United States continue the full-court press at the United Nations to get the kind of resolution that would set up proper inspections and would authorize the use of force to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and its means to produce them if inspections continue to be frustrated by Iraq or if they prove unsuccessful in leading to the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. While the President must always retain the right to protect the Nation with or without a United Nations Security Council resolution, we must recognize that having the U.N. with us would be a very powerful message to Iraq and to our friends and allies and would make it much easier for a good number of them to be able to join us. For that reason, we must continue to persuade the other members of the Security Council of the correctness of our position. We must not be too quick to take no for an answer. Now, clearly there are a number of issues and risks, large and small, with using force against Iraq, and you have discussed many of those here in previous hearings. But that is always the case when it comes to war. There are always issues. There are always risks. The question, therefore, is not whether we have eliminated all those that is seldom, if ever, possible. Rather, the question is whether we have done the detailed planning, political and military, to find work-arounds for some, to minimize the effects of others, and to ensure that our plan is flexible enough to handle the unexpected that invariably is part of all combat operations. |