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Top republicans break { August 16 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/16/international/middleeast/16IRAQ.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/16/international/middleeast/16IRAQ.html
>
> Top Republicans Break With Bush on Iraq Strategy
>
> August 16, 2002
> By TODD S. PURDUM and PATRICK E. TYLER
>
>
> WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 - Leading Republicans from Congress,
> the State Department and past administrations have begun to
> break ranks with President Bush over his administration's
> high-profile planning for war with Iraq, saying the
> administration has neither adequately prepared for military
> action nor made the case that it is needed.
>
> These senior Republicans include former Secretary of State
> Henry A. Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft, the first President
> Bush's national security adviser. All say they favor the
> eventual removal of Saddam Hussein, but some say they are
> concerned that Mr. Bush is proceeding in a way that risks
> alienating allies, creating greater instability in the
> Middle East, and harming long-term American interests. They
> add that the administration has not shown that Iraq poses
> an urgent threat to the United States.
>
> At the same time, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who
> summoned Mr. Kissinger for a meeting on Tuesday, and his
> advisers have decided that they should focus international
> discussion on how Iraq would be governed after Mr. Hussein
> - not only in an effort to assure a democracy but as a way
> to outflank administration hawks and slow the rush to war,
> which many in the department oppose.
>
> "For those of us who don't see an invasion as an article of
> faith but as simply a policy option, there is a feeling
> that you need to give great consideration to what comes
> after, and that unless you're prepared to follow it
> through, then you shouldn't begin it," one senior
> administration official involved in foreign policy said
> today.
>
> In an opinion article published today in The Wall Street
> Journal, Mr. Scowcroft, who helped build the broad
> international coalition against Iraq in the Persian Gulf
> war, warned that "an attack on Iraq at this time would
> seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global
> counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken." An attack
> might provoke Iraq to use chemical or biological weapons in
> an effort to trigger war between Israel and the Arab world,
> he said.
>
> His criticism has particular meaning for Mr. Bush because
> Mr. Scowcroft was virtually a member of the Bush family
> during the first President Bush's term and has maintained
> close relations with the former president.
>
> Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska said that
> Secretary Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, had
> recently told President Bush of their concerns about the
> risks and complexities of a military campaign against Iraq,
> especially without broad international support. But senior
> White House and State Department officials said they were
> unaware of any such meeting.
>
> Also today, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, who was briefly
> secretary of state for Mr. Bush's father, told ABC News
> that unless Mr. Hussein "has his hand on a trigger that is
> for a weapon of mass destruction, and our intelligence is
> clear, I don't know why we have to do it now, when all our
> allies are opposed to it."
>
> Last week, Representative Dick Armey, the House majority
> leader, raised similar concerns.
>
> The comments by Mr. Scowcroft and others in the Republican
> foreign policy establishment appeared to be a loosely
> coordinated effort. Mr. Scowcroft first spoke out publicly
> 10 days ago on the CBS News program "Face the Nation."
>
> In an opinion article published on Monday in The Washington
> Post, Mr. Kissinger made a long and complex argument about
> the international complications of any military campaign,
> writing that American policy "will be judged by how the
> aftermath of the military operation is handled
> politically," a statement that seems to play well with the
> State Department's strategy.
>
> "Military intervention should be attempted only if we are
> willing to sustain such an effort for however long it is
> needed," he added. Far from ruling out military
> intervention, Mr. Kissinger said the challenge was to build
> a careful case that the threat of proliferation of weapons
> of mass destruction calls for creation of a new
> international security framework in which pre-emptive
> action may sometimes be justified.
>
> Through his office in New York, Mr. Kissinger relayed a
> message that his meeting with Secretary Powell had been
> scheduled before the publication of his article and was
> unrelated. But a State Department official said Secretary
> Powell had wanted Mr. Kissinger's advice on how to
> influence administration thinking on both Iraq and the
> Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
>
> In The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Scowcroft wrote that if the
> United States "were seen to be turning our backs" on the
> Israeli-Palestinian dispute "in order to go after Iraq,
> there would be an explosion of outrage against us."
>
> He added: "There is a virtual consensus in the world
> against an attack on Iraq at this time. So long as that
> sentiment persists, it would require the U.S. to pursue a
> virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any
> military operations correspondingly more difficult and
> expensive."
>
> Richard N. Perle, a former Reagan administration official
> and one of the leading hawks who has been orchestrating an
> urgent approach to attacking Iraq, said today that Mr.
> Scowcroft's arguments were misguided and naïve.
>
> "I think Brent just got it wrong," he said by telephone
> from France. "The failure to take on Saddam after what the
> president said would produce such a collapse of confidence
> in the president that it would set back the war on
> terrorism."
>
> Mr. Perle added, "I think it is naïve to believe that we
> can produce results in the 50-year-old dispute between the
> Israelis and the Arabs, and therefore this is an excuse for
> not taking action."
>
> Senator Hagel, who was among the earliest voices to
> question Mr. Bush's approach to Iraq, said today that the
> Central Intelligence Agency had "absolutely no evidence"
> that Iraq possesses or will soon possess nuclear weapons.
>
> He said he shared Mr. Kissinger's concern that Mr. Bush's
> policy of pre-emptive strikes at governments armed with
> weapons of mass destruction could induce India to attack
> Pakistan and could create the political cover for Israel to
> expel Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.
>
> "You can take the country into a war pretty fast," Mr.
> Hagel said, "but you can't get out as quickly, and the
> public needs to know what the risks are."
>
> He added, "Maybe Mr. Perle would like to be in the first
> wave of those who go into Baghdad."
>
> For months, the State Department's approach has been to
> focus on how to build a government in Iraq.
>
> After meetings here last week involving Iraqi opposition
> groups and administration officials, one official said
> today that there was now consensus in the State Department
> that if more discussion was focused on the challenge of
> creating a post-Hussein government, "that would start
> broaching the question of what kind of assistance you are
> going to need from the international community to assure
> this structure endures - read between the lines, how long
> the occupation will have to be."
>
> Such discussions, the official added, would have a sobering
> effect on the war-planners.
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