With Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and Professor Ashton Carter, moderated by Bill Delaney
JOHN SHATTUCK: Good evening, and welcome to the John F. Kennedy Library. I'm John Shattuck, CEO of the Kennedy Library Foundation. I want to particularly say how much we appreciate all of you coming out this evening to hear about some of the great affairs in our country especially on a night when they are very much on all of our minds. I want to thank the sponsors of our forums, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which is a new sponsor, FleetBoston, the Lowell Institute, Boston Capital, The Boston Globe, and WBUR and Boston.com. I also want to acknowledge and thank the Chairman of our Board Paul Kirk and his wife, Gail Kirk, along with another distinguished member of our Board, David Burke, for joining us this evening.
Tonight, I think we all know that we stand on the brink of war, possibly. And it seems appropriate under these circumstances, at least briefly, at the outset of this forum, to look back 40 years to a similar crisis. On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy addressed the nation in what historians agree was one of the most fateful presidential speeches ever delivered. That night he said that the American people faced a grave threat from weapons of mass destruction deployed 90 miles off the coast of Florida. He demanded that the weapons be removed, and he threatened military action if they were not removed. His words were unambiguous. He said, and I quote, "The urgent transformation of Cuba by the presence of these offensive weapons constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas. In flagrant defiance of the charter of the United Nations, and my own public warnings."
The background of the Cuban missile crisis was simple. A dictator believed he could enhance his power by secretly installing weapons of mass destruction at the outer reaches of his empire, near the US, and then calling the American president's bluff by threatening to use them. But as we know, President Kennedy did not let that happen. By standing firm, he forced Nikita Khrushchev to remove his missiles. But the means he used were complex and subtle, just as his determination was firm and clear. And I think for that reason, President Kennedy's leadership speaks across the decades as Americans now confront another crisis, under a different president, over the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
What can we learn from President Kennedy's approach to the Cuban missile crisis? Even as he stood at the brink of war, Kennedy searched relentlessly for ways to achieve disarmament without actually going to war. He was ultimately successful, because he dared to keep his options open, even to the last minute, and he constantly challenged the advice he was receiving from all around him. In his biography of Kennedy, Ted Sorenson described what it was like to be at the president's side throughout the crisis. He said, and I quote, "Above all, Kennedy believed in retaining a choice, not a choice between holocaust or humiliation, but a variety of military options and opportunity for time and maneuver in the instruments of diplomacy, and a balanced approach to the crisis which combined defense and diplomacy in the search for peace."
Six months after the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy delivered a speech on disarmament at American University in Washington DC. He concluded that speech by declaring, and I quote, "The United States will never start a war. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. Confident and unafraid, we labor on not toward a strategy of annihilation, but toward a strategy of peace." Tonight, the question before us is, what is our strategy for peace? The question is whether the US can avert war over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and North Korea. In Ted Sorenson's words, is there still room for maneuver in the instruments of diplomacy even at this last hour, and what would be a balanced approach to these crises that combines defense and diplomacy?
To address these questions, we have with us two of the wisest heads in our country on issues of national and international security. And I'd now like to introduce them. Our principal speaker tonight is Sandy Berger, who served as National Security Advisor to President Clinton from 1997 to 2001, and Deputy Advisor from 1993 to 1997. The New York Times has described Sandy as "the most influential National Security Advisor since Henry Kissinger." Having served with him in government and watched him guide the foreign policy of the United States for eight years from my own perch in the State Department, I can certainly agree with The New York Times' assessment.
At a time when the international arena was changing almost daily, and new challenges and threats were emerging constantly, Sandy Berger played a pivotal role in redefining America's interests, while maintaining and promoting its values. From the war in Kosovo to the Asian financial crisis to the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and North Korea, Sandy has helped shape America's response to a whole raft of new global crises. He is currently the chairman of Stonebridge International, an international strategy firms that serves clients worldwide.
Our second speaker is Ash Carter, who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy from 1993 to 1996. At Defense, Ash was the principal official responsible for issues of arms control, nonproliferation, and oversight of the US nuclear arsenal. From 1998 to 2000, he served as senior advisor to the North Korea Policy Review, chaired by former Secretary of Defense William Perry. He has twice been awarded the Department of Defense distinguished service medal, and he continues to serve as a member of the Defense Policy Board, the Defense Science Board, and the Defense Threat Reduction Advisory Committee. He is the author of numerous articles on international security issues, and Ash is also a professor of science and international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
We're fortunate to have as our moderator tonight my friend Bill Delaney, the new co-host of WBUR's much acclaimed midday program, "Here and Now." With a long and distinguished career in journalism, Bill has served, over the last decade, as chief of the Berlin and Jerusalem bureaus of CNN, where he covered the war in Bosnia, the rise of the neo-Nazi movement and its opponents in Germany, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Oslo peace process, and many, many others. So please join me in welcoming to the Kennedy Library podium, Sandy Berger, Ash Carter, and Bill Delaney.
SANDY BERGER: Thank you very much, John, for that introduction. First of all, it is a great privilege and honor for me to be here at the Kennedy Library. As is I'm sure the case for many of us, President Kennedy was a decisive influence on my life. To stand here in this building honoring him is truly gratifying for me.
John, thank you, first of all, for inviting me, but also for extraordinary service to the country as Assistant Secretary. I'm sure most of you know this, and have and will read John's book, but John's unrelenting pursuit of truth in the face of atrocity in Bosnia and Kosovo and elsewhere really was the conscience of our administration, and is very much responsible for a lot of what we know, and what we hopefully will find out in years ahead. I'm pleased to see my friends Paul and Dale and David here. I'm delighted that you're here. Phyllis Siegel (?), many old friends, and new ones. Let me just speak for five minutes at the outset, and then let's get into a conversation.
It's interesting that John begins with reference to the Cuban missile crisis. Because I've been thinking in the last few days that I believe that the United States is at a more challenging, precarious, momentous point in its history, at the very least since the Cuban missile crisis, and I think you could argue since World War II. We face, simultaneously, four crises. We're on the edge of war in Iraq. We face a North Korea that is about to become a nuclear weapons factory for the terrorists and rogue states of the world. We continue to face a lethal terrorist threat, al Qaeda and the larger group which it reflects, which remains dedicated to striking us and doing us harm. And fourth, I think we face a crisis of confidence in American leadership in the world. And the confluence of those four together, I believe, puts us at an extraordinarily challenging, difficult moment in our history.
Let me at the outset speak specifically about Iraq, because we are perhaps days away from war. The President has brought us to an excruciating point in this crisis. On the one hand, we have 250,000 troops in the region, poised, ready to move, the kind of deployment that cannot be sustained indefinitely. And if we are not to fulfill the UN's mandate that Saddam Hussein disarm now, at this point, we essentially will have provided a green light to Saddam Hussein forever. And I find that to be a dangerous proposition. We can talk about the various rationales that have been offered for war. To make the Middle East safe for democracy. I'm not exactly sure that's what Woodrow Wilson had in mind. The linkage to terrorism, and the direct and imminent threat that that presents the United States. I remain somewhat skeptical of that. A nuclear Iraq down the line, which I do believe is strategically unacceptable to the United States. So for us to not succeed, as an international community, in disarming Iraq would be, in my judgment, very dangerous for us in the future.
On the other hand, we are about to act without broad authority, without a broad coalition, and without, in my judgment, the kind of legitimacy, perceived legitimacy, so important to an enterprise of this nature. If anything, we are farther from convergence today than we were just a matter of two months ago. We forget that when Gerhard Schroeder took the position that he did in the course of his reelection campaign, the rest of Europe distanced themselves from Schroeder. Chirac, the others, said, "He's isolated. That's not the European view." So we have managed somehow, in the last two months, to bring Europe together against us. We are creating a coalition against us, not a coalition around us.
And in my judgment, as much as I believe that we cannot afford to let Saddam Hussein keep those weapons, and essentially walk away from this vindicated, with a green light, I think that if we proceed with a narrow coalition, as narrow as the one we're now talking about, with all due respect to the Bulgarians, that the risks of this action to the United States are substantially greater: the risk that Saddam Hussein's henchmen will stand and fight if he sees it as a narrow American/British, or maybe even only American coalition; the risk that we will create an anti-American backlash in Iraq, in the region, in the world' the risk that we will not have allies for the peace, as well as allies for the war. All those risks will be substantially greater for all of us.
So we're challenged by John's question, driven from the historical question of President Kennedy. Is there anything we can do at this point? Is there time left to talk, as President Kennedy said in that American University speech? Well, I believe the answer is yes, even at this late hour. We have said now that we'll set a deadline of March 17, and thereafter will act. That is not a compromise which provides any basis by which those who have dug themselves in against us can back down.
But I do think there is a basis for an effective compromise. Saddam Hussein is destroying those al samud missiles today, not because inspections by themselves work. He's destroying those weapons because deadlines, when issued by the United Nations, and backed by the credible use of force, do work. And it seems to me that's the basis for an endgame compromise here, which would say to Saddam Hussein, "You have a timetable." I don't think it has to be measured in months. If he has months, he'll take months. If he has years, he'll take years. He's not going to do this voluntarily. "Measured in weeks, here is what you must do. Anthrax, VX, all of the outstanding questions that are unresolved. Here's the timetable. Four weeks, five weeks." And we ought to go to our allies and say, "On this basis, if he does not in fact meet those marks, then you have to either be with us in the end, or not be against us."
Do I think that kind of compromise is achievable? I'm not sure. I'm not sure that the French have not dug themselves in as much as we've dug ourselves in. But I do know this: that if we said that to the world today, I believe there's a decent chance we would get agreement, and even if we didn't get agreement, we would, I think, regain some of the high ground here, and put the French and others in a very difficult position of saying, "Even if he doesn't meet a series of rigorous deadlines to disarm, as we've said he should, there should be no consequences." So to answer the Kennedy challenge-- is there still time for diplomacy?-- my answer is yes. Is there still willingness for diplomacy on the part of our government, on the part of the French government? I know there is on the part of the British government, as Tony Blair hangs out there by a thread. I don't know whether there is that willingness, but I know that the consequences of proceeding in such an enterprise, from such a narrow base of support, I think poses a great and serious risk to us.
Let me say one last things, and then perhaps Ash will say a few words about North Korea, and then we'll open this up to questions, and ultimately to your questions. The President has been quite clear about the threat. And if you look at today's New York Times, I think he is having the intended impact on the American people. His support is rising in the United States, although I think that is underlying that, yes is a yes, but yes, if yes, I think a great deal of uneasiness. But the President has been far less candid about the risks and the costs. The calculation of war is not simply about capabilities. It's about capabilities plus intentions, compared to costs and risks. And when asked at the press conference the other night, "Tell us about the risks, Mr. President. Would you tell the American people about the risks?" his answer was, "The risks of inaction are greater than the risks of action."
Interesting answer. It's a post-9/11 answer. It's one of the reasons why we see this thing so differently than the Europeans. After 9/11, Americans are much more willing to resolve uncertainty in favor of acting, not inaction. Europeans look at uncertainty and they say, "That's a reason for caution. It's a reason to find out more." But the President didn't answer the question. And I think that, in the course of this conversation, we should talk a bit about the consequences of success. I believe that we will militarily succeed. I believe that will happen relatively quickly. There are lots of things that can go wrong, but nonetheless, we have such overwhelming power that we will get rid of Saddam Hussein.
But this is not like the Gulf War: We win, we come home, we have parades, we have picnics. This is one transaction. Before Saddam Hussein, after Saddam Hussein. And after Saddam Hussein is a daunting challenge. Before you even talk about transforming the Middle East into a democratic region, before you talk about creating democracy in Iraq, there are tasks that go from maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq, to dealing with millions of refugees, to feeding 14 million Iraqis, to avoiding civil strife, that makes this an extraordinarily imposing challenge.
And I raise this because I believe one of the things we have learned over the last 30 years is that we should go into war with our eyes wide open. Americans are prepared to stand firm for the long haul when they know what the deal is. And I think in this case, an honest conversation with the American people, not only about the threat, but also about the costs, the duration, the risks, is something I thing has been lacking.
So as I say, we gather at a propitious time. We gather at a difficult time. And I think these decisions will be made in the next days, and perhaps even the next hours. And I can only hope that some of the wisdom that President Kennedy demonstrated during the Cuban missile crisis, which was firmness combined with flexibility, was determination combined with responsiveness, we can summon once again in this situation. Thank you.
ASH CARTER: I'm going to sit right here and just make a couple of points. The first is that it's a privilege to share a platform with Sandy Berger, whose strong and wise guiding hand we always felt at the Pentagon, despite assiduous efforts to evade it. And what Sandy said is pretty gloomy, about four crises, and I agree with everything he said. He did mention one thing, which is a ray of hope in the Iraq case, and I just wanted to pick up on that for one moment, which is, what can we hope for now? Because we are going to go to war. The odds seem to me overwhelmingly that that is before us. We will not be vindicated before the fact. A substantial portion of world opinion, and probably of American opinion, has deep reservations about what we're doing, and whether the balance has been struck correctly, but is prepared to agree with Sandy's basic assessment, which is that at some point, it had to be brought to a head. And you can argue about whether we've done it the right way, and whether we're paying a bigger price than we ought to be paying. But go forward we will.
Since we won't be vindicated before the fact, everything depends upon vindication after the fact. That is, everything now depends on the war going well, in terms of loss of life and rapidity of success, and on our being able, immediately, in the aftermath of the war, to produce the goods that justified our action. I'm confident we will be able to produce those goods, because I think he has them. And then, weeks after the war, I hope, we will appear to the world to have done the right thing, perhaps in an awkward way, but to have done the right thing. We have to hope for that outcome now, because all the alternatives are too awful to contemplate.
A word on North Korea. I can't offer you anything like a ray of hope on that one, I'm sad to say. Let me just remind you all of what is going on at a place called Yong Beyon in North Korea as we sit here, namely that North Korea is preparing to unfreeze a nuclear program that has been frozen since 1994, and to produce from that unfrozen program, within a couple of months, five or six bombs worth of weapons grade plutonium. That's a disaster for international security, the biggest setback in proliferation history, perhaps. With five or six bombs worth, the North Koreans might reckon they have enough to sell some and keep some. And let me just remind you that they sell everything they have, ballistic missiles and everything else.
North Korea is an odd little place. I've been there. It can't last forever. And so at some point, it's going to collapse. And into whose hands will its plutonium fall then? Even if it stays in North Korea's hands, their intention is to scare us away, or chase us away from the defense of South Korea against them, and other ways of thwarting their ambitions. And this could tip the balance of deterrence on the Korean peninsula, and make war in the Korean peninsula more likely. What does it mean for Japan, for Taiwan, for South Korea, if North Korea goes nuclear? They're going to ask themselves questions you don't want them asking themselves. And finally, what does it mean for the whole global nonproliferation regime, if the world's most isolated, Stalinist throwback goes nuclear, and nobody does anything about it?
Well, we're not doing anything about it. And I don't see any strategy at all on the part of the United States for dealing with that problem. All the news is about Iraq, and under the radar screen the North Koreans are flying to nuclear status. There's one thing we could do, and that is bomb Yon Beyon. In 1994, Sandy will remember very well, we looked very seriously at doing that, the last time they were threatening reprocessing. Without going into a lot of detail, that's something that can be done, and would be successful at setting them back some number of years, and averting this disaster.
But the possible result of that would be an attack by North Korea on South Korea. That's a campaign we would win within a few weeks, we believe, with our South Korean Allies. But it's a campaign waged in the suburbs of Seoul, with an intensity of violence the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the last Korean war, nothing like what you're going to see in Iraq. A war on the Korean peninsula is a war that causes, by our own estimates, hundreds of thousands of deaths. So this is not a situation to be taken lightly. It's not a place like Iraq, where you bomb every day and there's not a damn thing they can do about it. There is something the North Koreans can do about it. That's what makes the problem so difficult. So Iraq, depressing as that is, at least I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. North Korea, at the moment, I can't.
BILL DELANEY: I think one thing we need to do in the next hour or so is something that's not happening in the larger culture, and certainly from the level of the white house, which is to try to interweave these two crises. We talk about Iraq almost endlessly around water coolers and kitchen tables, and in high forums at Harvard and everywhere else. But as you point out, Ashton, there is this extraordinary threat from North Korea. As a scientist yourself, I'd like you to remind our audience that, when we talk about North Korea having the potential to reprocess plutonium, for example, we're not talking about some big, ungainly amount of plutonium that then has to be, in some mysterious way, potentially delivered, for example, to a terrorist group, maybe ignited by rage at an Iraq war, that wants to create a bomb. Remind our audience just how much plutonium it takes to create a nuclear bomb.
ASH CARTER: A piece of plutonium that I could hold in my hands, that's about as big as a softball. If I'm really clever, I can do it with a baseball sized piece. But at minimum, a softball-sized piece is all it takes to create a Hiroshima or a Nagasaki. Now, we talk about containing North Korea. Let them go nuclear. We'll contain them. Well, I don't know how to stop a ball this big of plutonium from getting out of North Korea and getting into the hands of-- Who? Bin Laden? Or somebody else around the world? So that's all it takes, a softball sized lump.
BILL DELANEY: Sandy, if you're the National Security Advisor, or you're in the higher councils of the Bush administration, or any government, you know that, right? We're not so overly brilliant in this collection of humanity here tonight that we can't figure that out, and it can't be figured out as well in the higher councils of the Bush Administration. And yet, there is no road map for dealing with North Korea. There is quite a road map for dealing with Iraq, however chaotic it may seem at times. But there is no road map.
SANDY BERGER: Well, there is a road map, and Ash Carter and others have written it. It's not a road map that our government is following. Let me explain that. We've been here before. We were essentially in this same situation in 1993 and 1994, when the North Koreans threatened to take the fuel out of the reactor and reprocess it. Think of reprocessing as like taking an old battery, sticking it in nitric acid, and extracting the toxins-- in this case, plutonium-- from that old battery. And that toxin, the plutonium, is one of the two kinds of fuel for nuclear reactors. The reason why Saddam Hussein doesn't have a bomb right now is he doesn't have the fuel. This is the hardest part of the game.
The problem we face now is that we have no leverage with respect to the North, because we have no allies. In 1994, we stood rather firmly with South Korea, and Secretary Perry, Ash's boss, and Ash and others spent a great deal of time in consultations with the South Koreans, and the Japanese and the Chinese. But in the intervening 10 years, something fundamental has happened on the Korean peninsula. And I think there are three reasons why we have diverged from the South Koreans.
Number one is generational. A new generation of South Koreans don't remember the Korean War, don't have the same sense of the American umbrella, and don't have the same sense of threat from North Korea. Number two, Kim Dae Jung's Sunshine Policy, which in some respects we think failed, because it did not achieve his vision of reconciliation, succeeded more than we knew. It's helped to rekindle a Korean identity, North and South. Number three, our rhetoric over the last two years-- "axis of evil," "I loathe Kim Jung Il"-- whatever effect its had on North Korea, has driven a wedge between us and South Korea. And there are many young South Koreans today who believe that the North Korean nuclear program is not a threat to the South. It's a response by the North to a threat from us.
And so we are standing here today without allies, without the South Koreans, without the Chinese. They're not willing right now to crush North Korea, to put the kind of pressure on that we were talking about in '94. They don't want to collapse North Korea, and have millions of refugees coming over the border to South Korea, over the border to China. Therefore, what do we do about it? We have to get our allies back. What our allies are saying to us is, "Sit down and talk to these people. Sit down and talk to these people, and find out whether or not there is a deal that can be negotiated and verified, or if in fact the North Koreans have decided that they are going to develop a nuclear arsenal. It's only by doing that that we'll know the answer to that question.
I know Ash and I have talked about this a great deal. I think either scenario is quit plausible. They decided to go nuclear. Kim Jung Il is looking over at Iraq, and he's saying, "Saddam Hussein, stupid SOB, his problem was he didn't get his nukes fast enough." So it's quite conceivable that their intention here is a nuclear arsenal. It's also quite conceivable that they're prepared to make a deal. We would have to, obviously, insist on higher levels of verification than before. If we do that, we can then go back to the South Koreans and the Chines and the Japanese, who are saying, "Go sit with them," and we can say, "This is not about us. It's about them. And you do not want nuclear weapons in North Korea." Because that same loose nuke that Ash talked about can wind up in Beijing as much as it can wind up in Washington or New York, or in Boston.
So there is a road map. The problem is, we have an administration that is proceeding here through a prism of ideology rather than pragmatism. This is an administration that does not want to, quote, "give in to blackmail," that does not want to have direct negotiations, because when we had direct negotiations before, we reached an agreement that froze the situation for eight years, and lo and behold, the North Koreans, who we all know are untrustworthy and unreliable, have violated it. And therefore, we're not going to capitulate. Well, of course, there's a way around that. Your expectations for negotiations are not to go back to the status quo, but to go forward to some greater regime.
But it is because they do not want to lose face, in a sense, that they are trapped in the notion that we have to have a multilateral context. This sounds familiar. Remember when we negotiated over the size of the table, and the shape of the table, for how many years in Paris, during the Vietnamese negotiations? We are negotiating about who's at the table. And I would only remind them, as I have directly, that in the State of the Union address, the President said, in reference to Iraq, "What I care about is not process, but results." I thought it was a very effective line, because he was basically saying, it's not about more time. It's not about more inspectors. It's about results. It's about voluntary disarmament.
And I have said to my friends in the administration, "With respect to North Korea, it's not about process. It's about results." Let's stop talking about process, and let's sit down. Because as sure as I'm sitting here, North Korea will march over that line and start reprocessing that plutonium, either before the war in Iraq starts, or after. And at that point, as Ash has pointed out, when it's dispersed around the country, the world has changed. We may never see that plutonium again until it shows up as a loose nuke in a city around the world two years from now.
BILL DELANEY: But I ask again, and I'll ask you, Ashton, if it's so obvious to us that something needs to be done, if it's so obvious that we need to sit down and talk to these people, why doesn't it happen? How much does it have to do with this kind of personal level that things have a way of going on? George W. Bush, "I loathe Kim Jung Il." He will tell that to Bob Woodward, and get it out there. The other day, to shift over to the European side of things, this strange remark-- and I guess we can just toss this off as meaningless, or not-- from the Secretary of Defense, who said, "Going to war without the French is like going out to hunt without an accordion." Not a bad quip. At the same time, what does that--
SANDY BERGER: He gets the same e-mail that we all do, with the French jokes. It's not an original line.
BILL DELANEY: But what does it say about an administration that is taking this to such a personal level? Have either of you-- I'll ask you first, Ashton-- seen this before? Richard Nixon had problems with various people, and Jimmy Carter did, and Bill Clinton did. It didn't seem to go on to this almost kind of, dare I say, college locker room level.
ASH CARTER: Richard Nixon was a pragmatist. And he would talk to anybody who was in power and didn't look like they were going anywhere. George Bush, I think-- and Sandy hit it on the head-- has the very understandable repugnance for the North Korean regime. I won't go into too much about that. But I was there in 1999. We were the first sort of American group to go in there, with Perry as Presidential envoy, since 1953. And this is a very strange place. I always tell people it's the last really weird place on earth.
It is a place that is in the third generation of Stalinism, where children receive four hours of political education a day. So also did their parents and their grandparents. This is a place where probably 10% of the population starved in the late '90s, starved to death. Usually famines are spotty. They have to do with the maldistribution of food. Not in the socialist paradise. In the socialist paradise, everybody starved at the same rate within a given stratum. Military was favored, the regime was favored, critical industries were favored. Most disfavored, children, the elderly. And so 2 million out of a population of 22 million may have perished during this time. North Korea can't feed itself. We provide one in seven bites that these people put in their mouths. So George Bush-- It's easy to have moral clarity in this situation.
But the question-- and this is the real hinge of the matter that Sandy hit on-- is, they don't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon. And therefore, the option of waiting them out is-- Everything about human nature and history tells you this thing can't go on too long, this oddity. But it can go on long enough to make plutonium that will pose a danger to humanity long after this regime is gone.
BILL DELANEY: Why don't we do something about it?
ASH CARTER: Well, you have to come to the view that loathsome as they are, they're not going anywhere, and I've got to deal with them as they are. Not as I wish they were, not as I hope they will be 10 years from now, but as they are in the spring of 2003. And that, at the gut level, is I think where the President is not at. So when his Deputy Secretary of State, Rich Armitage, said in Senate testimony just before me a couple of weeks ago, essentially, "I agree with Carter. We ought to enter into talks with these people, as much as we don't like them, because at least we have a shot at talking them out of this suicidal, for them, route, and detrimental to us," he was slapped down by the President, personally, within a few days of that. "No, I'm not going to talk to these people."
SANDY BERGER: Just to add one other dimension to this, this is an administration for which one of its greatest strengths is one of its greatest weaknesses. And that is its focus and discipline. At one level, that's admirable. And part of the job of a president, part of the definition of great presidents, are those who have focused on a few big things, and basically been able to say, "No, we're going to postpone, not do other things." I think one of the reasons the American people like President Bush-- and they do-- is, number one, I think they believe that he proceeds from conviction. And I think probably he does. And number two, they believe that he has focus. And right now, the focus is on Iraq. And there is therefore some wishful thinking here. North Korea, we don't need a crisis; therefore, it's not a crisis.
I think the second thing is that this is an administration for which power trumps everything. We can do Iraq, notwithstanding that the world is not supporting us, because we can do it militarily, and, as Ash has indicated, the results will justify it. And ultimately, we're so much more powerful than North Korea that even if we have to kind of let this thing drift off for a while, our power ultimately will be sufficient to deal with the problem. I
think in this case it simply reflects, on the part of some in the administration-- Let's remember, the administration is a grammatical mistake, in this case. There is one president. He is the decision-maker. But in my lifetime, I don't think we've had an administration where there are two clashing world views as much as this administration. So you're talking here about a view which right now seems to be ascendant, which is, we can park North Korea while we do Iraq.
BILL DELANEY: John Shaddock pointed out that John F. Kennedy said the United States will never start a war. Are we starting a war in Iraq? It's been called a preemptive war. It's certainly our first preemptive war. What's the shade of difference, if there is a difference, between that and starting a war? And what are the consequences of a power like ourselves electing to go to war when we don't really have to, many would argue? Ashton?
ASH CARTER: Well, we're seeing a first ever enforcement of the world's opprobrium for weapons of mass destruction and for proliferation. We haven't had to do that before, or we have not brought ourselves to do that before. There is a global convention called the biological weapons convention, which expresses the world's moral judgment on the use of pathogens as agents of war. There is a chemical weapons convention. There is a nuclear nonproliferation treaty. And these all represent a general view of mankind, of humanity, that weapons of mass destruction are beyond the pale. But they don't have any enforcement mechanism. They just say, "Thou shalt not." And if you sign up and say you won't, that's a good thing, and it puts you in good order. But they've never been enforced.
This is the first ever enforcement action. And because weapons of mass destruction are something we really can't afford to let fall into sub-state hands-- Because you know bin Laden, if he had them, he'd use them. You know that. We can't afford that. It becomes more urgent, in an era of terrorism, to enforce the nonproliferation regime. So Iraq may not be the best example of that, because it's, for example, nowhere close to where North Korea is, in terms of nuclear weapons, which are the big ones. But it is an important question which the administration has raised in many contexts, and I think rightly so. What teeth are there in the international nonproliferation regime? And here's a case where the United Nations said to this guy, this government, "No. You have to account for these." And he's played games for 12 years.
And so in the broader view of history, this is something that I don't think-- And I think Sandy made this point earlier. You can't allow Saddam Hussein to get away with this. This would be a terrible example, not only within the four corners of the Iraqi problem, and its own possession of the arsenal. What does that tell everyone else? So, yes, we have a lot of momentum now, and we've lost a lot of friends en route to this. But let's go back and remember why we're in this game in the first place. This is a very serious game. It's the right game to be in, in a fundamental sense.
SANDY BERGER: I think I would come at that from a somewhat different point of view. Let's talk about preemption, the doctrine of preemption. Every president has reserved the option of acting preemptively. I don't have to wait until I'm punched in the nose to swing first. That's common sense. And we have used military force on many occasions, from Panama to Haiti to Iraq itself, when we're not simply retaliating for something.
So, what is different about this? What is different about this, and what I think has really scared the world, is that we've articulated, now, a doctrine of preemption as the defining national security doctrine for the United States. I testified with Jim Schlesinger recently for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he said, "This is not preemption at all. This is a continuation of 12 years of war. We don't have to go to such kind of theories." But the fact of the matter is, the administration has. The administration basically has articulated a sweeping new doctrine, which is that we will get them before they get us.
Now, the reason why I believe there is such uneasiness about Iraq is that the world wonders whether Iraq is a template for the United States, that if we succeed in Iraq, then where do we go? Regime change in Iran? Regime change in Saudi Arabia? Certainly regime change in North Korea? Maybe not always militarily, maybe sometimes covertly, or through other means. And this I think is a truly dangerous and counterproductive doctrine. I believe this is a doctrine that encourages proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, rather than deters them. The theory is, well, if countries know we're going to take it out before they develop it, why should they develop it? But I think it has exactly the opposite effect. And I can't prove this, but I have to believe, as I said before, that in Kim Jung Il's calculation, there is some sense that, "I better get my nuclear weapon quickly, before the United States tries to, quote, 'pre-empt' me."
And so I think that what is dangerous here is, we're doing Iraq within a broader context of a doctrine of preemption which says this now is more important than deterrence and containment, and a whole series of other concepts of national security. It is a very, very sweeping view of America's role in the world, of America's power. It's sort of Wilsonianism out of the barrel of a gun. And I think we will see, if we are successful in Iraq, as I hope and pray we will be, this is not the last you will hear of the doctrine of preemption.
BILL DELANEY: You know, there was a resolution, 1441. That was back in November. The 15 members of the Security Council unanimously supported it, and it called for Iraq to disarm, convincingly and swiftly. Now, here we are early in March. Why the big wrangle over what seemed to be a clear enough statement that if Iraq did not disarm, there would be serious consequences? And how does that wed itself, if at all, or does it contradict, or does it belie the fact that it's not really a preemptive war. It's simply carrying out the will of the international community, at least last November? Why shouldn't Bush proceed upon what 15 members of the Security Council agreed upon last fall, Ashton?
ASH CARTER: Well, I think he is going to, and I think he's justified in doing so. That's my own view. Scroll back the calendar a little bit and say, "Why are we doing this in the first place?" Or, said differently, what are the alternatives to disarming Saddam Hussein by force? There are really two alternatives. One is to keep inspecting. And that suppresses his weapons of mass destruction. There isn't much he can get away with if he's under the inspectors' glare. That would be the best option, if we could sustain that option. But as President Bush said, we've been to that movie. And if I thought we could sustain that, and that the French and the Russians wouldn't fall off that wagon in a few year, I'd say that's the best way to go. But I know I can't look you in the eye and tell you that's sustainable. They will fall off the wagon. The other option is, just let him go, and hope for deterrence. Let him get what he gets, and we'll try to deter him the way we deterred the Soviet Union. That's a long discussion, but that is not a practical or safe course. So, he needs to be disarmed.
The mystery here, relative September to now, is how could we have made it so that we are the issue, and not Iraq? And Sandy gives us some clues when he talks about the kinds of things like talking about preemption, which is a last resort, an arrow in the nonproliferation quiver, which has lots of arrows in it. And to make a doctrine out of an exception makes us look like we don't understand strategy. And so back in September, I thought we would get where we are, because I thought Saddam Hussein would do what he does, which is play these little games with the inspectors, and dribbling things out. But I thought that at this time, everybody else would be as fed up with that as they ought to be. But they're not. They're fed up with us.
SANDY BERGER: We've been, I think not unfairly, critical of the administration. Let me be equally critical of our allies. I think part of the reason why you see, in today's paper, American support going up is because we're watching the hypocrisy of our allies, and we don't like it. The fact is that 15 countries did come together in November, and passed a resolution, 1441, which said immediate, full disarmament, robust inspections, and this is it. And I think as we watch the French maneuver, and as we watch Blix sound like an accountant as he gives these reports, without any kind of judgment, I think we see a greater concern, at least in the French and Germans, with tying down the American Gulliver than dealing with the problem of Iraq.
Now, we have contributed to that by a high-handed, dismissive posture that we've taken with respect to our allies. Winston Churchill said, "Allies sometimes have opinions of their own." That's not something that this administration, I think, really understands. But the fact is, I think as you look at this situation, and the French now saying, "Under no circumstances could we imagine force," you begin to realize that the French weren't playing fairly in the first place. And as you see Blix issue a report which omits some material findings about things that they've discovered, you realize he's spinning it for European public opinion. He's got to go back to Sweden, which is a very nice place to be.
So, I think while we have made it, by virtue of our dismissive attitude, by virtue of the kind of non-diplomacy since 1441-- We think diplomacy is, "Let me tell you what our view is. You don't understand it? Let me tell it to you again. You still don't understand it? Let me tell it to you louder." That's not diplomacy. That's marketing. Diplomacy is wheeling and dealing. Diplomacy is finding a compromise that satisfies everybody's objectives. We've not done that. But I think, in fairness to this situation, we're also seeing, from the French-- We saw it from Schroeder, who obviously, as he was going down the third time in his election, he grabbed this little piece of flotsam and jetsam called Iraq and saved himself. We're seeing Europeans who also do not want to confront the problem. And I think the administration looks at that and says, "We're never going to be able to count on them to really deal with this." And Saddam was saying, "We'll not be disarmed without credible threat of force. So I think neither side here is bathed in glory.
BILL DELANEY: Before we open the floor to questions, I want to ask you both, briefly, we're the most powerful country in the history of the world. We could arguably, if we had a more Roman mentality, take over most of the world, were we inclined to. Ashton, is there any nobility in what we are attempting? In other words, to bring down a ferociously evil man in Iraq, and to bring down a ferociously evil man, perhaps by less militant means, in Korea?
ASH CARTER: Well, I think there is, and I think if you compare American power predominance in this era to other states in history that have had that power, it's hard to find one that has used power as benignly, and in favor of the values that I think are widely shared, than has the United States. Our general record is pretty good, and we shouldn't be ashamed of the fact that history happens to have dealt us great power in this era. But with that comes some responsibility to use it wisely. With that also has to come the recognition that it's always easier to go it alone in one move. But life and foreign policy is a multi-move game. And so your power in your next move is affected by how you conduct yourself in a given move.
And the third thing is that our power is not unlimited. We haven't talked much about terrorism, but Sandy Berger rightly said that that was one of our four crises. Now, there's an area that is of crucial importance to
the quality of life in this country. And that's an interest we cannot protect by ourselves. There's just no way that we can do that by ourselves. We require the law enforcement, the intelligence, and so forth, help of other nations. And that cooperation in turn depends on them having some general sympathy for the idea of Americans in trouble. So this is a huge power. It comes with a lot of responsibility. It will not solve all its problems by itself. We do need others with us to solve-- We can invade Iraq all by ourselves, but I'll tell you, we can't deal with--
SANDY BERGER: I think it's a very important question. Let's consider the current situation. We are at the absolute apex of our power as a nation. Militarily, we spend more, I think, than the next 25 countries put together. Our economy is certainly not robust, but it is by far the largest and most powerful economy in the world. Our culture is pervasive. We have never been more powerful. At a time when our power is increasing, our influence is diminishing. What have we been talking about here? We can't get nine votes in the Security Council for Iraq. We can't get our allies to go along with us in North Korea. So, while our power is transcendent, our influence is diminishing.
Why is that true? It seems to me that power derives not only from the objective measures of power-- the strength of our military, the strength of our economy, the strength of our culture. Our power also derives from our moral authority, or how we define ourselves in the world, how we define ourselves to others. We pursued an agenda over the last two years that has essentially been an agenda of self-protection. We've withdrawn from Kyoto. We've withdrawn from the Middle East peace negotiations. We have withdrawn from arms control. We have basically defined our agenda as self-protection.
Now, unless we are defining our agenda in part in terms of the larger common agenda that President Kennedy spoke about in that great American University speech, we lose influence. We become the subject of resentment rather than only the subject of respect. So it seems to me, we've been strong and we've been weak, if I can paraphrase, I guess it was Mae West. We've been strong, we've been weak, and it's better to be strong. But strength is not only a function of our military and our economy. It's a function of how the world sees us engaged in leading towards a world that is a better world, a less bitter and divided world. And I think we've lost some of that perception in the world over the last two years, and I think that, to some degree, counts for why stopping American hegemony right now seems to be more popular than joining with us to stop weapons of mass destruction and other common threats.
One last thing. I do think that, at the end of the last administration, we left the country with two surpluses. And I'm quite proud of that. We left the country with a projected budget surplus of $5.6 trillion dollars. We're now facing a projected budget deficit of somewhere between 2 and $3 trillion dollars. We also left the country with a surplus of goodwill in the world. I traveled to 100 countries with President Clinton. And it was not just because he was a good emissary or a good representative. America was received around the world-- I always wish I could have taken all Americans on one of those trips, to see how we are viewed. We are viewed with admiration, with hope. And I think we've gone from a surplus of goodwill now to a deficit. And I regret that very much.
BILL DELANEY: I've had the privilege of asking the questions now for some time. Anyone who'd like to ask a question, please just keep your questions brief and to the point, and I suppose identify yourself, if you're comfortable with that. And please ask either Ashton Carter or Sandy Berger. Specify.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's been very informative to have you, and we are fortunate to have you all-- all three of you, in fact-- here, and Bill Delaney permanently, we hope, in the Boston area. I'm Peter Metz. I live in Newton. I'm an engineer. And I haven't been much associated with these issues until recently, and I've really tried to bone up, and you're helping a lot. I have a bunch of questions I would like to ask you both, but I should only ask one. So I won't ask you why the Bush administration has abrogated-- and what you think of it- so many international treaties. And I won't ask you what you think of the Phyllis Bennes.
BILL DELANEY: Are you part of the White House press corps?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: No, I'm not. They really tried to do a good job the other day, and I was sorry to see the way it turned out. So, I won't ask you what you think of the Phyllis Bennes position peace from the Institute of Policy Analysis about the Bush administration being motivated to use the power and might of our military and energy policy to dominate the world. And a bunch of other things I won't ask you, because what I want to ask you is what you handed out at the end, Mr. Berger. We have lost the world's good favor. I think it's clear that our policies of long standing, to use our power and might to bring about solutions to the world's problems, haven't worked, and aren't working, and they're getting us in more and more trouble. We've got to come up with some new policies, some new techniques for solving some of these world problems, which, they will always arise. What are the new techniques that we could be looking for in the future? And I'll put it to Sandy Berger. What would be the Berger Doctrine, if you were delineating the new American administration foreign policy process for dealing with evil forces in the world?
SANDY BERGER: Let me say two things. First of all, I agree with what Ash said earlier. We should not be too hair shirt about our power over time. Our power has, more often in history, been directed towards benign ends than towards malevolent ends. Having said that, I still believe at this point we are in the kind of position I've described.
I don't think that this is mystical or magical. The Berger Doctrine is global leadership in a global world. We have tunnel vision now. We have to lead across a spectrum of issues. The number one issue right now, for me, is terrorism, because those people are out there to kill us, and we have to kill them first, and we have to make our homeland more secure. It's as simple as that. It's the number one priority. National security has become personal security. That's number one.
But beyond that, there are a range of threats, from global warming-- if President Kennedy were alive, he'd say a rising tide will sink all the boats, in this case-- to being a peacemaker. For 30 years, America has been the peacemaker in the Middle East. In the last two years, we've walked away from that role of stopping the violence against Israel, trying to create a bridge between Israel and the Palestinians, and trying to create some kind of better future. We have to be peacemakers. Sixty-five million people will die of AIDS between now and 2020. We may look back at 2001 in history and say, "It was far more significant that we didn't do enough about AIDS, than in terms of what we did about terrorism."
So, most of these problems are global in nature. They require cooperative solutions. We have to be willing, at times, to use our power even unilaterally, when we are threatened. But we also have to use our power to lead the world across a very broad range of issues, towards a common agenda of closing the gap that's widening between rich and poor, that's creating bitterness and division, and that is not sustainable over time. All of these are matters, now, of national security.
I'll say one last thing. 9/11 was a watershed event. It changed our lives. It demonstrates our vulnerability, a country that has never felt vulnerable, except for that one moment, one 13 days in the Cuban missile crisis, did we truly feel vulnerable. But it also shows our interdependence. What happens out there in the world matters. The world came crashing in our door on 9/11. We found out even Manhattan is not an island. And so we have to now take 9/11 both as a wake-up call for reducing our vulnerability, and also a wake-up call for engaging in the world in a leadership way, across a broad agenda.
BILL DELANEY: Thanks, Sandy. This side of the room, please?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm Peter Tower. I'm a retired schoolteacher at Buckingham, Browne, and Nichols School in Cambridge. Supposing-- which it looks like we're going to do-- we whack Iraq. Does the terrorism stop? My thought is that there has to be some kind of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, yet another attempt to try to go in, international community led by the United States, and almost impose a settlement over there. Because now it's a world problem. It's not as local as it used to be. So my question is to both of you. Do you think there's any possibility of the imposition, world coming together to create armed, secure borders for all, and a two-state Palestinian solution?
ASH CARTER: I'll let Sandy deal with most of that, because he knows much more about the Middle East peace process than I do. I just want to address the premise of your question, which is, does solving the Palestinian-Israeli situation bear upon safety from terrorism? And in my judgment, it does and it doesn't. I watched bin Laden all through the late 90s. Sandy watched bin Laden all through the late 90s. The peace process went up and down, on and off, looked good, didn't look good. Our position was this, our position was that. Arafat's was this, Arafat's was that. Israel's was this-- And bin Laden was straight on, the whole time.
Now, he has recently come to referring to that as a motivating factor for him, but in fact, I think his ideology and his intentions are largely insensitive to what happens there. And this is a general point, which is, for those who are already converted to jihad, how we conduct ourselves is not going to influence their behavior, and the only thing you can do about them is what Sandy said, which is attack them and bring them home, and I think we will bring bin Laden home in duct tape sometime soon. I don't know how long it will take, but we will get him. I'm pretty confident of that.
SANDY BERGER: I have a hell of a lot of duct tape in my basement.
ASH CARTER: But let me just finish the thought. The environment in which we carry out that war on al Qaeda is conditioned by our wider policies. I just want to distinguish, before we turn to that question, how much leverage we can hope to get. I don't think we're going to turn off terrorism by changing our policies toward the Middle East. We do determine the climate in which we can carry out that war, how favorable it is to us, how cooperative it is with us, by whether we seem to be actively engaged in a peace process there. About it's actual prospects, I think Sandy is a better--
SANDY BERGER: First of all, let me associate myself with a very important point that Ash made. But then I'll address our engagement in a second. Bin Laden was planning 9/11 while we were in Camp David, closer to an agreement than ever before. If you go back over bin Laden's statements, no mention of the Palestinians until recently. So let's understand here that the Palestinians are a little bit like the mountains of Afghanistan for bin Laden. They're camouflage.
Now, having said that, I also believe that we have to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict, and particularly the Arab-Palestinian conflict. There's nothing I feel more passionately about than that. And you ask whether we can impose a solution? I would be happy if we just engaged in the process. I have a much lower threshold than impose. We're not even engaged. Now, for 30 years-- starting back in the Nixon administration with henry Kissinger in the 67 war, and you can trace it until every administration up until this one-- the United States has had two fundamental pillars to our policy in this region. Number one, we have been Israel's most steadfast, dependable ally. Number two, we have been the bridge to try to build a better future between Arabs and Israelis, between Palestinians and Israelis. It was because we had both pillars that we were able to function. We were able to function as Israel's friend and ally. We were able to function with trust and confidence from much of the Arab world. What's happened over the last two years is that we've gone out of the second business. And I think, as much of anything, the resentment in the region for the United States is caused by our disengagement from the process.
After two years of horrible suicide bombings, I think it should be absolutely clear now that a strategy of suicide bombs is a strategy of suicide for the Palestinians. It doesn't drive Israel to the sea. If anything, it drives Israel to the right. So, on the one hand, the Palestinians, I think, increasingly understand-- and Abu Mahzan, who has just been selected as Prime Minister certainly understands-- this is a losing strategy. On the other hand, Israelis must understand that they cannot purchase durable security and peace through military means alone.
Now, the fact is, these two parties are caught in a death grip. Nothing significant has ever happened in this region in the last 50 years without American involvement. And out of the exhaustion that is felt both in the Palestinian cities and in Israeli cities, there is, in my judgment, an optimism. There is opportunity out of exhaustion. But we can't do that by giving a rose garden speech in June, and then walking away, and most recently, this week, by walking away from the so-called road map that has been negotiated by the major players in the world. We can only do that if the President of the United States personally, and through someone who clearly reflects his will-- Because he sent Colin Powell out there, as you recall. And Colin Powell met with Arafat. And Ari Fleischer, when asked the next day, "Did the President approve that?" Ari Fleischer said, "That was Secretary Powell's decision." That's the end of Secretary Powell's credibility in the region as someone who reflects the will of his President.
So we have got, in my judgment, to roll up our sleeves and get deeply involved. We're not talking, at this point, about recreating a Camp David kind of agreement. That's a long way off. But we can, inch by inch, step by step, create a more safe, less violent situation in the region. The ingredients are there now, in my judgment. So are the ingredients that want death. But the ingredients are there-- it's called exhaustion-- out of which wars end, and peace gets built.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Palestinian state?
SANDY BERGER: Of course. Ultimately, the elements, I think, in the future will be not that different than what we were talking about at Camp David. Palestinian state, with borders that include most of the territories, and no right of return for Palestinians to Israel. The Israelis will never accept that. But massive compensation to the Palestinians, billions of dollars. The formula is there. Now, I don't think you can leap-- Whereas the rationale at Camp David, after a decade, it was pretty good for Israel, in terms of peace, and pretty good for the Palestinians. The rationale in Camp David was reconciliation. That's not the rationale after two years in which 750, 800 Israelis have been blown apart, 1,700 Palestinians have been killed. The rationale is now separation. You get out of my face, I'll get out of your face. But you know, out of that rationale, you can get very close to the same place, two states. And that's ultimately where we have to go.
BILL DELANEY: I'm afraid we're all being victimized by the eloquence of these two men. We've only got five minutes left. There's two ways we can do it. Possibly we could ask maybe the first two or three people on each line to just come up and ask a one-line question, which we could then address those questions. Otherwise, there would just be time for one more question. Would people be comfortable with just coming up and asking a one-line question, and then we'll try to summarize, out of those questions, the first two or three on each line? First two guys on each line, if we could, just a one-line question, and we'll try to summarize it. We need to finish in about five or ten minutes.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm of the impression that we're fighting, or getting ready to fight, and manipulated in thinking about what really should be Rofe's (?) war.
BILL DELANEY: I'm sorry, what was the last word?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Should we be discussing rogues war?
BILL DELANEY: You mean, precisely who should be playing which role in the war? Oh, Carl Rofe? What does he have to do with anything?
SANDY BERGER__: We got the question.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: He doesn't show up anywhere.
BILL DELANEY: Good point. Next question here, and then two from the other side.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Carter, can we really assume, once we go to war, and we beat them, it's going to happen, that they'll still be disarmed? We don't know where they are now, or we'd tell the inspectors, and they'd go find them. How would you know, after we beat them, where they are? Isn t there a limited force option, whereby we could use force without engaging in massive bombing, as we have done before?
BILL DELANEY: That's been brought up. Good point. And finally?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Finally, if you look at the Europeans and their massive support against a war, and what appears to be a massive support among Americans, could it be due to the influence of American TV in projecting a limited view of what's really going on, considering the fact that, in a recent poll, when asked how many people among the 19 bombers in 9/11, how many were Iraqis, only 17% of the American people answered with the answer "Zero," which was correct.
BILL DELANEY: Thank you all very much. Sorry about not being able to get everybody in. Sandy, can you pull those strands together? If anyone can, you two can, I suspect.
SANDY BERGER: Sure. Rosebud.
BILL DELANEY: Carl Rofe, limited war, and TV.
SANDY BERGER: Well, you know, I actually honestly do not believe that the President here is driven by the politics of the situation. This is a very, very dangerous gamble. He's rolling the presidency on this. And it can come out well, and it can come out poorly. I wonder whether Carl Rofe doesn't think to himself, are we going to be losing Americans, like around October '04, during an election campaign? I believe that the President believes this is the right thing to do. I believe that after 9/11, he sees the prospect of 9/11-2, with weapons of mass destruction, and he has linked in his mind states that have those weapons and terror organizations. And while I think this is an extremely political White House-- puts us to shame-- I don't believe the president here is proceeding largely based on politics. I think he's proceeding based on his sense of mission.
Second of all, finding the weapons of mass destruction is going to be a real problem. Because there are going to be a lot of colonels that are going to want to privatize those weapons of mass destruction. If you could drive a biological mobile lab out into Syria, it's going to be worth something. So I think you're right. I think that's going to be a serious task once we get in, one of many.
Limited force options. I guess my own view here is that I've never really quite understood how those would work. I think that if we actually have to go to war here, the objective should be regime change. But I don't want to do that unless we have, until we have, if at all possible, much broader support. Because as I say, I think all of the risks here are far greater if this is seen as an American invasion, rather than the international community confronting Saddam.
And then the final question, television. I should ask David, I guess, the answer to this question. But I think underlying the question is what we know about the world. And I think it's a very important point. Because ironically, at a time when we are more connected to the world than we have ever been before, at a time when what happens out there affects us here more than ever before, economically, politically, in every other way, what's happening? Our coverage of the world is shrinking. Except for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal-- and even that doesn't have very much international coverage-- most newspapers have less international coverage than they've ever had before. Most networks have fewer international bureaus than they ever had before. And I think we are developing a bit of a bifurcated population, in which we have, on the one hand, a C-SPAN constituency, who knows more about the governing of our country than probably any generation or any people have in our history. They're inside the hearing rooms. They're listening to the conferences at the think tanks.
And then, most people, trying to make ends meet, trying to struggle with the struggles of life, but really now in the evening news broadcast, get maybe two or three minutes of international news, of which 70% is disaster, is hurricanes, tornadoes. Now, obviously, comes a time in Iraq, and we focus on Iraq. But I think this is a very important point you raise, which is that we need to be citizens of the world, because we live in a global era. Thank you.
BILL DELANEY: Ashton?
ASH CARTER: I think that's a wonderful summary.
JOHN SHADDOCK: Well, it is impossible to improve on Sandy Berger as citizens of the world. But I think he has helped us, Ash Carter, you have helped us, Bill Delaney, you have helped us understand that there is some room for maneuver in the world today, if only we would take it. And I think the vision that you've all presented, and the wisdom that you've given us on this very difficult moment is something that we should celebrate even as we look over the brink. Thank you, Sandy Berger. Thank you, Ash Carter. Thank you, Bill Delaney. Thank you all.
END