IRAQ

Hearing Before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Day 1 Panels II and III

July 31, 2002

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN JR. (D-DE): The hearing will please come to order. Can I thank all of our witnesses for indulging this unusual schedule. Most of you have been around here long enough to understand it. I know, Mr. Ambassador, you have. It's always dangerous to schedule serious hearings the last week the Senate is going to be in session for a while. But I felt this was so important, as did Senator Hagel, that we should move forward. So again I apologize for interruptions.

Our second panel is an equally significant panel and will shed a good deal of light on the issues we're discussing here. Our first panelist is Ambassador Robert Gallucci. He is currently dean of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. I want you to know, Dean, that I almost made a mistake when I spoke at your school or spoke over at Georgetown, I was presented with a Georgetown chair. It's sitting in my office with a Georgetown seal on it and as we were about to file my financial disclosure, I was sitting on the chair and my secretary said, "Are you sure you filed everything?" I said, "Everything I know." She said, "About what you're sitting on?" It had not been in the thing. So I might have been before the Ethics Committee, had I not been sitting in that chair. But at any rate, you've served as ambassador at large from '94 to '96, assistant secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs from '92 to '94 and deputy executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission from 1991 to 1992, overseeing the disarmament of Iraq better known as UNSCOM.

We also have Mr. Charles Duelfer -- now I'm pronouncing that correctly. He's briefed me in the past and I've been ingracious enough to mispronounce his name. He's currently a visiting resident scholar at the Center for Strategic International Studies. He's served as deputy executive chairman at the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq from '93 until its termination in 2000 and for the last several months of UNSCOM's existence, he served as acting chairman.

General Joseph Hoar (Ret.). General Hoar served as commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command from 1991-94. He was deputy for Operations for the Marine Corps during Desert Storm. He retired in '94 after a 37-year career in the Marine Corps and we appreciate you being here, General.

Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney retired from the Air Force in 1994. Prior to his retirement, Lieutenant General McInerney served as assistant vice chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force. He is currently a consultant.

And Dr. Morton Halperin. Mort is currently a senior fellow at the Council in Foreign Relations and the Washington Director of the Open Society Institute. He was director of the Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State from 1998-2001. He served as special assistant to the president and senior director for Democracy at the National Security Council from '94 to '96 and was a consultant to the secretary of Defense and the under secretary of Defense for policy. He also, in an earlier incarnation, was the man who I went to most for advice relating to civil liberties issues.

Welcome to you all and I would invite you in the order you've been called to give your statements if you would.

Welcome again, Mr. Ambassador.

MR. ROBERT GALLUCCI: Mr. Chairman, Senator Hagel, I'm pleased really to have the opportunity to appear before you today and address the critical issue of American policy towards Iraq. I would request, please, permission to provide a written statement for the record.

SEN. BIDEN: Without objection.

TESTIMONY OF

ROBERT GALUCCI
Dean of School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
and
Deputy Executive Chairman, UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) '91-'92

MR. GALLUCCI: I would begin with the premise that the only way Iraq poses a critical threat to the United States or our allies is through the use of weapons of mass destruction in one of two scenarios. First, if Iraq were to transfer chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to a terrorist group and second, if Iraq were to use these weapons against American or allied forces or our homelands in order to prevent or impede an American led invasion aimed at overturning the Iraqi regime.

Let me put this another way. If Iraq can be prevented from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and I say particularly viral biological weapons or nuclear weapons, then Iraq poses no special threat to America or her allies. If Iraq does acquire WMD, the threat still does not rise to a critical level because our deterrent, our threat to retaliate in the event of Iraqi use of WMD is both credible and effective.

However, if Iraq acquires and clandestinely transfers WMD to a terrorist group or if the United States should move to overthrow Saddam Hussein, then we should not expect our deterrent to be effective either in preventing terrorist use of WMD against us or Iraqi use against us in an effort to prevent regime change.

This line of reasoning leads us to ask about Iraqi WMD capabilities that were addressed this morning. I would submit that no one outside of Iraq knows with high confidence what those capabilities are today. However, based on seven years of inspections and four years without inspections, the only prudent assumption is that Iraq has or will have chemical and biological weapons at some point relatively soon.

The nuclear weapons issue, I think, is more complicated.

But since Iraq has already done the signature work to design and develop the triggering package for a weapon and the acquisition of HEU or plutonium from states of the former Soviet Union cannot be ruled out, we cannot have any real confidence that Iraq is not now or will not become soon a nuclear weapons state.

In light of the threat posed by Iraqi acquisition of these weapons, the unfulfilled requirements of the 1991 U.N. Security Council Resolution 687, the likelihood that Iraq will continue to acquire such weapons and the character of the Iraqi regime, I do not think it would be prudent for the United States to leave Iraq free to pursue WMD acquisition indefinitely.

This assessment stands even if we lack any intelligence that Iraq would in fact transfer WMD to a terrorist group. It is also an assessment that leads some analysts to favor military action against Iraq aimed at overturning the regime, which is one of the two circumstances in which deterrents could be expected to fail and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction used against America or her allies.

It seems to me therefore that, if the United States is to block Iraqi acquisition of WMD, it should look for ways to do so short of such a war for this if for no other reason. And the other reasons -- loss of life, severe budgetary consequences, alienating friends and allies in the region and around the world and avoiding the challenge of post-conflict regime reconstruction and maintenance are important as well. The question is then can a politically plausible inspection regime be designed as put in place that would offer sufficient assurance of preventing Iraq from acquiring WMD over the long term? And could such a regime be forced upon the current Iraqi government in the near term without first going to war against that government?

Fortunately seven years or so UNSCOM inspections give us some insight into what a desirable regime would look like and what pitfalls need to be avoided in designing one. First: we can assume that any regime that appeared as though it would be effective in blocking Iraqi WMD acquisition would also be resisted by Iraq. Therefore the only way to impose such a regime, short of war, would be to pose to Iraq the creditable alternative of a prompt invasion and regime change if the inspection regime is resisted. Just as clearly, Iraq must be convinced that accepting such an inevitably intrusive inspection regime permanently would indeed protect it from invasion at least by the inspection regime sponsors.

Second: it should be clear to all by now that an inspection regime that fails to give us high confidence that it is successfully uncovering and blocking any serious WMD development is worse than no regime at all. Such a regime gives a rock cover and gives it the initiative, protects it from invasion and in some circumstances would supply it with hostages. Third: it is probably true that an inspection regime that is too robust, that is one accompanied by substantial supporting military units deployed to the region, would inevitably be taken by friends and allies as well as Iraq as a step to invasion. Desert Shield masquerading as UNMOVIC plus.

Fourth: We are therefore in search of the Goldilocks inspection regime. One that it is balanced just right to be effective, acceptable and sustainable. Some obvious elements of such a regime are the following: inspectors who have unrestricted, unlimited and immediate access to any site in Iraq. There can be no sanctuaries or exceptions. Inspectors must be chosen for their experience and expertise without regard for geographic balance. Inspectors must be free to receive, exchange and discuss intelligence with government as necessary to conduct their missions. Inspectors must be able to take whatever steps are necessary to maintain the security of their communications and their operational plans.

Inspections must be undertaken in an environment free of Iraqi movements of any kind, air or ground, in the area of the inspection -- and here is a key element: inspectors should have the option of conducting inspections supported by a specifically configured and prepositioned military unit to assist it in entry, prevent loss of containment at an inspection site and to manage any spontaneous civilian opposition. On the last point the inspection regime thus must be capable of inspecting any designated site and overcoming any Iraqi non-cooperation or resistance except that mounted by a significant military unit.

In short, if an inspection fails it must do so in a way that creates a clear casus belli. There will be many with international inspection experience who would only participate in an inspection regime that presumed host government cooperation and who would oppose a regime that had a military force organic to it as I propose here. There are good reasons for adopting such a position as a rule but our past experience with UNSCOM provides ample reason to treat Iraq as an exception to that rule. This inspection regime would be designed to prevent Iraq from manipulating the inspection process. It would aim to strike the right balance linking the inspection regime to an invasion if Iraq fails to cooperate without being so robust as to appear in an inevitable move to overthrow the Iraqi government.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much.

Mr. Deulfer.

MR. CHARLES DEULFER: Again, thank you for asking me to be here today and I'd like to have my statement entered into the record as well.

SEN. BIDEN: It will be.

TESTIMONY OF

CHARLES DEULFER
Visiting Resident Scholar, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Deputy Executive Chairman, UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) '93 - '00

MR. DEULFER: My comments will draw up on my experience as Deputy of UNSCOM from 1993 until 2000. I came to know many Iraqis and their organizations quite well. They saw me both as a U.N. official and also as an American with whom they could talk and sometimes quite candidly. Let me state from the outset that I support the objective of creating the conditions where the Iraqi people can establish new leadership in Baghdad. There is a strong case for this when you consider the growing risks posed by the current regime in contrast to that with what Iraq could be under normal leadership.

The talents and resources that can design and build nuclear weapons under Saddam can help Iraq be the leading economy and culture of the Middle East under a new government. Until that happens the Iraqi people will never achieve their enormous potential. Of course, getting there is the issue. I have a differing opinion from Dr. Gallucci. In my opinion weapons inspections are not the answer to the real problem, which is the regime nor can they even fully eliminate in perpetuity Iraqi weapons of mass destruction so long as this regime is in power.

And I want to make another comment here in terms of terminology. Earlier this morning there was a lot of talk about arms control. But what we're discussing with respect to Iraq is coercive disarmament. Iraq initiated a war. They lost. And part of the terms of the cease fire agreement were that it was supposed to get rid of a large part of its arsenal. And that was to be verified by UNSCOM. That is not really arms control in the classical sense where two parties enter into an agreement because they think it's in their common interest. Iraq steadfastly does not believe that it's in its interest to get rid of these weapons.

Here I come to a key problem as I see in the whole dynamic and that is that the forces are all wrong. The Security Council writes resolutions demanding Iraq give up weapons of mass destruction capabilities which the regime believes are essential to its survival. UNSCOM was created to attempt to implement this objective. We did a lot. Bob Gallucci did a lot. Richard Butler did a lot. All of our experts on the ground, they did the most. But, ultimately, Baghdad had vastly more resources than we did and much more endurance than the Security Council. Ultimately the Security Council was not willing to commit the resources to enforce compliance.

Saddam very cleverly divided the council with threats, rewards and ultimately by holding his own people hostage. He created a situation where council members did not want to see more pain fall on innocent Iraqis as a consequence of support to inspectors. This will, no doubt, happen again. And here again I would point out that the same dynamic occurred after World War I. The Versailles Treaty obligated the Germans to disarms. The international community created a bunch of inspection teams. They had the same problems. They lasted about the same length of time and it ultimately failed.

But even if you can imagine a radically different approach to inspections with a sizeable military force, I don't see how that would work over the long term. Can we keep forces deployed to support inspections for ever? Are we really prepared to give back to this regime control of their oil revenues? And pursuing this approach does nothing to the innocent Iraqis trapped under this government.

In essence, inspections in my opinion are only a short term palliative and do not address the fundamental problem. Saddam knows this and if he concludes we are really preparing for regime change, he will offer the concession of allowing inspectors in under some conditions. This will only be a tactical retreat on his part.

I want to make a second point now before I conclude. Finally, and this has to do with regime change, there is a central point that's simple but it's a central point under regime change and that is that it's fundamentally a political objective not a military one. Military commitment will be essential to convince various audiences we are serious this time and Saddam's days a numbered. However creating conditions for new leadership in Baghdad demands a political strategy to guide potential military action. Moreover, what we do in a non- military realm before potential conflict will directly affect the extent of possible military conflict and the amount of damage to Iraq and ourselves. In this light, it is essential that Iraqis in Iraq know that their lot will only improve when the regime is gone.

Iraqis and key institutions in Iraq should understand that their interests are not served by defending Saddam and his clique. We can make a good case that intervention is justified given the unique and dangerous characteristics of its regime. My guess is that with sufficient work and consultations we can build international support to create conditions for regime change and a consensus on characteristics we expect a new government to achieve. Moreover we can make decisions about such matters as relieving sanctions, establishing security relations and debt relief, based on how the new government progresses towards higher standards. But I reiterate our highest priority should be convincing Iraqis in Iraq that they'll be better off when Saddam is gone and that he will be gone.

Iraqis and their institutions will be making vital decisions about their future without Saddam. The Iraqi people are the greatest threat to Saddam's regime. If they are convinced Saddam and his clique are doomed, they will make decisions that are in their interest and our interest and any ultimate use of force can be minimized.

Finally, I'll just make a comment, a personal comment. I remember asking a senior Iraqi once whether he served his country or Saddam. It wasn't possible for him to answer but he definitely understood the difference. In essence, we need to make it possible for the Iraqi people to act in the interests of their country and not Saddam Hussein. Thank you.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much.

General Hoar.

TESTIMONY OF

JOSEPH HOAR
Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command '91 - '94

MR. JOSEPH HOAR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to address the committee.

I am in favor of a regime change in Iraq. What is at issue is the means and the timing. The issue has four key components, all of which deserve our discussion and indeed a national debate because of their implications.

First is a change of policy after a period of over 50 years in which we depart from the principle of deterrence to one of preemption. The second is the need for support from the countries in the Middle East, Asia, as well as our traditional allies in NATO, Japan, Australia, and elsewhere, as we contemplate combat operations against Iraq. The third is the problems associated with mounting a military campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and then finally assuming success of this military campaign, the implications for war termination, most especially the requirements for nation building.

First, the issue of deterrence and preemption. For more than 50 years deterrence has served us well. Up to and including Secretary of State Jim Baker's warning just before Desert Storm in Geneva to the Iraqi regime about the use of weapons of mass destruction. Deterrence is still the best option until operations against Al-Qaeda have turned the corner and major progress with U.S. leadership has been made on the Israeli Palestinian issue.

Let me now frame some questions about a preemptive strike. How will we know that Iraq is planning to pass weapons to terrorist organizations? Poor intelligence remains a problem. In 1990 there were 1,800 technical and professional people working in the nuclear program in Iraq and we did not know it. Or is simply possession of weapons of mass destruction among the nations of the Axis of Evil sufficient? Will Iranian nuclear power plants be next? Does it apply just to nuclear weapons or do chemical and biological weapons deserve the same treatment because a number of Islamic and Arab countries possess chemical and biological capabilities? What are the red lines? What will we need and what process shall we use before a preemptive strike?

I would hope that it would be based on more than the circumstantial evidence that we have available at this time. May the president declare an intent to strike without a declaration of war from the Congress of the United States? What effect does this policy have on other countries with whom we might have disagreements in the future, for example, China?

Secondly, if you believe as I do that the United States has a moral responsibility as the world's only super power to provide leadership to at least assure stability if not peace, why can convincing virtually none of the European countries, let alone the Arab countries, of the need for an attack on Iraq? My sense is the Arab countries will not support a campaign of this type without significant movement towards peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

On a more practical level, we need bases, over flight, intelligence, search and rescue support from Arab neighbors in the vicinity of Iraq. And, from our allies, the financial and troop support for nation building that would follow a successful military campaign. With respect to the military campaign, war in the Middle East, now as before, depends on logistics. Even with the astonishing technical gains exhibited in Afghanistan, logistics is still the most challenging aspect of this campaign. Strategic lift, both sea and in the air, was my number one priority on the integrated priority list when I was the commander in chief at CENTCOM. It was at the top of Norm Schwartzkopf's list before me and I expect it is still high for his successors today.

Getting to the region with troops, equipment and supplies and most important, maintaining them through an operation of any size will be key. There is no doubt we would prevail but at what risk. Risk in the military is simply the cost of American men and women serving in the military who would be killed or injured in an operation like this. The Iraqi campaign is a risky endeavor. To think that you can support an operation of this type without control of ground lines of communications and support from the sea, seems to me to be remote. For example, any logistics buildup would require an antimissile defense for our troops. A Patriot Missile Battalion requires over 250 C141 sorties from the United States or from the European theatre. The size of the force, how it will be deployed, where will the logistic buildup be located, and the time frame needed are all critical to success.

Finally, assuming a successful military campaign, we need at the policy level in government a war termination plan. This is something we did not have in Desert Storm. In short, how do we achieve a political status acceptable to our government? After the expulsion of a regime of Saddam Hussein, the requirement of war termination will include the establishment of a new government, the executive, legislative and judicial branches, a newly reorganized armed force and a police force; what has been basically described as nation building. Who will do this? Will there be a Marshall Plan for Iraq, a nation of 25 million people? Where is the analysis of that cost? The people and the funds and the equipment will bear that cost. All of these components need to be discussed both in open and closed hearing to be sure that a preemptive strike on Iraq is the correct course of action.

I look forward to your questions, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you, General.

Lieutenant General McInerney.

TESTIMONY OF

THOMAS McINERNEY
Former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

MR. THOMAS McINERNEY: Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Thank you for this special opportunity to discuss a war of liberation to remove Saddam's regime from Iraq.

I will not dwell on the merits of why he should be removed. Suffice it to say we must preempt threats such as those posed by Saddam Hussein.

We face an enemy that makes its principal strategy the targeting of civilians and nonmilitary assets. We should not wait to be attacked by terrorists and rogue states with weapons of mass destruction. We have not only the right but the obligation to defend ourselves by preempting these threats.

I will now focus on the way to do it very expeditiously and with minimum loss of life in both the coalition forces, the Iraqi military and people themselves, and at the same time maintain a relatively small footprint in the region. Access is an important issue and we want to minimize the political impact on our allies adjacent to Iraq that is supporting the coalition forces. Our immediate objective will be the following: help Iraqi people liberate Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein and his regime, eliminate weapons of mass destruction and production facilities, complete military operations as soon as possible, protect economic infrastructure targets, identify and terminate terrorism connections, establish an interim government as soon as possible. Our longer term objectives will be to bring a democratic government to Iraq using our post World War II experiences with Germany, Japan and Italy that will influence the region significantly.

Now I would like to broadly discuss the combined campaign to achieve these objectives using what I will call blitz warfare to simplify the discussion. Blitz warfare is an intensive 24-hour, seven days a week precision air centric campaign supported by fast moving ground forces composed of a mixture of heavy, light, airborne, amphibious, special, covert operations working with opposition forces that all use effects-based base operations for their target set and correlate their timing of forces for a devastating violent impact.

This precision air campaign is characterized by many precision weapons, upwards of 90 percent using our latest C2ISR or command and control intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets, such as Joint STARS, Global Hawk, Predator, human intelligence, signals intelligence, et cetera, in a network centric configuration to achieve less than 10 minutes per timed critical target.

Using the Global Strike Task Force and Naval Strike Forces composed of over 1,000 land and sea based aircraft plus a wide array of air and sea launch Cruise missiles, this will be the most massive precision air campaign in history, achieving rapid dominance in the first 72 hours of combat, focused on regime change targets. These are defined as targets critical to Saddam's control. For example, his command and control and intelligence assets, his integrated air defense, his weapons of mass destruction, palaces and locations that harbor his leadership, plus those military units that resist or fight our coalition forces.

All the military forces will be told to do the -- all the Iraqi military forces will be told through the opposition forces in our information operations campaign that they have two choices: either help us change regime leadership and build the democracy, or be destroyed. In addition, commanders and men in weapons of mass destruction forces will be told that they will be tried as war criminals if they use their weapons against coalition forces or other nations.

In a multidirectional campaign, coalition forces will seize Basra, Mosul and most of the oil fields, neutralize selected corps of the Iraqi army and destroy the integrated air defense zone, command and control weapons of mass destruction locations and Iraqi air using our Stealth, SAM Suppression and air superiority assets.

This will enable coalition forces to achieve 24/7 air dominance quickly which is critical to our success. The expansion of our beach heads in the north, south, east and west regions and the air heads seized with alarming speed, will allow the opposition forces to play a very significant and decisively important role with our special, covert operations and the Iraqi army and air force to determine their status, i.e. are they friend, foe or just disarmed.

The political arm of the opposition will communicate intensively with the Iraqi people, letting them know they are liberating them from 22 years of oppression, and that they are now controlling large amounts of territory. Humanitarian missions will be accomplished simultaneously with leaflet drops, et cetera. U.S. and other coalition forces are helping us to liberate and change the regime is the mantra. You, the Iraqi people, must help us to do this quickly and with minimum loss of life.

This IO campaign must be well planned and executed, working closely with the opposition forces. This means that the administration must move very quickly now to solidify the opposition forces to include the opposition military forces, and set up a shadow government with aggressive assistance and leadership from the United States.

In summary, the Iraqi forces we are facing are about 30 percent equivalent since Desert Storm, with no modernization. Most of the army does not want to fight for Saddam, and the people want a regime change. Let's help them to make this change and liberate Iraq from this oppressor. President Bush has accurately said inaction is not an option, and I am in support of his position.

I await your questions, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you.

Dr. Halperin.

TESTIMONY OF

MORTON HALPERIN
Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

MR. MORTON HALPERIN: Mr. Chairman, it's a great pleasure for me to have this opportunity to appear before this committee on this urgent subject.

We've been asked to focus on options, and in my view there really are only two realistic options. One is what I call containment plus, and the other is preemptive use of military force. I thought, where we all thought with the proposition, that we would be better off if we could have regime change. But I would insist that our critical national interest in terms of Iraq is to prevent the regime from using weapons of mass destruction, or of providing weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups. And as we consider these two options we need to ask ourselves which option will make it more likely that nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction might be used against American forces, against allies, or against civilian populations.

The strategy of containment plus would build on the new sanctions regime which the United States worked very hard to get the United Nations Security Council to adopt earlier this year. Its goal would be to tighten the embargo against Iraq, focused on materials which would assist the Iraqis in either building up their conventional military capability or further developing their capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. And it would seek to prevent them from getting hard currency which they get by the increasing black market trade through the neighbors of Iraq.

And at the same time we would be working to strengthen the deterrence of Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction, or transfer of those weapons to terrorist groups by seeking a consensus, an international consensus, that military action would follow swiftly if we had proof of either of those contingencies. This option would also involve continued support to Iraqi opposition groups both inside Iraq and outside, and an effort to try to get them to come together and to articulate what a post-Saddam regime in Iraq might look like.

Rather than pressing the neighbors of Iraq, as we are now doing, from military bases to conduct combat operations, we would under this option be pressing them to make the embargo work. We would be pressing them to end the black market trade, we would be pressing them to stop permitting the flow of oil outside the U.N. sanctions through their territory, and we would be using a small amount of the vast sums that a military operation would cost to compensate countries around Iraq for their financial losses for implementing the embargo, something that, in fact, states are obligated to do when there is a U.N. Security Council imposed embargo.

The question is whether this will succeed. I think that if pursued vigorously with the same kind of determination that other options are being considered it will, in fact, succeed in preventing Saddam from using weapons of mass destruction or supplying them to terrorist groups. His primary goal is clearly to remain in power. And if he comes to understand clearly that he will not be attacked if he does not cross these leaden lines, but will certainly be attacked if he does, that strikes me as -- to wait.

Let me turn briefly then to the alternative option of military action. It appears that every day we are presented with a new scenario, either by somebody inside the government who likes the scenario, or somebody inside the government who does not like the scenario. And I would not presume to evaluate the possible effectiveness of any one of these.

But what I would suggest is that we need to proceed with a sense of caution and conservatism, which means that we cannot assume that it is possible to have a short and immaculate war with few casualties, which then miraculously puts in place a democratic regime which effectively runs the country and consolidates its power without a continued massive American military presence.

I would suggest that the opposite is very likely, and that the only responsible thing to do is to assume that if we adopt this option that we are prepared to put in the region enough military forces, including ground forces, to march to Baghdad, to fight the war in the streets of Baghdad which may well be necessary, and to accept the risk of very substantial casualties not only for American military forces and those of our allies who may join in the attack, but also on the civilian population of Iraq and that of neighboring countries including Israel. And we must acknowledge that this attack may trigger precisely that use of weapons of mass destruction against our troops or civilians that the policy overall is said to be trying to avoid.

We must be prepared to occupy the country and stay there for a very long time at very great expense in treasure but also in risk to lives. There can be no question that the military cost of this option will be enormous, and equally clear that Saudi Arabia and other countries will not pay for it as they did at the time of the Gulf War. I think we are entitled to know what these budget costs are and whether the administration proposes to pay for them by running ever larger deficits, by increasing taxes, or by reducing domestic spending. And we also need to acknowledge that the price of oil is likely to go up and that this may well trigger another recession and a substantial incline in the value of the dollar.

Finally, in my view, we need to consider the implications of implementation in Iraq this new policy of preemption which President Bush has announced. It is not clear to me whether the administration is arguing that somehow this policy is consistent with our obligations under the U.N. Charter or whether the president is saying that we can no longer be bound by the restrictions that the U.N. Charter puts on the use of force by all states. If he is arguing the first then I think the case needs to be made of how one squares the language of the charter, the interpretation that all of our presidents have put on the charter with the notion that we now can implement the use of military force.

And if the president is saying that we no longer should be bound by the charter, then that is a profound change in American policy which I think needs a full debate. I think all these costs and risks need to be put on the table. They may be worth taking but certainly not before a full public debate and certainly not, in my view, before Congress authorizes the use of military force.

Now, finally I want to reiterate again my view that it is not at all clear that this option will accomplish the most important purpose of preventing terrorist attacks, both conventional and with weapons of mass destruction, against Americans. I think there is certainly a very grave risk, certainly if we move before there is a Palestinian settlement, that the very opposite will occur, that what we will stimulate is a large number of people in the Arab world who will be willing to take up a terrorist attack on the United States and on Americans around the world if they see us in launching a military attack against Iraq.

Finally, I would ask that we consider the opportunity cost of this policy. This policy of military action against Iraq has already come to take a very substantial amount of the attention and energy of senior officials of this government. There is only so many things an administration can do at one time. The attention of top leaders is a very scarce resource. But so is what we can ask our allies to do and other countries and the Congress and the American public. And there are limits to how much money we should spend.

In my view, we should be devoting these scarce resources to nurturing the worldwide coalition against terrorism, to helping to settle disputes between Israel and Palestine, between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, and to help countries like Indonesia and Nigeria cope with ethnic conflict. We also should be staying the cost in Afghanistan, and that means nation building and helping the security of that country. And we should be working to reduce poverty in developing countries in the world and getting our own procedures at home right for how to deal with terrorism and how to improve our intelligence to deal with terrorism threats.

These are all daunting tasks, but I would argue that in terms of preventing terrorist attacks on Americans they are much more central, much more urgent and much more important than launching military operations against Saddam Hussein. In my view, we should allow containment plus to keep Saddam in the box while we pursue these more urgent tasks.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much. We have a good attendance. We'll try to keep this to five minute rounds first time around.

Let me begin by asking you, Dr. Halperin, if you had -- if you were still in the government and you had clear and convincing proof that Saddam had a nuclear capacity that was capable of being launched on a missile platform, would that change your view? In other words, the containment plus -- I assume the containment plus is designed to diminish the prospect that he gains that ultimate capability. I think we both say that was the worst capability. Assume that you were convinced that existent. Would that change your priorities?

MR. HALPERIN: Yes, at least to the extent that I would think we should undertake military action to destroy those nuclear capabilities and those delivery systems --

SEN. BIDEN: Which leads me to the next question. Do you think that were he able to build/buy/steal but possess that nuclear capability able to be delivered by a missile, is there a -- do you have any degree of confidence that that could be destroyed absent a military invasion of feet on the ground, troops on the ground?

MR. HALPERIN: I mean, certainly I think the missile delivery system, certainly if it was long-range missiles, could be destroyed without troops on the ground. But if troops on the ground were necessary to destroy an active nuclear capability, I would think we could get the support of the countries in the region and of the U.N. Security Council for action of that kind, and the way that we were moving to get it against the North Koreans when they were moving in that direction. So I think that is a different scenario that I think we're confronting now.

SEN. BIDEN: And how would a successful containment plus policy solve or deal with the potential of Saddam giving weapons of mass destruction to terrorists?

MR. HALPERIN: Well, I think it deals with it only be making it absolutely clear to him that if that line is crossed we will in fact launch operations. I think if the president has evidence that he is linked to and supported Al-Qaeda, that he has the authority to use military force, both from the Security Council and from the Congress of the United States, and I think he should act on that. You cannot always be sure you will get the evidence of that, but my view is that he is in fact extremely unlikely to do that unless he concludes that we're going to try to take him out of power anyway.

SEN. BIDEN: Let me ask any of you who wish to respond this question. All of this discussion that we're having today and we'll have in the future and that we've had in the past comes down to related risks and tradeoffs. You all have said, to one degree or another, that it matters whether we have a place from which to stage our invasion if there is an invasion, whether it's a relatively small number of forces or it's a quarter million forces, whatever it is and in between.

You've all indicated that if in fact Saddam possess more capability relative to the weapons of mass destruction than we know that he has, and we're not sure what he has, that that presents a serious threat to us.

You've all indicated that it would be better if we had others with us than go it alone, either before, during or after, and so it all comes down, it seems to me, to vastly oversimplify it, is tradeoffs here. If we go alone now we tradeoff the possibility we allegedly -- not allegedly -- we would, depending on -- no one knows the cost -- but we would succeed, we would ostensibly change the regime, we would hopefully be able to destroy the weapons of mass destruction that exist over a period of time in a country, but we may very well radicalize the rest of the world, we may pick up a bill that's $70 billion, $80 billion, we may have to have extensive commitment of U.S. forces for an extended period of time in Iraq.

And if we don't do that, we find ourselves in the position where we increase the possibility he could destabilize the region preemptively himself, he could move and use the weapons of mass destruction as leverage for blackmailing actions in the region and so on. So in weighing the risks and the tradeoffs here, how important is it that -- and to what degree do each of you feel you have to be certain he possesses the weapons of mass destruction that can be effectively delivered, whether it is a chemical weapon, whether it's a biological weapon or whether it's a nuclear weapon. How important in each of your calculus is that question, that he has or is close to having or it's not worth the risk of determining any longer, waiting any longer, whether he has weapons of mass destruction that are deliverable and efficacious? Because you heard the testimony earlier and I know you all are very sophisticated, some, the mere fact you have the ability to produce a chemical weapon and/or a biological agent doesn't mean you can effectively disperse it, doesn't mean it can have the efficacy that it would in our hands, for example.

So how much of your calculus is dependent upon his -- your sense of his capacity to possess and deliver these weapons?

General?

MR. HOAR: Mr. Chairman, during the Gulf War, we believed that he had the capability to deliver chemical weapons against us. And in fact, in the run up, General Al Gray and I went down to Quantico one Saturday to look at a simulation that had been done regarding the two Marine divisions that were going to be in the attack into Kuwait, and there were some estimates of casualties that ran in the order of magnitude of 10,000 if artillery rounds with chemical weapons were used. So the issue is, are these strategic weapons or are they tactical weapons? Could they be used on troops in relatively short distances of, say, 30 kilometers or are we talking the cities of Israel and the major cities in the Arabian area? I think there's a big distinction there.

I would also say that while in my mind it will be always be murky, the degree to which the regime has acquired these kinds of weapons, particularly at the strategic level, that thus far we haven't seen him use this. The current regime has boxed him in. I think the possibility of him using it goes up considerably if, in fact, the regime is about to fall. And I think certainly that's a grave risk to take in the event of an invasion.

SEN. BIDEN: Anyone else?

MR. DEULFER: Yes, just briefly add not all weapons of mass destruction are created equal. Chemical and biological agents present one level of concern, but when Saddam gets a nuclear weapon, and he has had this intent, he's devoted enormous resources over two decades to do that, then everything will change. We would not be sitting here talking about the potential for military action against Iraq if we suspected he had a nuclear weapon. He knows that. I've had this discussion with very senior Iraqis. They know that had they invaded Kuwait after they possessed a nuclear weapon, it might be a very different outcome. So I think that's a key inflection.

The other thing, picking up a bit on your analysis of the dynamic of the issue. What we're seeing here is, you know, it's very easy to quantify, identify, calculate near term costs. It's very difficult to firmly identify and calculate long term benefits and long term risks. Budget analysts, politicians, go through this problem all the time and the fact that we're here, and my colleagues here saying well, there's a lot of near term risks. That's true, we can see those. But ultimately, there is a very long term concern which is very, very big and that's, I think, what characterizes much of the debate.

SEN. BIDEN: Dean?

MR. GALLUCCI: For me, there's a huge difference between chemical weapons and bacteriological or biological weapons that are toxins and, on the other hand, viral biological weapons and nuclear weapons, that that's where the break comes in terms of casualties and death and destruction. And you can have these overlaps depending upon a lot of manipulating assumptions.

I assume, notwithstanding the careful statements I tried to make here and in writing, I assume that Iraq has -- not will have, might have, has the VX, a very serious nerve agent, certainly sarin in a deliverable form. I assume it has both anthrax and botulinum toxin as it did before. It had four years to regenerate and I don't believe UNSCOM could be confident it destroyed it all. So I believe that's extant right now. I don't know about the smallpox, and that to me is a huge, huge concern, and I think the nuclear weapons falls in that same category.

The problem is, of course, I think that getting evidence of this is going to be very hard. I think we have to ask ourselves a question of whether we want to wait for that evidence, and we start getting on that slope that Charlie was just talking about, about trying to figure out what this looks like in terms of long term costs, because if near term costs are so easy -- force themselves upon us.

When I try to net this out, I think I come down and conclude that we don't have right now an urgent need to act as we might if we saw a facility under construction or that missile you talked with Mort before, that's not in front of us right now nor do we have the evidence that they were complicitous in 9/11, in which case I don't believe this government would have any choice whatever but to act. So we don't have that kind of pressure on us. But we don't -- we have no confidence that we'll see anything like that before we're confronted with something we wish not to see.

So I end up thinking myself, I net this out and say this is not something we should try to live with for a long period of time. We need to get ourselves at a position to cut this off. That means we've got more time than just the next six months, year or two years of -- might be thinking about with invasion. That's why I come down looking for some option other than an invasion and this very aggressive inspection regime which can only work if the invasion isn't a viable option to force Saddam in that direction.

But I think you are right to try to push at the edges here, to make us think through what would cause us to find it prudent to take -- to pay the costs and run the risks of action sooner rather than later.

SEN. BIDEN: I'll conclude by saying the question for me is, do we have enough time to do this right? By doing it right means we could, in my view, work arrangements with Russia, we could, in my view, deal with the situation in the Middle East much better than we have now, we could in fact be much better situated if we did some very important things over the next six to eight months, that if we don't -- that we don't have time to do now, and the question is how much time do we have? But anyway, I've trespassed upon your time.

I'll move to Senator Lugar.

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R-IN): Thank you, very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm struck, listening to the testimony this afternoon, by some parallels with thinking after September 11th in this extent that many of us went into a crash course on Islam and what had been going on in several countries of the world where we hadn't paid much attention for a long time as to what had been going on in the last two centuries, for that matter. And trying to gain some idea of why people do the things they did, what the motivation was. Beyond that, we have been involved and the distinguished senator from West Virginia has taken leadership in this and will take some more next term, to find out what deficiencies we have in our intelligence systems in general, all of them, as to why we would not have known more, why we were not better informed.

Here we have a situation which clearly we need to know much more. We're all saying today that we haven't found the evidence but somebody has to ask why not? You know, given the resources of this country, extraordinary abilities that we have, there really is an imperative need. The same question as Dr. Gallucci noticed in North Korea, has been asked for a long time. The usual comment was that people didn't understand the language, they couldn't insinuate themselves in the country, all the sorts of dodges and weaves.

But here the life of the country is at stake. We're about to take very, very important action. And it just appears to me that it's not entirely the role of this committee but each one of us probably had best become much better informed about Iraq. And I'm struck by your comments, Mr. Deulfer, that it makes a big difference who succeeds. I'm even quering the question what are the alternatives? Who knows that much about the internal politics of Iraq these days? Now, there are Iraqi exiles who meet frequently in this town and elsewhere and maybe among them are leaders that first of all will have the backing of the Iraqi people. To come to the conclusion that somehow or other, ipso facto, the Iraqi people are going to condemn Saddam, condemn fighting for their country and what have you, perhaps.

But as we heard this morning, Dr. Cordesman, we didn't find that was always the case in the past. They were surprised by nationalism, feelings of patriotism, however despicable the leaders, because they didn't trust us either. In other words, on what basis do we believe or what must we do to have a constituency in Iraq that really wants democracy at any remote form, like the kind that we try to produce in this country or in Western Europe. And who might have at least the backing? And the way that Mr. Karzai is apparently through this process of loya jirga in Afghanistan gotten some consent but still has all the warlords around him and other people that constrain what he is going to do.

Now, absent some analysis of what the politics are and who is there, then we really do have a rather long occupation. You know, the thought of a parallel between Japan or Germany is a real leap in terms of the institutions that are available. It might bring about some semblance of Western democracy. So I -- you know, I sort of raised the question how do we get up to speed, what are the resources academically, governmentally, what have you in this country that are likely to identify for an informed argument, the post-Saddam situation. Or how do we even gain a sense in terms of public diplomacy of enlisting the Iraqi people to understand life will be better if in fact we intervene or if we stay or if we try to produce capitalism, democracy or whatever we want to do there.

Mr. Deulfer, I've sort of started with you. Would you respond to that?

MR. DEULFER: Thank you very much. I think these are fundamental issues. In essence, what needs to happen is Iraqis in Iraq need to conclude that it is in their interest and it is patriotic for them as proud Iraqis to change their leadership.

SEN. LUGAR: And how do we do that, how do -- what brings that about?

MR. DEULFER: Well, I think the international community can make a case that this regime is a danger to the external world, it's also a danger to the internal world in Iraq. We should not be prescriptive as to whom should lead Iraq, but I think we can say that there are certain standards, ideals that we would expect a follow-on government to embody, to a greater or lesser degree. This also has the important advantage of avoiding identifying groups or people within Iraq who would very shortly fall onto the list of Saddam's most wanted people.

But if we identify characteristics and ideals which no one can dispute, pluralism, you know, perhaps elections, fixing the financial system, getting rid of weapons of mass destruction. These are ideals which the external community would support and patriotic Iraqis could also support.

SEN. LUGAR: Why do we think they would? Why wouldn't maybe an Iraqi say we need a strong government? Saddam is a bad leader, but on the other hand, we need somebody who knows where to go. Are the institutions that this degree of participation and vigorous debate and so forth that much a part of this thing?

MR. DEULFER: My experience in talking with lots of Iraqis is that they recognize Saddam's their leader but they also recognize his shortcomings. They would like nothing better to be reconnected to the rest of the world. They see enormous benefit in that. But I don't think they're going to be wanting to see someone impose a leader on them. There are very delicate balances, which you'll from in the next panel, within Iraq, the north, middle, south, clans, military, various institutions. But I think, you know, there is a solution set there.

I think we should make it clear that we want to change as much in Iraq as possible, meaning the top leadership, and as little as possible, at least, you know, from the outside. In other words, cause as little damage to the infrastructure as possible. We ought to make it clear that most Iraqis have everything to gain and little to lose by a change in management.

SEN. LUGAR: Does anyone else have a comment, either on intelligence or how we gain people in Iraq? Yes, general.

MR. McINERNEY: Well, I think, Senator, that clearly there are two million Iraqis in the United States that have fled Iraq. They are a valuable source of understanding the people and the communications back there. The opposition forces are in daily and weekly contact with the military and other people in Iraq today. That is certainly a good starting point and that's why I think we need to organize this opposition to understand the problem.

The forces I'm talking about are enabling forces. Now, you can debate whether it's 50,000 or 250,000 or one million. We're talking about an enabling force to help Iraq people take their country back. And understanding these people, who I think are probably one of the most sophisticated, if not the most sophisticated, in the Middle East in education and understanding, and they had a middle class and still do, will be a lot easier than people realize.

I use the model of Japan and Germany after World War II. I was a boy there. We had -- in 1948 we had one division. One division in all of Germany, or at least in the U.S. sector, and the others had more. There wasn't a large predominance. Once you got rid of the Nazi leadership and Hitler, then the people wanted to take this path. I think the people in Iraq will want to take a path. I think the neighbors will not want them to take a path towards democracy and that will be one of our biggest challenges. Democracy does not flourish in the Middle East and we must be sensitive to that.

SEN. LUGAR: And the neighbors are a real problem, as you pointed out.

MR. McINERNEY: That's correct. Who are our allies and who are vital to this construct that --

SEN. LUGAR: We're trying to enlist -- get involved --

MR. McINERNEY: Getting their help.

SEN. LUGAR: Yeah. Well, thank you very much.

Senator Kerry.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA): Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Let me just in the chairman's absence, thank him for these hearings.

I was not able to be here this morning but I do think that these are obviously very important hearings and I think this is what this committee is supposed to do, and it's good as a member of this committee for 18 years now to see it in advance of decisions doing its work this way. And I think probably every committee member probably feels affirmative about that. I think the way the chairman has constructed it is good. I think it is right not to have the administration here at this point and that we sort of lay some groundwork here.

I was in the region earlier in the year and met at some length with Saudis, with Crown Prince Abdullah, the foreign minister and others, with King Abdullah, with their intelligence agencies, President Mubarak, his intelligence people, and came away with a sense that most of them believe -- I mean, at least they expressed this, that we are sort of over-exaggerating and overly worried about some aspects of Saddam Hussein, though they don't like him. I mean, they acknowledge that. But they certainly interpret some of the threat differently.

President Mubarak, I might add, quite dismissively believing that we sort of build him up in some ways. I'm not sure I agree with them. I mean, they live there, but if you assess what we believe he may or may not have -- you know, I don't think anybody believes he has nuclear program today that I've heard with any great conviction. We know he had about 7,000 people that were working on the program once upon a time, but our estimates are today that he may have at least a couple of dozen top flight nuclear scientists and engineers. But there's probably no doubt he's working on it, and I think most of us have to make the assumption that he is.

Secondly, he's got some continued shorter range missile development that he's been doing. That could help with longer range missile but it's not a direct long-range missile program. And we estimate that he has somewhere up to two dozen scuds or so, and obviously that has some potential for menace with respect to Israel, particularly if we were starting to engage in some way. But I understand from Israeli authorities not so much that they don't believe the overall value of changing the equation in the region isn't worthwhile.

So there's a lot to sort of balance here. I am of the opinion that under the right circumstances, it's not that difficult. I think I tend to agree with General McInerney and I think there are, according to the intelligence sources that I've listened to without revealing any of it, capacities for significantly more internal activity than maybe some people anticipate.

So I think it's achievable. I think the question is that we need to think about is when and how and what's the process, what brings you to the point of pulling the trigger, what makes you reach that point when you made the decision that you exhausted the doctrine of remedies, if you will, in the context of international war and of going to war. Certainly one of the lessons of prior conflicts is that it helps to have the American people fully supportive, fully educated, fully involved and clear about the objectives and prepared to stay the course.

There is nothing in what we have done to date that prepares the American people for that or that even lays out on the international stage a sufficient level of rationale, evidence, public diplomacy that might bring you, I think, to that legitimate trigger-pulling stage. It seems to me that we're sitting -- and I want to ask you particularly, Dean, about this but I'd like others to comment on it. I mean, there's a process here that it seems to me has been avoided to date. The rhetoric seems to be far ahead of our capacity and we seem to be ignoring and dismissive of the need for friends and allies and understanding on a global basis of why we might ultimately choose to do this.

Now there is in place a very forceful cease-fire agreement which Saddam Hussein signed and agreed to and it includes the full destruction of these weapons and the full inspection. Does it not make more sense in terms of all of these sensitivities that I just laid out, gentlemen, in terms of gaining the legitimacy of the American people, the consent of the American people and their assent, gaining the support and understanding of the world as to why we would be doing this, to go back to that process even though we know he will refuse to live up to it?

Certainly, if he has the things that he doesn't want us to find, he will not live up to it. So those who want the justification to go in will get the justification. But in the absence of that, we don't have a chance of having exhausted that doctrine of remedies in a way that I think answers the question to Mom and Pap in America as to why their young child may come home in a body bag.

Now, is there a process that has been avoided, Dean, beginning with you, that we should go through that would better position us with respect to the potential of this? And the opposite of that question is we lived with Russia for almost 50 years with the capacity to destroy us many times over and a policy of containment worked there. Why could not a policy of containment also work here at least while you build up to that point of legitimacy?

MR. GALLUCCI: Thank you, Senator. I'd like to take a shot at a few of those questions or observations that were in your statement. First, I can't help going back to the nuclear weapons observation because it troubles me. I don't know that Iraq has nuclear weapons but I do know, for a fact, that there is a workable design in Iraq which, in the days of UNSCOM we picked up, and it was an implosion system, an unsophisticated design. But they did more work after that and I also know that we have a real problem with accounting for material, fissile material coming out of the former Soviet Union.

I think I also know that we should have no confidence -- we should have no confidence that we will know if fissile material finds its way into Iraq from one of those countries. We might know but we might not. What I'm getting to here is a very troubling sentence and that is I don't understand how someone fully familiar with all our intelligence capabilities and our knowledge could say with high confidence that Iraq does not have a nuclear weapon now or will not have one for six months or six years. Not when they have done the work on an implosion system and there is fissile material to be had. I don't understand how one could say that. So that's point one.

Second, when we come to the question of time, do we have time and would we want time to use it for something useful, for example, to build the necessary consensus domestically and internationally, to make this a more politically plausible successful operation? I think there's a risk there because of what I just said about the nuclear issue, because for me, the key issue here is, is Iraq plausibly capable of transferring a viral biological weapon or a nuclear weapons capability to a terrorist group and it even could not be deterred? I don't know the answer to that but I don't like sitting around a long time hoping it does not happen.

So I think that's what makes me uncomfortable with the simple containment and just wait and see because what we may next see is some devastating event in the United States that can be traced back to Iraq. I would then say, well I guess that calculation was wrong, waiting and seeing. So I'm uncomfortable with that sort of indefinite postponement.

However, if you were to say, "But do we have time?" I guess I think it's important enough to get this right that we take some time and for me again, I think there may be an inspection option. It's not UNSCOM, it sure is not UNMOVIC. It is another kind of inspection that's much more aggressive that could not be put in place unless the Iraqi regime saw an invasion as the alternative. So I like the idea of trying to find another way to grapple with this and even if you must do an invasion, to take the time to get it right.

The chairman referred to doing some missionary work, I think, with other countries particularly Russia and we've had a concern for a period of time with the position of France within the Security Council. There's much to be done in the region and you will hear more about that. So, yes, I think we can take the time but I don't think indefinitely. I'm troubled by the simple containment option in which you wait for something that would be a trigger.

What the administration is talking about is not preemption as I understand it. It is a preventive war. Preemption is the anticipation of an act by the other side. We don't see that. This would be looking way down the road and saying we're not going to allow that situation to emerge. That's a very forward leaning posture and I think we have the time to get ourselves ready before we take --

SEN. KERRY: But there's a certain visible logistical period of time under any circumstances here during which time you could certainly provide a sufficiently more powerful ultimatum than existed previously, with respect to inspections.

MR. GALLUCCI: I think not only could you but you have no hope of getting successful inspections unless you took the antecedent steps, the Desert Shield -- if I can be allowed that -- period of time, took some of those steps and began to put forces in place and began to take the political steps that made the invasion a very credible option, something that we intended to do. And I think we would be believed this time where we were not believed 11 years ago.

SEN. BIDEN: Senator Hagel.

SEN. CHARLES HAGEL (R-NE): Mr. Chairman, thank you.

And to our panelists, thank you. We appreciate your contributions today and the contributions you've made, each of you, to our country.

Senator Lugar focused on something that I think we have not all focused on enough and that is, after we have heard your testimony and you heard our speeches and you might even hear an interview or two after this, we are all for virtue, democracy, good government and all things right. But how do we get there? And that, I think, was Senator Lugar's point. And I'd ask each of you to focus on a couple of areas and if you wouldn't mind responding to this question.

General Hoar and Doctor Halperin in their testimony ask a lot of questions back and they each laid out a number of dynamics and factors that we should pay a lot of attention, if, in fact, the military option is the option and as we drift along, containment is not particularly attractive and we've gone through that for 11 years and we still have Saddam and we still have uncertainty and we still have problems. So therefore, what is the option? What should we do? And there are various versions put forward. And I would hope that, General McInerney, when you respond, would deal a little bit with the opposition groups and forces that you keep talking about, which I'm not aware of, but they may be there.

But what I'd ask the five of you to focus on is the economic dynamics of this, the opposition dynamics, the allies, how all that integrates into something. Or maybe it's not important. Maybe a unilateral strike along the lines of what General McInerney is talking about, clean, crisp, sophisticated, go in and get it done. And maybe that works.

Then what happens afterward? Who governs? Do any of you have any idea of an exiled government, of any individual, any groups that you could put forward to us today as to what happens after we take this bold strike in the interests of virtue and all mankind. Now, what follows on, I think General Hoar got into some of those points in his testimony.

So with that, each of you, thank you, and we are always grateful for your consultation and input. And we would start with you, Dean.

MR. GALLUCCI: I think I have to go. I don't know, Senator, that I can add, on the three points that you made, the economics, the opposition and the allies, to what has been said. I liked General Hoar's list of things we ought to think about, and particularly those things that we ought to think about being able to do the day after, as well as the things we ought to put in place so that we do this in the most politically plausible way. That was, I thought, a very nice list. And I would associate myself with that.

I guess, from my moment here, I would say that I worry, and I will be listening to General McInerney as well, to talk more about that option. I have in my ears ringing the words of Tony Cordesman this morning about assuming too much about what might happen with the opposition going in too light, taking the risks of -- I don't know that he was speaking specifically about the blitzkrieg type operation, but it seemed that he was speaking to that, and worried about that being the concept of operations rather than a heavier more traditional approach.

And that troubles me. So I guess I still remain to be persuaded that that option really is viable, and that you've got that kind of support, and that the regime is that fragile and can be overturned. It may well be true, but I think the point this morning was that's a hell of an assumption to make, or a risk to take. And right now I would not, based upon what I know, I would not be there myself in making that calculation.

Of all the things that I think, in this list, that I would worry about most at this point, for me, we are doing this mostly because we want to avoid the transfer of this capability to terrorist groups. We want to reduce, in other words, the vulnerability of the United States of America today to suffering a 9/11 event with a weapon of mass destruction. Then I want to ask myself, if we do this unilaterally, and we have not taken care with allies in the region, are we going to create a situation which worsens that. That, for me, is the key question. Mort Halperin's comments went to this. And that, to me, is very, very important.

Unfortunately, it's a soft point, and if I can put it that way. It's a hard one to assess. But if we do this the wrong way, and we create, Senator Lugar what you were talking about before about, a situation in which we can ask ourselves, "Gee, I wonder why we are not appreciated the way we think we ought to be" then we will have really made a tragic error. So I think that's the kind of calculation, very hard to make. And we look to regional experts to help us.

SEN. HAGEL: Mr. Deulfer.

MR. DEULFER: I tried to get a little bit at the points you were raising when I said that what we need to do ahead of time is prepare political groundwork. And I mean both with respect to Iraqis in Iraq, Iraqis outside of Iraq, the opposition, but also with some key capitals on this.

And I think a discussion about the characteristics of a follow-on government that we would expect to see is one mechanism for involving a lot of important voices, some overtly, some perhaps not overtly, into you know putting forward a picture of what we expect Iraq will be on the other side, but without being prescriptive, in other words, not being a position where we're trying to impose something on the Iraqi people. But I think, you know, there's a delicate balance and delicate work that has to be done politically which includes people in Iraq. And that, obviously, is something you know is not necessarily that we can be discussing in an open session.

But none of this is guaranteed. There are enormous risks to, you know, economic risks, oil interests, all that sort of thing. You know, there is a big risk that Saddam will be able to characterize what we're doing as trying to put in place a puppet. And nothing will solidify the Iraqi people to oppose us, nothing will cause more bodies to come back in bags ultimately, if the Iraqi people are put in a position where they see supporting Saddam as being the patriotic act.

What we need to do is carefully separate Saddam from patriotic acts for regular Iraqis, Iraqis in the army, Iraqis in the Republican Guard, even the special Republican Guard, even the security services. We need to make Saddam feel very lonely. I think there's a strategy out there which can do this, both with allies, with capitals. I think it rests on creating -- causing audiences in various locations, most especially in Iraq though, to think about their relationship with the next government in Baghdad. And when they start doing that, Saddam will be very lonely.

SEN. HAGEL: Thank you.

General.

MR. HOAR: Senator, I think you've touched on some very complex issues. First of all, I don't believe that the Iraqi opposition can be depended upon. I think, from my own experience in the region, that they weren't worth anything during that time. Tony Zinni who followed me, twice removed, felt the same way up to two years ago. And what the Iraqi opposition needs is a charismatic person that is doing something to make the case for a regime change. And that certainly is not Mr. Shalabi in Mayfair sending faxes to Iraq. That's the first thing.

Secondly, those people that have chosen to stand up and fight, on the two occasions, the Shi'a in the south and the Kurds in the north, have both been left in the lurch by the United States government. So until we are on the ground and winning, don't expect any help from them, if that's what we're going to do.

How do we get allies into this game? I would say that Pan- Arabism, as a political movement, and as an economic movement, is dead. But not as a cultural movement.

From Morocco all the way across the Arab world there is still a good deal of sympathy for the Iraqi people, not the regime, but the people. We have to make the case, as a government, through public diplomacy and otherwise, and we have not made that case to the Arab people, the Arab street as it is frequently called, why the change has to be made, and why it would be useful. And, clearly, as Mort suggested, if there were some movement on the Israeli-Palestinian side we would move a long way, because most Arabs feel that's a far more pressing issue than the Iraqi issue.

With respect to cost, the sort of thing that is contemplated up to and including large numbers of people on the ground, assuming a military victory, would be very costly. Desert Storm, the Saudis paid $17 billion as their share of that bill. Prince Abdullah told me that he had been deceived, his word, by a senior administration official on how the bills would be split up. There's very bad feeling there. I am sure that the Kuwaitis, because of their special circumstance, would help any way they can if we put pressure on them. But it will not be easy.

I think that all of the things that we've talked about here need doing. But it requires a concerted effort on the government's part, and I don't see that that work is being done at this time. I would finally add that bringing the Russians into the equation, and perhaps the Chinese because that's the source of some of this weapons transfer material, would help indeed. And shutting down the oil that goes from Iraq to Turkey -- $2 billion worth a year -- and providing another source for the fuel that goes to Jordan at a reduced cost pressure on the Iraqi government.

SEN. HAGEL: General, thank you.

General McInerney.

MR. McINERNEY: Senator, I think the important thing is the opposition group must be developed. The fundamental tenet that we've got to operate from, and I won't personalize this, but there are people out there that our government can actively work with. They'll not meet the boy scout sniff test. They won't do certain things but they will be part of a group that will have credibility within in Iraq and it has the right objectives and the right motives. Nobody loves Saddam in Iraq. Every family -- I've been told by Iraqis -- every family has been hurt by this man either in the Iranian war, the Gulf War, or personal prosecution that he has made against them.

And so we need to capitalize on that and there is a sweet spot. I can't give you that answer now but I do know that thoughtful people can resolve that issue and once you have that and have a credible one, then everything else starts to roll with it. And so that is to me extremely important. And I would just agree with the comments that General Hoar made about on the allies.

SEN. HAGEL: Thank you.

Dr. Halperin.

MR. HALPERIN: Senator, I think that is the critical question. I'm extraordinarily skeptical that we have a clue of how to bring into existence a combined Iraqi opposition that could take over the country. We've been trying for a very long time under three American administrations now and I don't believe that there is a solution to that problem. Moreover, I would say that while many and maybe most Iraqis hate Saddam, I would say that it is extraordinarily unlikely that a group that came to power which was patriotic Iraqis would give up the Iraqi nuclear weapons program.

They live in a world that's surrounded by nuclear states. Pakistan, Iran, Israel. That is not a Saddam policy that is a policy I believe that most Iraqi leaders would follow. Moreover, I think it is extraordinarily unlikely that the group that came to power in Baghdad would be for the kind of autonomy that the Kurds tell us is the precondition for their cooperating with us. And I think we have failed to honor our commitments to them twice now and to promise them that in the face of what is likely to be a government in Baghdad that has no interest in it is, I think, an extraordinary commitment to make.

I would think that whatever government comes to power, unless it is following along American occupation, is not going to be anything like a democratic government. There are no others there. It is hard to imagine why this would happen overnight in Iraq. I think we also have to be enormously humble about our ability to help friendly governments in the region do the right thing. It is not an accident that most of the terrorists came from countries deeply friendly to the United States that we have worked with for a very long time. And I think the danger that, if we have a friendly Iraqi regime, it will become for the first time a breeding ground of people who go elsewhere and plot to kill innocent Americans, is not only a risk but in my view is extraordinarily likely.

A democratic Iraq of the kind that we talk about after Saddam will come about only if we are prepared to stay there for a very long time, accepting, in my view, very great risks of casualties and a threat to the territorial integrity of Iraq because a democratic regime is not going to have the capacity to keep that country together unless there is an American military force in the country that insists that it stay together. And we have to think about whether we really want to be the instrument --

SEN. BIDEN: Does anyone disagree with that point? Does anyone disagree with the point just made? Repeat the last please.

MR. HALPERIN: Keeping Iraq together and democratic will require American military forces dedicated and committed to that, including denying the Kurds the kind of autonomy that they will demand and assert. And those, in my view --

SEN. BIDEN: Stop right there, please. Does anyone disagree with that specific point? And, if so, how?

MR. McINERNEY: I think that the opposition groups clearly want to keep, except maybe the Kurds, keep Iraq as Iraq. I mean the Shi'ites in the south, whatever. They don't want to --

SEN. BIDEN: "Except the Kurds" that's like saying "Keep the United States together except the Southwest.

MR. McINERNEY: Yes. Well, and that will be one of the entry points that, because it's in our interests to have the Iraq that we have there today and not a fragmented society and that's I think how we enter this argument and get our support. And that's extremely important. Again, the size of the military, it's more the influence of the United States to keep that than a large occupation force. That I don't see the requirement. It is the influence and the staying power of our influence there helping to shape that democracy.

MR. HOAR: Sir, I believe in one sense the two principal leaders of the Kurds have made a deal with Saddam Hussein already. Both of them have gone on record recently as saying that they're fairly comfortable with the relationship. I think that could be done again, but Mark's point is well taken. There is no tradition of democracy in that area. Iraq is the instrument of our post-colonialism. Cut up by the British cutting across ethnic lines.

SEN. BIDEN: I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm trying to determine throughout these hearings where there are points of consensus on major, major questions. And a major question is to me at least "What after?" And that's why I asked question. But I yield to Senator Feingold.

SEN. RUSSELL FEINGOLD (D-WI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me ask one of Mr. Deulfer and Dr. Halperin. There are obviously a number of diverse points of view in the foreign policy community about the right course of action in Iraq. No one disagrees with one basic premise though. The Iraqi people have suffered terribly from years of deprivation and that they have been consistently told that it is United States support for U.N. sanctions that is responsible for their plight. And I think, Mr. Deulfer, that you were already getting into some of this a moment ago, but I'd like to hear a little bit more from you and then from Dr. Halperin.

What kind of reaction can we expect from Iraqi people if the U.S. moves to invade their country? If widespread civil conflict threatens to break out in the wake of regime change, staving off chaos in Iraq may require, as we've just talked about, a very significant presence over a significant period of time. Aside from the obvious resentment this will provoke in other parts of the Middle East, is there any reason to believe that the Iraqi people themselves would tolerate such a presence?

MR. DEULFER: Senator, it's for exactly those points that you're raising that I emphasize that we need a very well thought out set of -- or political organizing principles in this sense. There are national institutions in Iraq that hold the country together. The regular army. There's departments of agriculture, irrigation. There's a civil service. There are clans which span the length and breadth of the country and they need to feel that their interests will be preserved in what comes next. But it's very important that whatever we do not be seen as imposing something upon them, but simply allowing them to replace their own leadership.

You know, if they wind up in a position where Saddam is saying here comes the Americans. They want to destroy the great nation of Iraq and put in place a puppet. Then I think we're headed for a big mess. But, again --

SEN. FEINGOLD: Are you suggesting that these institutions will be able to overcome the connection that people may feel between the humanitarian crisis and what has happened in the past?

MR. DUEFLER: You know, I think if we posit that, we will judge the next government in Iraq based on how it proceeds towards behaving more normally towards pluralism and say, you know, we're going to make our decisions about security relations. About debt relief. About adjusting the sanctions. We need get out of this box that we're in and I have no idea how we got in it. Where the notion of changing the management in Baghdad is seen as something anti-Arab.

I mean, Saddam has done a great job in speaking to Arabs in the street, via Al-Jazeera and other mechanisms saying that United States is against the Arabs because the United States wants me out of power. I mean, logically, there is nothing better I can imagine for the Arab people that if Saddam left and the Iraqi people were able to achieve their enormous potential, which there is enormous agreement that they have enormous potential.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you.

Again, Dr. Halperin, what I'm getting at is the relationship between the humanitarian crisis and the reaction of the Iraqi people.

MR. HALPERIN: Well, I think part of that, Senator, goes back to the spectacular failure of the United States so that we got to this point where the world believed that somehow we were responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein. When Secretary Powell came in, I thought committed to changing that both by more effective public diplomacy, but even more important by changing the nature of the embargo. That is, by allowing Iraqis to import much more of various kinds of things than we had permitted in the past, by allowing them to rebuild their oil industry and export as much oil as they could consistent with the economic situation, and focusing the embargo only on things which contribute directly to their weapons of mass destruction or conventional military capability.

We now have that resolution from the U.N. Security Council. As far as I can tell, having worked very hard to get it, we've done nothing to implement it. I think we need to implement that in a way that turns that tide, so that we begin to demonstrate to the world that if there's a humanitarian crisis in Iraq, it is Saddam Hussein's fault and not the fault of the U.N. embargo. And that's part of my proposed containment plus strategy.

If you talk about a regime that comes in afterwards, the natural course of events in Iraq, in my view, would lead to a regime which suppressed the Kurds, which denied political freedom to people, and which continued to develop weapons of mass destruction. And it would still be better than Saddam in some ways and not as crazy and not as bad for the people of the country. But that's what it will be unless we are prepared to stay there for a very long time, in a very unnatural way and actually try to change that country. And I think we're talking about 20 years of many American troops in the country. The alternative is that we will, in fact, not live up to the commitments we will make to the Kurds to get them to cooperate in this endeavor. And I think there are very serious moral and real political issues of once again promising them something that we're not going to deliver.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you, doctor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. BIDEN: Senator Chafee.

SEN. LINCOLN CHAFEE (R-RI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

A couple of witnesses have said that first we have to solve the Palestinian issue before we move here and I suppose we could have weeks of hearings on that issue. But I'm inclined to agree and it seems to get worse every day instead of better.

I do have a specific quick question. It seems as if some of the Islamic fundamentalists are using to their propaganda advantage the presence of our military bases near the holy sites of Mecca and Medina and technically in relation to the value of those bases to us strategically in the Gulf and the disadvantage to us on the propaganda front. Where does that fit in, these bases that we have and both the generals have had experience with?

MR. HOAR: Of course the bases in Saudi Arabia are a legacy from the Gulf War. You'll recall that King Fahd agreed to that when Mr. Chaney and Mr. Wolfowitz and Norm Schwarzkopf went over right after they briefed the president. With the requirement to conduct Southern Watch, the air campaign over Southern Iraq, we needed bases in the area and those bases existed in Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia agreed to pay the vast majority of the costs associated with them. But this has been very difficult for many conservative Muslims in Saudi Arabia. As you know, the Wahabi sect of Islam is very xenophobic and so as a result there has been continuing pressure. Osama bin Laden used this theme in his program but he has used a variety of themes directed at different populations in the Arab world that are not all consistent. I think that the only problem, the only place that you would find that problem is in Saudi Arabia with that particular group of people.

SEN. CHAFEE: How critical are they to our presence in the region?

MR. HOAR: Well, the bases are being replicated in Qatar right now, so that there are other options but I would say, in terms of contemplating military action in that area, U.S. military action, airspace over Saudi Arabia is critical. If you were to not have the ability to use Saudi airspace, the problem would become extremely more difficult.

SEN. CHAFEE: General McInerney, have you anything to add?

MR. McINERNEY: No, I agree completely with General Hoar.

SEN. CHAFEE: Thank you, gentlemen.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you, very much.

Gentlemen, would you like -- didn't you want to take a five minute break or -- we've got a little more -- if your constitutions are admirable.

Senator from Florida.

SEN. BILL NELSON (D-FL): I'd yield to the senator from West Virginia.

SEN. BIDEN: Excuse me. Senator from West Virginia. A gracious man. He was here before everybody and I was getting to him last which I apologize.

Senator from West Virginia.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D-WV): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm struck, I guess, by listening to this conversation this afternoon about the enormous variety and range of uncertainty which is expressed by all of you. And it's not that people are keeping all options open because you are all experienced professionals and that is not your purpose. But the effect of what you're saying gives that impression, that we need to keep all options open. So the concept of uncertainty interests me. For example, people talk about galvanizing the people in some way. Well, I mean you know, they talked about that in Indonesia when Sukarno was in charge and nothing happened until something eventually did after decades. And Asad the same thing, what was he, a seven-year term, something of that sort.

And now we have Hussein and people are talking about well, if we could only figure out a way to get the people going. To me the Pan- Arabism argument followed, as Senator Lugar indicated, by our total inability to understand what Islam is and getting off all the signals that we don't. And then even in conversations like this where there is a sort of sense of uncertainty about the development of American foreign policy or potential American foreign policy, military or diplomatic, is just wrapped in uncertainty. I mean, I think that one can speculate that it's a lot easier to use intelligence to find out, for example, what's going on in the chemical world with emissions and effluents than it is in the biological world, which is much more discreet.

You say that the nuclear thing -- if we were really sure about the nuclear thing, I can't imagine that we wouldn't go in and yet my understanding this morning was that there was a feeling that each day that goes by the threat gets greater and then we get back to the threats which is the subject of all of this. So I guess the question I would ask you is, there's an extraordinary polemic involved in this because the stakes are so high, the consequences. Senator Kerry mentioned are we preparing the American people. And that's as if Iraq existed by itself as a problem in the world and of course it doesn't. There are 60 Al-Qaeda nations. We have our own problems and there are uncertainties everywhere now which encourage each other, compound therefore. So I'm just sort of interested in -- what is a resolution process? I mean if we are stuck with uncertainties and then we can go from here to here and we're rational here and we're rational here, we make sense here and we make sense here and we're right here or right here.

So we describe all the options but time closes in, Dean said so. And that every day that passes gets more dangerous and then this not insignificant point that if, purchase, we wait three days too late and either from that country through others and some people said no, they won't do it through others because they want to keep it for themselves because they give them power, but then who knows about that too? And then some day all of a sudden a series of terrible things happen in this country and then the whole concept of body bags takes on a very different concept.

So I guess the only question, certainly the only question I have time for, is that we can deal with uncertainties because we're an honest nation and we tend to, we tend to be very open in expressing our views and our concerns and our worries and that's fair to the American people, part of the democratic process. Unique in the world, I might say, we're that way. But at some point, there comes the point of a resolution of what you're going to do and you can't talk about uncertainties because you don't have all the answers and you never will have all the answers, and we all know that we'll never have all the answers. And so sort of a collective sense from you gentlemen of how one deals with the process of going from continuing uncertainties on very, very large issues to the point of decision, and obviously, it rests in the hands of the president of the United States.

MR. GALLUCCI: I'd like to take a brief shot at that and go back to a point that was made earlier, that we, the Coalition, fought a war against Iraq and won and there was a resolution to the war that was captured, U.N. Security Council Resolution 687, but it's still outstanding and is not being implemented. So as an opening proposition to your -- Senator, your statement that we have all this uncertainty, what are we going to do with this great range? Let's say that that was a resolution that really deserves to be implemented, based also on everything else we've said, and that we're dedicated to getting from here to there which is to say Iraq, that does not have weapons of mass destruction.

And so the question is how do we get there? Well, do we have to urgently, now, invade immediately? I'd say no. Is that something we want to leave alone for a long period of time? I'd say no, too risky, for the reasons we've all talked about. So, in the near term, it seems to me, one of the things we've got to do is build a consensus around the need for action. We should have hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on this and we should address all this and American people should be listening.

And then we should start to do those things, some of which have been laid out by some of my colleagues at the table, that would build a consensus domestically and internationally, in order that we be in a position to take military action when either we are forced to because of some bit of information that's delivered to us by George Tenet or some other way or because we've come to the point where we think we now are in a better position in terms of our status with allies and friends and domestically. And maybe if you took the advice I was offering, you also wanted to check the box of really trying to see whether an aggressive inspection regime was put in place.

But there's a deliberate process, I think, that we can move and implement but starting with the proposition that that U.N. Security Council resolution deserves to be implemented and hasn't been for the last -- you could pick the year, but certainly probably five or six years is not a bad number.

SEN. BIDEN: Doctor.

MR. HALPERIN: I think that your premise is absolutely correct. What dominates this is uncertainty. It dominates almost all international problems. They're all much too complicated to have any real certainty about what to do. And if we think we have certainty, it's because we bring to it an ideology that filters out the things that produce the uncertainty.

The answer to uncertainty in my view is the American Constitution. I think the way to resolve this question is the way the Constitution intended, that is to say, if the president concludes that he wants to implement an option, particularly one that involves the initiation of the use of military force, I think he has an obligation to come to the Congress and ask for a resolution authorizing him to do that. I think he has an obligation to weigh out his understanding of the costs and gains and how he resolves these uncertainties. And then I think the Congress has to debate those. And if it authorizes the president to go, then I think he then has the ultimate responsibility to decide when to initiate it.

You can do all that without eliminating the tactical surprise of a military operation. And that's why I think these hearings are so important, the consensus that seems to me to be developing on both sides of the aisle, in the Congress and outside, that this is a situation in which the Congress' authority is needed to use military force, is an important step forward, and I think this country will stand together, whichever we decide to do, as long as we do it with our eyes open, understanding the uncertainties and the costs and we follow the procedures of the Constitution.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much.

Senator Brownback.

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank the panelists too for your presentations, your thoughtfulness. Several of you I've had in front of panels when we were going this exercise, I believe, four years ago, looking at Iraq.

I want to go at one narrow question, one broad question. Several years ago when we were looking at regime change, when that was the terminology that was developed at the time on the Iraq Liberation Act, supporting outside groups, what we could do to remove Saddam Hussein, there was broad consensus that this is a bad actor, Saddam Hussein, we'd be better off if he's not there, is now the time and what are the means? And that's the same question we're hearing with today.

One of the issues that came up at that time was a -- it wouldn't be a containment plus strategy as you described it, but one was described as saying we have a no fly policy over certain portions of Iraq today that Saddam cannot enter air space and we'll enforce that, was to expand that no fly to a no fly, no drive policy, and try to allow opposition forces to build up in further areas of Iraq. The Kurds already control a good portion of the north, try to expand that in the south and to have Saddam become more of a mayor of Baghdad than controlling the entire country. I'd like, perhaps if we could, one of the military members to respond to the thoughts of trying to do something like that today and whether or not you feel like that is a meritorious type of policy trend to support?

MR. HOAR: Tom poked me, I think that means you go first.

(Laughter.)

MR. HOAR: Senator, I don't think Tom and I are going to agree with this but I think Tony Cordesman's thoughts this morning about encouraging resistance without direct affirmative assistance on the ground is at best an unethical and perhaps an immoral approach, given what has happened in the south to the Shi'a before. I don't think that you can build that kind of support in the south without a firm commitment on the part of the government to come to their aid.

SEN. BROWNBACK: On the ground?

MR. HOAR: On the ground.

MR. McINERNEY: I would agree with General Hoar on that. The opposition must be developed outside the country and must be credible and then working covert operations back in. But only when you put U.S. and Coalition forces in harms way, in that country, in such a force enabling force size that you can enable them to survive because, in the final analysis, the Coalition forces will be the ones that make this successful. It is not the opposition forces. The opposition forces bring political to it. Iraqis retaking Iraq -- you're helping them do that. And number two, they also bring a dialogue with the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Army, and that's where we need to focus. But I would agree 100 percent with General Hoar and Tony Cordesman that do not let anything try to do it, them start by themselves.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Just with air superiority and using the air superiority you have at U.S. ground?

MR. McINERNEY: I don't think air alone can do that.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you for directly responding to that. The second is a broader question and a maybe a bit of a wild card. But it struck me as an interesting point, a gentleman that's far more knowledgeable than I am on these issues in the region was assessing the War on Terrorism, and I think to date the Bush administration has done a marvelous job in the War on Terrorism. I think they've done so very focused, very intense, and going sequentially, focus on Afghanistan, next, removing and been involved in the Philippines where troops are coming out, Georgia, troops in Uzbekistan, building alliances up in Central Asia, I think this has been, to me, a very good, solid, sequential strategy.

My question is now that in the War on Terrorism, what is the appropriate next target to go at? If you just back up and ask yourself what's the best place to go at? And this person was asserting that if you look at it that way and you're trying to get your biggest, most problematic targets first, an analogy to dealing with cancer where you go and you dig the big nodes out before they metastasize, you go at Afghanistan, you've got to dig and pull this one out, that your next big country that's supporting and sponsoring terrorism, that's putting money into it, that's putting troops in into it, that's training, is Iran. That that's the country that's supporting and sponsoring more terrorism, supporting Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, shipping weapons, providing training to a number of countries in that region. Is that the more likely intense focus that one should go at on a sequential battle in the War on Terrorism?

MR. MCINERNEY: My feeling is, is that Iran will take care of itself once Iraq goes. Iraq has violated the U.N. accords, it's violated everything, it tempts to shoot down every day airplanes in the northern fly zone, the southern fly zone. If they hit one of them that's an act of war, isn't it? Will that be -- that doesn't seem to bother him because I think he flat says, they just don't have it. They just don't have the guts to come after me. And every day they fire at our planes and every day we put them in harm's way. Now, that's why I think Iraq should come before Iran. What you said about Iran is exactly correct. Although I think once Iraq goes, that Iran will self correct.

MR. HALPERIN: Senator, let me sum it up in two points. One, I think the only way to stop Iran from supporting those terrorist groups is to settle the Palestine-Israeli problem. I cannot imagine even a different regime in Iran which would not provide support to those groups as long as the Middle East problem is the way it is. So the solution to the Iranian terrorism, which as you say is focused on the Middle East and on Israel is to settle the Middle East problem. You can't settle it by regime change in Iran.

Second, I agree with you that we need to go through a sequence, but I think we've skipped the first step too fast. Afghanistan is not over. Afghanistan is still going to require for a very long time a very substantial American military presence. And I think before we look for another place to use American military force we better make sure that we don't leave behind in Afghanistan, which in two years from now is supporting terrorist groups again, not of the central government, but from pockets around the country.

MR. MCINERNEY: The only thing I would say is that Afghanistan is not developing weapons of mass destruction, and that's why the priority must shift. We clearly must stay and work the Afghanistan problem more, and I agree with you 100 percent.

MR. GALLUCCI: I, Senator, think Iran is a serious problem for us, but I don't think -- I hope it is not on our list of countries which we would plan to invade anytime soon in a preemptive act.

SEN. BROWNBACK: And I've not heard anybody suggest that.

MR. GALLUCCI: That's good. I think there's a question about how best to deal with Iran. I guess I would disagree with General McInerney, I don't think that addressing the Iraqi problem is necessarily going to help us with Iran. I think certainly if the Palestinian-Israeli issue were resolved, that would go a long way in taking away one of the issues that causes difficulty. Iran's drive to weapons of mass destruction independent of its support for terrorism I think is a much more deeper rooted desire in Iran, and I don't think it's connected particularly to this regime. I think it's traceable to the Shah and I think this is a strategic issue that we -- only when we get a dialogue with Iran we'll be able to address successfully.

Right now I think the key to dealing with Iran is dealing with Russia rather than Iran because we don't have much going on with Tehran. If you -- to go back to your first question about where do we go next, I would be putting energy working on the Mort Halperin theory that governments in the United States only have so much energy. I'd be putting energy on working on South Asia and Pakistan in particular. And I worry greatly about the stability and coherence of that country and its relationship with India over Kashmir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much.

Senator Nelson.

SEN. NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Well, I agree with what you've said about what after, and a good example of that is Afghanistan. And we're not even into the what after, we're still in the middle of it. And yet we're not going to have success for the long run in Afghanistan unless we have a major presence there to help them. And you've pointed out the distinction between Afghanistan and Iraq being the potential weapons of mass destruction.

Now, if we got involved in Iraq militarily, what is that going to do to logistical and personnel support in other parts of the world, particularly in central Asia? Is that going to stress us to the point that we're not going to be able to supply what we need to over there in Afghanistan and in the surrounding area and out there in the Arabian Sea? Give us your comments on that.

MR. HOAR: Thank you. I think that what little I know about the plans that are contemplated ab