Target Iraq?
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Target Iraq? We will, if Paul Wolfowitz has his way. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES DEPUTY SECRETARY of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spent much of the last decade as a foreign-policy intellectual and dean of...
...It would be a mistake to assume that the first actions [the United States takes] will somehow indicate the war to come...
...While the speech contained no explicit vow to overthrow Saddam, its emphasis reflected a partial victory for the Wolfowitz view...
...The longer he remained atop the Iraqi regime, Wolfowitz argued, the more powerful and dangerous he became—and the more the Iraqi people suffered...
...One week after that broadcast, Saddam blamed rescue workers at the World Trade Center site for additional deaths...
...As for his influence on current policy, Gingrich comments, "If we change Afghanistan first, and then change Iraq, I'd feel very comfortable about that...
...Bush's speech probably made Paul feel very good, with six different mentions of the Taliban and his emphasis on states...
...Current and former colleagues describe Wolfowitz as clear-minded and levelheaded...
...Saddam, of course, had plotted to assassinate former president George Bush in 1993...
...It is a black day in the history of America, which is tasting the bitter defeat of its crimes and disregard for people's will to lead a free, decent life...
...And if there are states and regimes, nations, that support terrorism, we hope to persuade them that it is in their interest to stop doing that...
...in political science is from the University of Chicago—"in a way that makes him one of the more formidable foreign policy thinkers today," says former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been informally advising the Pentagon...
...I don't think it was idle rhetoric," he says...
...In 1997, in a monograph entitled "The Future of Iraq" published by the Middle East Institute, he labeled a "failure" the first Bush administration's underestimation of "the importance of removing Saddam from power...
...BY STEPHEN F. HAYES DEPUTY SECRETARY of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spent much of the last decade as a foreign-policy intellectual and dean of Johns Hopkins graduate school of international affairs doing two things: studying war and agitating for the ouster of Saddam Hussein...
...Wolfowitz, who had the number three position in the Defense _ Department in the first Bush administration, has in recent years been making his views plain...
...But I think 'ending terrorism' is where I would leave it and let Mr...
...On September 16, Vice President Richard Cheney (Wolfowitz's boss at the Defense Department in Bush I) warned, "If you provide sanctuary to terrorists, you face the full wrath of the United States of America...
...calling for a Middle East strategy that "should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power...
...He combines practical executive branch experience with intellectual training"—his Ph.D...
...The Iraqis, meanwhile, true to form, were applauding the terrorists...
...He's a little bit like Kissinger without all the flamboyance...
...Wolfowitz speak for himself...
...In the early days after September 11, the Wolfowitz line met with considerable resistance, notably from Secretary of State Colin Powell...
...It's a circle of two," he says...
...Now Wolfowitz has a prominent seat at The Table—at the right hand, literally, of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at a the September 7 15 Camp David Tj photo op...
...We're after ending terrorism," he said...
...Powell, asked a few days later about these comments, seemed not only to repudiate the words, but to rebuff the man who'd spoken them...
...And 'I since Septem- /I ber 11, he has fl emerged as a principal proponent of the view that America's war on terrorism must include the toppling of Saddam Hussein...
...Longtime Wolfowitz colleague Richard Perle agrees...
...In recent days, news organizations have cited intelligence sources confirming that suspected hijacker Mohammed Atta had met with a top Iraqi intelligence officer this spring...
...Leaders around the world—including thugs such as Libya's Muammar Qad-dafi—might rush to condemn the attacks, but state-run Iraqi television opined: "The American cowboy is reaping the fruits of his crimes against humanity...
...If Bush perseveres beyond first actions to a wider war against terrorism and especially against Iraq, a heretofore unknown subcabinet official, Paul Wolfowitz, will be as responsible as anyone...
...The dispute came to the fore after Wolfowitz at a September 13 briefing called for "removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism...
...On September 20, when the president addressed Congress, he announced a campaign against all terrorist groups and "every government that supports them...
...Other voices in the administration, however, echoed the president's early insistence that the United States will "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them...
...The conclusion of the Gulf War, he wrote, "reflected a failure to appreciate the damage that would be done by Saddam's continuation in power...
...And though there have been some rumblings of tension between Wolfowitz and his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, one Pentagon official says the two remain close and work together to shape policy...
...The following year, Wolfowitz co-signed a letter to President Clinton Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Indeed, Wolfowitz is one of a handful of advisers Bush has consulted on virtually every move the administration has made in its response to the September 11 attacks...
Vol. 7 • October 2001 • No. 3
