Netherlands, Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark, Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland, and most other leaders in Central and Eastern Europe. It was revealing that some of the strongest advocates for confronting Saddam were those with the freshest memories of tyranny. “In the late 1930s, the Western democracies hesitated in the face of danger,” Prime Minister Siim Kallas of Estonia, a former Soviet republic, told me. “As a consequence, we fell under dictatorships and many people lost their lives. Action is sometimes necessary.”
Other leaders had a different outlook. Vladimir Putin didn’t consider Saddam a threat. It seemed to me that part of the reason was Putin didn’t want to jeopardize Russia’s lucrative oil contracts. France also had significant economic interests in Iraq. I was not surprised when Jacques Chirac told me he would support intrusive weapons inspections but cautioned against threatening military force. The problem with his logic was that without a credible threat of force, the diplomacy would be toothless once again.
With Jacques Chirac (
One of the toughest leaders to figure out was Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany. I met with Gerhard five times in 2001. He was relaxed, affable, and interested in strengthening our bilateral relationship. I appreciated his leadership on Afghanistan, especially his willingness to host the
I discussed Iraq with Gerhard during his visit to the White House on January 31, 2002. In my State of the Union address two days earlier, I had outlined the threats posed by Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world,” I said. The media seized on the phrase “axis of evil.” They took the line to mean that the three countries had formed an alliance. That missed the point. The axis I referred to was the link between the governments that pursued WMD and the terrorists who could use those weapons. There was a larger point in the speech that no one could miss: I was serious about dealing with Iraq.
In a small Oval Office meeting, joined by Condi Rice and Andy Card, I told the German chancellor I was determined to make diplomacy work. I hoped he would help. I also assured him our words would not be empty. The military option was my last choice, but I would use it if necessary.
“What is true of Afghanistan is true of Iraq,” he said. “Nations that sponsor terror must face consequences. If you make it fast and make it decisive, I will be with you.”
I took that as a statement of support. But when the German elections arrived later that year, Schroeder had a different take. He denounced the possibility of using force against Iraq. His justice minister said, “Bush wants to divert attention from domestic political problems. … Hitler also did that.” I was shocked and furious. It was hard to think of anything more insulting than being compared to Hitler by a German official. I continued to work with Gerhard Schroeder on areas of mutual interest. But as someone who valued personal diplomacy, I put a high premium on trust. Once that trust was violated, it was hard to have a constructive relationship again.
Two months after 9/11, I asked Don Rumsfeld to review the existing battle plans for Iraq. We needed to develop the coercive half of coercive diplomacy.
Don tasked General Tommy Franks with updating the plans. Just after Christmas 2001, Tommy came to Crawford to brief me on Iraq. The plan on the shelf required a six-month buildup and four hundred thousand troops. The experience in Afghanistan was at the forefront of our minds. Thanks to new technology and innovative planning, we had destroyed the Taliban and closed the al Qaeda camps using far fewer troops. We were not viewed as occupiers by the Afghan people.
Tommy told the national security team that he was working to apply the same concept of a light footprint to Iraq. He envisioned a fast invasion from Kuwait in the south, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the west, and Turkey in the north. “If we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations Forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional ground forces,” he said. “That’s an important lesson learned from Afghanistan.”
I had a lot of concerns. I wanted to know how fast our troops could move and what kind of basing we would need. As in Afghanistan, I was concerned about starvation of the local population and asked what we could do to protect innocent life. I worried about Saddam sabotaging the oil fields or firing missiles at Israel. My biggest fear was that he would use biological or chemical weapons against our troops, our allies, or Iraqi civilians.
I asked the team to keep working on the plan. “We should remain optimistic that diplomacy and international pressure will succeed in disarming the regime,” I said at the end of the meeting. “But we cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists. I will not allow that to happen.”
Between December 2001 and August 2002, I met or spoke with Tommy more than a dozen times. The plan was getting better, but I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to make sure we had thought through as many contingencies as possible. I asked Don and Tommy a lot of questions that started with “What if Saddam decides to … ?” One scenario I brought up frequently was Saddam consolidating his forces in Baghdad and engaging our troops in bloody urban combat. I remembered the battle in Somalia in 1993 and did not want to see that repeated in Iraq. Tommy and his team didn’t have all the answers on the spot, and I didn’t expect them to. But they were working hard to refine the plan, and every iteration they brought me was an improvement on the previous version.
The updated plan Tommy presented in the Situation Room on August 5, 2002, resolved several key concerns. We had lined up basing and overflight permission from leaders in the Gulf. Tommy had devised a plan for Special Operations to secure suspected WMD sites, Iraq’s southern oil fields, and Scud missile launchers. He had also designed a massive aerial bombardment that would make it costly for Saddam’s elite Republican Guard units to remain in the capital, reducing the chances of a Fortress Baghdad scenario. “Mr. President,” Tommy said in his Texas drawl, “this is going to be shock and awe.”
There were plenty of issues left to resolve. We all worried about the possibility of Saddam launching a biological or chemical attack on our troops, so the military was in the process of procuring hazmat suits. We had gradually increased the level of troops and equipment in Kuwait under the guise of training and other routine exercises, which would make it possible to begin combat operations rapidly if I gave the order to launch. Joint Chiefs Chairman Dick Myers talked about the importance of persuading Turkey to open its territory so we could establish a northern front. George Tenet raised concern about a broader regional war in which Syria attacked Israel, or Iran directed its proxy terrorist group, Hezbollah, to foment instability. Don Rumsfeld pointed out that a war could destabilize Jordan and Saudi Arabia, that America could get stuck in a manhunt for Saddam, and that Iraq could fracture after liberation.
Those potential scenarios were sobering. But so were the briefings we were receiving. A report in July read, “Iraq has managed to preserve and in some cases even enhance the infrastructure and expertise necessary for WMD production.” Another briefing warned that Saddam’s regime was “almost certainly working to produce the causative agent for anthrax along with botulinum toxin, aflatoxin, and ricin.” It continued: “Unmanned aerial vehicles give Baghdad a more lethal means to deliver biological … weapons.” It went on, ominously, “Experience shows that Saddam produces weapons of mass destruction to use, not just to deter.”
In the summer of 2002, I received a startling piece of news. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an al Qaeda–affiliated terrorist who had experimented with biological weapons in Afghanistan, was operating a lab in northeastern Iraq. “Suspect facility in this area may be producing poisons and toxins for terrorist use,” the briefing read. “Al-Zarqawi is an active terrorist planner who has targeted U.S. and Israeli interests: Sensitive reporting from a [classified] service indicates that al-Zarqawi has been directing efforts to smuggle an unspecified chemical material originating in northern Iraq into the United States.”
We couldn’t say for sure whether Saddam knew Zarqawi was in Iraq. We did have intelligence indicating that Zarqawi had spent two months in Baghdad receiving medical treatment and that other al Qaeda operatives had moved to Iraq. The CIA had worked with a major Arab intelligence service to get Saddam to find and extradite Zarqawi. He refused.
The question was whether to bomb the poisons lab in the summer of 2002. We held a series of NSC meetings on the topic. General Dick Myers talked through the options: Tomahawk missiles, a B-2 bomber strike, or a covert ground raid. Dick Cheney and Don saw Zarqawi as a clear threat and argued that taking him out would reinforce the doctrine that America would not tolerate safe havens for terror.
Colin and Condi felt a strike on the lab would create an international firestorm and disrupt our efforts to build
