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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Defense retreads Cap Weinberger and Sandy Berger fail to bring any substance to Washington's aimless war debate.
Aug 2, 2002 | When the Senate opened hearings this week about whether or not the United States should invade Iraq, it was billed as a way to begin focusing the American public on perhaps the nation's most pressing foreign policy question. But by the end of the second and final day of testimony Thursday, the hearings felt more like a cable news talk show than a meaningful national debate.
And since the committee's chairman, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and ranking Republican, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., agreed not to ask members of the Bush administration to testify at these hearings, the session had the distinct feel of a talk show whose producer had failed to deliver the get.
Instead, visitors and viewers were treated to the simultaneous testimony of two former government officials, Casper Weinberger, who served as Ronald Reagan's secretary of defense, and Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton's national security advisor. In the clichéd formula of cable gabfests, the two were perfectly cast. Not only did they personify the partisan differences between Democrat and Republican, but also the difference between a diplomat and the Pentagon.
But since Berger and Weinberger are both long out of office, their testimony was of dubious value to the debate about reported plans to invade Iraq -- possibly early next year -- in an effort to oust Saddam Hussein. If you were to play a drinking game requiring a sip of beer every time one of the two men began a statement with an admission that they were speculating, everyone in the room would have been hammered at the end of the long afternoon. And that may have been an improvement.
For example, when Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., asked the two whether al-Qaida terrorists were active inside Iraq, Berger said he knew of no significant al-Qaida activity in the country when he had access to classified information, but conceded that may well have changed since Sept. 11.
"I know that the intelligence community has been looking rigorously at the issue of whether there is a connection over the last 10 months," he said. "And obviously, it would be important to hear from them as to what they've established."
Weinberger said he believed there was a sizable al-Qaida presence in Northern Iraq -- an area controlled by Kurds who oppose Saddam and are protected from his attacks by a no-fly zone enforced by the U.S. and its allies -- but he conceded that he wasn't privy to firsthand information, either. "They have been welcomed to the country officially," Weinberger said. "Some of them are being paid as martyrs by Saddam Hussein." Weinberger said he received this information from "senior intelligence officials who did not wish to be otherwise identified," sourcing that wouldn't even satisfy a competent city desk editor at a small newspaper, let alone offer the American people a compelling reason to go to war.
