hello, everyone. welcome to the washington times for this special episode of history. as it happens, i'm martin di caro. today we're going to talk about the iraq war. 20 years on, on march 20th, 2003, president george w bush announced the united states was invading iraq to get rid of saddam hussein and his weapons of mass destruction, weapons that did not exist. the war killed thousands of american soldiers and contractors and hundreds of thousands of iraqi people.

we were not greeted as liberators. why? well, our guest today for this special episode of the podcast is the dean of us foreign policy historians melvyn leffler, welcome. thank you. i'm delighted to be here to discuss this really important topic with you. welcome to the washington times, professor emeritus of history at the university of virginia and the author of confronting saddam hussein. george w bush and the invasion of iraq. so the book was published to coincide with the anniversary of the war. but you've been working on this book a quite a while. you seemed reluctant, as you stated in your preface, to take on this project to begin with. why? well, i was reluctant for two reasons. first, i was trying to finish up work that i was doing on the evolution of the cold war topic of which i've written a great deal about. and secondly, and most importantly, i was reluctant to take it on because it was really

contemporary history and the availability of primary source documents would be very limited. i'm a historian who has spent his career in the archives with hundreds and hundreds of archival boxes of documents. and i knew for certain that i would never have access to such documents. in writing this type of a book. and so i was very reluctant to undertake it until i met a former member of the bush administration who talked to me about the possible kitty of setting up interviews. and i can discuss that further, if you like. that's a key to the book. absolutely. what is the danger of relying on interviews with and memoirs written by participants who, of course, have an interest in trying to paint this episode in our history in the most positive

possible light? there's tremendous danger of just relying on interviews and memoirs. i was aware of that from the very beginning. i was conscious of the fact that the people i'd be interviewing if i had the opportunity to interview them were far better at spinning me than i would be at probing them. i understood that they had spent their careers talking to news media and knowing how to handle difficult, challenging questions. so i made a commitment to myself that if i pursued this book, i would continue my reliance on as many archival documents as i could possibly secure. i knew that i would never have systematic access to the archives, but i also benefited over time by the fact that the

national secure the archive, which is an institution committed to securing the declassification of records, the national security archive was was able to bring about the declassified location of hundreds, perhaps some thousands of of documents. of course, nothing like the totality that that really exists. i also benefited greatly by the fact that the british parliament mandated an investigation of the question of why did tony blair take great britain into the war in iraq on the side of george w bush? so there was a formal parliamentary investigation called the chilcot inquiry. and the result of that inquiry were thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of interviews with every single top british

official, including hundreds of pages with tony blair and foreign secretary jack straw. but also in the midst of those insta interviews, every time a government official like tony blair would say, i got a memorandum from jack straw on such and such a date that said such and such. the inquiry was able to investigate in committee, was able to secure the declassification of those documents and over time in 2014, 15, 26, all those documents went up on a website. so there is a lot of information about when jack straw talked to, for example, secretary of state powell or blair's national security adviser or david manning. we talked to condi rice, george w bush's national security

adviser. you could find out a lot of information that way. history of meetings and conversations and teleconferences, etc. . the classification process takes decades. sometimes documents are never declassified, depending on what we're talking about. you think another ten, 20 years we might have the full documentary record or close to it when it comes to iraq? no, no, i don't think so. i myself submitted many mandatory declassification requests in order to get notes of various meetings of the national security council principal adviser is like powell and rumsfeld and and rice and the deputy national security advisers almost all my mdr mandatory declassification request notes were either denied in full or redacted or i still not have gotten the results of them. if in the future, i'm sure that

the formal transcripts of the national security council meetings will be declassified over time, maybe ten, 15 years from now. you write a sequel, but most, most importantly, leigh, in terms of understanding the decision making process for iraq, one really needs to get a comprehensive, systematic grasp of the intelligence records. it would be phenomenally useful if researchers could, for example, get the presidential daily briefs that were presented to to president bush every single day. those were voluminous each day. well, there they occur every day. they vary in numbers of of pages during the the weeks and months after 911. there was presented to the

president every day, something that was called the threat matrix, which enumerated the scores of threats that had been assessed just the previous day. and george w bush was presented with this document, with with his briefer and with the director of the central intel, prince george tenet. and they would go over all the threats that came in on the privy es day and try to assess the salience of these threats. if we could have a sense of what that was day by day, that would help us tremendously in terms of understanding the subsequent decisive actions that were taken or not taken. your aim in this book was to explain why things happened the way they did. it was not to write an indictment of george w bush and his administration, nor to let him off the hook. and i praise you for that. when i picked up the book confronting saddam hussein, i wanted to learn two things

definitively to the extent possible, because let's admit emotions are still a little raw. 20 years is not a lot of time. anniversary is have a way of focusing our memories back on unpleasant events, and we're still living with the consequences of this disastrous war. today. so i had to clear my mind, approach this with an open mind and i want to learn two things, primarily among other things when and why. when was the decision to invade iraq made, and why? for what reasons? and let's start with when, because it has become an article of faith for some people to say the decision was made pretty much right after 911. we're going to war in iraq. you say definitively that was not the case. that's correct. in fact, a lot of people believe that the decision to go to invade iraq and bring about regime change in iraq was actually made even before 911. and that is to say that the neocons in the administration, like paul wolfowitz, joined the

administration in with the intent to bring about regime change through an invasion of iraq. that's those notions exist in the literature. and and a lot of regime change was there, but not going to war for it. well, that's that's the issue. i mean, there was a written article commitment, a legislative commitment to to bring about regime change, a piece of a resolution passed by congress under bill clinton that, you know, the the administration itself endorsed to bring about regime change. that was a rhetorical commitment. and in essence, with some financial support behind it to to assist exile groups in inside the united states. but what i found in my research, because i systematically looked at this proposition, was that there was no agreement prior to

911 whatsoever ever to really do anything concrete, to bring about regime change in iraq. in fact, policy makers discussed what to do with regard to saddam hussein prior to 911, and they simply couldn't resolve what to do. the pros and cons of various tactical actions were very complicated, and they could not agree on it. so nothing was nothing whatsoever had been resolved prior to 911. after 911. the some policy makers like paul wolfowitz and donald rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, suggested to president bush that he turned his attention to iraq. but i show in my book that initially president bush rejected those reject those notions. it was just days after 911 where this happened. and i believe president bush did

tell them, listen, if you're going to talk to me about an iraq al qaida nexus relationship, whatever, you've got to find some evidence for it. wolfowitz then directed feith douglas feith to set up an office which was called the office of special plans inside the pentagon, not the kindest sounding name, kind of an nefarious sounding name. office of special plans to look for this evidence. and so there were people early on trying to find something on saddam. and i think that's why some people today, even at the time, thought the war was decided pretty early here. no. yes. i mean, there are many people who focus on the creation of the office of special plans, and that did happen inside the office of the secretary of defense. but the most important thing for you and for readers to know about this is that the cia and president bush's briefers told

him in the days after 911 that saddam hussein had nothing to do with 911. i have agreed with them and i have found no evidence to suggest that president bush believe that saddam hussein had anything to do with 911. however, he was told and it is a fact that the iraqi regime, led by saddam hussein, was gloating over 911 express satisfaction and gratification that 911 had happened. saddam hussein's newspapers in baghdad published published articles more or less praising the fact that 911 had occurred and that the united states deserved this. no other government, i think, around the globe expressed gratification and pleasure with

911. so top policymakers in the united states were and were immediately in formed about saddam hussein's praise of of the event. and this was one of the factors that drew policymakers attention to iraq in the aftermath of 911. of course, there were other very important factors. his history with weapons. i mean, he did use chemical weapons in the past in the war with iran in the 1980s. he attacked the kurds in the north of the country. well, most importantly. in order to understand why attention gravitated to iraq, why the president attention gravitated to iraq in the weeks and months after 911. you need to understand the confluence of several critical events. first of all, one needs to understand that there was

enormous apprehension in policymaking circles about the likelihood of a follow on attack in the united states. there was a widespread belief that another attack was imminent, that another attack of significant dimensions, maybe even greater dimensions, would occur. so that's the evidence of an impending subsequent attack was omnipresent. second, you need to understand that when american forces moved into afghanistan, when american special forces moved into afghanistan, and along with the northern alliance, displaced the government, the taliban government in kabul and forced al qaeda terrorists to flee from their training camps. evidence was found in those

training camps that al qaeda was indeed seeking weapons of mass destruction and hoping to develop chemical and biological weapons or to acquire them. there was incontrovertible evidence of that that emerges in october, november or december of 2000 at one at the same time, i'm talking about a confluence of events here. at the same time. one needs to recall that in the united states, there was a great fear of anthrax, that that envelopes and letters containing anthrax spores circulated in the mail. several postal workers were killed. these envelopes turned up in in the senate office building a congressional buildings were closed down. the supreme court itself was

forced to move its deliberations to another location. in the middle of october. the there were a sense was inside the white house that went off suggesting that there was a toxic substance inside the white house. all of this suggested that there was the likelihood or possibility of a biological or chemical attack taking place in the united states. at the same time, we're talking about a confluence of circumstances at the same time, there were reports, intelligence reports coming in that saddam hussein was either restart or accelerating his biological and chemical weapons programs. we now know in retrospect that much of this information was ill informed, was coming from suspects, informers, but we, a

person who was who was codenamed curveball. but at the time, of course, what's important is that at the time this was not known. and so you had informed actions coming in suggesting that saddam hussein was involved in restarting or accelerating these programs, programs that we knew he once had had. and had been and and weapons that he had been willing to use against his own people. so it's these this confluence of of circumstances that led president bush in late november, early december, to say that we need to prepare war plans for iraq should it be necessary to take action. one of the things we now know that we we really didn't know until recently was how exasperated president bush was

over the fact that when he came into office, there was no war plan to deal with the taliban and al qaeda in afghanistan. and, in fact, after 911, when he was eager to take action in afghanistan, he was extruded narrowly exasperated by the fact that there were no plans to deal with the situation. the defense department and the central intelligence agency hurried to develop some type of improvised idea to to deal with the with the taliban, to disrupt the training camps of al qaeda. but no such plans existed. what is clear now is that bush wanted to have a plan in place to deal with iraq should he find it necessary to do so. but it did not mean one of the things i emphasize in my book is that it did not mean that he was

committed to going to war. the attention on iraq intensifies after the taliban falls in afghanistan and basically go now, what's next in our war on terror? so they've already declared a war on terror. they're creating a set of circumstances of their own. they're putting the country on war footing. but the final decision is, what, january, february of 2003, shortly before the invasion actually begins, is when george bush says go right. that that is pretty much true. nobody can really tell you when the final decision was made. this was a process that. yeah, it's it's it's a long process. one of the problematic aspects of the decision making process was that there never were meetings that either discussed one the pros and cons of

invading iraq to begin with. the fundament all of this issue of should we invade iraq or the prospective benefits outweighing the the prospective lie abilities. such a meeting in which these things in which these issues should have been discussed were never systematic, fully discussed, nor was there a formal meeting of any sort in which the there was resolution about now we're going to war in iraq. such a meeting took place in late february between bush and his top military people in which he asked them, you know, our our war plans. this is in late february when a lot of a lot of our american combat troops had already been deployed and vessels deployed. and he does, which makes it look like war is inevitable. you don't write it makes it look like war is inevitable. and perhaps it was by late

february 12, 2003, for a lot of other reasons as well, that at that time, president bush did convene his top military people and say, are we ready? are you ready? and they say, yes, of course, we're of course we're right. no one question the fundament tolls, as if, you know, whether the united states had a right to preemptively invade another country, whether they lied about the intelligence or not. your argument is that they did not lie. we'll get to that in a moment. we'll return to some of the public statements that were made. so i think we've tackled when but the why here is also very important for what reasons and you downplay the role of ideology and or missionary zeal, i think is the term you use in your book when they were and you just touched on this a little bit about some of the decision making process here, the reasons why you say fear, excessive confidence in american power and hubris, not spreading democracy,

not ideology, not some other factors. well, i discussed the basic motives for going war. motive, motive. so different than goals. the base, the overriding motive for going to war was fear about the a prospective attack again in the united states, fear about american national security short term and long term. there were two aspects to to this fear. there was the short term aspect in which president bush clearly was worried that saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, his chemical or biological weapons, might find their way, their way into the hands of terrorists, perhaps al qaeda terrorists or other other terrorists. he was concerned, certainly very concerned about that prospect.

he was also concerned, as were many of his leading advisers, about the intermediate and long term problem, that if sanctions failed, if the eggs listing in if the existing regime theme of if the existing regime of sanctions and containment failed, and if saddam hussein restarted accelerated his program of weapons of mass destruction which he had been very much committed to in the 1980s in 1990s, if he did these things come in the intermediate term he could develop weapons of mass destruction and with those weapons he would be able to, in the words of american policymakers, blackmail the united states. in other words, the very

presence of weapons of mass distraction, chemical, biological, or after 5 or 10 years, nuclear weapons, the very presence of those weapons would force the united states to self deter in a crisis in the middle east and american policymakers did not want to face the prospect that they would be paralyzed by the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a dictator like saddam hussein. there's this short-term fear of another prospect of attack inside the united states and in intermediate term fear that american power will be circumscribed or constrained in the intermediate and long-term. >> host: i want to backpack briefly about the decision, when he made the decision to go ahead with the invasion and

returned to the why issue, that was when inspections were actually taking place. not to the entire satisfaction of the western world but there were inspections going on. saddam wasn't entirely cooperating but nothing was coming up, they weren't finding any actual weapons and that was used as evidence that he was hiding something rather than give us some pause, maybe we should wait a little longer. when you said the president did rush to war, instead of allowing the full inspection regime to play out. saddam was about to prove us wrong, he doesn't have these weapons. your response to that? >> one can argue that that's an argument often made. one can legitimate say that in february of march 2003 there was a rush to war. that's different than saying in

september 2001 there was a rush to war but even, what's important to know is that in january and february 2003 as the inspectors engaged in their investigations inside iraq as you suggested and they were not finding evidence of the weapons, nonetheless, nonetheless, the chief of the inspectors, hunts blitz, reported again and again that he did not think that saddam hussein had made what he considered, quote, a strategic decision to really cooperate and collaborate. it is true, as you are suggesting and has often been

written that hunts blitz became exasperated with american impatience. that is true. hunts blitz became impatient and angry with the united states for going to war in march of 2003. what is also true is often stated, that hans blitz believed that the only way to get saddam hussein to cooperate was through the use of military in, dacian. he was not opposed to the deployment of american forces. he believed that that was absolutely indispensable to get saddam hussein to cooperate. almost everyone at the time, observers everywhere assumed that saddam hussein would not cooperate, would not allow inspectors back, would not

reveal what materials he had if he had them, would not disclose the materials unless threatened with the use of force so he said again and again in january and february, he used the term, saddam hussein and president bush are in essence playing a game of chicken with one another and it is uncertain how long this game can continue and it is clear that president bush and his top advisers felt that saddam hussein was toying with them, defying them, that despite the fact that things weren't being found, he wasn't cooperating with the un inspectors, even to their own satisfaction. >> host: key members of the bush team felt they had to go through this process and not all of them were on board the process. >> one of my key themes in my

book is that president bush is the key decision-maker, not cheney, not rumsfeld, not neocons like wolfowitz, and president bush did want this process to go on. president bush was committed to these notions of coercive diplomacy. >> i want to ask about coercive diplomacy and what that is, the path they chose to take after what we've been discussing here, we've been discussing -- it wasn't missionaries your, wasn't ideology, it was realism and fear of another attack. >> i should say as we discussed, the discussions about what happened after 9/11 focus exclusively on erect, one should keep in mind policymakers in the administration were not just interested in air act.

policymakers were interested in the existence of terrorists in many places around the globe. they were very focused on indonesia, the philippines, they were preoccupied, extremely preoccupied that pakistani weapons, not find their way into the hands of terrorists. one should keep in mind that iraq was not the exclusive focus of policymakers. the global war on terror was happening in many many places. they did decide in january and february 2002 to embark on this course of coercive diplomacy with regard to a rack. and the idea -- >> course of diplomacy could make more more likely, not

less. >> one can readily say that. i agree with that. coercive diplomacy didn't make more war likely, if, if saddam hussein did not cooperate. one of the themes of my book and is important to realize in this whole story is that saddam hussein is an important part of the story. there is contingency here. i purposefully start my book with a chapter of saddam hussein because it is important for readers and observers to understand who this man was, what he had done in order to grasp the fears and apprehensions of american policymakers. >> they didn't expect him to cooperate.

they wanted him to go along but they were demanding but other side of the country. >> they were uncertain if he would cooperate. no one believed he would cooperate unless threatened with military force. that was a given. so then there was the issue of if threatened with military force, will he cooperate and this is an important part of my book, one that is not usually discussed elsewhere, my information came from british records. tony blair spoke to president bush about the fact, if we go to the un, if we engage in the diplomacy at the un, and if we get another resolution, and if it is backed by force, and then if saddam hussein actually agrees, tony blair said to

president bush, we need to take yes for an answer. tony blair did not expect yes, nor did president bush expect hussein to say yes. but they acknowledged to one another and their national security advisers talked to one another about this but if saddam hussein did say yes, if he did cooperate with the new resolution, if he did disclose and/or relinquish his alleged weapons of mass destruction, then we would have to live with this regime but we would never get to know this unless he was threatened with force. whether he would agree or not was up to saddam hussein and so he could have agreed, could have been more forthcoming at an earlier moment.

hunts blitz wanted him to. >> host: he couldn't give up what he couldn't have -- >> guest: he couldn't give up what he had but could have been more forthcoming. that is one of the interesting aspects of this episode is saddam hussein ultimately did not have at this moment in time the weapons of mass destruction but almost everyone believed that he did, including most of his own military officials and most of his own advisors believed that he had weapons of mass destruction. he had such a record of deception and concealing that nobody really knew for sure, even his own advisors, whether he had weapons of mass destruction or did not. >> host: late in the game he told them to start cooperating with the inspectors.

>> host: >> guest: very careful studies eliminate the fact that when he tells his top military people and top scientific people to cooperate they don't know if they actually should cooperate. if he really means they should cooperate or not to cooperate and if they do cooperate they sort of think others aren't cooperating because others know they should not cooperate so it is part of this impact the saddam hussein has not only on adversaries abroad but on the people who work for him. one has to understand -- >> host: they were afraid of him.

you paint a more sympathetic portrait of george w. bush man have his harshest critics, you say he wasn't a warmonger he wasn't stupid, wasn't lazy, wasn't a puppet of his advisors, he was a decider, he was engaged, he asked a lot of questions, didn't probe too deeply on some things but i came away convinced that bush was almost totally ignorant of the history and culture of the middle east and intellectually lazy about the world. he didn't understand why there was so much anti-americanism in the region. he subscribed to a simple worldview, you are with us or against us, one of the turns of phrase that lives on from that era, freedom or dictatorship, good versus evil worldview. no one wants to live in a dictatorship, so naturally why wouldn't iraqis be willing to live under freedom, western-style freedom. he also didn't understand the

motivations of the terrorists. he to know a lot about al qaeda or osama bin laden. what did you say about bush's mindset and what contributed to this disastrous mistake? >> there are many things that could be said about george w. bush in this respect and the themes of my book relate to fear as you said earlier, power, who bursts, and it is incredibly important to understand the interaction of these three factors so many of the qualities you just enumerated fall under the subject matter of who bursts in my book. yes, george w. bush believed that all people

wanted to be free, all people wanted to have democratic institutions, he did believe american soldiers would be welcomed with chocolates and flowers as iraqi exile leaders in the united states told him. >> host: some of whom work on men. >> guest: right. >> host: maybe i wouldn't call him that. >> those are your words and you are entitled to them. george w. bush did not want chalabi to take over air act. one of the interesting aspects is that he was actually opposed to that but that's beside show. but, you are absolutely right and i tried to make clear in my book that there was a great deal of who bursts that

contributed to this venture, the decision to invade iraq. most importantly, what you did not mention was the notion or the memory family and placed in the mindset of all these advisors especially people like condoleezza rice and dick cheney who had participated in the end game of the cold war. what all these policymakers had in their minds, vividly in their minds was that the cold war ended with the berlin wall toppled, with east germans enthusiastically parading in the streets, east europeans, polls and hungarians embracing the possibility of freedom and democracy, and their notion was the notion of american

policymakers was we had waged the cold war for 40 years successfully and the return on that was jubilation in that part of the world that had had to live behind the iron curtain. and so the policymakers, president bush, dick cheney, condoleezza rice and paul wolfowitz did firmly believe that united states soldiers would be welcomed, that iraqis would embrace them and i emphasize in the book that they did not understand, they did not grasp the degree to which iraqis were us extremely suspicious of american intentions. they did not understand the degree to which the kurds in

the north of iraqi had deep reasons to suspect the credibility of the united states because the united states had betrayed the kurds many times in the past. they did not understand the degree to which the shieh in southern parts of iraq were totally suspicious of the united states because bush's own father, when president in 1990-91 had more or less encouraged the shieh to rise up and then did nothing when saddam hussein exterminated them. and the sanctions as well. so there was a great deal of reason to understand why iraqis would not necessarily be enthusiastic about an american invasion. at the same time, one should understand and keep in mind iraqis did want to get rid of saddam hussein.

it wasn't that they were opposed to the removal of saddam hussein. >> the sanctions as well which were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of iraqis including many many children, iraqis were aware madeleine albright went on television and asked about these sanctions, is it worth the price, all these children who are dying as a result and she said yes, march 16th, 2003, dick cheney is on meet the press with tim russert, the read we get on the people of iraq is there's no question that they want to get rid of saddam hussein, that was true, and they will welcome us as liberators. he said that, we will be welcomed as liberators, several times in that interview, one of the immortal -- going to live on. >> guest: one should not immediately think that the disorder and anarchy inside

iraqi reflected anti-americanism. what happened inside a rack in march and april and may and june of 2,003. the events that i cover very carefully. were reflections of the inability of the united states to establish order inside iraqi and the initial disorder inside iraqi was not, was not anti-americanism. >> host: it was insurgency. >> guest: the insurgency that we all have in our minds grew incrementally over time. >> host: site to interrupt but catalyzed by the fact that our troops are killing so many iraqis.

throws a lot of people into the arms of the insurgency. >> guest: american actions and oppression worsened the situation but there was also immediately you the real, compelling factor inside iraqi in march, april, may, june of 2003, was the disorder and strife among iraqis and one of the major preoccupations of iraqis, one of the reasons for the disillusionment which they state again and again with the united states was the failure of the united states army to preserve order and stability. the antipathy to the united states mounts because of the very inability of americans to

preserve the order they wanted and in addition to that, as i explained in my book, the united states partakes in several critical decisions with regard to the disbandment of the iraqi army and ba'ath, the iraqi civilian agencies. those decisions which are difficult decisions wind up alienating different sectors and different segments of the iraqi population and incrementally disaffected iraqis who are affected by these decisions move and gravitate into an

insurrectionary movement but that happens in a dynamic way over time. >> host: taking on a life of its own as shieh and sunni turn on each other and sunni turning on sunni. it was a debacle. one word about what i was going to say, all the way down to something as simple as trash removal, nothing was functioning in iraq. >> guest: one of the most important thing was almost all the ministries were immediately looted and burned. >> host: back to coercive diplomacy, briefly, we touched on it before, seem to fit bush's personality, this is diplomacy backed up by threat of force and intensifying those threats, ratcheting up the pressure as time goes by to comply with us demands. as john dower wrote in his great book cultures of war, i

think of these two sentences that i read 10 or 15 years ago, most wars easy to initiate proved difficult and costly to end, language and rhetoric themselves become a prison and the machinery of destruction has its own momentum. the bush administration trapped itself. when i read the comments, interviews, speeches, news conferences, the words off the page, i get the impression they were trying to be cautious they weren't rushing to war, wanted to give diplomacy a shot but when i have gone back and watch the speeches, rallies, and interviews on meet the press, it hits you differently. it is more bellicose, more threatening and as language and rhetoric, you called an axis of evil. >> the words become more

threatening and they were intended to be more threatening, coercive diplomacy was designed to intimidate saddam hussein, to force him to disclose or relinquish his weapons of mass distraction or to flee or encourage an assassination against him so yes, those words were designed to intimidate. that's what coercive diplomacy was about, but then again saddam hussein had agency of design, he could have acted differently during this process and he chose not to but you are absolutely right at the same time and this is why it is complicated but you are absolutely right in saying that these actions, pursuit of coercive diplomacy given the

fact that saddam hussein didn't -- did what he did, and traps the united states and the policymakers themselves state as i explain toward the end of the book, they themselves state, our credibility is now vested in getting rid of saddam hussein. he's toying with us and we cannot allow this because if we do, our allies in the region, our perceived friends in the region like the saudi's will lose confidence in us, once again they will think that we didn't have the will to carry out the invasion of iraq and the destruction of saddam hussein's regime. >> our troops stationed in kuwait. >> those are factors.

>> you do not justify the invasion but you are trying to explain what our leaders believed at the time. on that point about whether this was lying you might remember some bumper stickers in those days, bush lied people died. a simplistic way of looking at things. this is where i feel dishonesty did play a role. dick cheney at some point in 2,002, don't have the precise date but before the invasion said simply stated, this in an interview, in a speech, dick cheney, there is no doubt that saddam hussein now has weapons of mass destruction, there is no doubt he's amassing them to use against our friends, our allies and against us. that sentence or two sentences would've been fine if he says it is possible, but he said there is no doubt and the administration knew there were doubts. let's return to curveball. he was in iraqi exile living in germany who later admitted that

he made up everything about saddam's chemical weapons. he was able to get german intelligence to interview him somehow. i don't know the whole story. his name was lawsuit out to not be but at the time there were questions about curveball's veracity. >> questions about curveball -- >> he wound up in:powell's presentation. >> the doubts about curveball is extremely important to keep in mind, the doubts about him emerge incrementally, and the credibility of his information is not widely questioned until long into this process of late 2002, early 2003. it is inappropriate to say

curveball was misinforming them. there were doubts. one of the important things i argue in my book, you are perfectly right in stating policymakers were not certain that the information compellingly demonstrated that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction but these policymakers were all experienced people. they knew the, quote, intelligence is dispositive. there's always questions about the veracity and credibility of intelligence. what they did know, what they did know, and what they said again and again, we know that saddam hussein developed weapons of mass destruction, that he had, that he had used

weapons of mass distraction against iran and against his own people, that he had lied about the weapons of mass destruction and that he had concealed them. they knew those things as facts. and they were convinced that he wanted them again exactly as you said. they are uncertain about the credibility and reliability of the intelligence they are getting in which people are arguing about as i illuminate in my book but what they know in their minds which was wrong, what they know in their minds is that this guy wants had it, used it, and is capable of doing things of that sort again. one of the themes of my book or one of the extrapolations

that's really important is policymakers need to re-examine fundamental assumptions, the fundamental assumption was saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. i demonstrate in the booklet top policymakers all believed that. as the head of the policy planning staff who was sort of against the war, he said, he stated in his own memoir, i never met an intelligence analyst during my years in government who told me saddam hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. so policymakers need to re-examine fundamental assumptions. that's easy to say. how often do you re-examine your fundamental assumptions. how often do i examine my fundamental assumptions? we don't because we sort of think our fundamental assumptions are fundamental and therefore we don't need to re-examine them.

>> protect the country and acclimate after 9/11. >> it is easy to say re-examine fundamental assumptions but is really hard to do and that's one of take aways of my book. policymakers need to re-examine fundamental assumptions because they are fundamental assumptions that were wrong. >> there is no greater responsibility or larger decision any government can make than sending citizens off to fight a war. >> one more point about intelligence and we will wrap up with general thoughts about american foreign policy that you've been writing about for many decades. i introduced you as a dean of us foreign policy. ira spector of communism in college, signed that book in the mid-1990s and it is still relevant and still sells. the saddam/al qaeda connection dick cheney said in multiple television interviews that mohammed atta met in iraqi

intelligence agent in prague. he said that this was confirmed, in interview with tim russert. it wasn't confirmed. a month later the fbi ascertained that he was in florida at the time. cheney went back on tv and repeated this. you said that cheney was not the inside but he gave a speech, a major speech that he freelanced. wasn't supposed to get that speech where he essentially declares war on saddam hussein even though he doesn't have the power to do that. >> president bush indirectly reprimands dick cheney forgiving that speech. one should not assume as i show in my book that dick cheney is a key decision-maker and this relationship between al qaeda and saddam hussein is a relationship that is constantly being examined by the

intelligence agencies and by top policymakers. they often come to the conclusion that there is no collaborative relationship between saddam hussein and al qaeda but they also suggest that there's possibilities that saddam hussein's regime, his intelligence service might be involved in various types of training exercises, or providing weapons. this ambiguity and uncertainty, that is the ambiguity and uncertainty that endures in policymaking, they knew there was, quote, no collaborative relationship and i show that president bush when he's presented with this evidence says good try, to scooter libby, who' s making this argument that al qaeda and

saddam hussein are linked to one another in august of 2,002 and president bush says good try, keep digging. he himself, president bush is not convinced that he is worried, he is worried, very worried about the possibility that saddam hussein may have chemical and biological weapons and that those weapons might find their way into the hands of terrorists. perhaps al qaeda terrorists, perhaps other terrorists. >> there were al qaeda dudes in northeastern or act near saddam hussein but that ambiguity was never expressed looking back on it now, to my satisfaction. >> one more quote from chain -- cheney, the cheney hall of fame here if you will, another interview with tim russert two days before the invasion, we know saddam is trying once

again to produce nuclear weapons, we know, he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups including the al qaeda organization. we know he has a long-standing relationship with al qaeda. that wasn't true. i think cheney knew it but i can't prove that. >> policymakers two days before the war are mobilizing american opinion for the war. it doesn't explain those quotations don't explain why the decisions were made. there's a difference between what is influencing policymakers and what they are saying to the public to mobilize support behind the policy. as is always the case.

>> host: how has policy changed since 2008? >> are you talking about compared to today? >> host: do you see major changes in us policy? >> guest: of course the quagmire and debacle in iraqi had a huge impact over the subsequent us in terms of president obama's willingness to get involved in various types of insurgencies. it led to a great deal of caution in terms of what to do in syria, in libya. it affected what the united states would do in afghanistan and what it did subsequently in iraqi. the debacle and quagmire interact, the insurrectionary

activity had a huge impact on america's willingness to use its power and subsequent situations. many people would say that was a good lesson. a good lesson of the war was to grasp the limits of your power and that is an important lesson. the united states doesn't have the power, didn't have the power to build democracy in iraqi or syria although there are elements of democratic institutions interact today, partly as a result of what the united states did. that doesn't justify what happened, but so -- grasping for limits of your power is an important lesson but it is easy to say that. what does it mean to grasp the limits of your power? it's important to know you can't do everything you want to

do but it doesn't explain when you should use your power. >> host: president biden's remarks about ukraine doesn't sound like the foreign policy establishment both major parties question the fundamentals about america's agenda. >> guest: when you listen to president biden listening, talking about the present situation in ukraine, i suggest you he has learned a lot from this situation. one of the important take aways from my book is the importance of policymakers defining priorities. and in this case in a rack, president bush never clarified priorities. i would say that one of the lessons president biden has learned is in this situation ukraine, an overriding priority

is to avoid nuclear war with russia. so the steps you want to take are going to be limited but influential, hopefully, in helping ukrainians without provoking a major conflict with russia. >> do we want regime change? do we want disarmament? can we bring about regime change without going to war? there were some inconsistencies which i think led to the expectation among many people that this was all about pretext for war luthier booked us challenge that. to what extent was the global war on terror, call in the past tense, to what extent is the global war on terror a continuation of us foreign policy post 1945?

>> guest: let me link that to the question you just asked. one of the important things to realize is during this period, late 90s and after 9/11, the focus of american foreign policy was on nonstate actors, on terrorists, on counterterrorism, for roughly a decade became the major preoccupation. that was the case because the united states had, in effect, achieve hegemony after the end of the cold war. there was no great power competition. so the preoccupation, for good reasons, legitimate reasons was with terrorism and counterterrorism and nonstate actors. what has changed in the world mightily over the last 10 or 15 years is that we have a

resurgence of traditional geopolitics, the resurgence of geopolitical rivalries among great powers. one of the consequences of this preoccupation with iraq and counterterrorism is it did divert attention from the rise of china and russia during these years but geopolitics today is hugely different than geopolitics during this era. >> host: there are continuities. the specter of communism you write about, it has been a while since i read the book. >> guest: you should read it again. >> host: the us had a major advantage over the ussr post 1945 but we i will not say inflated thread, we inflated the threat, you can watch harry truman or listen to harry

truman's 1947 speech about communism is domination of the world or the truman doctrine is enunciated, he talks about aid for greece and turkey, you could read truman's speech as an admission that he knew that socialism was going to be something people in the developing or third world would appeal to people in the third world, the us had something to do about it. inflating the threat of communism, looking back on it again with the benefit of hindsight but even at the time people post 9/11 said we are conflating the threat to our country of islamic terrorism and preemptive invasion is not the right way to go. wasn't so much a question of the word salad to take that on. >> there was tremendous fear of another attack after 9/11. it was a well-founded fear of another terrorist attack.

whether that fear needed to gravitate into a war. and in retrospect, with the prospective costs or liabilities, you would decide not to go toward iraqi but the fact that people were preoccupied with fear was a legitimate apprehension at the time. in terms of continuities of american foreign policy, one of the things i wrote long ago before i wrote this book was in fact bush's national security strategy reflected basic continuity in american foreign policy, the idea of establishing military supremacy was not a new idea. ever since the beginnings of

the cold war the united states sought to have military supremacy expect for a brief time when it was pursuing détente but basically the desire of military superiority was not a new idea in the history of american foreign policy since world war ii. norms the idea for example of having an open international order based on free markets and movement of capital, these were in many ways traditional american policies, even the idea of preemption, people say this was something really new for george w. bush. this was not new for the united states foreign policy. when president john kennedy imposed the blockade on cuba during the cuban missile crisis

that is an act of war. the united states is taken preemptive action at this period of time. president clinton's sort of announced in the 1990s he would be willing to take preemptive action against terrorism in the history of american policy. >> host: i may be the only interviewer in washington dc whose guest, the listeners of my podcast know that i often pick up what was written by historians, not a historian myself but the work of others, john w dower in his book the violent american century rights when the administration responded to september 11th by declaring global war on terror and launching the invasion of afghanistan and iraq, not really deviating from the threat of existing policy as so many argued.

the response to the atrocity carried out by a al qaeda's terrorists, need in the invasion of iraq, intended to shock and, involved unleashing a war fighting machine primed and experienced an overseas intervention including intensive bombing and practices on the dark side referring to torture. let's play stump the historian and i will tell you why i am reading this quote, which president said this. it's easy to say we have no interest in this or that. who owns a strip of brush land in the horn of africa or piece of parched earth by the jordan river but the true measure of our interest lies not in how small or distant these places are, whether we have trouble pronouncing their names, the question we must ask is what are the consequences to our

security of letting conflicts fester and spread. we should not be involved everywhere but where our values and interests are at stake and we can make a difference we must be prepared to do so. >> guest: i don't know who said that but i can imagine george hw bush saying something like that. >> host: at the end of a decade criticized as a decade of american foreign policy threats, this was clinton trying to explain where the united states should get involved. >> guest: george h w bush at the end of his administration gave a couple speeches in which he said almost precisely the same thing. what that quotation suggests is something that i firmly believe. there is turmoil everywhere in the world and there always will be but it is vital for american

decision-makers and the american people to assess and determine what constitutes a so-called existential threat. what really is an x essential threat? it is extremely important as this quotation success -- suggests for american policymakers and the american people to carefully assess what constitutes a vital interest. where are our vital interests. do we have, like today, a vital interest in taiwan? yes or no? i believe very thoughtful people can argue that in both ways, but it has no easy answer but it is imperative as clinton's quotation suggests,

to think hard and long what constitutes vital interest. what constitutes an x essential threat. once you decide if something is a vital interest, then you can begin to grapple with the appropriate tactics. >> host: why i brought up the clinton quote, the early 90s, it was an opportunity to reassess what the us role should be in the role of us power should be. we had the gas pedal, the triumph and went full speed ahead, clinton was trying to explain why we get involved in this. >> guest: the issue is what constitutes a reassessment and what is it that is desirable to achieve? many people living in the 1990s

like president clinton himself, this is a decade in which democracy was spreading around the globe and it was spreading, where prosperity was growing around the globe. this was a decade in which impoverished people in many critical countries like china and india were climbing out of fundamental impoverishment, there were many reasons to think in the 1990s is that the world, the united states was trying to nurture, a world that benefited not only the united states but also benefiting other countries.

and president clinton actually believed as did george w. bush's father, george w. bush, the problem after the cold war, the american people were losing interests in the world, there was a growing isolationism, there was not enough concern with the idea of continuing the effort to promote democracy and prosperity but whether that required the united states to build up its military infrastructure as it did and whether it required the united states to get involved in controversies in this part of the world these were difficult questions to decide. it constitutes a transformative moment, you have 9/11, and 9/11

represents a transformative event in the sense of making americans not only policymakers but we felix ordinarily vulnerable, and because americans feel extraordinarily vulnerable they are inclined to support initiatives that they might otherwise not support. >> host: haven't been doing enough, haven't been paying attention. >> guest: the important thing is always to decide what constitutes a vital interest the we now need to do. what is a real threat, to what extent do the threats that exist after 9/11 justify a, b, c, or d? the threat that existed after 9/11 were real threats. doesn't mean the united states needed one, to have a global war on terror, doesn't necessarily mean that the

united states should have invaded iraqi. but the facts, the fears were real. what i try to do in my book to illuminate why policymakers felt fearful and to examine, to take appropriate actions in relationship to the fears that existed. my book is very empathetic, but also, as you know, extremely critical. it raises the basic question, when there's threat perception, what sorts of actions are appropriate. how to calibrate them in ways that maximize benefits, and minimize costs. i'm critical of the bush

administration for not systematically examining costs and consequences of a prospective invasion of iraq. >> host: remarkable in that part of it. as you say in the book, we must get the story right if we are going to avoid these mistakes again. the book is confronting saddam hussein:george w. bush and the invasion of iraqi. melvyn leffler, thank you for being here. >> guest: my pleasure. >> host: to plumb the depths of your mind adequate here, you are always welcome back on the podcast. thank you to everyone who is listening. this is martin di caro on history as it happens. >> vietnam war pows appeared before gathering of the naval academy midshipmen to talk about their ordeal a half-century ago. here's captain charlie plumb and rear admiral robert shoemaker describing the first time they communicated through their prison. >> las vegas casinos like the thunderbird and things like

that, not with one guy, but a total of four, there was five feet that separated us, and in the corner of this. you're bringing back unhappy memories for me. in the corner here, it is a rabble, dream whole, we are crowded with four people in the cell. the stockades where they get -- they cramp your ankles here. i find a piece of wire, not as stiff as a coathanger. it is 5 feet long, there's an

alleyway between us here, filled with a bunch of junk, they take a siesta every afternoon, i would get down and sneak this wire through all this paraphernalia and wound up in charlie, through his rabble, and you pick it up. >> bob comes back, come back again and disappeared down that rat hole. waiting for the guards to come in and beat me up again. this time, in a dirty piece of toilet paper, on a piece of toilet paper i could barely make it out and said memorize this code and i did it. memorize the code.

the code is what bob shoemaker passed along to me. and but the simple validation of another human being, and in solitary confinement. and it checks back. i am alive. >> watch the full program online, c-span.org. here's a look at some significant moment in history during the month of may. may 25, 1787, constitutional convention began in philadelphia. delegates debated a replacement for the articles of confederation for months.

it wouldn't be until september that members drafted the constitution striking a compromise and sending the document to the stat f ratification. in tsalama, may 31, 1921, after african-american teenager dick rowland was arrested for aincident the day before, black and white armed mo srounded the courthouse. the following day,he greenwood district, known as black wall street, was destroyed by white riders. in what is now known as the tulsa race massacre, hundreds of people were either injured or killed. detailing the experience during their life. >> i was awakened by my family. my parents and 5 siblings were there. that was it. i will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home, still see black men being shot, black bodies lining the streets.

i still smelled smoke, still see black businesses being burned. i hear the screams that lived through the massacre every day. >> may 17, 1954, they ruled unanimously in brown versus board of education, segregation public schools violated the 14th amendment, led by thurgood marshall and the naacp the case ruled in linda brown's favor overturning the separate but equal precedent set by plessy versus ferguson in 1896. that's a look at some significant moments in may. american history tv has programs on all these topics in our archives on c-span.org/history.