more pilger on iraq, page-22

Maybe we should let Richard Perle speaK for himself.

You be the judge.

Statement of Richard Perle
Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Before the Committee on Foreign Relations
United States Senate

by

Richard Perle


February 27, 2002


Mr. Chairman,

I appreciate your invitation to participate in the Committee’s hearing which poses the question “How do we promote democratization, poverty alleviation and human rights to build a more secure world?” These three ideas, poverty, democracy and human rights are often linked as we try to think our way through the vexing problems of national and international security.

The phrase “a more secure world” is almost certainly prompted by the discovery, on September 11, of how insecure we turned out to be on that day. In any case, hardly any discussion takes place these days that is not somehow related to terrorism and the war against it. For my part, this morning will be no exception.

Let me say, at the outset, that the idea that poverty is a cause of terrorism, although widely believed and frequently argued, remains essentially unproven. That poverty is not merely a cause, but a “root cause,” which implies that it is an essential source of terrorist violence, is an almost certainly false, and even a dangerous idea, often invoked to absolve terrorists of responsibility or mitigate their culpability. It is a liberal conceit which, if heeded, may channel the war against terror into the cul de sac of grand development schemes in the third world and the elevation of do-good/feel-good NGO’s to a role they cannot and should not play.

What we know of the September 11 terrorists suggests they were neither impoverished themselves nor motivated by concerns about the poverty of others. After all, their avowed aim, the destruction of the United States, would, if successful, deal a terrible blow to the growth potential of the world economy. Their devotion to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, which excluded half the Afghan work force from the economy and aimed to keep them illiterate as well as poor, casts conclusive doubt on their interest in alleviating poverty.

Poverty—or poverty and despair--is the most commonly adumbrated explanation for terrorism abroad--and crime at home. Identifying poverty as a source of conduct invariably confuses the matter. We will never know what went through the mind of Mohammed Atta as he plotted the death of thousands of innocent men, women and children, including a number of Moslems. We do know that he lived in relative comfort as did most, perhaps all, of the 19 terrorists—15 of them from affluent Saudi Arabia.

If we accept poverty as an explanation we will stop searching for a true, and useful, explanation. We may not notice the poisonous extremist doctrine propagated, often with Saudi oil money, in mosques and religious institutions around the world.

If we attribute terrorism to poverty, we may fail to demand that President Mubarak of Egypt silence the sermons, from mosques throughout Egypt, preaching hatred of the United States. As you authorize $2 billion a year for Egypt, please remember that these same clerics are employees of the Egyptian government. It is not a stretch to say that U.S. taxpayer dollars are helping to pay for the most inflammatory anti-American ranting.

So when you hear about poverty as the root cause of terrorism, I urge you to examine the manipulation of young Muslim men sent on suicidal missions by wealthy fanatics, like Osama bin Laden, whose motives are religious and ideological in nature and have nothing to do with poverty or privation.

Mr. Chairman, this hearing is about building a more secure future; and I know it will come as no surprise if I argue that doing that in the near term will require an effective military establishment to take the war on terrorism to the terrorists, to fight them over there because they are well on the way to achieving their murderous objectives when we are forced to fight them over here. For once those who wish to destroy Americans gain entry to the United States and exploit the institutions of our open society, the likelihood that we will stop them is greatly diminished.

This is why President Bush was right to declare on September 11 that “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” This was not the policy of the last Democratic administration or the Republican one before it. It is not a policy universally applauded by our allies. But it is a right and bold and courageous policy and the only policy that has a reasonable prospect of protecting the American people from further terrorist acts.

Dealing effectively with the states that support or condone terrorism against us (or even remain indifferent to it) is the only way to deprive terrorists of the sanctuary from which they operate, whether that sanctuary is in Afghanistan or North Korea or Iran or Iraq or elsewhere. The regimes in control of these “rogue” states—a term used widely before the last administration substituted the flaccid term “states of concern”—pose an immediate threat to the United States. The first priority of American policy must be to transform or destroy rogue regimes.

And while some states will observe the destruction of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and decide to end their support for terrorism rather than risk a similar fate, others will not.

It is with respect to those regimes that persist in supporting and harboring terrorists that the question of the role of democratization and human rights is particularly salient. And foremost among these regimes is Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

The transformation of Iraq from a brutal dictatorship, in which human rights are unknown, to a democratic state protecting the rights of individuals would not only make the world more secure, it would bring immediate benefits to all the people of Iraq (except the small number of corrupt officials who surround Saddam Hussein).

I believe that this is well understood in the Congress, which has repeatedly called on the administration to support the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella group made up of organizations opposed to Saddam’s dictatorship. The INC is pledged to institute democratic political institutions, protect human rights and renounce weapons of mass destruction. As we think through the best way to change the regime in Iraq, it is precisely the proponents of democracy who deserve our support, not the disaffected officer who simply wishes to substitute his dictatorship for that of Saddam Hussein.

I hope, Mr. Chairman, that the Congress, which has been well ahead of the executive branch in recognizing this, will succeed in persuading this administration, although it failed to persuade the last one, that our objective in removing Saddam’s murderous regime must be its replacement by democratic forces in Iraq and the way to do that is work with the Iraqi National Congress.

Mr. Chairman, it goes without saying that democracies that respect human rights, and especially the right to speak and publish and organize freely, are far less likely to make war or countenance terrorism than dictatorships in which power is concentrated in the hands of a few men whose control of the instruments of war and violence is unopposed. As a general rule, democracies do not initiate wars or undertake campaigns of terror. Indeed, democracies are generally loath to build the instruments of war, to finance large military budgets or keep large numbers of their citizens in military establishments. Nations that embrace fundamental human rights will not be found planning the destruction of innocent civilians. I can’t think of a single example of a democracy planning acts of terror like those of September 11.

We could discuss at length why democratic political institutions and a belief in the rights of individuals militate against war and terror and violence. But the more difficult questions have to do with how effectively we oppose those regimes that are not democratic and deny their citizens those fundamental human rights, the exercise of which constitutes a major restraint on the use of force and violence.

Here the issue is frequently one of whether we “engage” them in the hope that our engagement will lead to reform and liberalization, or whether we oppose and isolate them. I know of no general prescription. Each case, it seems to me, must be treated individually because no two cases are alike. Take the three cases of the “axis of evil.”

In the case of Iraq, I believe engagement is pointless. Saddam Hussein is a murderous thug and it makes no more sense to think of engaging his regime than it would a mafia family.

In the case of Iran, I doubt that the goals of democratization and human rights would be advanced by engaging the current regime in Teheran. There is sufficient disaffection with the mullahs, impressive in its breadth and depth, to commend continued isolation—and patience. The spontaneous demonstrations of sympathy with the United States are brave and moving. We owe those who have marched in sympathy with us the support that comes from refusing to collaborate with the regime in power. The people of Iran may well throw off the tyrannical and ineffective dictatorship that oppresses them. We should encourage them and give them time.

In the case of North Korea end the policy of bribing them. Such a policy invites blackmail, by them and others who observe their manipulation of us—and it certainly moves them no closer to democracy or respect for human rights. We must watch them closely and remain ready to move against any installation that may place weapons of mass or long-range delivery within their reach.

Mr. Chairman, I have only one recommendation for the Committee and it is this: to support enthusiastically, and specifically with substantially larger budgets, the National Endowment for Democracy. On a shoestring it has been a source of innovative, creative programs for the building of democratic institutions, often working in places where democracy and respect for human rights is only a distant dream. It may well be the most cost-effective program in the entire arsenal of weapons in the war against terror and for a more secure world. The Endowment, and even more the organizations that benefit from the Endowment’s support, need and deserve all the help we can give them.