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Vernon Loeb and Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, July 09, 2003; Noon ET
Post military reporter Vernon Loeb and Post intelligence reporter Dana Priest were online Wednesday, July 2 at Noon ET, to talk about the latest developments in national security and defense. Loeb covers military defense and national security issues. Priest covers intelligence and recently wrote "The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace With America's Military" (W.W. Norton). The book chronicles the increasing frequency with which the military is called upon to solve political and economic problems. The transcript follows. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Vernon Loeb: Greetings everyone. There's lots to talk about today, Iraq, the Middle East, North Korea, al Qaeda, and, of course, Jessica Lynch. So let's get started.
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Somewhere in Northern Virginia: Read a really good article yesterday in the Post about the grad student's paper concerning our nation's infrastructure, (communications, power, etc). Have either of you heard what the administration's plans are for getting more cooperation from the private sector, other than having the president of a company wanting to confiscate the guy's laptop after giving them a briefing. The other part of this is if a college student can research this information on his own, what is going to stop really determined person(s) from doing major damage with al this available information.
Dana Priest: You absolutely right about a determined person being able to figure a lot out. That's a given and the government operates on that assumption. There is a major infrastructure mapping and protection program underway. First they had to do an assessment of everything, which I believe they did by sector (nuclear, electric, bridges etc.)and vulnerabilities. The interaction with private industry is fairly deep also. It's all within Homeland Security's realm and may be available on the web site.
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Indianapolis, Ind.: What exactly are the long range plans for Iraq's future? What I mean is we (the soldiers) seem to be just milling around with their weapons at the ready or riding in humvees from point A to point B. I understand a lot is going on but at the same time nothing seems to be happening; you know what I mean?
It's becoming an embarrassment. And I saw that as a reluctant supporter of the war.
Dana Priest: I know what you mean and it is clear that the troops and Bremer are sorting their way through it too. Clearly the original idea that the Iraqi people would welcome them with open arms hasn't turned out to be the case. Before long term, I think the administration is going to be concentrating on destroying what they see---accurately or inaccurately is yet to be determined--as a pro-Saddam, Baath Party-led insurrection. The question is, are the people killing US troops pro-Saddam or just anti-American? Meanwhile, the administration is still insisting they have enough troops to deal with that. This calculation, at least, challenges the history of postwar U.S. peacekeeping missions in Europe, Japan and the Balkans when there were many more troops on the ground.
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Springfield, Va.: Vernon,
Just read your story this morning in which Richard Perle suggests that the CIA would deliberately hide information on who was behind 9/11 if it didn't fit their own ideas. Pretty outrageous allegation.
What did the CIA do to cheese off Perle? I thought he resigned from the Defense Policy Board over some ethics flap ... but your story implies he is still connected with the Pentagon. What is the deal here?
Vernon Loeb: Perle resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board over some ethics flap, the details of which I am not fully conversant on, and wouldn't want to misstate. But he is still a member of the board. I'm sorry to say that I don't know the origins of Perle's animus toward the CIA, though, as you note from his comment in our piece today, it is clearly there. I personally don't believe that the agency has some agenda here in which it would ignore real evidence that a key hijacker had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer. Why on earth would the CIA want to downplay this possibility? Can't figure that one out.
Dana Priest: .
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Vernon Loeb: Iraqi Who Might Have Met With 9/11 Hijacker Is Captured (Post, July 9)
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Suburban Maryland: The Post, in Tuesday's editorial "Facing Reality in Iraq" observes that our occupation force in that country is woefully understaffed, and that we must again cooperate with the international community which we spurned earlier in order to keep the situation from sliding into disaster. Given that the current Administration seems to revel in their own lack of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind", what do you think the chances of this happening are? What exactly is the "roadmap" for us to get back in the good graces of our former allies, especially as it is becoming more evident that our leaders dragged us into the situation on false pretenses in the first place? Who can be dispatched to hold out the "olive branch" -- is Colin Powell appropriate? Should it start with a confession on our part, and some uncharacteristic contrition from the administration? How can we get this albatross from around our necks?
Thanks in advance for your perspectives.
Dana Priest: Right now I don't see the administration as welcoming a larger circle of participants--mainly the Europeans who they dissed so strongly during the war and vice versa. I wouldn't hold my breath on the confession or contrition thing either. I would look for the US military to be given much more aggressive tactics to use against resistors. If their analysis is correct and most of these are Baath Party loyalists, maybe imprisoning lots of them will work, and Iraq will become pacified. On the other hand, if they have miscalculated (again), more aggressive tactics--which will also mean the deaths of many more innocent civilians caught in the crossfire--could inflame the very extremists they have sought to neutralize since Sept. 11.
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Vernon Loeb: Sorry for the bad link. Here's the good one: Iraqi Who Might Have Met With 9/11 Hijacker Is Captured (Post, July 9)
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Somewhere, USA: Increasingly, the administration seems to say that no matter whether the original claims of WMDs were all accurate (most Americans have no idea where Niger is, so that episode seems pretty vague), the end result was good, so the invasion was justified. Has it ever said whether this justifies other countries in invading countries whose leaders they feel are tyrants?
Dana Priest: Not in those terms, no. That is exactly the problem lots of people have with a pre-emption doctrine. The US has, in the past, preemptively struck out (Panama, Grenada, come to mine). Some military leaders and diplomats are very worried that actually elevating pre-emption to the status of a stated doctrine will open the door for other countries to do the same.
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Pickens, S.C.: Military, economic and medical aid programs to over 100 nations have been tied to so-called "article 98" pacts of non-extradition to the International Criminal Court for War Crimes in the Hague. Do you expect that the President's offer of a helping hand on the African continent will be subject to such caveats? What do you think this means for the International Court?
Dana Priest: Yes, I do think they are being conditioned on that. As for the court, it will amount to a caveat excluding the possibility of ever prosecuting US military personnel in the court. Maybe it will have no practical affect at all but, then again, other countries could seek exceptions too.
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Lyme, Conn.: The White House has admitted they accidentally used false information that Iraq was purchasing materials for weapons of mass destruction. How does false information get passed along so far, didn't anyone disagree and if so who decided their objections should be ignored, and what steps could the White House do to see they use better information from now on?
Vernon Loeb: I think false information made it into President Bush's State of the Union address because the CIA did not formally pass along a review of the situation it had commissioned. And other concerns about the veracity of Iraq's alleged attempts to buy Uranium from Niger went unheeded. To some extent, I think, these concerns weren't passed along or given appropriate weight because the people writing the speech very much wanted to prove that Iraq had a stake in pursuing nuclear weapons.
Dana Priest: .
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Merrillville, Ala.: I've just read in the Savannah News that all of the 3rd Infantry from Ft. Stewart will be returning before the end of August. However, I've been informed that my brother who is in the 2nd Brigade Cav 3-7 considered aviation, with the fighting Bradleys who did so great in the war are being deteained in Iraq. Why aren't they being told anything and when are they coming home? Morale is very low from what I gather. It doesn't seem right they were to have been home over a month ago and have to stay longer. Thanks in advance for any information you can provide.
Dana Priest: We don't know when the 2nd Brigade Cav 3-7 is supposed to come home. As you've seen in the news, lots of units that were supposed to be returning, now won't be. This is a fluid situation -- both on the ground in Iraq and, obviously, at the Pentagon. The only comfort I can offer is that you are not alone.
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Arlington, Va.: Just read Joseph C. Wilson's op-ed "outing" himself as the envoy to Niger. It doesn't matter. When two-thirds of the respondents in a national poll can't name even one of the nine Democratic presidential candidates, Rove knows he's dead-on to treat voters as idiots. It would be nice if you would develop some backbone & actually dispute the Bush Administration's lies, but you can't compete with Fox News Channel as a platform for information.
Dana Priest: Hmmm. Well, The Post, and myself personally, have written many stories challenging the Bush administrations claims on WMD, Iraq's link to Al Qaeda, the strength of the Iraqi irregular forces; we even broke the Niger forgery case and have written at least a half dozen stories about it. And I don't think voters are idiots, on the contrary. I compete with everyone in the news busines -- including Fox News Channel.
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Bethesda, Md.: I have not heard too much about the V22 Osprey lately (the machine that has seemingly killed more troops than the Iraqi insurgents). Has the military finally come to its senses and killed off this expensive debacle?
Dana Priest: It's still in operational testing, seems to be on track, in low-rate production. Still real concerns about whether this part airplane-part helicopter will be able to maneuver in and out of hot zones, with troops. Jury still out on whether Pentagon will ultimately build it and integrate it into the Marine Corps structure as the Marines want.
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Vernon Loeb: Ex-Envoy: Nuclear Report Ignord (Post, July 6)
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Springfield, Va.: What is the "red line" action with regard to which military action against North Korea will be considered? Relatedly, is this administration's "red line" the same as, or different from, the "red line" established by the Clinton admin.?
Also, what is the significance of the recent announcement by S. Korea that it believes that North Korea has 8,000 spent rods held at Yongbyon and a proportion of these have recently been reprocessed; and that North Korea had carried out around 70 tests on explosive devices that could be used to launch a nuclear attack? The fact that South Korea is so unusually deferential in their approach to North Korea makes the release of this assessment particularly grave in its implications.
Dana Priest: The existence of the rods has been known for many years and the fear they will be processed as been a motivator for Washington to solve the impasse over production because the material in the rods could be used to produce nuclear material. It is significant that S. Korea supports this access because the south has been more skeptical about such claims in the past, perhaps wanting to play down the bad news in hopes of working things out without a confrontation.
The Bush administration has "red line." Clinton's red line was reprocessing and it's clearly been crossed now.
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Arlington, Va.: Can I just voice my opinion, Mr, Loeb? I have nothing personal against you, but I think your original Jessica Lynch story could be right up there with anything Jayson Blair did, unless you come clean and NAME your sources for the "fighting hellcat" yarn. The Post is not doing a very good job of pointing the finger at these "sources" as a way of deflecting blame from you and your co-reporter. Surely it wouldn't be unethical to reveal sources who LIED to you, if in fact they did, or even exist.
Vernon Loeb: That's fair enough. You're certainly entitled to your opinion. I can assure you that neither I nor my colleagues who worked on our first Jessica Lynch story made anything up. We relied on good sources, multiple good sources, who gave us faulty intelligence. You know I'm not going to name them, and the fact that I refuse to name them certainly doesn't mean they don't exist. I also do not think the sources lied to us. I think they honestly described the contents of battlefield intelligence, which turned out to be inaccurate. It actually happens quite frequently, and when sources are dealing in classified intelligence, it is very hard for journalists to independently verify what they are being told. For that reason, journalists need to be very careful when citing anonymous sources relating un-verifiable intelligence. We put caveats in the piece, saying that the battlefield intelligence about Lynch could not be independently verified. We probably should have emphasized those caveats more than we did. But neither The Washington Post, nor I, nor any of my colleagues, have tried to duck this controversy or pretend that no further explanation was necessary. We came back with a very thorough and extensive piece citing the shortcomings of our first piece--and I, for one, am very happy that we did that. And we'll fully cover the release of the Army's report tomorrow. And undoubtedly our ombudsman, Mike Getler, will continue to pound away at us for the piece, and for our reliance on anonymous sources in general, which, again, is fine with me, and for the good of the paper.
Dana Priest: .
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Bethesda: Joseph Wilson states that Cheney's office aksed for an investigation into the Niger/yellow cake story. He then delivered an unequivical report stating the story was false. However, recently the White House has said that they knew nothing of this investigation. Then you echoed that maybe no one told the White House. How is this plausible if Cheney asked for or at least asked about the investigation? Isn't it just too convenient to say, "no told us" and drop it?
Vernon Loeb: In discussions with CIA briefers, Cheney's people first raised questions about the Niger/Yellow cake story, which had been in circulation asince 2001. They say they didn't consider this commissioning anything. But since they raised questions, the CIA tasked people to check it out, and the agency now says that lower level people in the Direcotrate of Operations tasked Wilson to check out the story, and that his findings were then put into a routine cable. When it was completed, no explicit steps were taken to inform the vice president. Thus, the CIA is saying that it wasn't treated as anything major. It was sent to the vice president's office, and the NSC, put it wasn't tagged as a big deal. And Wilson was identified as the source of the information.
Dana Priest: .
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Washington, D.C.: I am Tony Blair. I have two alternatives:
1. Let the U.N. inspection process run its course.
2. Provide unstinting support for George W. Bush and commit British troops to war, regardless of any consequences.
Looking back at everything that has happened in post-war Iraq and Britain, what should have been my best approach?
Dana Priest: Well you've boxed me in with your question. What if I, Tony Blair, believe that Saddam Hussein may well have WMD and has the motivation and inclination to pass them to anti-American terrorists? Do I just wait until that happens and I can find a definitive link in the ashes of the next World Trade Center? Or do I do something about it now, hoping to prevent that from happening in the first place? You chose.
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Vernon Loeb: OK, our hour is up. Sorry about the time change. Thanks for all those excellent questions, even the one about Jessica Lynch. See you next week.
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Rockville: It seems that the house of cards built by the administration in order to gain support for preemptive action in Iraq is crumbling (e.g., the admission regarding Iraq's quest for nuclear materials, the inability to stabilize "post-war" Iraq, etc.). However, it seems that there has been little chilling effect on the administaration's aggressive stance, most recently seen in threats to send U.S. forces to Liberia. Is there a greater, unspoken agenda among the hawkish wing of the administration of establishing U.S. military presence in various strategic regions of the world (e.g., Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia)?
Vernon Loeb: I think Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would just as soon NOT send forces to Liberia. While Rumsfeld clearly does want strategic access to spartan bases in certain African nations, from which he can project American power against terrorists and other military threats, I don't think Liberia is one such place. Rather, I think Rumsfeld acquiesced to possibly sending troops, because President Bush, on the eve of his African trip, thought it was probably a good idea--a way to demonstrate American leadership in Africa, even as large numbers of troops are tied up in Iraq.
Dana Priest: .
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Dana Priest: See you all next week! Stay cool.
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Vernon Loeb:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.
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