[Washington Post - 10/1/01] The crisis before President Bush was one of foreign aggression. The issues were when to put U.S. soldiers in harm's way, how to keep the Saudis happy, what the reactions on the Arab street would be, how far to go in changing the regime of a hostile nation and how to define success.
So he sought out the guidance of trusted advisers: Cheney, Powell, Wolfowitz, Armitage, Rice, Libby and Haass.
That was 11 years ago, the crisis was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the president was George W. Bush's father.
Though its members have changed jobs, the cast of characters formulating the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington is much the same as the one that grappled with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. And though the context is different today, many of the players are taking similar positions in debates that echo those Bush's father heard, with some urging caution and coalition building, and others pressing more for bold, multi-front military action.
A crucial question now is whether the Bush administration's key strategists will be fighting the last war or learning from it. From the president on down, they have emphasized that this is a different kind of fight, but will they be prisoners of their experiences when it comes to building coalitions and deploying troops, or will they think creatively about a new type of enemy who has no tanks, no clearly delineated territory and no standing army?
"There's no way not to bring that experience to bear on the present circumstances," said Arnold Kanter, then a White House staffer, later undersecretary of state and now a member of the Scowcroft Group consulting firm. "That's not to say you take a cookie cutter approach . . . but having been through a major international crisis in the Persian Gulf War, that's got to reflect the way you approach and prosecute the current crisis." Veterans of Last War
Of the dozen people in President Bush's war cabinet, more than half played a role in the Desert Storm campaign that pushed Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. Vice President Cheney was defense secretary; Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz was undersecretary of defense under Cheney and traveled to Saudi Arabia and other allied countries. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage was a special envoy shuttling back and forth to the region. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice was then a senior director for Russian affairs at the National Security Council. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, was the top aide to Wolfowitz.
Many others in the wings were also part of the Bush senior campaign against Iraq. Assistant Secretary of State for Policy and Planning Richard Haass was then the NSC Middle East expert. Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief, was in charge of overseeing defenses against germ and chemical warfare. The current deputy national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, was serving as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy. And, although they have no formal role, Bush senior and his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, talk with the president, sources say.
The main players insist that there is no vital split in the war cabinet, and indeed sources say they have delayed some crucial decisions until they take initial measures against Osama bin Laden they can all agree to. Nonetheless, Bush's top advisers vary widely in philosophy and background, and that could color internal discussions as events unfold.
Powell, even without his general's uniform, has been a reassuring and commanding figure for Congress and the public, which remembers his role in explaining and implementing Desert Storm. "He just exuded confidence," Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said after Powell briefed Congress on Tuesday.
But that public image belies Powell's concerns then and now. The Vietnam veteran is wary of what he once called "slide rule prodigies" who got the country into the Vietnam War through a "conspiracy of illusion." To avoid another quagmire, Powell during the Persian Gulf War wanted to give economic sanctions more time to work and stressed potential military perils, probing the commitment of Bush senior and his advisers to an all-out effort in battle.
Though Powell vigorously implemented the Desert Storm war plans once the president showed his determination, he has been viewed since then by many conservatives as too timid. Powell later wrote that he had no regrets. Twenty years earlier, he said, "I had been appalled at the docility of the Joint Chiefs of Staff fighting the war in Vietnam without ever pressing the political leaders to lay out clear objectives before them."
In the current crisis, Powell is playing a restraining role again. People who have spoken to him say he sees himself "standing on the brakes" to make sure the president understands the fallout of using force against bin Laden as well as governments that have hosted terrorists. In war cabinet meetings, Powell has resisted calls for strikes against Iraq for fear of wrecking the coalition he is assembling. And publicly he has even held out the possibility that the Taliban regime that has hosted bin Laden could receive humanitarian assistance if it gave up the terrorist leader.
A rhetorical point illustrates Powell's influence in these early weeks. At a Sept. 14 cabinet meeting, Powell urged Bush and others to start substituting the word "campaign" for the word "war." Later, another cabinet member said the implication was clear. "A campaign is a word that can mean military, but can also mean different things," the cabinet member said. "It's a broader, different challenge." Since then, both the word campaign and the concept of a broader, longer struggle have worked their way into comments by Bush and other top administration members.
In a reprise of the preparations for Desert Storm, Powell has devoted his efforts to assembling a coalition against terrorism. He has even reached out to Syria and Iran -- two nations with histories of sponsoring terrorism -- albeit without great expectations. He has also sought to isolate the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a move with military as well as diplomatic consequences. And he has drawn on his connections, such as his onetime squash partner, Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, to gain cooperation on everything from severing relations with Afghanistan to securing Saudi air bases for U.S. use. Contrasting Deputies
Wolfowitz was, in fact, a slide rule prodigy, a Cornell University math major who received a doctorate in political science at the University of Chicago and never served in the military. He is an interventionist by nature, ready to wield military force to defend American principles. "He has a mild-mannered, gentle way of saying the most astonishing things," said a former Bush senior policy maker.
Wolfowitz, former dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, contrasts sharply with Powell's own deputy at state, Richard L. Armitage. Armitage, a Vietnam vet who carried out covert operations there, is a burly weight-lifter. Although the blunt-spoken Armitage shares many of Wolfowitz's conservative views, he is loyal to his close friend Powell.
"Armitage seems like this soldier type, a warrior, a man of action. Wolfowitz is a man of ideas," said a veteran of the first Bush administration. "That's an important dichotomy for Powell in the world. He has a lot of respect for people who do things. . . . It's the difference between someone who reads Commentary for fun and someone who strips a Volvo engine."
The differences apply to more than style. Unlike Powell, Wolfowitz believes the United States should have helped overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. At the time, both Powell and Bush senior said pushing the war further would split the coalition, partition Iraq and enhance Iranian influence.
Although Wolfowitz believes in the importance of building international coalitions, he wants to make sure they do not shackle the United States. "It's not one coalition, it's different coalitions for different purposes," he said to reporters on his way back from a NATO meeting on Thursday. Cheney's Key Role
As defense secretary during the Gulf War, Cheney pressed Powell for military alternatives when military planners presented options that seemed certain to lead to heavy casualties. He is credited with promoting the idea of encircling Iraqi forces in Kuwait by swinging to the west through Iraqi territory.
Cheney has been described as the chief operating officer of the current administration, and he could play a key role settling some of the disagreements among other policy makers. Though his chief of staff, Libby, is believed to be sympathetic with Wolfowitz, and Cheney is also loyal to his former aide, Cheney's own views might be more fluid. A former Bush I official described Cheney as more conceptual than Powell, but less ideological than Wolfowitz. He has never expressed regret about stopping the Persian Gulf War without overthrowing Hussein, arguing that Iraq has been contained and that the coalition then would have fallen apart, damaging U.S. interests in the Arab world.
"One of the likable things about Cheney then and I think is true now is that he doesn't get caught up in euphemism and symbols," said Philip Zelikow, an NSC staffer for Bush senior and now director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. "As a friend of Cheney's once told me, Cheney was not always a great defense secretary, but he was a great war secretary."
Zelikow said that Cheney listened to what Bush senior wanted, then worked backward to what military forces he would need. Zelikow said that it often seemed as though the military worked the other way, projecting alternatives based on the forces they thought they had. "So Cheney was flirting with radical notions," Zelikow said. Rice's Opportunity
Rice played a smaller role in the Gulf War in 1990. Today she is always at Bush's side. If her position on key issues remains unclear, "she wants to keep it that way," an acquaintance said.
But an official who served in the first Bush administration said that Rice has both a problem and an opportunity. In the middle of a crisis, she has to show that she is up to the job, that she can deal with this experienced team and that she is of the caliber of predecessors such as Henry A. Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski or Scowcroft.
"She's not really ideological," the former official said.
Scowcroft, her model for honest broker of policy, has no such constraints now that he is in private life running his own consulting firm. A close friend of former president Bush, he is widely believed to be playing an informal role by speaking to Rice, the president and the president's father.
Though in 1990 Scowcroft advocated a strong military response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, today he counsels patience. He believes that overthrowing Saddam Hussein is not feasible. His reluctance to engage in regime change extends to Afghanistan, where he says it would be simpler diplomatically to send U.S. forces in to snatch bin Laden. Scowcroft also favors building a strong coalition of Arab nations, even if that means applying more pressure on Israel to exert restraint in its conflict with the Palestinians. And he believes the United States should make every effort to reestablish a constructive relationship with Iran, arguing that the United States should not be simultaneously at odds with the two most populous Persian Gulf states.
One element missing from the current Bush team is someone like James A. Baker III, secretary of state in 1990 and a longtime friend of the senior Bush. The current president doesn't have anyone like that in his inner circle -- but he does have his father.
Bush senior said recently that he has spoken occasionally with his son, though the frequency and content of the calls are closely held by the White House for fear of making it seem as though the younger Bush cannot make his own decisions. Although the president has long believed himself to be a better politician than his father, the current crisis puts him on turf more familiar to his father, who came to office with broad experience in foreign policy. As former president Bush put it recently, it was natural for families to come together at times like this.
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[posted 10/2/01]
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