SENATOR LUGAR & WILLIAM COLBY/PERSIAN GULF WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100070002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 11, 1991
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
Larry King Live
February 11, 1991 9:00 P.M. Washington, D.C.
Senator Lugar & William Colby/Persian Gulf War
PRESIDENT BUSH: I am very pleased with the people that
are running the war. They have my full confidence. We are going
to take whatever time is necessary to sort out when a next stage
might begin.
ANNOUNDER: ...Tonight, week four of war. Top advisers
brief the President on giving it to Saddam from the sky and in
the sand....
LARRY KING: ...General Powell and Secretary Cheney gave
their military assessment in a private meeting with the President
today. The President emerged intent on continuing the air
campaign and unclear about when ground action might begin.
Joining us from Indianapolis is Senator Richard Lugar.
He is a member of the formidable Foreign Relations Committee,
indeed former Chairman of that Committee; and William Colby,
here at our studios in Washington former Director of the CIA.
We'll start with Senator Lugar in Indianapolis.
Is it true, Senator Lugar, are you saying that you want
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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all aid to Jordan discontinued, based on the statements of King
SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR: Yes. I think that debate will
come up, and my vote will be negative. It seems to me that
America has to have constancy of friendship. King Hussein really
knows better than the testimony he gave in support of Iraq. His
neutrality was somewhat suspect, but President Bush had been very
tolerant. And King Hussein has stepped over the bounds. And it
appears, for the time being, that we ought not to vote more aid
to Jordan.
KING: Can you put yourself in his shoes, as seeing
himself more threatened by them than by us?
SENATOR LUGAR: Of course he feels more threatened by
his own people, from time to time, than he does by us. His
tenure has been very, very difficult. And we understand that.
When he came over to the United States, the President, I
thought, was very thoughtful and considerate and tolerant of what
apparently have been breaches of the embargo by Jordan. But it
was another thing to give a long and deliberate speech at this
time in the war.
Obviously, Hussein is going to be on the losing side.
Why he would choose to make that overt comment at this time
really, I think, escapes everybody.
KING: Bill Colby, you know that territory pretty well.
Why do you think he did that?
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WILLIAM COLBY: Oh, I think he's responding to the
attitude of his people, who are primarily Palestinians. There
are some Bedouins among them, but many of them are Palestinians.
And they consider this whole war a war between Arabs and the rest
of the world, in the oldest tradition.
So, in order to stay in power -- he is a great survivor.
He's survived all sorts of problems over the years -- he's
tilting, to use a word, tilting in the direction of Saddam.
KING: That was more than tilting, though, don't you
think? That was tilted.
COLBY: It's essentially tilting.
I think that the Senator is absolutely right when he
says that no more aid, maybe. But that doesn't mean hostility.
There is something between full aid and full hostility.
KING: We should not be hostile.
COLBY: And I think that's where we ought to be.
KING: Do you agree, Senator Lugar, we should not be
fully hostile to Jordan?
SENATOR LUGAR: Yeah. I think that's a good distinc-
tion. And I think President Bush the other day left the door
wide open for a conference in which Jordan will be a party,
because they're in the area. And secure borders with Jordan,
recognition of Jordan, of the other states, and particularly a
relationship with Israel would be very useful.
KING: And is it true, Bill Colby, that you favor the
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assassination of Saddam Hussein?
COLBY: I don't favor the assassination. But I do say
that when one country's young men and women are shooting another
country's young men and women, the leaders of those operations
are not immune. I would have cheerfully helped carry the bomb
into Hitler's bunker in 1944. That's not assassination. It's an
act of war.
KING: In other words, in war, if you -- if a commando
got in and killed him, that would be an act of war, not an
assassination.
COLBY: Perfectly legitimate. Yes.
KING: And you would favor that.
COLBY: Certainly.
KING: Do you think there are any plans, contingently?
COLBY: I have no idea. And I don't want to know,
because I'm not in on secrets these days.
KING: This is a need-to-know, and you don't need to
COLBY: I don't need to know and it's none of my
KING: This for both of you. We'll start with Senator
How goes this action till now? Obviously, it goes well.
Does it go about as expected? Anything surprising you, Dick?
SENATOR LUGAR: Well, clearly the lack of response by
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the Iraqis is surprising.
Now, for those who are our military commanders or our
people in the field, perhaps it's not surprising, as they
understand how they've knocked out the antiaircraft and how
they've suppressed the air and the sea might of Iraq so easily.
But clearly this is a war now in which apparently there's almost
no ground activity in the Kuwait area. The Iraqis are burrowed
down. They're operating underground, even carrying their
equipment down there with them, are just simply accepting a
pounding. And that, for the fourth-largest army in the world, is
a surprise.
KING: This is like a hockey game, William, in which the
six players on one team, the goalie and the five others, have
lined up in front of the net, and the other team is just shooting
the puck.
COLBY: No. What this is is a deliberate application of
a strategy. First, clean out the air. Second, clean out the air
defense. Third...
KING: This is our strategy.
COLBY: Yes.
Third, put your air power, your artillery power,
everything on the enemy defenses. Then begin to move forward
slowly, not rapidly, because rapidly brings you high casualties.
Slowly.
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handle 10,000 dead in a single battle. He's wrong. We have done
so, in Normandy.
What the Americans won't handle is high casualties and
no apparent progress. What they can handle very well is gradual
progress and low casualties.
KING: What is Saddam's strategy?
COLBY: Saddam's strategy: He thinks that if he can
just blood the Americans enough, they'll quit and go home. And
he's wrong. He's been wrong about a lot of things.
KING: But he does what he says, usually. Right?
COLBY: Oh, sure.
KING: Senator Lugar, do you buy the concept, said in
many Sunday op-ed pages, that he could lose the war and win the
political victory?
SENATOR LUGAR: I think that's nonsense. You know,
everybody's attempting to find a new angle with which to cover
the war because many people in the press are bored with two or
three thousand sorties a day pounding the Iraqis. They want land
action. They want protests in the United States. They want
political difficulty around the world. Something, at least, to
rev up the situation. And the fact is that Saddam has not been
politically effective.
It takes no skill whatever to show Palestinians in Amman
protesting, or even Moroccans in Marrakesh, or a few Tunisians.
These situations have been relatively constant, as far as I can
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tell, for the last four or five weeks.
What is important is that a majority of Arabs, a
majority of Arab League states, as well as a majority of Arabs,
period, population-wise, have supported the coalition effort.
They know they're on the winning side. They're going to stay
there. And the coalition has been remarkably sound.
We're winning the political victory because we have the
people.
KING: You agree?
COLBY: I'm not so sure. I think we are going to have
trouble with fundamentalism in the future. I had thought that
fundamentalism had begun to peak and go down, as a result of the
rise of Rafsanjani in Iran to replace the ayatollahs. But with a
defeat of Saddam Hussein, you will once again raise the Arab
concern: "We are being beat up by these terrible Westerners."
It's a favorite Arab song, refrain. And I think you're going to
have some troubles with it in the future. Not something we ought
to stop doing what we need to do because of, but we just have to
realize that the fundamentalists will be out there running in the
next few years.
KING: We'll get a break and come right back.
KING: One other thing I want to check from both of you.
Is this beyond Kuwait now, Senator Lugar, as some have
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said, that this is all the way into the capital, and the extermi-
nation of the leader, this is total victory?
SENATOR LUGAR: Well, that's not what President Bush has
said and that's not what the U.N. resolutions say. It seems to
me that many of us have said -- I've said, for one, that I
believe that this all must end -- and by that I mean both the war
and the peace situation -- with Saddam out of leadership. Not
necessarily killed or assassinated, but out of leadership,
disconnected from the juggernaut of authority that Iraq has had.
It is inconceivable that he would have the ability to prey upon
the neighbors again.
But that's a private view.
KING: What if he leaves Kuwait? What if he does --
what if he presents a "Where did you go right?" situation? What
if tonight he announces that he meets all four concepts of the
U.N. mandate?
SENATOR LUGAR: Well, that's always a difficulty. And
he might do that. And that would be...
KING: But that would be what you want.
SENATOR LUGAR: Well, we would have to continue to
negotiate his future. And, hopefully with our coalition forces,
we would do that successfully, applying the economic sanctions
and other diplomatic pressure, so that there's still a discon-
nect.
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KING: Do you agree, Bill, he has to go, even if he were
to do that tonight?
COLBY: Not necessarily. If he agreed to leave Kuwait,
if he agreed, we would then demand some reassurances against a
repetition of this. Which means United Nations observers in
Iraq, a reduction of Iraq's forces, a reduction of their weapons
of mass destruction, all of that sort of thing. If he would buy
all that and actually leave Kuwait -- we're not going to have a
cease-fire before he's out of Kuwait -- then he could stay there.
KING: Assuming he doesn't do that, how does this end?
COLBY: Don't you and I worry about that. The Iraqis
will take care of it in the traditional form of change of
government in Iraq, which is that the successor shoots the
predecessor. That's how Saddam got in power. That's how his
predecessor got in power. And that's now someday his successor
will get in power.
KING: In other words, there have to be guys there now,
tonight, in Baghdad talking about that.
COLBY: It's a dead issue. They're afraid, but it's a
dead issue.
KING: Cincinnati for Senator Richard Lugar and William
Colby...
MAN: ...Do you think that the passenger planes from
Iraq that recently went to Algiers could be part of a terrorist
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plot? And also, do you think the CIA is monitoring their
KING: Richard?
SENATOR LUGAR: Well, I would hope that the intelligence
forces of our country, or our allies, have information about
these aircraft and what they're doing. I have no idea about
their mission.
I would say that we've been rigorous -- that is, the
United States and our partners in this enterprise -- in rounding
up Iraqis, getting them out of our country, out of other
countries. The disruption of their movements may have been
helpful, in a counterintelligence way. But I have no information
about these specific persons.
KING: Bill?
COLBY: Saddam has been running an image campaign:
Scuds, which have no effect; oil, which has no effect; the threat
of gas, which will have very little effect. A few people get
killed, but nothing really happens that changes the course of
events. The same of terrorism. He may run a terrorist attack
here and there just in order to catch the headlines, to get the
media excited. But it isn't going to have any effect.
KING: Why? Why doesn't it work?
COLBY: Because it's not going to change the basic
balance of power between ourselves and Iraq. We are going to
move ahead. He is going to face the end very shortly.
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KING: Phoenix, Arizona....
MAN: My question is, why hasn't the bombing been more
successful? It seems with all these sorties and millions of tons
of bombs that we've dropped on them, you know, what's protecting
these guys? You know, there's only -- Iraq's only half the size
of Texas. Right?
KING: It's about he size of California, isn't it?
COLBY: Yes.
KING: Why aren't they all dead?
COLBY: Well, because bombs don't hit everything. And
secondly, our bombs have been rather carefully targeted on
military objectives.
The Iraqis announced that 490 civilians have been
killed. If anybody has any memory of World War II, that's an
infinitesimal number of civilians in collateral damage. Because
when we ran a bombing raid over Berlin or Dresden, or someplace,
tens of thousands were killed. This is a remarkably targeted
operation.
And that's why you say, "Oh, the whole place isn't
destroyed." But a lot of things have been destroyed, military
objectives.
KING: Senator, do you agree?
SENATOR LUGAR: I agree. And furthermore, we have
conducted these raids in a way which minimized American casual-
ties. That's a very important point, in addition to minimizing
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Iraqi civilian casualties. There could have been more
comprehensive a bombing and more careless bombing, and perhaps it
might have been effective. But we've taken our time, we've done
it the right way.
KING: What are our casualties to date?
SENATOR LUGAR: Thirteen killed, at this point.
COLBY: And about 15 or so missing.
KING: That's one every two days.
COLBY: Well, this is only the air war. We're going to
have more. But watch that word casualty. It's a very dangerous
word. The word casualty means dead, wounded and missing. And
with modern medicine, the number of wounded who survive is
enormous. So the percentage who are actually dead, out of the
word casualty, is a tiny percentage.
KING: It has a finalty sound to it.
COLBY: I know. I know. But...
KING: You're saying it's not.
COLBY: ...if you talk seriously, talk about the number
killed, which is an important number. Each life is important.
KING: We have killed 13.
COLBY: On our side. Yes.
KING: William Colby and Senator Richard Lugar are our
guests.
KING: Gaithersburg, Maryland....
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MAN: Larry, would you think that it will be possible
for the Soviet Union to be bribed into this conflict?
KING: Bribed? You mean we bribe them into arming into
the conflict?
MAN: Or Iraq and Syria and Iran together, maybe a
coalition against us.
KING: Richard?
SENATOR LUGAR: I don't think there's any need to bribe
them. The Soviets know their own interests. And they are
insinuating, I believe, through Gorbachev's newest thoughts, that
they're a player. They want to remind us they're still a
superpower. They plan to be around at the peace table, and
probably with a presence in Iraq and the Persian Gulf area
afterwards. So that they're fully primed.
For the moment, they've decided they don't want to
commit militray forces. They have problems enough of their own.
But they are hovering in the wings, and we're going to have our
hands full managing that relationship.
COLBY: Agree. They've got too many troubles at home to
get involved in foreign adventures at this point.
KING: They appear to sincerely want this ended, though.
COLBY: Oh, sure they do. I mean because it's destabi-
lizing. And they want the world attention to come back on the
lifting of the Soviet Union out of the disaster into which it's
fallen.
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KING: Washington. Hello.
WOMAN: ...Can the President of the United States be
assassinated, since plans are being made to assassinate Saddam
Hussein?
KING: Well, we don't know that plans are being made.
You say that in war...
COLBY: American Presidents have been assassinated in
the past. Obviously. No question about it. It's a terrible
thing. We protect them as well as we can. But it's a danger.
KING: Sunrise, Florida. Hello.
MAN: I just want to ask anyone who cares to answer.
I've heard several correspondents, from CNN specifically, state
that this has been a clean, surgical type war thus far. And they
threaten the American public: "Wait till we show the blood and
guts. Wait till we show the body bags."
I mean they sound like propagandists for Iraqis.
KING: Now hold on. What CNN person said, "Wait till
you see the body bags"?
MAN: Two gentlemen on about three or four nights ago.
And there was a woman correspondent specifically said, "This is
an antiseptical type war. We're not seeing what's really
happening. Wait till we show the blood and guts."
COLBY: The government has from the outset said that
this will not be an easy war, that it will be a bloody war.
They've, if anything, downplayed it.
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They've learned the lesson of Vietnam: Don't be too
optimistic. Warn the people that things are tough. If they turn
out to be less tough, so much the better.
KING: Caller, why are you angered?
MAN: Well, I'm angry because, I mean, I'm an ex-Navy
man. I know what war's all about. And I mean I don't think the
American public are that soft. We're not going to raise the
white flag. We expect casualties. But the media keeps...
KING: Well, then what's wrong with telling you?
MAN: I think we know it. Don't you think the American
public knows that in a war people get killed?
KING: Well, then why would you be upset at hearing it?
MAN: Because they keep putting it out, putting it out.
Maybe they will influence some people. Maybe it gives aid and
comfort to the enemy.
KING: Okay.
Senator, what do you think?
SENATOR LUGAR: I think there is tension between the
Department of Defense and most of the press, presently, over the
rules. That tension and the arguments are likely to continue.
But I side with the Pentagon on this issue. It seems to me, in
terms of the security of our people over there, as well as what
we really need to know play-by-play, we're going to know enough
generally, as American citizens, to know how the war is being
fought.
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Now, in due course, all of what occurs, bad and good,
will be a matter of history, and some of it fairly soon, I
suspect. But for the moment, it seems to me the rules are
reasonable.
KING: Bethesda, Maryland. Hello.
MAN: Senator Lugar and Mr. Colby, I'd like to know how
you feel about Senator Moynihan's proposal to fuse the CIA with
the State Department.
And also, Senator Lugar especially, how do you feel
about Senator Moynihan's appointments, liberal appointments, to
the House Intelligence Committee.
KING: Senator Moynihan can't appoint to the House
committee. Speaker Foley appoints.
Well, let's take first things first, on the merger.
Bill?
COLBY: Well, I told Senator Moynihan the other day that
we disbanded intelligence after World War I, and then found out
we needed it. We disbanded intelligence after World War II, and
then found out we needed it. I don't think we ought to go
through that again.
KING: Now, what did you think of Mr. Foley's
appointments, Richard?
SENATOR LUGAR: Well, those are his judgment. He's made
a political compromise among the House Democrats. I'm a Republi-
can. My own views are that, obviously, people that we appoint as
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Republicans to the Intelligence Committee ought to be sound
people. But I trust the Speaker's doing the best he can with his
party.
KING: Do you think Ron Dellums is less an American than
a conservative congressman?
SENATOR LUGAR: No. He's an American congressman and a
very able one. And all I'm saying is Tom Foley has a problem
within his caucus. He has a lot of very liberal people. He may
or may not be as liberal as they are, but he's tried to draw a
balance. And he has a chairman of the committee that clearly is
not a liberal Democrat. And that perhaps gave him a problem,
carrying over that commitment from Jim Wright.
COLBY: I testified before Mr. Dellums a couple of times
when he was on an investigating committee into CIA. It was
difficult from time to time. But he is a representative of the
Congress, and you have to deal with him as such.
KING: I thank you, both, very much.
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