Ex-CIA Chief Discusses U.S. Reasons for War

W A S H I N G T O N, April 22 -- Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator with weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism, U.S. officials said. But to what extent was the war in Iraq really about making an example of Saddam? Following is a transcript of Ted Koppel and former CIA director James Woolsey's discussion of American motivations.

TED KOPPEL: Reports continue to circulate that James Woolsey will be tapped for a major position in post-Saddam Iraq. The former director of Central Intelligence, who was a strong proponent of the war against Iraq, joins us now from Omaha. If tapped, will you serve?

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Ted, in 35 years any time the US government's asked me to do anything, I've always done it. But I'm not looking for a job and I don't know whether they want me to or not. They've had some exploratory, original discussions with me, but that's it.

TED KOPPEL:

All right. This is sort of late-coming. But in this, in this post-war justification for the war, there this new argument, I mean, it's not totally new. We've heard intimations of it before. Why wasn't more of that made before? In other words, if the idea was to made an object lesson of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, to, to frighten some of the other powers in the region that might present similar problems, why not use that as an argument? Sounds like a good one.

JAMES WOOLSEY:

Well, I think the heart of the matter was really in the strategy statement that the Administration put out late last summer/early fall, which essentially said that it's the nexus of the brutality of a dictatorship, the relationship to weapons of mass destruction that it has or is working on, and its support for terrorism, that leads to the necessity, sometimes, to preempt or to take action before there is a smoking gun. How many countries in the world have chemical weapons?

Well, it's probably a couple of dozen. And you're not going to go attack all of them. That's not entirely right. State craft is a matter of judgment. It's not a matter of litmus tests. And I think the Administration, although different parts of it have emphasized different aspects of this from time to time, I think it's those three things together. Brutal dictatorships, rogue states, weapons of mass destruction, and ties of one kind or another to terrorist groups.