Transcript
MR. HESS: Good morning, and welcome to the 17th session of the Brookings/Harvard Forum. I'm Stephen Hess of the Brookings — my co-inventor of the forum, Marvin Kalb, is the executive director of the Washington office of the Shorenstein Center from Harvard University.
In introducing our guests today, let me say a word about a very creative personnel system that's uniquely American. President Kennedy's headhunters called them the "action intellectuals," and our friend Richard Neustadt at Harvard called them the "ins-and-outers." They're a special brand of public-spirited Americans who are appointed to positions at a high reach in the U.S. government when they are in agreement with the party in power, and when they are out of power, they relax and they reflect on the lessons they've learned in government in perches at universities, think tanks, foundations, advocacy groups, certain types of law firms, while of course awaiting the next opportunity to put their knowledge to work for government. And a very key member of this "in-and-outer" club is Dr. Paul Wolfowitz. During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, he was assistant secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, he was ambassador to Indonesia. During the presidency of George H.W. Bush, he was the undersecretary of Defense for Policy. And then, during the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton, he became the dean and professor of international relations at the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University, which is on Massachusetts Avenue, right across from the Brookings Institution, where we also have a welcome mat out for action intellectuals. And now, during the presidency of George W. Bush, he is the United States deputy secretary of Defense.
Paul Wolfowitz is going to have a conversation with us, and a little later we'll open it up to questions from the audience.
So, Marvin, what would be your first question?
MR. KALB: Okay. Well, I would like to start with the fact that the secretary of Defense is going up to the Hill tomorrow, obviously to defend his decision to kill a very important weapons system that is called the Crusader. And it appears over the last couple of weeks that there is a very large battle that is brewing between supporters of the Crusader up on the Hill, within the Pentagon itself, in the Army, and then you and the secretary and others who feel that we've got to move on to a new generation of weapons and put down things like the Crusader.
I would like to ask you to begin to explain it to us. Why is this so important — this kind of a decision? Why is it so important?
MR. HESS: It's only $11 billion, for heaven's sake.
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Even in the Pentagon, we consider that real money.
I do have to respond to Steve's introduction —
MR. KALB: (Inaudible) — please.
MR. WOLFOWITZ: — because, you know, that phrase "in-and-outer" suggests that when you're out, you're really waiting to be in. And when I was out, I had a terrific job as dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and I loved it. And in my previous job, I wasn't allowed to say anything nice about Harvard or Brookings. But now I can say I want to compliment Harvard and Brookings — (laughter) — because I think what you're doing with this series is important.
And I hope we get off the subject of media quickly, but I do think it's important to say we in the Defense Department feel as though our goal is the same as that of the American press, which is defending liberty and democracy. I know sometimes we're sparring with each other, but I think that's, in fact, part of the process. And I compliment you for what you're doing. And you know our expert on questions from and about the media is the secretary of Defense himself, and you've had him, so I'd like to get into your question, which is about transformation.
I was at a ceremony a week ago where we named the Old Executive Office Building after late President Eisenhower. And on that occasion, Colin Powell, a former general, a great secretary of State, said, "Speaking of Eisenhower, I think a point that is not always known about his career" — he reflected on Eisenhower, certainly, but our country, in Powell's words, "had to rebuild and transform our armed forces in the period between the wars." And he said that "Ike's determination to see that transformation happen and the effect that transformational systems and thought had on the outcome of World War II" influenced him as a young officer after Vietnam. And as Rumsfeld has said, we're facing the same kind of challenge today.
In the case of the period of the '20s and '30s, we didn't have the great armed forces that we have today, it's true, but what we had was an armed force that was designed for the last war, and what Eisenhower represented was those people who were thinking ahead to the next war.
Today in the Pentagon we have great soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and civilians who are all thinking both about this war and about the next war. What brought us to the decision on Crusader was a judgment — and it's always a judgment call, these are not absolutes — that while Crusader is a good system, it's definitely an advance over our current artillery, it's not the kind of transformational leap that really brings us the forces we need to fight the wars of the 21st century. That where the Army has set its sights, on what they call the transformation force or the objective force, which emphasizes accuracy, emphasizes deployability, emphasizes mobility, that those are the qualities that we really need to complement the already substantial capabilities Army has today.
It was a judgment about risks. It's a judgment to terminate Crusader, but not just to move that money to the Air Force, for example. It's not air power over Army. It's a decision that what the Army most needs and what Army artillery most needs is precision and mobility.
MR. KALB: But Mr. Secretary, help us understand, do you already have in mind a specific new weapon system that, instead of the Crusader, you can put into its place immediately; or are you killing one weapon system without a clear vision of what the next system is going to be?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: It's somewhere in between. And it is definitely not a decision to put something in place immediately. By the way, Crusader isn't immediate either. Crusader wouldn't start to — start to deploy until 2008. So we're talking, in the case of Crusader, about a medium-term capability, not a near-term one.
The alternatives we're talking — we're talking about a set of alternatives, not a single alternative. And I think it's important also in discussing these complicated issues — and it makes it more complicated — that you don't match gun for gun or system for system; you match a complex of weapon systems against a complex of weapon systems.
And, indeed, we had a — I mean, I think Afghanistan, although in many ways it's a unique war, it's been a very clear demonstration of what this system of combat systems accomplishes.
In the case of Crusader, to answer your question more directly, I would say what we're looking at is to accelerate precision in artillery. And that means, if I can start using complicated Pentagon jargon, a round called the Excalibur round, which could deliver 10-meter accuracy in an artillery round. It would revolutionize artillery. And something like it called the Guided MLRS — Guided Mobile — Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System — it's hard for us to talk without acronyms — which would deliver the same kind of accuracy in a rocket system. That would come in with an accelerated schedule, actually before Crusader would be available.
The other thing we're talking about, which is in the longer term, is how to get Crusader-like capabilities in a system that is deployable on aircraft and even on theater lift aircraft like the C- 130. But basically — and I think this is really important — it is a judgment to give up something, something that's valuable in the medium term, in order to get something that we — sooner that we believe is more valuable in the long term. And that's why it's a hard decision.
MR. KALB: I'm sure it's a hard decision; it's also a hard battle for you, because there is strong opposition up on the Hill, there has apparently been strong opposition within the Pentagon at the Army level. Do you feel that as you look at the odds right now that you and the secretary are going to win?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: He said we will, and I believe him. (Laughter.)
MR. KALB: That's a safe call. (Laughs.)
MR. WOLFOWITZ: But we will, Marvin.
MR. HESS: The secretary is confident. But is history on your side? When you look at what's happened with major weapons systems, you look at poor Dick Cheney or Harold Brown when they tried to get rid of the Osprey, the plane that went up like a helicopter and then flew like an airplane, and both of them found that Congress felt otherwise. Even the B-1 bomber that President Carter could cancel and President Reagan could bring back. It's hard to find?you almost have to go back more than a decade to find a major weapons system that has been cancelled.
Now, I want to ask about the strategy. You folks seem to be off to a very rocky start. And if anything, you seem to be the fall guy. Congressman — the congressman from Oklahoma, J.C. Watts, almost called you a liar, if you'll recall. The leading Democrat on the committee said he had no advance notice. So it's a somewhat strategic question since we know that both you and Don Rumsfeld are pretty smart folks. Is this part of a strategy, not to give advance notice to the Congress? And the Army feels the same way. It says that if we spring this on them, there's going to be less chance for their regrouping and going ahead — or have I got it wrong? What is the strategy that —
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Okay. There's a lot in that question.
But let me start with the fact, this isn't about winning. And in fact, it's important to stress, we make a recommendation to the Congress; it's the Congress that decides. I do believe this is a win-win decision for the Defense Department, for the Army, for the Congress.
Process is always messy and I — I mean, when the press does its job, things happen. It's almost as soon as you have a meeting — I had a meeting with Secretary White on this subject. Even before the meeting was over, somehow, through the permanent bureaucracy to the contractors to the Congress to the press, we were already getting phone calls about the content of that meeting before it had even been finished. So it's a little hard to have orderly process in those circumstances.
But the real point here is that we are constantly in the Defense Department putting together at least two and frequently three or four budgets at the same time. Right now — by "right now" I mean over the last three or four months, we have been presenting the FY '03 budget to the Congress, which has Crusader in it. We have been putting together and presenting to the Congress an '02 supplemental to fight the war. And we have been working on the guidance for the FY '04 budget. And it's that convergence of the '03 budget, which is on the Hill, with our analysis of the '04 budget, and as that analysis increasingly said to us — we were looking at Crusader, we were looking at a number of programs, but Crusader was, you know, at the front of that pile — the analysis increasingly said to us it's a good system, we still believe it's a good system, but it's the wrong place to put the money; there are better places to put the money.
And it would have been irresponsible, in my view, to let the Congress continue along, appropriate the '03 money, and then tell them, after it was all done, "oh, by the way, three months ago we came to a different conclusion." There's no way to have a perfectly orderly process.
MR. KALB: Excuse me. Isn't the Congress proceeding anyway? They're going ahead, the House and the Senate both have voted 400- some-odd million dollars to continue the Crusader program. Is that correct?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Well, first of all, as you know — when I was ambassador to Indonesia, it was often very difficult to explain, "Congress Votes Textile Ban on Indonesian Imports," and it turned out it was a subcommittee of the House committee and it was a bill the president was going to veto. So that process doesn't end with the first action.
The House Armed Services Committee voted already in its authorization bill to keep money for Crusader. The Senate Armed Services has not yet voted on that subject. There's going to be a major hearing tomorrow where the secretary of Defense is going to, for the first time, have a chance to present his case in public, and then we'll see.
MR. KALB: You were mentioning before General and President Eisenhower and you quoted from him. He also has a great quote —
MR. WOLFOWITZ: I quoted — I quoted from General and Secretary of State Powell, another great general.
MR. KALB: General Powell — referring to Eisenhower. Eisenhower also is known for many, many things, including the warning about a military-industrial complex, which he did at the very beginning of the 1960s. And that takes you back 40 years, so to give you some historical perspective on the battle that you're involved in with right now. And I asked you before, do you think you're going to win, and you said yes, and that's an understandable answer.
But against the background of that kind of history, the power of the military-industrial complex in the United States not to determine an outcome, but strongly to influence the direction of a decision is there, and you face it every day. You are conscious of that historical parallel?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Look, there are a lot of people with important stakes in every decision, on both sides of every decision.
And it is true that when you're talking about a weapon system that is underway — it's not, by the way, in production yet, but it's underway — there are people who can see jobs and interest at stake. We're talking about shifting that money to a whole bunch of other systems. There are jobs at stake in that also, but the people who are going to get those jobs don't know about it yet.
But I think something that is different from that warning that Eisenhower voiced. And I can't say I know precisely what he was thinking of or talking about at the time, but remember: That was the height of the Cold War. I think we've seen something about — that is great about that military-industrial complex. We have seen an ability of our military, backed up by our industry, to deliver capabilities that no one else in the world can deliver and that since September 11th the American people understand we need to have.
And I do think it's changed the way in which people think about this decision. This is not about cutting budgets in order to save money because we don't need defense. It's about how we spend those defense dollars most wisely. And I think it helps us a lot that there isn't a debate about whether we need a defense budget or a Defense Department anymore. That debate has been resolved.
MR. HESS: But go back to the strategy on this. We certainly know where the members of Congress are coming from — those that are in districts in which they potentially lose tax revenue, they lose jobs and so forth. We know that Walter Pincus had an interesting article in the Washington Post the other day. We know that United Defense spends a million dollars a year on lobbying on this. We know that they gave $180,000 to members of Congress, many of whom happen to be on the Appropriations Committee or the Armed Services Committee for this.
So we see, on that hand, the forces arrayed against you. But what confuses me is — tell me the internal politics inside the Pentagon, itself. Why, suddenly, did we have to brouhaha over the Army and over talking points and so forth? In this complex of those arrayed against you, you have parts of the Pentagon. Now it strikes me that's peculiar in a system where service personnel are trained in loyalty. They salute their commander in chief. What's going on over there?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Okay, well first of all, there's nothing sudden about this. I mean, it may seem sudden to some of you, but we have been discussing what transformation is about since — well, since before I came in, in March 2nd of last year. We've been discussing specific weapon systems. We've had multiple, multiple meetings and sessions on Crusader, itself. So this is not a sudden process. In fact, it's been a very careful, deliberate process.
Secondly: Yes, there are all those kinds of interest that you describe. But I think it trivializes the people who disagree with us to say that all they're thinking about is parochial interests. I mean, it is true that people from Oklahoma have a particular concern about Crusader. I don't think it's just about jobs. It's because Fort Sill, the home of Army artillery, is in Oklahoma. They have come to believe the Crusader is a great system. It is a good system, by the way. There's no argument about that. Within the building, particularly within the U.S. Army, there are people who have become very attached to Crusader. And frankly, I was prepared to defend it until I began to see what some of those alternatives were.
I think if you ask me why we've come to some of these different judgments, I'd say it's two things. One is a judgment about future — sorry if this is jargon — future risk versus near-term risk, the risk that we won't have something we want to have if a war starts in Korea tomorrow. Of course, you don't have to say "tomorrow", either. But if a war starts in Korea in 2008. First it's a risk of you don't have what you really want to have in 2015. Those are judgment calls. No single person, frankly, has all the qualifications for it. But the closest you come to the individual who is confirmed by the Congress to make those judgments and to make the recommendations to our commander in chief is the secretary of Defense. And he has to weigh those things, and he has to weigh future risk versus current risk.
The other thing, I believe, that is operative here is that Crusader is closer to what we have already. It's easier, I think, for most people to understand the value of an improvement in what you have already than to understand something that is revolutionary that you don't quite believe in. Accurate munitions are a perfect example.
I remember 25 years ago, the first time Rumsfeld was secretary of Defense and I was working in another agency of the U.S. government, there were a lot of people, including people in the Navy, who said "We don't need these Tomahawk cruise missiles. They're useless, they take up valuable torpedo space, they're just another way to deliver nuclear weapons and we don't need it." Those people, in my view, did not appreciate what precision could mean in delivering a conventional weapon from a submarine. Now the Navy swears by Tomahawks. It's a major weapons system for the Navy. But at that time it was sort of a leap into the dark. And I don't think we're leaping into the dark any longer. I think precision has demonstrated itself over and over again, most recently in Afghanistan, as one of the most revolutionary transformational capabilities that we have.
MR. KALB: But it's a transformational capability into something that is not yet there. I mean, number one, you —
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Crusader wasn't there yet, either.
MR. KALB: Right. But it isn't — but to kill one system and go toward another system without knowing really exactly what that other system is, if I understand you right —
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Well —
MR. KALB: — you're struggling to find what will be the appropriate system for 10 or 15 years out.
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Again, a complicated decision because there are at least four different things we want to put this money into, okay? Two of them are quite real, they're under development, we believe they are a few years away from being realized. One is the Excalibur artillery round, which would give you highly accurate artillery rounds that would go in every single artillery tube in the Army, the Navy and the Marine Corps. That's not just a gleam in someone's eye; that is a development program. The other one that is a real system is the guided rocket system, which takes our existing inventory of multiple launch rocket systems and puts accurate guidance on them. Those aren't pie in the sky; those are systems we can have, we think we can have them faster and in larger quantity if we put more money into them. There are other systems, particularly the — what the Army is calling the Future Combat System in their transformation force, which is a family of lighter vehicles. And we believe you can have a Crusader-like gun in the Future Combat System. That still is conceptual, that still needs work. And there's a little bit of a gamble there, yes.
MR. KALB: And the experience in Afghanistan, was that crucial in making the decision on the Crusader?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: I don't think it was crucial, but I think it reinforced the conclusions that we had already had come to last summer in putting together the Quadrennial Defense Review.
MR. KALB: You kind of put it over the top.
MR. WOLFOWITZ: I think — more just reinforce the importance of accuracy and the importance of being able to deploy forces deep and maneuver deep. I mean, if we had the Army objective force today, the Army would've been able to do things in Afghanistan that would've been wonderful. We're not there yet, but we want to get there faster.
MR. HESS: Bring us beyond — we've now used the word "transformation" a lot of times, but is this the first piece? What's the second and the third?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Oh, no. There are many pieces already.
MR. HESS: Tell us what —
MR. WOLFOWITZ: We do use the word a lot; maybe we use it too much, but I think it's an important word. We've spent a lot of time trying to put a more precision definition on what it means.
And one of the things that it does mean is accelerating introduction of accuracy into the force. That's a process that's been underway for a while. But as a result of that review last summer, we have added real money — over a billion dollars — to increase our production of the JDAM, the accurate bomb that we've been using so much in Afghanistan. We put money in this year's budget request to convert four Trident submarines from a nuclear mission, which is a Cold War mission that we don't need anymore. And we have a treaty actually that takes us in that direction. We're taking those incredibly valuable submarines and converting them to be cruise-missile carriers, so that we will give those submarines the kind of conventional punch that is transformational. We have — and it was a difficult decision last year — we decided to cut our B-1 force by a third so that the 2/3 that were left could be transformed into systems that could deliver munitions accurately.
There is a long list, and I actually —
MR. HESS: What will be the next weapons system, assuming you win on — or lose on Crusader? Do you go on to tactical fighter aircraft? Is that the next major system to be cut?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: That's a great question.
MR. HESS: (Laughs.) Well, I —
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Look. In fact, in the Defense Planning Guidance — and all the military departments know it — in the Defense Planning Guidance, to put together the fiscal year '04 budget, we have a series of studies that look at the V-22 aircraft, the F-22, various helicopter programs. We're trying to take a look comprehensively at a whole series of things.
And I say the basic reason for it is that there are so many good things — and they are good things; these are not bad systems, or they wouldn't be around — these are good things that the military would like to have, I think that the country would benefit from having. But when we make projections out — FY '08, '09 — and we have to do that in our business — you start to see that we aren't going to be able to afford them all, even with what we think are some pretty generous increases in defense spending.
So we're staring to look at those choices. They're going to again be hard choices. But it's hard because all of this stuff is capable. It's big improvements over what we have.
MR. KALB: Mr. Secretary, a lot of cameras around here, so I want to widen our lens of discussion, so to speak, and get us into a few other subjects.
If one were to watch television on a regular basis, television news, read the papers, one thing or another, you would logically come to the conclusion that the American planned effort against Iraq has been essentially shelved by virtue of the pressures generated by the crisis between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
I was wondering if you accept that generalization? Is that the way you see it?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: You know, people come to a lot of logical conclusions. They concluded, right after the State of the Union message, in which the president identified North Korea as one of those "axis of evil" countries, that we were about to go to war with North Korea.
I think one of the things that's happened — I believe — can't say cause and effect, but it happened after the president's speech, is the North Koreans are suddenly coming forward wanting to talk with us.
What the president said about all three of those countries — and Iraq was clearly one of them — is that they represent dangers to the United States because they're hostile, because they have or are developing weapons of mass destruction, and because they have a record of supporting terrorism, and that that is not a danger we can afford to live with indefinitely; that we can't wait until there's a 9/11 with a nuclear weapon or a biological or chemical weapon to then go and find the perpetrator. But he hasn't set forth specifically how to go about dealing with it. In each case it's different, in each case it's difficult and complicated. And I just would discourage people from concluding too much from what seems, quote, "logical," as you put it.
MR. KALB: But the focus that everybody has in the past month or so on the Palestinian and Israeli crisis, has that not distracted you from a more principled effort against Iraq?
MR. WOLFOWITZ: I think we try very hard to walk and chew gum at the same time! (Laughs; laughter.) We are trying — I'll come back to your question in a minute. But I think it's important to emphasize that these decisions about Crusader and about the future of the armed forces are being made at the same time that we're making very difficult decisions about how to fight today, and the armed forces are performing magnificently.
I would say that it's an analogous thing to think about here. We have a huge stake in moving forward on achieving some kind of a peace between Arabs and Israelis, or specifically now between Israelis and Palestinians. And I must say, by the way, too, to throw another laurel in Secretary Powell's direction, I think he's done magnificent work, and I think we're better off today for his having gone to the Middle East than if he hadn't.
But it is a formidable problem, it is difficult. Does it affect how we go about thinking about dealing with Iraq or Iran? You bet it does. Does it stop us from thinking or working on it? No, it doesn't. From the other direction, I think this sometimes isn't appreciated enough, Iraq and Iran are major disrupters of the peace process. They have — one of their goals in life is to make sure that process doesn't work. If there were a change of regime in Iraq, would it help us in the peace process? You bet it would. And in fact, if you go back historically and look when the great breakthroughs have been made in Arab-Israeli peace — the Egyptian-Israeli treaty happened, I would say not long after, and as a direct result of the demonstration in the early 1970s that the United States was a strategic power in the Eastern Mediterranean, not the Soviet Union. The breakthroughs that were represented in the 1990s by Madrid and Oslo